Daily Times
By Gabriel Omonhinmin
Barely a week after being doused by the Delta State Police Command, tension and anxiety are rising again in Itsekiri land over the Olu of Warri’s crown. The crisis rocking the ethnic nationality over the recent announcement of the passage of Ogiame Ikenwoli and the selection of Prince Tsola Emiko as the Olu-designate is reaching a boiling point.
Some of the Itsekiri nobles and chiefs have vowed that the alleged illegality committed in the process of the emergence of new Olu-designate can never be allowed to stand, not when they are alive.
A new dimension to the crisis is that the Itsekiri abroad are now being dragged into the imbroglio by various factions to take sides. On Saturday, April 17, 2021 from noon to 5.30 p.m. (Nigerian time), a meeting via zoom was held with the Itsekiri people in the United Kingdom by one of the chiefs, who is at the centre of the crisis. During the meeting, the chief struggled very hard to explain the rationale behind the actions he had so far taken that threw the Itsekiri nation into turmoil.
The most senior Itsekiri chief in the UK. was allegedly excluded because of his uncompromising stand on the matter. The chief in the eye of the storm was said to have struggled throughout the meeting to appease the Itsekiri in the UK. He kept on appealing to the Itsekiri in diaspora to cooperate with him, to save their Itraditional institution from humiliation.
As the crisis raged, the power mongers among the chiefs accused the others in the Warri Counci of Chiefsl of unnecessary outburst and leaking of vital information from the palace to the media, especially Palace Watch.
They are presently doing everything within their powers to cow the chiefs who disagree with them. In a meeting fixed for Wednesday April 28, 2021 in Warri a range of issues will be discussed, which include the allegations of information leakage and outbursts.
To this effect, formal letters of invitation from the palace of the Olu of Warri, signed by a lady. have been dispatched to the chiefs accused of the aforementioned infractions. In the planned meeting, some of the nobles and chiefs accused of wrong doing and information leakage and unnecessary outbursts would be subjected to the code of conduct allegedly drawn up for the Council of Chiefs by the immediate past Olu, the late Ogiame Ikenwoli.
