ATTENTION: ABAVO YOUTHS:DR IFEANYI EHIJENE WAS A VICTIM OF AN ELITIST DECEIT AND A BAD CHOICE; PLEASE DON'T PHYSICALLY ATTACK HIM OR ANY MEMBER OF HIS FAMILY

Dear Abavo youths,

I am so thrilled to come to you again, to thank you for proving to other Nigerian youths that you are the best set of youths in the nation, as you simplified our struggle to free our people from bondage without the need for help from outside Abavo, as there were economic interests who were already waiting like vultures to be invited to for help that would be tied to our reciprocity with the Abavo oil once the battle was decided.

Some of such people approached us for assistance to arm you with dangerous weapons to blow up Abavo but we refused and instead, opted for and insisted on the use intellectual militancy and civil disobedience to achieve the same result but without firing a shot at any Abavo citizen.

We are very appreciative of the fact that the youths of Abavo bought into this well rehearsed and articulated game plan and carried it out to the letter, making our agitations for justice the only bloodless one in recent Nigerian history.

Words do change nations and Abavo has become the most recent example.

We are aware that Pan Ocean armed a few youths in Uche's camp and mercenaries to intimidate the Abavo people, but where are they today? They are all on the run.

We have been receiving torrents of calls from Abavo patriots and allies of the struggle from allover Nigeria and around the world, about the feat you just made possible, and all of them seem to have become more apprehensive of the management of the immediate Post-Uche era, especially in the area of dealing with our brothers and sisters who were opposed to change for whatever reasons and also, the potential for internal wrangling in the rank and file of the proponents of change.

My response to the callers is that we will go through those bridges more intelligently than we did with booting Uche out of power, with all the cash he had at his disposal to bribe people and buy security operatives and lethal assault weapons, with the little or nothing we had to spend on logistics to propel our youth drivers for justice.

Abavo was not at war except those created in Uche's imagination and so we don't have the issue of dealing with disarmament or sharing political offices.

We have successfully created a road map to Abavo's promise that will benefit all and not a few anymore.

Therefore, on behalf of the interim leadership of the Abavo People's Voice, the Abavo Diaspora and our elders, I am appealing to the youths of Abavo to continue to respect our rules of engagement which are deeply rooted in the use of our minds and intellect as opposed to the use of brute force to articulate who and what we are in this struggle that is about to go into the economic phase which must be implemented to benefit everybody regardless of status.

I am passionately appealing to you all to refrain from physically attacking Dr. Ifeanyi Ehijene, his immediate and extended family, and all those other Abavo citizens who were non-violently opposed to our case for the pursuit of justice, as doing so will seriously negate the gains we have made and also, how the nation which now sees us as an example to be emulated by all youths and people, will view us.

We agree with you that they may have erred by taking positions we viewed an anti-Abavo, but at the same time, we must recognize and respect that they are Abavo citizens with rights to choices of where they wish to belong in any Abavo debate, if and when responsibly expressed without resorting to the use of violence, while bearing in mind that the majority will always have their way, just as we just proved to them and the world.

What does this do? It strengthens our system and that is what it has just done.

We must recognize that every Abavo person has rights to life, assembly, association, speech, fair competition and other basic human rights that we must respect at all time.

I am very hopeful that you, me and all of us will allow freedom and liberty reign and flourish in the land we all love so much.

Our youths, we can't stop thanking you for what you did for Abavo. Your story will never be forgotten and I thank you for heeding the call to save your fatherland without asking for anything in advance.

I love you all.

Smart

 ABAVO, THE LAND OF MY ANCESTORS

By Onyekachukwu Allison Ajaja ©2011

 Prance through the great land grinning, just grinning.  With my arms out wide and my head tilting back, but it never dips.  I greet my ancestors who have walked this path before me.  Who have left an impact; a legacy that we must keep intact.

Told to me by a wise man, my father who had migrated from the lands of Abavo to a new World.

He shares the values of Abavo with me and with us.

Values that I promised myself I would never forget.     Abavo may I stand?Abavo may I walk?May we represent to the world what Abavo truly means? Or at least what it means  to me, to you, and to us

 Written by Onyekachukwu Allison Ajaja, a 6th grader from Abavo, born in the Americas.

I am so proud of my dad, Uncles Emmanuel Ekhator, Andrew Oghor and the other Abavo people in Houston, TX, USA especially for the fact that they are hardworking people with strong family values and how they have championed the cause of the Abavo people here and at home.    

ABAVO DECIDES

As America celebrates its 236th year of Nationhood, 7000 jubilant people of Abavo, a small agrarian Oil-rich community in Delta state of South South Nigeria were gathered in a rancor-free environment at the Palace of their Olihen to reaffirm, in the presence of the Delta State Assistant police commissioner, the decision they reached on June 22, 2012, announced in a declaration that proclaimed the dethronement of Mr. Uche Irenuma as the Obi of Abavo, paving way for the enthronement a brand new Obi on a day to be announced soon, in accordance with the over 1000 years old tradition and customs of the Abavo people.

This historic gathering and momentous occasion was graced by men, women and children, old and young as well as foreigners and the media.

