A CRITIQUE OF Peter Ekeh Page 1 of 10 A CRITIQUE OF Peter Ekeh's BRITISH IMPERIALISM IN URHOBO LAND Colonial "Treaties of Protection" With Urhobo Communities in "Warri District"[1] BY J. O. S. AYOMIKE Member, Itsekiri Leaders' Forum Warri. The above-named document is among the batch of papers recently prepared by Professor Peter Ekeh, an erudite scholar based in the U.S. The two-paged work[2] is an “editor’s introduction” to treaties referenced in a paper titled “Urhobo and the Nigerian Federation: Whither Nigeria?” that Professor Ekeh delivered at the Petroleum Training Institute, Effurun, Nigeria on October 27, 2001. Along with its attached treaties, it instantly struck my attention as it did produce the chief concern of those who had sent it to me for clarification. I commend Prof. Ekeh for the main paper that discusses Nigeria's political evolution and the place of its constituent nationalities. Its theme, for sure, does not have to detain me for it does not focus on any particular ethnic nationality. Since the two-page work with the treaty attachments is intended to interpret Urhobo-Itsekiri relations in the 1890s up to Chief Dore Numa's era, it is only fair that I state the Itsekiri side to edify and enrich scholarship. Thus the two sides will be at the bar of public opinion. I am a little hard on Prof. Ekeh for two reasons: (i) a scholarly work such as this should bear no sentiments. Both sides have to be dug out, assessed before some conclusions are reached. He does not seem to me to have done so. Thus in pushing the Itsekiri side, I have emphasized issues that I think Prof. Ekeh has deliberately ignored, overlooked or distorted, and (ii) someone of Prof. Ekeh's standing from his vantage position in Buffalo, who is seen from here as a teacher of "absolute truth", should not promote divisive ideas that could incite people to worthless ends. Here I will concentrate on the 'Treaty Paper', push Itsekiri documents, interpret them as best as I can and make my deductions. This is good to put the records straight for posterity. I gave the draft of this work to Chief Isaac O. Jemide. For his contributions, I thank him. However, I bear full responsibility for this work in case it degenerates to altercations. http://www.nigerdeltacongress.com/articles/a_critique_of__peter_ekehs%20british%20im... 7/21/2008 A CRITIQUE OF Peter Ekeh Page 2 of 10 The following Treaties are attached to Professor Ekeh’s paper. (Use of quotes by Prof. Ekeh as against absence of quotes in the official Documents): (i)Treaty with the Chiefs of Asagba in "Warri District" dated December 6, 1892 and enclosed as No. 1 in Dispatch No. 46 to London on November 30, 1894. (ii) Treaty with the Chiefs of Toree (Ekpan) in "Warri District" dated February 25, 1893 and enclosed as No. 2 as above to London on November 30, 1894. (iii) Treaty with the Chiefs of Ajebha (Ejeba) in "Warri District" dated March 7, 1893 and enclosed as No. 4 as above to London on November 30, 1894. (iv) Treaty with the Chiefs of Agbassa in "Warri District" dated March 14, 1893 and enclosed as No. 5 as above to London on November 30, 1894. (v) Treaty with the Chiefs of Oboodoo (Obodo) in "Warri District" dated March 30, 1893 and enclosed as No. 8 as above to London on November 30, 1894. (vi) Treaty with the Chiefs of Ogoolu (Ogunu) in "Warri District" dated March 30, 1893 and enclosed as No. 7 as above to London on November 30, 1894. (vii) Treaty with the Chiefs of Oagbi Sobo (Ogbe Sobo) in "Warri District" dated August 16, 1893 and enclosed as No. 11 as above to London on November 30, 1894. (Prof. Ekeh misleadingly leaves out Sobo from Oagbi in his own title). Benin and Warri Districts These seven treaties entered into over a period of nine months (December 1892 - August 1893) in "Warri District" were not dispatched to London until November 30, 1894, the day Chief Nanna's Trials began in Calabar- a delay of nearly 2 years. Could it be true, as said within the Nanna family that Nanna, an Itsekiri/Effurun man frowned on the "Agbassa Treaty"? The name "Warri District" for the administrative area did not just fall from heaven with the signing of the Urhobo treaties. It had been in formal existence from 1891 when the Niger Coast Protectorate was created and the other district to the west was Benin District. These were the only two districts then in what we may now call western half of Delta Province. This explains why Prof. Obaro Ikime has said at page 21 of his Chief Dogho of Warri: "...It was now possible to station (two) Vice-Consuls in the Itsekiri country... In 1891, one such Vice-Consul was stationed at a point now near the UAC premises in Warri. Another was stationed... along the Benin