Group Writes Open Letter To FG, NSA, Calls For Reversion Of Olu Of Warri Title To Olu Of Itsekiri -

By Esther David

••••The Group Charges President Tinubu To Compel INEC To Implement The Supreme Court Ordered Warri Federal Constituency Ward Delineation Report

OPEN LETTER FROM THE CONCERNED ELDERS OF WARRI FEDERAL CONSTITUENCY

TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER (NSA), THE GOVERNOR OF DELTA STATE

Subject: On the urgent need to revert the title “Olu of Warri” to “Olu of Itsekiri” and to compel immediate compliance with constitutional ward/constituency delineation orders

Date: 6 November 2025

Your Excellency,

We write with a controlled but burning anger, compelled by history, justice and the Constitution, to address a matter that has for decades been the root of ethnic tension, political manipulation and cultural provocation in Warri: the fraudulent and misleading adoption of the title “Olu of Warri.” This title has been allowed to stand for too long as though it reflects historical reality or multi-ethnic consent. It does not. It never has. It was not born out of ancestry, tradition or indigenous legitimacy but out of political forgery, colonial opportunism and a calculated attempt to impose psychological dominion over the Ijaw and Urhobo peoples who are indigenous to Warri just as the Itsekiri are.

Warri is not a one-ethnic monarchy and has never been. Warri is home to distinct and sovereign kingdoms: Ogbe-Ijoh Warri Kingdom, Gbaramatu Kingdom, Egbema Kingdom, Isaba Kingdom, Okere-Urhobo Kingdom, Agbarha Kingdom and Iwere (Itsekiri) Kingdom. Each of these kingdoms has its own land, its own traditional authority, its own ancestral identity, upheld by centuries of oral, colonial, cartographic, judicial and anthropological records. At no point in history did the Itsekiri monarch exercise authority, administrative jurisdiction or land rights over these other kingdoms. The very suggestion is historically baseless, legally bankrupt and culturally provocative.

It is on record and unquestionable that prior to 1952, the monarch currently styled as “Olu of Warri” was known and recognized by the British Government, by court records, by administrative correspondence, by local tradition and by the communities themselves as Olu of Itsekiri or Olu of Iwere. The British colonial administration rejected the term “Olu of Warri” in the 1930s and 1940s because they understood that Warri was multi-ethnic and that such a title would be an imposition and a lie. It was only in 1952, through intense Western Regional political collusion and minority suppression dynamics, that the title was altered. That alteration was never a product of ancestral succession, it was a deliberate political device designed to assert symbolic supremacy.

We reject it.
We repudiate it.
We will never accept it.

A city of many kingdoms cannot be renamed to serve the ego of one.
A land of several indigenous nations cannot be rewritten by decree.
No tribe has the right to claim lordship over another tribe’s land, identity or history.

The continued government usage of the title “Olu of Warri” is not a neutral act. It is a constitutional provocation, an ethnic insult and a direct violation of Section 42 of the Constitution, which prohibits ethnic dominance and discrimination. It is also a violation of Section 1(1) regarding the supremacy of the Constitution over any custom and Section 287, which demands obedience to judicial clarity in land tenure and indigenous jurisdiction matters historically established in multiple Warri land cases (Ogegede v. Dore Numa, Ometan v. Dore Numa, Privy Council Appeals, 1925–1934), all of which demonstrate that land ownership and traditional authority in Warri are plural, complex and never unitary.

Your Excellency, there can be no peace built on a lie. Peace sustained on injustice is temporary and explosive. The retention of this false title fuels agitation because it insults the dignity of entire nations who have their own kings and territories. We have never in anyway bow to a false title that has no historical identity and ancestral authority.

Furthermore, the deliberate delay by INEC in announcing the final ward delineation result after fieldwork has been completed and after judicial guidance has been provided, constitutes a constitutional defiance that directly threatens security, civic order and electoral legitimacy in Warri Federal Constituency. The people shall not participate in any political process grounded on struck-out, illegal, outdated and unrepresentative wards. There will be no Continuous Voter Registration under illegality. There will be no election built upon the denial of rightful political representation. The Constitution is not a suggestion; it is a command. INEC must comply.

We therefore demand, without compromise, without delay and without further provocation:

(1) The immediate official reversion of the title to “Olu of Itsekiri (Olu of Iwere).”
(2) The immediate announcement of the final ward delineation result for Warri Federal Constituency.

We are not requesting favors.
We are asserting constitutional rights and historical truth.

If the Nigerian state desires peace in Warri, this is where peace begins, by ending a lie and obeying the law.

Signed:

Chief Tiemopere Joshua
(President)

Chief Ebikeke T. Goodstime
(Secretary)

Concerned Elders of Warri Federal Constituency (CEWFC)
For and on behalf of peace, truth and justice in the Niger Delta.

Cc:

The National Assembly of Nigeria

The Attorney General of the Federation

The Delta State House of Assembly