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By Ajiri-Oghene Oreh
Come Monday, the 27th day of July, 2020, people of goodwill will gather in Otor-Udu Community town hall for memorial events marking the 93rd Anniversary of the Chief Oshue-led anti- taxation revolt in Warri Province in 1927. The anniversary is been organised by the Udje Heritage Centre founded by the revolutionary folklorist, Professor G.G. Darah in collaboration with the Achoja Research Council.
The multiple events with symposium featuring two erudite scholars of the humanities, Professor Rose Oro Aziza and Professor Sunny Awhefeada as keynote speakers, 3 popular musicians, and drama sketches from Dr. Peter Omoko’s Majestic Revolt play based on the revolution which involved valiant leaders of Urhobo, Ijaw, Itsekiri, Isoko and Ukwuani. The revolutionary leaders resolved at a joint Congress to embargo production and trade in oil palm and also declared Warri Province an Independent Nation from England, the way Fidel Castro’s Cuba did in 1959. At this juncture of the narrative we need to take our historical reading from the book of Genesis, when the defunct Niger Coast Protectorate was established in 1891 by the British.
And so, the ancient towns of Sapele, Warri and the Benin River where were the British Vice Consulates were established. A year later, that’s in 1892, the Benin River Consulate was shut down. By the year 1900, Niger Coast Protectorate gave way for a Protectorate of Southern Nigeria which was divided into three different divisions, Western which had the Urhobo, Central which had most part of the Isoko and the Eastern. The protectorate lasted for six years and a new Protectorate called the Colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria came into existence. The new Protectorate was splinted into Colony of Lagos, and Western Province, Central Province and Eastern Province. These Provinces had Divisions. And the Headquarter of the Central Province was Warri, and the Isoko and the Urhobo belonged to the Warri Division of the Central Province. Yes, Warri was the Divisional Headquarter of Warri Division.
Furthermore, with the amalgamation of the Southern Protectorate and Northern Protectorate in 1914 to one dual-nation territory supervised by Captain Frederick Lugard a former Security staff (maigad) of the Royal Niger Company the precursor of the United Africa Company (UAC), and High Commissioner for the Protectorate of the Northern Nigeria in 1900 and named “Nigeria” by his “concubine” Miss Flora Shaw as the “lands of the Niger river “, another round of political restructuring occurred when the new Colonial State was divided into Provinces for political and administrative conveniences. And one of the Provinces was the Warri Province which had Isoko and Urhobo. However, the Provinces also had Divisions and Districts, and the Isoko and Urhobo were put into the Warri Division with Warri has Divisional Headquarter. The Head of a Province was called a Resident, and the Head of a Division was called a District Officer (D.O.).
Between 1900 to 1930, the imperial Britain put in place agencies for local administration and one of them was the Native Court system which was a substitution for our old system of justice, and it also played the role of contemporary local government council’s responsibilities. However, there were distinctions in the functions carried out by the Native courts as exemplified by the Native Court Ordinance and Native Authorities Ordinance. The point should be made that those who sat in the Native Courts were called Warrant Chiefs who were appointed based on their integrity, credibility and prominence in their respective towns and kingdoms.
It was on January 1, 1927 that the Clifford’s Constitution which bore the name of the then governor general, Sir Hugh Clifford (1866-1941) became operational. Among the provisions of the colonial constitution were a Central Legislative Council for all of Nigeria, Regional Houses of Assembly, the reorganization of the existing tripartite divisions, the Western region, the Northern region and the Eastern region of the country which was brought about the former governor-general. It is important to note that, the legislative bodies were more of an advisory bodies. Yes, the members of the regional legislative Houses were seen and called as Provincial Representatives who were selected by the native authorities brought to the notice of the Chief Commissioners the fears, hopes and aspirations of their constituents.
The year 1927 also saw the imperial Britain implementing the obnoxious and unpopular policy of raising revenue by taxing the native people. It was the month of April, 1927 that the British colonial government without proper consultation introduced a “head” tax to the former Warri Province, and what followed was a violent riots and revolts by the people. As the radical playwright and poet of the masses, Peter Omoko asked, “how would one pay tax one’s given God-given Head?”
And so in the month of July 1927, the people of the Warri Province took to the streets, revolting against the imposition of the tax. The radical decision for the mass uprising was taken at a Joint Congress of all the ethnic groups – the Urhobo, Itsekiri, Ijaw and, Isoko, and Ukwuani – held at Igbudu Quarters of Warri. Chief Oshue Ogbiyerin of Orhungwhorun town in present day Udu Local Government Area of Delta State was the overall leader of the mass uprising, and he was ably assisted by the brilliant and brave Chief Edah Otuedon, an Itsekiri public letter writer and associate of the famous father of Nigeria’s nationalism, Herbert Macaulay. The all-powerful Warrant Chiefs, the Court Clerks and the Messengers were suffered most as the people of the Province went for them, and their properties were set on fire.