At last, we have reaffirmed that justice should served regardless of all the relentless efforts by interests defined by economics, modern day slavery and neo-colonial calculations to scuttle it, so they could continue business as usual.

Who made this possible?

The youths of Abavo who proved pessimistic pundits wrong and dazzled the nation with their excellent conducts as they confronted an oligarchy whose stock in trade is deeply rooted in violent schemes to keep the people of Abavo in their bondage which has effectively come to an end were the fuel that the Abavo people needed to drive the “Change” vehicle. And they did just that.

This generation and in fact future generations of Abavians won't thank these young men and women who put their lives on the line, knowing that their future was on the line, enough for their bravery in confronting one of the worst injustices recorded in our recent history.

Our thanks goes also to our elders who though moved a little slower than we had anticipated, but all the same moved when those with the vision, progressive mindsets and courage left their comfort zones at home and abroad, and at great risks to their personal safety, security and lives, and those of their family members at home, to deliver the message that kept them and the entire Abavo thinking day and night, thus strengthening our visibly shaken faith in our elder system.

We greet the friends of the Abavo people who have kept us invigorated through some of the annoying questions they posed before us and those who truly understood the pains of the Abavo people by virtue of residence now or in the past or by the stories coming out of Abavo.

We thank all the law enforcement agencies who have deployed their men to the Abavo soil for living true to their constitutional responsibilities in preventing a breakdown of law and order.

Lest I forget, the indefatigable members of the Abavo People's voice on whose fearless platform the Abavo Revolution was born and anchored on October 17, 2010, for living true to the founding mission and vision statement respectively of the entity, thereby setting up the Abavo people for the journey to mental, economic, political, spiritual and environmental recovery following twenty one years of brutal abuses.

I am personally very proud to be one of you and also, for your all round support as we soldiered through thick and tins and highs and lows. The history of Abavo will never be complete if you are not assigned a place of pride in it.

We would like to remind the Abavo people that as we inch closer to a full liberation, we must be on guard as this minute presents one of the most difficult security challenges to our agitation for justice as we were reliably informed that an attempt was made on the life of the heir apparent to the throne by unknown assailants as this all important meeting got under way.

We must as a matter of urgency activate a proactive security arrangement for the whole Abavo in order to forestall any attempts by people who are not pleased with the verdict to breach the security of Abavo and the Abavo people.

Never again shall the sun set on so glorious a human achievement.

God bless you all!

