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Victor Okpomor
Sapele also known as Urhiapele is exclusively an indigenous community in Okpe Kingdom.
This was disclosed in a statement by Urhobo Progress Union (UPU), apex socio-cultural organization of Urhobo Nation signed by Dr. Oghenevwairhe K. Taiga, National Publicity Secretary, Urhobo Progress Union made available to the Independent in Agbarho,, Ughelli North Local Government Area of Delta State,, he said that historically and customarily, it is an undeniable fact that Okpe people are the first settlers, original landowners, and aboriginal inhabitants of Sapele.
Dr. Taiga in apparent response to an open letter by Chief Emmanuel Oritsejolomi Uduaghan to the Minister of Environment wherein he said that existing known Sapele communities are all Itsekiri Communities.
Dr. Taiga further disclosed that the ownership of Sapele land by Okpe people is not due to colonial allocation, commercial enterprise, nor political convenience but as a result of ancestral lineage and primordial settlement which remains the strongest foundation of indigenous title under African Customary Law.
Dr. Taiga added, “this fact is established by aboriginal settlement and continuous occupation, ancestral land ownership, customary governance and authority, indigenous oral history preserved across generations.
“The claim that Sapele was “never an Okpe community” is therefore historically false and fundamentally untenable.”.
According to the National Publicity Secretary of the UPU, there are actually Itsekiri people in Sapele but they migrated into Sapele as refugees who came due to conflicts and instability in the coastal axis and as traders who were attracted by Sapele’s emergence as major Okpe Commercial centre, fishermen who settled along the riverine area with the consent and tolerance of Okpe as landowners.
He noted that, “these migration has never conferred the founding rights, aboriginal ownership, political sovereignty nor traditional supremacy over Sapele as these migrations occurred within Okpe territory and under Okpe Customary Authority.
“Migration, irrespective of duration or economic success, does not transform settlers into indigenes, nor does it extinguish the rights of aboriginal owners”.
The apex socio- cultural organization of Urhobo Nation said that Okpe people, in keeping with Urhobo cultural values, extended hospitality, protection, and economic accommodation to migrant communities in Sapele adding that, this hospitality paved way for peaceful coexistence and commercial growth in what later became a cosmopolitan town.
UPU however said such hands of hospitality of coexistence should not be mistaken whether innocently or deliberately, as a transfer of ownership or authority.
The UPU said Chief Uduaghan’s assertion that Itsekiri communities existed in Sapele “from time immemorial” is historically indefensible as Indigenous ownership is determined by first settlement and ancestral continuity which both belonged to the Okpe people in Sapele saying, “there is no credible oral tradition, indigenous account, or binding historical record that establishes the Itsekiri as original settlers or aboriginal owners of Sapele.”
Dr. Taiga said that the selective reliance on 1930 Intelligence Report on Okpe Sobo Clan by L.E.H. is misleading as Colonial Intelligence reports were administrative instruments compiled for governance convenience as they were never exhaustive declarations of indigenous land ownership, nor they were designed to extinguish pre-colonial customary rights saying, the listing of Okpe settlements such as Amukpe, Elume, Orerokpe, and Gbukurusu does not exclude Sapele from Okpe territory but reflects the internal administrative and settlement diversity of Okpe Kingdom, within which Sapele functioned as a major commercial and administrative centre.
The UPU body said the reference to Suit No. S/23/74: Washi Ogodo & Sapele Okpe Communal Land Trustees & Ors as proof that “there is nothing like Sapele Okpe Community Lands” is a distortion of judicial reasoning as courts adjudicate on specific claims before them; they do not pronounce sweeping historical absolutes unless directly pleaded and proven.
Part of the statement reads”
No Nigerian court has ever declared Sapele to be exclusively Itsekiri land or denied the aboriginal ownership of Sapele by the Okpe people. Judicial outcomes must not be selectively extracted to advance claims that the courts never made.”
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