The last ethnic warfare in Warri and its environs has gone the extra mile to confirm the hospitality of the Okpe people. At the height of the Warri bloodbath, Sapele, the major town of the Okpe people became the home of many helpless Itsekiri and Ijaw refugees. The safe haven given to these victims of war will forever remain a source of pride to the Okpe people. The ethnic harmony that is existing in Sapele and its environs, will be incomplete without mentioning the fatherly attention given to the crisis by the Orodje of Okpe kingdom, His Royal Highness, Orhorho I. On several occasions, the Orodje sternly warned the Itsekiri and Ijaw leaders not to make Sapele a battlefield.

Fairplay requires a peacemaker to receive adequate government attention because he is an outright catalyst for socio-economic development. But what is happening is a huge surprise to all lovers of decency. Those who are always resorting to arms-struggle are getting a great deal of government attention, whereas the Okpes, who are peacemakers and owners of the strategic town of Sapele are being deprived of their entitlements by the Delta State Government.

The roll-call of Civil Commissioners in Delta State is a disappointment to the Okpe people. Nobody from Sapele was deemed fit to be called and sworn-in for the top government portfolios. The Ibori administration is hereby challenged to visit Sapele and answer questions on marginalisation where he can actually feel the pulse of the people of Sapele in particular and the Okpes in general. The office of the Special Duties Commissioner is meaningless to the Okpe people.

When Chief Ibori visited Sapele last year, one of the demands made at the stadium by the Council Chairman, Honourable O. Igbuya, was the conversion of the Sapele Technical College (S.T.C.) into a Polytechnic. The response of the Governor sent cold waves into the bodies of Sapele indigenes. He bluntly said that there was no money for that purpose. Chief Ibori should have tactfully said that he would look into the issue. But when it came to establishing a teachers training college at Oghara, the Governor’s hometown, funds speedily emerged from government vaults. A situation whereby a winner takes all is undemocratic and should be discouraged. The fact that late Professor Ambrose Alli, one time Governor of the defunct Bendel State sited a university in his hometown does not give credence to a such behaviour.

Among all the major towns of Delta State, it is only Sapele that does not have a higher institution. Agbor and Warri parade one College of Education each. Ughelli, has a School of Health Technology. Warri is home to School of Nursing while Asaba has the Agriculture and Management faculty of Delta State University, Abraka. Irri and Ozoro both in Isoko land have higher institutions whereas Sapele and Orerokpe, the brides of Okpe people, have nothing to their credit. Nobody has come forward to explain the modality used in citing these institutions. It is not out of context to identify a small band of opportunists for the on-going vendetta against the Okpe people.

George Orhodeine, a citizen of Okpe Kingdom wrote in from Sapele, Delta State.