God bless Abavo

Smart Madu Ajaja

As the People of Ogbe-Obi (Abavo-central) meet 

Since the past several weeks, Abavo has seen a flurry of activities including an unprecedented number of meetings not compared to anything recorded in its recent history.Wow! What is all this about? I wish we have been meeting like this all the time to listen to each other’s argument before this critical moment, we could have averted majority of the leadership mishaps and bad choices, the consequences of which we are grappling with today.It is quite interesting but yet agonizing to see a people who have hardly had an opportunity to sit down to discuss important matters affecting the Abavo kind for 21 years to suddenly become inundated with the urgent needs to attend one form of meeting or the other to discuss the tragic failure of leadership at Abavo and the Abavo’s criminal neglect that have lead l to a traumatic infrastructural decay and the embarrassing squalor under which the majority of our compatriots live.A revolution has started! And the center is not holding but the illegal operators are unwilling to give up and stand down graciously but are instead, spreading lies, fear and threats of attacks against perceived opponents and other highly sensitized Abavians who have been primed and mobilized for the imminence of a change that now rents the Abavo air.My brethren, fear not, file out and head to Abavo central on Friday, Mayl 25, 2012 to join our compatriots on the ground as they press for change with incontrovertible documents and oral testimonies at their disposal.My people of Abavo central, you have a lifetime opportunity to redeem yourselves by listening to the voices of the people and not the voices of opportunists who have for 21 years used you to cover their crimes against the Abavo people.History will not forgive you if you set aside the truth and popular opinion of the people in pursuit of the strategic interests of a few greedy citizens who have for 21 years erroneously and arrogantly enslaved you and the rest of Abavo for personal and family gains.How much longer are you willing to go?The Abavo people are watching and waiting for the Ogbe-Obi people to show leadership for which they were known until twenty-one years ago when they fell for the fraud that have terribly bruised the Abavo psyche, debased the customs and tradition, ridiculed the youths and relegated Abavo below the value of a banana Kingdom.This fraud and the consequences that have been associated with it were made possible twenty one years ago, unfortunately by the failure of us of the Abavo central stock or Ogbe-Obi people to stand up to those influential Royal family members who for personal gains and dislike for a certain personality, hid under a well packaged and an easy-to-sell discriminatory scheme to subvert our well laid out ascendancy pathway and consequently set the Abavo ship sailing in the wrong direction.The Ogbe-Obi community, through this heinous and despicable act of “it- is- the- royal- family’s- problem” exposed themselves to a sacrilegious odium in Abavo and in the process exposed the rest of Abavo to ridiculous fall from an Olympian height in the eyes of people from other Kingdoms and beyond.I have been taken to task so many times from my non-Abavo friends about the state of the Abavo traditional institution and I am sure some of you have been questioned by your friends too. It is disgusting and uncomfortable to be asked some of those offensive questions especially when you understand that they are out to ridicule you and your place of origin.Today, I and other citizens of Ogbe-Obi are very happy to have come of age to stir the conscience of our people and challenge our system to do what is right by reversing itself in order to stem the tide of untimely deaths of prominent members of the Ogbe-Obi family, especially members of the Royal family who have taken quite a few hits within the past few years. The latest one that is currently up in the air was a particularly devastating blow too hard to deal with after a fatal one that rocked the community to its foundation, last year.Let us fix this house now because if we don’t we won’t have another house and the youths of today and generations unborn will not forgive us. The unborn generation will tag us as the generation that sold them into slavery tens, hundreds and thousands of years before they were born.We the older people need to set our younger generation on the path of truth and honesty, otherwise, they will grow up to become a dysfunctional adult and older population whose decision making skills will be grossly impaired, leading to more problems.This meeting in my opinion should be about housekeeping or cleaning and should not be concerned yet with distractions like Pan Ocean and Oil drilling and the lies we have been told over and over again about all those castles they will build in the air. Once the house is cleaned, we will be ready to face Pan Ocean Oil as a whole unit and not in tatters as it is, currently.Before I close my argument, it is pertinent to ask the Ogbe-Obi people some questions;- Are we still the leaders of Abavo?- Do we want to continue to lose our best sons and daughters because of an error we now have an opportunity to correct because of any person’s interest?- Do we want to continue to live in fear as if we are slaves?- Do we want to continue to be taken to our own palace to be flogged and tortured for minor infractions?- Are we going to allow one family to corner all our resources only for their personal and family gains?- Are we going to continue to allow our market to fund one family instead of funding Abavo development?- Are we really stupid or foolish?- If we are not stupid or foolish, are we ready to lead Abavo out this hell?I specially appeal to the youths of Abavo central to come out in their numbers to attend this meeting without fear of attack or intimidation because of its historic and strategic nature and also to avoid being used to disrupt the proceedings at the meeting by those who wish Abavo will remain in darkness while they loot our collective resources and common wealth. Adequate measures have been put in place to arrest any person who attempts to create any trouble at or outside the meeting arena. The appropriate leadership infrastructure at Abavo central have been given briefs about what to do to avoid any security breach and also to promptly arrest any non-accredited uniformed or plain clothes security agents or any person who cannot prove beyond reasonable doubt that he/she is an Abavo person.Please, do not be offensive in engaging people but if you are attacked, it is a universal thing that you have rights to self defense.May God lift this ugly cloud off of the Abavo horizon and let a lasting peace and tranquility cover the land.Abavo will rise again.Smart AjajaNote: Please, feel free to share with your friends and anybody who you believe is in support or against the freedom of the Abavo people.I will need someone to print a copy of this message and give it to the Chairmen of all the Ogbe-Obi quarters so they can read it at this very important meeting.

 P.O. Box 594

         &nb sp;                         &nb sp;                         &nb sp;                         &nb sp;                         &nb sp;     Missouri City, Texas 77459

         &nb sp;                         &nb sp;                         &nb sp;                         &nb sp;                         &nb sp;      U.S.A.

March 5, 2012.

My Fellow Abavo Men and Women,

My name is PRINCE EMMANUEL “IDIOMA” EKHATOR and I am a legitimate son of HRM OBI EKHATOR JEGBEFUME II.

I am writing to you as a humble member of the Abavo Royal family because I, like most of you do not like the trajectory Abavo have been on since the death of my father in 1991. I have talked with many of you either in person, via the phone and via the internet and there is a compendium of opinion that Abavo has been on a downward spiral since the death of OBI EKHATOR JEGBEFUME II. But what is more grievous is the knowledge that this accidental monarch thinks ignoble of you, me and every Abavo person.

I did not wake up this morning and decided to write to you my fellow Abavians, the decision came on a back drop of many failed attempts to dialogue with this Obi by many phone calls that were not answered nor returned and even via the internet. So if you hear that I have not sought to iron things out with this Obi before writing this, I trust that you will dismiss them as being disingenuous and a distortion of the truth.

The urgency of this epistle was prompted by the unprovoked threat to my person by this obi for belonging to a legally constituted organization as a free citizen of America and a free son of Abavo. This organization is APV(Abavo People’s Voice), a progressive organization of Eminent Abavians all over the world to address the ills confronting Abavo created mainly by this corrupt obi, his father and politicians who have no love for their home town.

And when my twin sister, Onyisi informed me that she was insulted and called names by this Obi’s younger brother who is occupying the house that he has no clues on how and when it was built and by whom, apparently because of the principled position I had taken along with other Abavo patriots on their despicable acts of fraud, corruption, intimidation and other forms of criminalities against the Abavo people.

