Re:Ode-Itsekiri Is Not Itsekiri Ancestral Land—It Is Okotomu, An Ijaw Historic Enclave__

By Uche Alvin

MEMORANDUM

RE: ODE-ITSEKIRI IS NOT ITSEKIRI ANCESTRAL LAND — IT IS OKOTOMU, AN IJAWS’ HISTORIC ENCLAVE
THE LAND IS SPEAKING. HISTORY IS SCREAMING. THE TRUTH IS BLEEDING.

Mr. President,
Mr. NSA,
Mr. INEC Chairman,
And all who still have breath in their conscience,

We write not as beggars. We write not as visitors. We write not as tenants on borrowed land. We write as owners. As custodians of memory. As sons and daughters of a soil whose very dust remembers names now erased by politics. And we ask you today: how long will you let lies rule over truth? How long will you let propaganda drown the cries of the land?

The place you now call Ode-Itsekiri was never an Itsekiri homeland. It was never an ancestral origin. It was not founded by Itsekiris. It was not built by their hands. It was not granted to them by any divine right. It was and remains OKOTOMU. a proud, vibrant, peaceful settlement of the Ogbe-Ijoh clan of the Ijaw people. That is the fact. That is the truth. That is the memory buried beneath centuries of manipulated maps and colonial distortions.

Let us remind you of what even colonial records could not erase. When Iginuwa fled from Benin, he was nothing more than a stranger seeking refuge. It was the Ijaws of Amatu who first sheltered him. It was the Ijaws of Ogulagha who embraced him at Oruselemo. But Iginuwa, reckless and quick-tempered, killed an Ijaw woman named Derumo. He was no king to us, he was a fugitive. He left in shame and wandered, until finally settling in Ijala, still within Ijaw terrain. There was no crown. There was no throne. There was only desperation and the kindness of Ijaw hosts.

When he died, his son Ijijen continued the wandering. He moved closer to Ewein, an Ijaw settlement. Then he came into Okotomu, a village founded and headed by an Ijaw man named Fifan Wandobo, a son of Keremo who migrated through Ijansa and finally settled in what today they dare to rename Ode-Itsekiri. These were not mere myths. These are names engraved in oral and documented memory. These are footsteps carried in the bones of our elders.

Let it be known: Okotomu was already a living Ijaw village before the arrival of Ijijen. It had its customs. Its canoes. Its shrines. Its elders. Its drumbeats. It had leadership, in the person of Wandobo, the Ijaw village head. And though many Ijaws would later flee in fear of British-fueled slave raids and Itsekiri political expansion, a few remained, holding firm, until their own land was renamed and rewritten into a kingdom that never existed before.

Let it be etched in history that even Chief Dore Numa, the colonial Itsekiri collaborator, could not deny the truth in his 1923 letter. He admitted clearly: the settlement of Ogbe-Ijoh covered the area known today as Ode-Itsekiri, that the Itsekiris arrived later and that the Jekris (Itsekiris) followed European traders into Ogbe-Ijoh land. That truth remains in colonial files. Page 13 and 14. Signed, sealed, witnessed.

Let it also be remembered that Chief Perebi Ekiyo, a respected and educated Ogbe-Ijoh leader, stood before Numa that same year and listed with clarity: Okotomu, Orugbo, Donmo, Ikpe, Jibode, Ukonobe and all Ijaw towns. Known to him. Known to his fathers. Known to the land. He was not confused. He had no reason to lie. The truth was still unthreatened back then.

What then do we say of the claim that Igalas from Nupe migrated through the creeks to become Itsekiri ancestors? How can anyone believe that a tribe from faraway Niger could paddle down the winding creeks of the Delta to suddenly emerge as rulers over an already inhabited land? Who writes these fairy tales and who funds them? Let the world know: those “Igalas” they refer to are not strangers from the north. They are Ijaws from Burutu, Forcados, Oruselemo, displaced, renamed, erased.

The land is crying for truth. The rivers remember the footsteps. The trees have heard the stories. Even the wind sings the old names that have been stolen. You may rename our towns. You may redraw our boundaries. But you cannot rewrite our origin.

INEC, you came to delineate wards. You saw the people. You took their testimonies. You entered their lands. You marked their homes. And now, you hide the truth? You shelve the result? You become tools in a political chess game where the pawns are real communities?

We ask you today: Who are you afraid of? What are you covering? And what will you say when the land rises to speak?

Mr. President, you must act. You cannot govern a land whose people are being erased in the name of monarchy. You cannot build peace on the bones of distortion. You cannot watch history be replaced by entitlement. We do not owe allegiance to a throne born of squatters. We do not recognize titles forged in confusion. We do not accept oppression wearing royal beads.

We are the Ijaw people. We are not orphans in our homeland. We are not guests in our own houses. We are not beneath anyone’s feet. We are the tide. The salt. The root. The breath of this land. And we are rising.

Ode-Itsekiri is Okotomu. Okotomu is Ijaw. The truth is not negotiable. The land cannot be bought. And a slave cannot crown himself king over his host.

Release the report. Restore the truth. Respect the land.

Signed,
Chief, Tiemopere Joshua
(President)
Chief, Ebike T. Goodtime
(Secretary)
The Ijaw Stakeholders of Warri Federal Constituency

Cc:
The Presidency
Office of the National Security Adviser
INEC Headquarters
National Assembly
Delta State Government
African Union Human Rights Commission
United Nations Indigenous Peoples Forum
International Civil Society Organizations
Global Media Outlets
Historians and Truthkeepers