The traditional ruler of Ozoro Kingdom, hometown of the departed elder statesman, Senator Francis Spanner Okpozo, who died in a Benin hospital on Boxing Day, has called on the Federal and Delta State governments to accord his departed subject a state burial.
Speaking to TheNewsGuru in his Ozoro palace, the first class monarch, His Royal Majesty (HRM), Barrister Anthony Uvietobore Ogbogbo, Ibuka 1, recalled that Senator Okpozo being one of the founding fathers of Delta state deserves a state burial.
“Looking back at his legacies, I will request the state and federal to give him a state burial.
The history of the Ozoro and Ogwashukwu Polytechnics cannot be told without the mention of this great patriot.
He, it was that insisted that, for Professor Ambrose Alli to get approval of the then Bendel State House of Assembly to establish the State University in Ekpoma, he must also establish higher institutions in the other two Senatorial districts. That was why the two polytechnics were established”.
Describing the late Okpozo as “healthily controversial”, the traditional ruler explained that “Okpozo will stand by you through thick and thin, if he decides to give you his support.
He will swim and sink with you whether it favors him or not, that is the moment he chooses to support you. He never always go with the crowd but goes with his convictions” he said.
Ovie Ibuka 1 declared that Senator Okpozo was one of the last true disciples of the revered late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo.
“He was an Awoist to his bones. That was why he was never in the frontline of politics in the last dispensation when the PDP controlled the government at the center.
And even at that, he never stopped fighting for his people. I will miss him, Ozoro Kingdom will miss him, the Isoko nation will miss him, Delta State will miss him and indeed Nigeria as a whole will miss him”, he concluded.
When TNG visited the Ovie’s Palace in Ozoro, scores of sympathizers thronged the reception hall of the King.