This behavior tells me that these “royals” have no limits. If Emeka, my sister’s son had lived, he would have been 41 years old this year and I bet that this boy would not have had the guts to insult her. She may not have a child but she has got me. If you mess with her, you definitely will be hearing from me. All that my sister asked him was to move the generator he installed at the base of the foundation of my mother’s house which was causing structural damage to my mother’s house and he let loose his tirades of insult directed at my sister. I find that very repugnant. This is a boy who is occupying the house that Mr. Stephen Isibor and I built and he had the nerves to want to damage the house that my mother suffered to build.

Many of you have expressed to me your hesitation to speak critically about this Obi and the deplorable condition of Abavo for fear of bodily harm or even death at the hands of this Obi and his agents. Your fears are well founded. After all this is a monarch who abandoned his throne and his people, for almost one year to attend some of those schools that produced the likes of Osama Bin Laden in Saudi Arabia when he converted to Islam. And what is alarming was what he did after he returned home from Saudi Arabia, gathering of young Abavo boys and sending them to Maiduguri in Borno State to attend those Islamic schools that we now know produce Boko Haram members without the consent of their parents. This Obi injected a foreign religion into Abavo that has always been fundamentally conservative Christian and mainly Catholic enclave for his selfish aim.

Yes, your fears are well founded but this I can promise you. We are in touch with most of the security apparatus of the state and we are equally soliciting help from various international organizations and I can assure you that we have concrete promises of assistance from our sympathizers in America and elsewhere in dealing with whatever violent means they choose to use.

We know that this Obi has populated Abavo and the Palace with his fellow Muslim terrorists and Igbo thugs and criminal gangs from his mother’s home land but we are undaunted. However, if any harm is caused any Abavo citizen because of his or her critical opinion of this absentee obi, the Obi will be held responsible along with his hatchet men and women. If he does not already know it, he better know it today that he is not above the law. He watches the news and he saw what happened to his fellow Muslims like the mega despot, Sadam Hussein who was pulled out of a rat hole by American Special Forces and of course, the other mega-despot Moamar Ghadafi who was pulled out of a drainage hole or better yet, Osama bin Laden who was silenced for good by the Greatest Armed Forces on earth and others like him in Yemen and Pakistan.

If history would be their guide, they will know that oppressed people do not want to remain oppressed even in the face of overwhelming odds, they always would seek freedom one way or another.  Just look at the French Revolution, the American Revolution and Abavo people are no exception. If this Obi had been responsive to the people of Abavo, he would not need his criminal gangs and terrorist to “keep Abavo people in line”. He would have been enjoying the generosity and absolute loyalty that Abavo people are noted for.

If they are stupid enough to try to eliminate me or anyone who speaks the truth about this absentee Obi and his lack of leadership, that would be the end of Abavo monarchy because it will bring about the disintegration of the entity called Abavo. All he would have left is a dilapidated Palace that he and his father before him failed to maintain because; Udomi and Igbogili where my mother’s parents are from would rise up in arms and leave the entity called Abavo. Even the people of Azunowa where I have a lot of good will from my days of teaching in Ekuoma would follow suit.  Whether he knows it or not, he is dealing with a terribly disaffected populace and if they rise up, no amount of his criminal gangs and his Muslim terrorists could contain the furry of our angry people. Mark my word. He will have nothing left, a king without subjects. He does not have any land because he and his father before him have sold all the vast land holdings that my father bequeathed to them. He will not find favor anywhere in Abavo except may be only in a small quarter in Oyoko where his father was from and certainly not Obianyima because he sold it to Pan Ocean Oil Company for a few million Naira. Don’t forget that he would have five American Children of mine to contend with. They will feel the furry of those boys from South Carolina.

 More than a thousand years ago, my forefathers established a dynasty and called it Awu. Like in the modern day constitution, they established a system of Government which has served us well till 1991 when an aberration crept in. In formulating this system of self -rule, they called it KINGDOM and named the head of the Kingdom OBI, which literarily means “The Heart”. So the leader of the Kingdom they founded was aptly named the heart of the Kingdom.

Now, I am hearing and reading that the leader of Abavo Kingdom has unilaterally changed the title to “Oobi’ without the consent and approval of the Abavo People. Well, Oobi in Abavo language means “not performing to expectation.” If we are to go by how this leader is ruling, he has really hit the nail on the head. He chose a befitting title in that case, because he has not led since his coronation. On a serious note, this Obi has not got the right to or the power to change the title that was established over a thousand years ago. This title belongs to the Abavo People and not to him. Only an absolute majority of the Abavo people can approve the changing of the title. If Obi Uche Irenuma wants to change his title to Oobi, he may be telling us that he does not want to be the ruler of Abavo anymore. But I want to give him the benefit of the doubt that this name changing is nothing but exercise in youthful exuberance .But as a legitimate and direct descendant of a great OBI EKHATOR JEGBEFUME II, I repudiate and will never approve of the changing of the title of which dynasty my father bequeathed Obi Irenuma. All Abavo people should feel revulsion about this nonsensical behavior. NO CHANGING OF THE TITLE OBI TO “OOBI”.

