AN OPEN LETTER TO ALH. AYE. DIRISU (JP, OON) THE OKUOKPELLAGBE OF OKPELLA
OKPELLA IN CRISIS - THE OKUOKPELLAGBE OF OKPELLA INDICTED

Your Royal Highness,

The Okpella people need two clan heads. Yesterday 16th of June 2015 witnessed the apt and impromptu decision and declaration and total alienation of the Ukhomunyhio people which was seen evidently as a conspiracy and a long term plan cooked and weaved by the Okuokpellagbe of Okpella Alhaji A.Y.E DIRISU the Okuokpellagbe of Okpella and the people of Ogiriga and Iddo respectively. The Okuokpellagbe who hitherto has never liked Ukhomunyhio people because of its educated and influential people and the natural endowment bestowed by God upon the people from where he himself feeds, decide to join forces to dispossess Ukhomunyhio people from its land that the people had occupied for over 300 years now. Claiming the land belongs to Ogiriga.

The chiefs of Ukhomunyhio yesterday were invited to an emergency meeting by the Okuokpellagbe of Okpella. Only to get to the palace to meet a host of people from Iddo and Ogiriga seated. and a case was presented before them that the Ukhomunyhio land they occupy for over 300 years now is not theirs and hence the goody's and wealth of that region belongs to them (Ogiriga). The chiefs who were barely enough to form a resistance could not say anything as they were not been informed beforehand about the agenda of the meeting. As wise people they appeal for an adjournment and pleaded to his HRH that they are not ready for the agenda of the day. This plea fell on deaf ears and out rightly the Okuokpellagbe of Okpella declared the land belonging to ogiriga, and that any good coming from the land will hence forth go to them (Ogiriga) first, before it gets anywhere else. It is worthy of note that Imiegiele your own village was betrothed part of Afokpella lands from which you alienate its people. This action perhaps reveals your ultimate inner motives of trying to destroy the Ukhomunyhio community as a ruling house.

Iddo who before now had claim this same land to be theirs, surprisingly played witness that yes indeed the land belongs to Ogiriga, and that they had shared boundaries in those days - forgetting that before now the people of Okpella never shared boundaries. Obviously, the people of Iddo have been compromised, they had claimed this same land a while ago breathing fire and sulphur, and now they are saying it was never theirs but for Ogiriga. This alone shows these people are been instigated against the great people of Ukhomunyhio.

Iddo had claimed Egbobia as their land and uses the opportunity to claim the whole land, including the cement factory area. This led to a seven years court case, after which the court came to a compromise decision and the Okuokpellagbe meander his way for iddo. The Question here is; where was Ogiriga during these seven years of court case? The failure of Iddo to claim the Ukhomunyhio land of milk and honey made them to compromise with ogiriga to say the land belongs to Ogiriga. This compromising stand of Iddo has indeed rubbished and reversed their early claim of Egbobia and its environs. These actions make a laughing stock out of the judiciary system and the Okuokpellagbe of Okpella. That Iddo people can come with a cock and bull story, and have their claims, only to come back after some years to say to the people they had claimed Egbobia from, we lied to you then. If you the Okuokpellagbe now allottes the cement area and its environs to ogiriga it then means you have equally included Egbobia in your assertion which the court has earlier decided in favour of Imiokpe - Iddo. Does this not portray you as a trouble shooter among the people you govern?

An issue as delicate as land dispute was trivialised by the Okuokpellagbe of Okpella. The fact that the Uhkomunyhio people were not informed about the agenda before hand, were not allowed to talk, and were suppressed, and the outright judgement is clear prove that the meeting was held and concluded in the bedroom of his HRH Alhaji A.Y.E Dirisu ever before the meeting was called. I will not go into the history of okpella today nor how the Uhkomunyhio people have been the right occupant of this land.
Nevertheless, the Ukhomunyhio people were only temporal in ukhomunyhio as a result of several wars, the people made their way from this current land up to the hills for safety. After several years they came down to Afokpella. The wars came again and they left again up to the hills as a temporal base, this they did three times. It was the third time they met a people farming here with one or two miniature huts. The Ukhomunyhio people drove them out because this has been their home. Returning from erstwhile home the third time is their current stay here up to this day. Making the name Afokpella synchronise with the original home of Ukhomunyhio people. You do not claim a land to be yours because you farmed there. A land can only be yours by originality and by conquest. Ogiriga and Iddo were never original habitants of this land neither was it acquired by conquest.

However, this dictatorial leadership by okuokpellagbe of okpella is over 45 years on the throne, and as always, leaders who stay too long on the throne turn out to be dictators as seen in Colonel Gaddafi of Libya and the host of others. A matter as delicate as such should not be treated in a rush. Maybe unless one is calling for a communal war and of course an agitation of another clan head. After all, when okpella was 6 villages it had one clan head, now that the okuokpellagbe of okpella has made it over 120 villages i think the centre can no longer hold and we need more clans, for one clan head cannot administer over 120 villages.

And then to quickly inform our brothers from Iddo and Ogiriga that you are on a mission impossible, and think twice and shun those who stir the waters in other to reap from the troubled waters

Finally, the state house of assembly should be made to know this, so as to call the Okuokpellagbe to order.