River". What was known as Benin District, under a vice-consul, comprised all the country around and between Sapele and Warri (see this definition in The Benin Massacre by Capt. Alan Boisragon, Methuen & Co. London 1897,page 45) and the boundary between it and Warri District was the Escravos River (see Mac Donald's Report, August 1891, to the Earl of Kimberley: FO2/63 dated 19 August, 1894). Warri District covered the area between Escravos River and the Forcados River-boundary of the Royal Niger Company Limited. The provisional boundary of the Royal Niger Company Limited ran along Forcados River to Ganagana and Kiagbodo (all within the R.N.C.'s area); then by a straight line to and across Ethiope River – putting Okpara, Kokori, Eku, etc, etc, within the R.N. Company's area and leaving the close-by Urhobo communities of Jeremi, Obodo, Ukan, Kakprame, Adeje, etc, within the Warri District. http://www.nigerdeltacongress.com/articles/a_critique_of__peter_ekehs%20british%20im... 7/21/2008 A CRITIQUE OF Peter Ekeh Page 3 of 10 Who Owns Warri? Against the background clarified above, i.e. the existence then of only two districts in what may today be called western half of Delta Province and the R.N.C. on the other bigger half which then encompassed most of today's Eastern Urhobo, Isoko, Aboh and Ijoh lands, Prof. Ekeh's argument of Urhobo of "Warri District" being owners of Warri will fall flat either as a misleading flight from truth at best, or an outright fiction at the worst. In an apparent, spirit of scholarship he attaches the following Itsekiri Treaties but distorts their titles: (i) Treaty with Chiefs of Jakri (Itsekiri) 1884. (Prof. Obaro Ikime, the great Nigerian historian has it as Appendix II in his Merchant Prince of the Niger Delta, Heinemann Educational Books Ltd., London 1968, thus: Treaty with Chiefs of Itsekiri land, 1884: FO93/6/10). But hurting scholarship, Prof. Ekeh has deliberately titled it (to mislead?) British Treaty with Itsekiri of Benin River, July 16, 1884. There is no Treaty with such a title in the British Archives! Whereas he attaches the correct treaty he gives a wrong title in his work to mislead. (ii) Treaty with Chiefs of Benin River and Jekeri Country of August 2, 1894. (A certified true copy No. FO2/63 in inclosure 129 dated August 2, 1894 obtained in London bears the same title). But again for reasons best known only to the Professor, he gives this false title: British Treaty with Itsekiri of Benin River, August 2, 1894. There was no such Treaty! Additionally, signatories to the Treaty of 1894 that replaced the botched one of 1884, rejected by the Itsekiri leaders because of its Articles vi and vii, included not only leaders from Benin River but also from Warri, e.g. Okorofiangbe, Omatsola, Ogbe and Egbegbe, within Itsekiri country. But apparently to strengthen his false argument erected on sentiment, he writes: "...that in the 1890s the British regarded Warri as Urhobo Country. ... treaties reproduced above in these pages were uniformly branded by the British as treaties with "Sobo" Communities in the "District of Warri". By contrast, the early imperial treaties between the British and the Itsekiri recognized the lands of the Itsekiri as lying in the "Benin River". Not true! He has, as shown above, falsely transposed 'Benin River' on the two Itsekiri Treaties. A reasoning and discerning person, not even steeped in scholarship, judging his statement against the facts already elucidated above will see through the hollowness of the baseless argument designed only to mislead the unwary. How did these treaties make Warri Urhobo-land because they were done within "Warri District" of 1891? Sapele District was created before the Ebrohimi War of 1894, Benin District phased out and its area administered from Sapele. Do the Itsekiri of Koko, Jakpa or Ogheye today own Sapele? Do all these Urhobo communities, not of Agbassa pedigree, including Ekpan, Obodo, Asagba and Ogbe Sobo, claim joint ownership of Warri because their treaties show them as being within Warri District? The answer to this question is important, because none of these close-by Urhobo communities has ever claimed ownership of Warri save the Agbassa group whose claim failed in the Privy Council in 1933. How on earth did the British regard Warri as Urhoboland in the 1890s on the basis of treaties done within Warri District? Is it scholarship to transpose Benin River on the Itsekiri treaties where it does not exist as shown above? http://www.nigerdeltacongress.com/articles/a_critique_of__peter_ekehs%20british%20im... 7/21/2008 A CRITIQUE OF Peter Ekeh Page 4 of 10 A one-sided scholarship, completely overshadowed by ethnic subjectivity is dangerous.