Before I proceed further, I feel it is necessary to deal with the controversial succession fraud and intrigues that brought the Abavo Monarchy to disrepute and which led to the death of the man who had all his life been groomed to ascend the Obi of Abavo throne. Uche’s father, Obi Irenuma 1 only became a royalty through the back doors, under a very controversial circumstance towards the end of my father’s reign as he was born out of royal wedlock and was therefore crowned in a deliberate disregard for the Abavo traditional succession pathway in place of a well-known heir apparent to the throne, just because some elements in the Abavo Royal family thought that the next Obi must be a full blooded Abavian.

My father, to the best of my knowledge, was duped into accepting Ajeh Irenuma as the heir apparent to the throne at the time because of ill health which had progressively altered his testamentary capacity. As a result, the man who was groomed to succeed my late father was dumped, setting up the foundation for a free fall from an Olympian height of the Abavo Kingdom and the progressive ridicule of the Abavo monarchy which has assumed a sorry dimension in recent times.

The reason given then for denying the legitimate successor to the throne from becoming the Obi was that he was not a full blooded Abavo citizen because his mother was not an Abavo woman.

But today, we have a half-blooded Obi whose mother is from far away Imo state and whose father’s legitimacy to the ascension to the throne till date remains a subject of controversy due to legitimacy questions surrounding his birth, misruling Abavo and squandering her resources in all ramifications. This situation can be best described as double jeopardy for the Abavo people. Where is the wisdom in handing the crown to an unwilling Monarch today when it was royally and traditionally incorrect yesterday? Is this justice? I am worried and rocked to my foundation about the way things are going. Our ancestors are angry and the Abavo People now have their backs against the wall and ready to push back.

Obi Irenuma ruled with reckless abandon. Why? You would ask. Perhaps, because he was actually not groomed for the role and more so, because of the controversial manner he ascended the throne, being an illegitimate child conceived and born out of the Royal wedlock.  One would have hoped that he could have worked hard to erase that stigma of illegitimacy. But he failed, and instead, plundered, laying the foundation for Abavo’s decline which has now assumed a disturbing dimension under his son, Uche Irenuma.

On ascension of the throne, Uche Irenuma went on a tour of Abavo vilifying his father and promised to be a different ruler. Has he been any different? You decide! He has presided over the precipitous decline of Abavo as evidenced by; ceding of Abavo lands to other entities. He was reported to have recently granted autonomy to Obianyima, an Abavo federating unit all because of Oil money.

Now we are witnessing the recurrent confiscation of Abavo land and attacks of Abavo farmers by Ebvoghae People of Edo state which my late father had dealt with, decisively in his lifetime, now because of the obvious weakness of the reigning Abavo Monarch. This Obi was approached to do something about it three years ago when the issue came up and he taxed the people of Idumugbo for petrol money which he took but did nothing. Now we are at the verge of losing our land that we have farmed for hundreds of years.

Uche Irenuma is an absentee Obi who is never at Abavo nor accessible to the Abavo People. Is this what the Abavo people want? At least Obi Irenuma  was available to the people even as his performance was below par but Obi Uche Irenuma II now known as Alhaji Mustapha Mohamed owes his allegiance to the Sokoto caliphate rather than the Abavo and its customs, yet our dynasty, predates for over eight hundred years, the Sokoto caliphate. Yet the Obi of Abavo is supposed to be the custodian of the Abavo customs and tradition and not of an alien culture.

When this Obi, Uche Irenuma decided to subordinate the culture and tradition of Abavo to that of the Sokoto caliphate, he should have done the honorable thing; abdicate the throne of Abavo because he forfeited the right to it by rubbishing our culture and tradition. For example, when King Edward 8th of England decided to marry his American divorcee in contravention of British crown, he abdicated the throne. That is what honorable men do.

The question I pose to Abavo people is, can we do any worse if we did not have an Obi?

Idumu-esah is doing fine, yet she does not have an Obi. But she has an Okparan which is not hereditary.

Abavo’s custom and tradition stipulate that upon the death of an Obi, his wives who are not retained in the palace would return to their various families, native lands or villages and never set their feet in the Palace ever again.

Is that the case with this Obi? What Abavo has been enduring is an Obi’s widow who has taken over the palace and actually ruling Abavo with thugs from her home town as Ibiegwas.  A case in point is the extortion by Obi Uche’s mother on every market day from the poor and struggling Abavo market women. She has turned Oyoko market into a “CASH COW” for herself and her thugs harassing our poor market women every Orie day. Can you imagine an Abavo woman doing what she has been doing in Igbo land? I doubt it seriously. She has continually defiled our Ancestral Gods with absolute fiat just like her son .Aliens living in the Abavo Palace with their wives, a blatant violation of our custom and defiling our Ancestral Gods. An abomination.

Think about what would have happened if the 52 widows Jegbefume had left behind had descended on the Nkwor Udomi market and also, what would have been the fate of the Oyoko market if the widows of Obi Ekhator Jegbefume II descended on it to harass the market women for money as is the case with the mother of the current Obi. Did they forget that Abavo is not a plantation for them? Why have the Abavo people been so quiet?

I have hesitated to weigh in on the discussion regarding the oil exploitation in Abavo because I had hoped that the people involved would be forthcoming with answers about what has been going on. As a trained Geologist with an advanced degree, and haven worked in the oil industry for over fourteen years, I could not help but ask some pertinent questions of Pan Ocean Oil.

