I was in a gathering of some friends yesterday and I got wind of the fact that some Ikwerre elites and politicians are aggressively combing their respective communities and families in search of their brothers who put in UST as an admission option so they can give them automatic admission regardless of their scores.

While I was happy for the ethnic nationalist spirit of these Ikwerre elites and politicians, I was also bleeding in my heart as an Ekpeye man because I know that such selfless gestures are scarce amongst Ekpeye elites and politicians. The typical Ekpeye elite and politician insists that an Ekpeye son seeking admission or employment must be the most qualified in terms of grade before he accepts your application form which he will dispose in his trash can.

The Ekpeye elites and politicians insist that you must serve them, wash their cars every day, take bullets meant for them on your chest for them to give you a miserable 10k. They prefer to buy the youths goat meat or point and kill pepper soup and cartons of beer rather than give them jobs. Elites and politicians from other tribes don't care to know you one on one to give you job or admission but those from Ekpeye dig into history and recall how your grand father once insulted his great grand father...They forget that one can not force respect but you command it through your actions.

These elites erroneously expect the youths in their communities to bow to them when they come for weekends...that's a tall dream. The good thing in life is that nothing lasts forever...the youths you have refused to help today would grow up tomorrow to determine the fate of either your grand children or uncles or even yourself.

Helping an Ekpeye youth does not remove a kobo from your fat bank account...The only remedy to insecurity in Ekpeye and road to rapid development is for the political and elitist classes in Ekpeye to take up the challenge of mass recruitment of Ekpeye youths in their respective offices and the establishment of educational endowment funds for indigent and yet intelligent Ekpeye youths.

Peace cannot come when the supposed elitist and political classes are busy pouring blames on the traditional institution of which they can regulate. Peace cannot return to Ekpeye when the supposed political and elitist classes are busy holding talks and lavishing their resources on Rhythms and Naija Info over issues that will never give the youths admission or job.

I will never regret being an Ekpeye because Ekpeye is blessed with a fantastic terrain and awesome socio cultural heritage but bereft of genuine ethnic nationalists. What we have in Ekpeye at the moment are not Ekpeye elites and politicians but selfish and self-centred elites and politicians who are from the ethnic nationality known as Ekpeye.