GROUP WRITES OPEN LETTER TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, INEC AND THE NIGERIAN PUBLIC -

By Uche Alvin

Your Excellencies, Distinguished Nigerians and Members of the International Community,

For decades, a single narrative has been projected about Warri, a narrative carefully crafted by a small elite within the Itsekiri community to mask a reality that is written plainly in census data, court records, colonial files and even their own internal disputes. That narrative collapses under the weight of facts. Official censuses from 1921, 1931 and 1953, as well as voter registers from 1999, 2011 and 2023, show clearly that the Itsekiri have always been a small minority within the Warri region, dwarfed by Ijaw and Urhobo communities who make up the majority of its people. Yet this minority has built its political claims on a dangerous fraud, presenting itself as the majority while seeking to control representation, ward delineation and resource allocation. This is a betrayal of democracy and a direct insult to the Nigerian Constitution.

The image of a united Itsekiri nation wronged by others is equally deceptive. Beneath the façade lie bitter disputes over land allocations, oil company negotiations and royal succession. Court filings such as Chief Joseph Oritsejafor v. Chief Obafemi Idimi in 1998 exposed how Itsekiri leaders secretly divided compensation payments for Gbaramatu lands. The palace crisis of 2015–2017 over the choice of an Olu produced petitions, lawsuits and government interventions, revealing a factional elite manipulating history and power for personal gain. These are not marks of a monolith but of a fractured leadership clinging to propaganda.

When the masks are removed, the paper trail is damning. Privy Council decisions like Ogegede & Ors. v. Dore Numa (1925) and Ometan v. Dore Numa (1926) acknowledged the Ijaw and Urhobo as owners and occupants while treating the Itsekiri as leaseholders or intermediaries. The Supreme Court in Shell v. Tiebo VII (1996) again affirmed Ijaw ownership of disputed lands in the Niger Delta. Colonial files such as CSO 26/Vol.6/08549 and CO 554/120/5 record tenancy agreements, rents and boundaries that flatly contradict the story now being told by the Itsekiri Historical Front. Even the royal title itself reveals the shift from fact to fiction: Portuguese explorer Duarte Pacheco Pereira in 1485 described Gbaramatu and Ogbe-Ijoh Ijaws as the dominant population of these rivers; British intelligence reports well into the 1930s still referred to “Olu of Itsekiri,” not “Olu of Warri.” The change of title was a political invention, not a historical fact. Change the name, change the map but you cannot change the truth.

We are not begging; we are demanding. We call on INEC to publish the final ward delineation result as ordered by the Supreme Court in Timinimi v. INEC and stop enabling misrepresentation. We call on the Federal Government and Security Agencies to protect indigenous communities from provocation and manipulation and to uphold the rule of law. We call on the Nigerian public and international observers to demand truth not propaganda and justice, not compromise. Warri Federal Constituency cannot be built on forged numbers and twisted titles. The patience of our people is running out. We have been insulted, shot at and marginalized, yet we still stand on the side of the law. Do not mistake our patience for weakness.

Signed:

Hon, (Dr) Smart Wenebo
(Chairman)

Chief, Weightman Akpo
(Secretary)

Warri Intelligent Guidance Movement
3/9/2025

Cc:
The Delta State Government

The National Assembly

The Honourable Attorney-General of the Federation

The Inspector-General of Police

International Observers and Human Rights Organisations