And as expected, the British oppressors represented by Major Walker, Deputy Inspector-General of Police reacted violently. They arrested and prisoned the ringleaders including Chief Oshue who was jailed for two years. But then, the 1927 Anti-Tax uprising in Warri Province led by the revolutionary Chief Oshue a man of great eloquence had spread across the River Niger to the Owerri Province in 1929 where the women there led the revolt in what is generally and famously known as the “Aba Women Riot” in colonial records and in the nation’s history.
The 1927 anti-tax revolt in Warri Province can be seen as a landmark date in the resource control struggle of the long oppressed, marginalized, and exploited people of the oil-rich Niger Delta region which has produced innumerable martyrs which include Jaja of Opobo, King Dappa Pepple of Bonny, King Ossai of Aboh, Nana Olomu, Ovie (King) Oghwe, Okumagba of Okere, Mukoro Mowoe, Samuel Mariere, and Salubi of the Urhobo ethnic nationality, James Otobo of the Isokonation, Udo Udoma of Ibibio, Dr. Okoi Arikpo of Ogoja, Ambakederemo of Kiagbodo, Ernest Okoli, and Wenike Briggs of the Ijaw nation, Dennis Osadebay of Asaba, Oba Ovonramwen, Oba Akenzua 11, Oba Momodu, Humphrey Omo-Osagie, Michael Imoudu, and Anthony Enahoro of the great Benin-Edo axis. All these can be put as the first phase colonialism.
The second phase can be described as internal colonialism which started the year 1970 when the first and only Civil War in Nigeria ended. In the present internal colonialism the people and nations of the Niger Delta region have been fighting in order to secure their lands and natural resources taken over by neocolonialist, local exploiters and their international allies like Shell, Chevron, AGIP. And the people have put on brave efforts like the February 1966 Adaka Boro’s All-Ijaw Republic which was proclaimed by the Niger Delta Volunteer Force (NDVF) and later its activities led by Asari Dokubo in the 21st century, the Oghara, Effurun and Egwu Women’s uprisings against oil vultures in the areas of the decades 1980s and 1990s, the liberationist struggles by the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People led by the playwright and environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa and comrades, the Gideon Orkar April 22, 1990 coup which involved patriotic troops of the Niger Delta region, the formation of the Association of Mineral Oil States under the guidance of Alex Ibru and Dele Cole of The Guardian, and not forgetting the founding of the Enahoro-led Movement for National Reformation.
Others are the 1994 oil workers strike led by Frank Kokori of NUPENG and Milton Dabibi of PENGASSAN for the restoration of the June 12, 1993 election victory won by Chief Abiola, there is the Idjerhe (Jesse) oil pipeline fire of 1998 that killed over 1000 people as poetically captured in Ogaga Ifowodo books of poems, The Oil Lamp, the 1999 invasion of Odi in Bayelsa State by Obasanjo’s soldiers in which over 2000 women and children were killed, the Kaiama Declaration of Ijaw Youths of December 1998 which proclaimed the sovereignty of resources ownership and control, the March 2000 Asaba Declaration of Governors and National Assembly Members on 13 per cent Derivation and Resource Control, the founding of the Union of the Niger Delta by Senator. David Dafinone and associates, the August 2002 uprising and occupation of oil facilities by Itsekiri Women of Ugborodo (Escravos) and Ijaw Women of Gbaramatu, the Bakassi Boys, the activities of the Movement of the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) led by Henry Okah and Tompolo of Gbaramatu Kingdom in Delta State, the Niger Delta Greenland of Justice Mandate (NDGJM) of Isoko and Urhobo and lately, the Niger Delta Avengers.
History is simply a narration, an assemblage of past events. In Nigerian history and education curriculum the enormous contributions of the revolutionary-heroes and heroines like Chief Oshue Ogbiyerin of the minority Niger Delta are deliberately omitted. Yes, the Nigerian historiography neglects the accounts of the minority ethnic nationalities especially those of the Niger Delta region. To right the wrong, we of the minority tribes must begin to remember, celebrate and honour of our heroes and heroines. It is imperative for us to begin to write our history in the words of my teacher, Prof. Sunny Awhefeada as a “counter-strategy against hegemonic suffocation”. The convener of the 93rd anniversary of the 1927 anti-taxation revolt in Warri Province, Professor G.G. Darah deserves garlands for the wisdom and foresight in organising the memorial events in honour of Chief Oshue Ogbiyerin the revolutionary leader of the revolt.
*Oreh, a literary chronicler, writes from Delta State