By Odeya Ogbetuo
An Ijaw leader and distinguished author, Chief Monday Keme, has sued for peace and understanding over delineation of Warri Federal Constituency. Chief Keme who gave this advice at the Petroleum Training Institute Conference Centre, Effurun, Delta State, during the presentation of his new book: “Warri Federal Constituency Delineation: Itsekiri and the Challenge of Sustaining the Burden of Lies”
According to him, the Supreme Court judgement has no ambiguity over the case as the appeal brought by Hon. George Timinimi Degha and nine (9) others against INEC led to the consequential order directing INEC to carry out fresh delineation in all the electoral wards and polling units in Warri South, Warri South-West and Warri North of Delta State for the purpose of future election.
According to him, since the pronouncement on 2nd December, 2022, he was very much aware of the various comments over the matter in question as this informed his putting the facts in a book in a proper perspective for people to know truth about Warri Federal Constituency. His words: “We cannot stand aloof and allow people to give their own interpretation especially for political considerations. This informed our putting the facts straight.”
“For reasons best known to them, out of the 774 LGAs in Nigeria, the three Warri LGAs happened to be the first that were democratically delineated. The Commission inherited a military system and when the wards and polling units were created in the political system, it was a military fiat. This is the first time the commission is having the opportunity to delineate three out of the 774 LGAs. Any democratic person who is against this delineation does not mean well for the people.”
Chief Keme who claimed to have spent 40 years as a documentary scholar said, they expected the authorities to be neutral on the issue, especially people with vested interest, adding that, they all have sworn to embrace democracy and the steps INEC has taken is the beginning of democratic process, calling on all authorities to support INEC so that this process could fully be concluded. His words:“To INEC, very soon, there is going to be an election in 2027. I want to add my voice to numerous previous demands that the commission should release the conclusion of the Warri Federal Delineation so that people will participate fully. As we speak, they are in a state of political quagmire. They don’t even know what to do. I am calling on INEC to without further delay release the results.”
Chief Keme said, he has assembled a team of lawyers adding, if the Commission refuses to release a final report of the delineation process, his team of lawyers would commence the de-commuter process wherein the INEC Chairman and all national commissioners of the commission and the head of the legal services would be sentenced accordingly, stressing that there are two grounds of contempt, first the Supreme Court judgement was delivered on 2nd December, 2022, yet the Commission went ahead to conduct an election.
He appealed to INEC once more to do the needful, noting that in the event that they fail, they would have no option but to commence the de-commuter process. The book reviewer, a University Don, Professor Benedict Ebimotimi Binebai advised the three ethnic groups in Warri, namely: the Itsekiri, Ijaw and Urhobo, to unite for the progress of the area.
According to Binebai” the author, in page 3 of the book establishes the fact under the title: ‘Ethnic Inhabitants of the Warri Federal Constituency’ that “There are (3) ethnic nationalities in the constituency-Ijaw, Urhobo and Itsekiri.” His words: “In this context of shared ownership of Warri Federal Constituency,…it is only reasonable this entangled fate of geopolitical division becomes a powerful catalyst for peace and development for Warri”, adding: “It is high time they recognize this age-long inter-connectedness not only as a foundation for stability and prosperity but to drive multicultural collaboration to shared pathway.”.
The reviewer had earlier noted that Keme’work “is an intertextual response to a book titled:” INEC and Corrupt Practices: The Siames Twins and Warri Federal Constituency”, written by an Itsekiri. He explained that Keme’s “work offers a comprehensive portrait of a contested geopolitical constituency where land, identity, power, law, justice, truth and development collide”. He stressed that Keme’s book is loaded with treaties signed under the British flag, court decrees and oral histories that balance competing claims of ownership.
Binebai noted: “To sweep aside these testimonies in favour of an ethnocentric/single narrative is to let the tide of imperialist revisionism drown the voices that have long called the Warri Federal Constituency a home. It is to silence the Ijaw chants that rise from the creeks, to mute the Urhobo drums that beat on the hinterland not far from the riverbanks, and to erase the lived reality that the Itsekiri themselves came later to share the space with their neighbours for centuries”.
“As a matter of fact, M. Keme’s Book breaks the boundaries of a long held notion of the Itsekiri exclusive ownership of Warri and dismisses it to peripheral shadows, it challenges the conventional notion of Warri ownership reality by questioning its dominant narratives, pushes limits, subverts expectations, presents new insights and deletes its dangerous fiction.The book raises and restores the suppressed voice of Ogbe-Ijoh”, Binebai asserted.
Calling for mutual respect and unity among the people of Warri, Binebai said that Keme’s book is itself “a call, on our neighbours, to honour the shared heritage of the Warri Constituency in question and to reject the imperialist erasure that would flatten a vibrant patchwork into a grey uniformity”.