During the meeting with our Abavo People’s Voice delegation at the state office of the Director of SSS in Asaba, Pan Ocean unequivocally stated that it has paid out some Royalty money to a major Abavo stake holder and his representatives.

-          Who did they give the money to?

-          How much money was offered to whom and when?

-          How did they arrive at the money they offered?

-          For what purpose was the money offered?

-          How did they arrive at the amount without the benefit of all the geological data such as; formation evaluation, reservoir evaluation, production potential etc.?

-          Who did they sign the land lease agreement with?

Whatever monies that Pan Ocean Oil had paid for exploitation of oil in Abavo should be brought forth for the whole Abavo to determine whether to accept or otherwise and if accepted, how it should be spent for the benefit of all Abavo people.

Pan Ocean Oil cannot lift a drop of Oil from Abavo soil until the whole Abavo is satisfied with the terms and conditions set forth by the Abavo people and not ones by a greedy and corrupt stake holder who is disconnected from the people. What Pan Ocean Oil may not know is that since it bills itself as an international business entity, it is subject to applicable international laws pertaining to global best practices in its peculiar industry, including but not limited to” illegality of offering bribes” for exchange of business deals. So Pan Ocean Oil will be answering to the United States FBI, British Government, and Nigeria’s EFCC etc. The Abavo People’s Voice (APV) is in the process of retaining the services of an International business Law Firm here in the US to help fight Pan Ocean Oil and its corrupt collaborators in Abavo on behalf of the Abavo People.

I am not oblivious of the threats posed by non-Abavo indigenes that now populate the Abavo Royal Palace as purveyors of violence against Abavo people and outspoken members of the Royal family who speak critically about the conducts of this Obi. Well, I have news for them. This legitimate son of Obi Ekhator Jegbefume is not afraid. I shall match their terrorism with a more lethal brute force that they have never seen and they shall taste the fire power of the United States of America.  And if I happen to die fighting them (God forbid), they will face the power of five American children of mine who will bring inferno to them.

 Shouldn’t we who know how things used to be ask a legitimate question about the motives of this absentee Obi? Isn’t it obvious that this Obi, like his father before him does not care about the welfare of Abavo? Isn’t it obvious that these accidental Royals are reaping where they did not sow? Isn’t it now apparent that because they never dreamed or thought that they will ever be in this position and never had anything, hence their grab, grab mentality? Isn’t it obvious that Uche does not really want to be the Obi of Abavo except for the benefits thereto? Obi Uche needs to know that he cannot have it both ways. He cannot eat his cake and still have it.

The fact is that I have no aspiration of being the Obi of Abavo. And this too is a fact that had I accepted to be the Obi when I was approached by Prince P.I Jegbefume in 1983 when he visited me here in the US, way before Irenuma was grafted into this Royal family by the same P.I Jegbefume, there wouldn’t have been an Irenuma kingship or this failing one we have today. This is a hard fact. I insisted then that the rightful heir was Sunday and it never crossed my mind to think otherwise. Besides, I did not want to leave the comfort of American life that I have come to embrace and enjoy?

So when I read the posts by those I consider to be sycophants singing the praises of this Obi who has not done a damn thing for Abavo beyond diminishing her stature or reducing the Abavo people to a laughing stock in Delta, I cringe with anger. They talk about peace in Abavo and I ask what peace? A chief of his was killed over Oil money the Obi himself was administering. What has he done to merit the accolades of a great Obi? For charging you jobless youths for his signature on document you need for a job application or for school admissions application? Great “oobi” indeed. “Passionate tales, told by idiots, full of sound and fury signifying nothing” (William Shakespeare).

The Palace he is supposed to be residing has crumbled into rubbles for lack of maintenance. Our valuable artifacts dating back over a thousand years lost, stolen or sold. So to you disconnected sycophants, all hail the mighty king of Abavo!! I am glad that you sycophants do not really represent the face of the real youths of Abavo. Abavo is ashamed of you for singing the praises of a member of your generation who is busy squandering your future. It is not late for you to reconsider your positions and refrain from praising corruption, fraud and absenteeism.

This letter is a call on our conscience to do what is right for our people so that history will judge us kindly.

But what do we do going forward?

As for me, my bounty is as infinite as the sky and I will always be available to receive Uche and his siblings even as they have disrespected me and this Royal family they want to belong.

But to the people of Abavo, they must temper their undue arrogance with absolute humility if they claim to tow the linage of Obi Ekhator Jegbefume II because for my dad, his humility was the terms of endearment with the people of Abavo till today.

The ball is no longer in Uche’s court but in the court of the people of Abavo and it is what the people of Abavo want that I and the rest of the Royal family would abide by. After all, without the Abavo people, the Royal family will not exist. Just like the saying that without the Nile, there is no Egypt. The Royal family of Abavo will not exist without the people of Abavo.

But whatever happens, I fervently pray that the unique Abavo customs, culture, traditions and the once rich and envious heritage be restored in its entirety for posterity.

Thank you all and God Bless you and God Bless Abavo

I am about to tell the Abavo people what they don't like to hear.

