It was like a scene from a Nollywood movie, with intrigues and developments almost daily, but at the end many chiefs lost their grounds and were either banished or deposed and this left several onlookers perplexed. But this weekend the Olu of Warri, His Majesty Ogiame Atuwatse II, broke the silence and explained to the Itsekiri people, why he banished some persons from some communities and deposed some of his chiefs.
He said that the affected persons were banished because they had become incorrigible trouble makers while the deposed chiefs had become agents of destabilisation and no longer fit to remain his chiefs. He charged the Itsekiri people to embrace the virtues of godliness, hard work and honesty at all times.
He said: “Do not be in a hurry to get wealth and God will not allow your good fortune to pass you by. I have deposed some chiefs because they had made themselves no longer able to contribute to the unity and progress of their communities. Our people should learn to promote peaceful co-existence in all our communities and deviants should be discouraged and helped to become promoters of peace and goodwill.”
He said because of the hard global economic situation, he had set in motion a community care initiative that had commenced the training of Itsekiri people in five different communities on self-help programmes that will spread to other communities soon, adding that at the completion of the programmes, they will become self-sufficient and train others on similar skills.
He told the people that in the difficult times of today, education was very pivotal and reminded them that the Itsekiri Education Trust, inaugurated last year, was prepared to take indigent and willing Itsekiri students to any level of education their capacity can take them.