There are some articles that you come across and something from somewhere deep in your inner most heart tells you not to reply. Well, the article by Mr. Frank Oshanugor, “Ubulu-Uku Kingship Crisis; A Time To Reflect”, published in The Authority Daily newspaper of Tuesday March 8, 2016, was not one of such. The moment I just saw the headline, revulsion quaked through my entire system.
A reading through the entire article did not show any concrete example of what the headline proclaimed; “Kingship Crisis”. Mr. Oshanugor did not state the crisis that exists in Ubulu-Uku. Yes, a king died in January and another was coroneted in February, but that death in the hands of alleged kidnappers was not the crisis he had advertised: “kingship tussle”. As the entire universe now knows, a new king, the first son of the immediate past Obi, now known as Obi Noah Chukwuka Akaeze 1, was installed without any single incident. No other person had struggled for the throne with him; no other candidate presented himself as the rightful heir to the throne to the council chiefs or any other authority for that matter while laying claims to the Ubulu-Uku Obiship throne.
So, how on earth could Mr. Oshanugor have come up with his “kingship crisis”? What did the crisis entail? Who was involved in it? Is it over or is it continuing?
Enough! Oshanugor did not give an example of any crisis but decided to divert the readers’ attentions to a nether world termed “the social media” – leaving the reader to wonder whether he was referring to a well-known internet discussion group or to a team of few like minds who write just to humour their capricious and whimsical tendencies, each praising the other’s fallacies and delusory blunders to high heavens. Since he failed to mention the internet discussion groups, it is hard to log into such groups’ sites to learn the kind of discussions that go on in there to see whether what is uploaded there could give one more and ennobling sense, or more reprehensible and unrelenting nonsense.
Oshanugo wrote: “This writer, as a son of the kingdom, is worried that the tranquility and spirit of oneness which used to permeate the nook and cranny of the community have become fragile among the citizenry such that many indigenes do not confidently believe in one another any longer, depending on which camp one belongs to”. What tranquility did the writer claim to have been shattered? How was it shattered? Is there any schism or rupture in the town? Have there ever at any time been two Obis? Could Mr. Oshanugor point out any Ogbe or quarter of Ubulu-Uku which does not recognize the immediate past or the present Obi as the real king of his time? Why did he choose to make wide and unsubstantiated claims?
Oshanugor out did even himself when he claimed: “It is highly regrettable that within the nine years when Akaeze reigned as the king, the indigenes rightly or wrongly were factionalised, each camp believing strongly in the argument it has put forward with regards to who had the right in the first place to occupy the throne between….” Please will Mr. Oshanugor present aspects of such factionalization: did Ubulu –Uku have two kings at any time? Did any part of the town refuse to owe allegiance to the immediate past king? If so, who was the other king? Where was/is his palace? Who joined Mr. Oshanugor in crowning that king? Or who told Oshanugor that another king of Ubulu-Uku other than HRH late Obi Edward Akaeze Ofulue 111 ever reigned in the town between 2006 and 2016? If no other king other than the immediate past Obi ever reigned, then where was/is the factionalization?
Twice or thrice in the short article, Mr. Oshanugor mentioned three chiefs – Onishe, Ojiba and Odafe as part of those who have a stake in the choice and coronation of a new king. It is pertinent to remind him that none, out of the dozens of chiefs in Ubulu-Uku, is empowered to CHOOSE a king for the town. None!!!
It is unfortunate that Mr. Oshanugor used some 800 words to make totally unsubstantiated claims and drop innuendoes aplenty. He asked everyone to rise and save the town from “arbitrary and despotic tendencies”, yet he failed to give concrete as opposed to vague summations of such tendencies. Did Oshanugor know what he was doing when he called Umu-Ozim, (relations of the Obi from the fifth of sixth generation downwards) Umu-Obi (relations of the Obi up to the fourth generation) and the chiefs to take some remedial actions?
It would be pertinent to remind Mr. Oshanugor that Umu-Ozim and Umu-Obi and the council of chiefs were fully involved in the coronation of the new Obi. The chiefs also accompanied the new king to Ogwashi-Uku to meet the other Obis of the Aniocha South LGA. A large retinue of chiefs also formed his train to Asaba where he was hosted by the State Governor. An unprecedented turnout of people was at the graveside to bid the immediate past Obi goodbye even though he was buried close to midnight. What more ardent love could a transited king ask of his town’s folks? And what more proof of dedication would satisfy the many Oshanugors out there, who as he wrote in the first paragraph, “feel obliged to exercise their freedom of speech…”for the right or wrong reasons”?
- By Tony Eluemunor, a 1991 Fellow of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, member of the Editorial Board of The Authority newspaper and Chief Onanefe Ibori’s Spokesman.