I used to get very combative each time non-Abavians, especially the Owa and the Agbor people said it in the past but my opinion against this thinking waned significantly because of my experience during these two years and worsened following our trip home for the immediate past annual conference where some elements in an Abavo group which call themselves "Concerned citizens" took the front row to sabotage what was supposed to a historic conference and an opportunity to address some of Abavo's questions begging for answers.

We are mostly foolish, regardless of our levels of education and societal status even in the face of the worst robbery against us.

We are mostly fond of asking stupid questions even with the answers staring at us in the face.

We are mostly too quick to advance millions of reasons why laudable efforts to change our situation will fail because we don’t want to commit.

We are mostly too quick to worry about money to fight good causes that are capable of improving our living standards because we don’t want to sacrifice anything, but at the same time aspire to build mansions and drive big cars in squalor.

We are mostly too scared to fight back even in the face of the worst abuses or the use of brute force against us.

We are mostly mentally static and as such do not see the reasons to refine our system in line with the dictates of the rapidly changing times.

We are mostly too quick to accept to serve in phony committees that strongly suggest “we versus them” against the ones that have the “we the Abavo people” ingredient in it, even if we know that the motives behind the first are dubious and an outright illegality. The new much talked about nonsensical committee set up by the head of the Abavo Royal illegality is a classical example. The members of the committee are a wholesale reflection of the so-called “concerned citizens” or people who are in one way or the other connected to them.

These are the same people, who sat idly by while our people were being subjected to various forms of abuses, including lies by a ruthless usurper without lifting a finger.

It is therefore not surprising that most if its members have become the agents and mouthpieces of a monumental fraud and illegality in the Abavo Monarchy and also the reason for the failure of the Abavo political class.

My dear brothers and sisters,

I feel highly constrained but with an obsessive compulsive inspiration laden with a deep sense of patriotism for Abavo to write this piece.

I do not need to remind you of the story most of us already know very well and can recite with so much ease even when woken from the deepest slumber, about Abavo, the town we all, hopefully love so much.

Twenty-one years ago, the course of Abavo’s history and destiny was altered when to the bewilderment of the Abavo people, a group of self-serving Abavians injected a devastating legitimacy controversy into the Abavo Royalty in what can be described as the worst brazen assault on the tradition of the Abavo people, especially with reference to the succession pathway of ascension to the headship of the monarchy.

The reason they gave then for denying a legitimate successor who was born within wedlock access to the throne was that his mother was not an Abavo woman and that they needed a full blooded Abavo King in the saddle.  To me and possibly a significant number of Abavo people who watched helplessly while the coup d’état played out, that action was not only discriminatory but an arrogant definition of travesty of justice.

Was that not stupid? What is full blooded Abavians?

So does that mean that my own children born by a Nigerian-American of Igbo extraction are not full blooded Abavians? Those people who concocted that fraud by foisting illegitimacy on the Abavo in 1991 acted without a vision for Abavo and successfully plunged the community into the leadership anarchy that has just gotten worse.

Ok. They had their way. But what do we have today? Is this one a full blooded Abavians? You tell us!

I have never known the Abavo people to be discriminatory or selectively discriminatory to that extent in my entire life but once that precedence had been set, we were supposed to be following it whenever we encounter such a logjam.

This is a nightmare and moral albatross that the Abavo people must address now or will forever remain in this Royal quandary and its attendant odious implications on the future of Abavo and the Abavo people.

Those who live in glass houses must not throw stone.

That ridiculous, obnoxious, odious, despicable and deplorable action by a few powerful individuals then, effectively derailed the Abavo succession plan that has worked very well for the over one thousand years of Abavo’s existence as a Kingdom, setting off a chain of catastrophic reactions; spiritually, culturally, politically, economically and environmentally, putting the Abavo people in jeopardy and making Abavo more vulnerable than ever before in its entire history.

It is interesting to note that the new monarchy did nothing to prove beyond reasonable doubts that they were poised against all odds and expectations of the visibly disturbed Abavo people, to take Abavo to new heights just as the legendary “Askia the Great” of the Old Songhai Empire did when he seized power from the ruling monarchy, making Songhai empire one of the greatest pre-colonial empires in African history.

Instead, they embarked on a serial plundering and looting of Abavo resources at the detriment of the Abavo people who mostly became mentally emasculated for fear of real or potential physical violence actively perpetrated by the ruler and a combined alien mercenary terrorist force with religious and tribal connotations respectively, drawn from Eastern and Northern Nigeria and which has taken over the Abavo Royal Palace, to the exclusion of and against the tradition and norms of the Abavo people. This killer squad now denies legitimate Abavo citizens, including some vocal members of the Royal ancestry, access to the same Royal Palace where they were born and raised. Is it not tragic to be denied access to one’s place of birth by an alien or a foreigner to Abavo?

What is the new Abavo monarchy trying to prove to the Abavo people? So far, they have proved beyond doubts that they anti-Abavo and against the development and progress of Abavo in all ramifications ranging from extortions of market women at the Abavo market to granting autonomy to a federating part of Abavo for the sake of money that would be made from Pan Ocean Oil company. Abavo is currently under siege of a brute colonial regime which has shown the Abavo people that they are not Abavo people and therefore, do not care about the excruciating pains they are taking the Abavo people through in their grab-everything expedition.

The most annoying and most recent assault on the Abavo People occurred when without the consent of the Abavo people, the head of the Abavo monarchy fraudulently sealed a deal with Pan Ocean Oil to commence Oil drilling on Abavo soil with people posing as leaders and members of the executive of the Abavo Clan Union and collecting several unaccounted Millions of Naira in the process. What a fraud known in local parlance as 419? For the avoidance of doubts, Pan Ocean brandishes the images of the Abavo Monarchy and his cohorts signing documents to collect payouts each time they are confronted with the illegalities they are committing against the Abavo people. It won’t be too long before they will be subpoenaed to tender them as evidence in a competent court of law, locally and internationally.

Does he think the Abavo people are stupid?

It is so sad that Abavo, once known as the food basket of Old Midwestern Nigeria and the engine room and fountain of honesty of the Ika nation has become a bastion of squalor, poverty, disease and all forms of criminality that  have  never been seen or heard before.

Abavo is in a tragic leadership crisis that must be addressed now by this generation or we will forever regret it and face an eternal condemnation by future generations for our failure to act in a manner that would ensure a promising roadmap to their future and beyond.

The past few weeks have seen a flurry of an aggressive ill-footed royal diplomatic offensive on the youth population of Abavo on Facebook where friends are currently being conscripted indiscriminately or with reckless abandon from a hide-out in London where all kinds of lies about how Abavo will turn to London overnight, with unlimited access to the internet whose gateway would be MTN cell phone mast illegally erected in residential neighborhood throughout Abavo without a damn understanding of risk of exposure to unsolicited radiation by those who reside in those neighborhood and which has opened a new frontier of legal contest for the Abavo People’s Voice and by extension, the Abavo people.

I was alarmed to read the kind of accolades the pronouncement generated from amongst a predominantly youth population in the group some of whom one would have thought knew something about the environmental and healthcare problems citing a cell phone mast and base station in a residential neighborhood could bring upon the residents by virtue of what they studied in various Schools of higher learning.

Hmmmmm!!! I am really troubled by the naivety of some of our youths and their lack of sense of understanding of the failure of the Abavo system but instead, elect to become blind sycophants of an expansively out-of-touch individual who is abusing the instrument of the Abavo monarchy to squander their future and the proceeds from Abavo resources on the streets of London, Johannesburg and Dubai.

If these are the people on whom the future of Abavo rests, then Abavo will be in deep hot water and would be sold for less than its actual value.

But gladly enough, I find solace in the fact that these few but profoundly ignorant youths truly do not represent the faces of the real Abavo youths some of whom I have worked very closely with on the platform of the Abavo People’s Voice and beyond, in our effort to bring Abavo back into contention from a forced oblivion.

The Abavo youth that I knew growing up was one who;

-          Trusted himself

-          Thought for himself

-          Acted for himself

-          Spoke for himself

-          Was himself at all times, with a background knowledge and understanding that imitation was suicidal.

I love the youths for the energy they exude if positively and constructively channeled for the good of any community.

Any community that wishes to remain relevant must pay a particular attention to its youth population or risk being imperiled and this is exactly what we want Abavo to avoid as we are aware of the disconnect that exists between the Abavo youth and the Abavo’s older generation. It is this disconnection that has created the youth identity crisis which has been severally been taken advantage of by  groups such as a Muslim group which came and recruited Abavo youngsters into a strange form of Islam with the active connivance of again the Abavo monarchy and were taken to Maiduguri, Borno state to brainwash into what looks like the deadly Boko Haram sect which has become Nigeria’s latest Achilles’ hill as a good number of the kids stopped going to school once they returned home.

 The urgent need to correct this disconnects and our vision to make Abavo Great again, was one of the reasons the Abavo People’s Voice came into existence.

In the effort to nurse Abavo back to the path of recovery, we expect the youths to;

-          Trust themselves

-          Think for themselves

-          Act for themselves

-          Speak for themselves

-          Must be themselves at all times; understand that imitation could become suicidal in some cases.

The Abavo People’s Voice was founded partly to put the Abavo youths on a good footing that would prepare them for a future that would hold a promise for them and the next generation. Do not allow anyone tell you anything to the contrary. You can be their friends but you must not allow yourselves to be used to rob the Abavo people as there will be long term consequences for you, for me, for every Abavo person and for generations unborn.

Some Abavo people have set aside the comfort they enjoy in their various places of domicile, created time and put their resources on the line to champion this compelling rescue effort to save our fatherland and as such demand of you and other Abavo people to stand up for their rights instead of acting like clowns, sycophants and hypocrites that an insignificant few of us have understandably become in recent times.

Abavo has a choice to make and we expect the youths as well as other Abavo people to gear up for a resolute journey into a new Abavo which will have no room for corruption, deceit, fraud and tyranny by anyone or group of people who may think that Abavo is their plantation to do as they please.

I am therefore using this to formally invite any of you who have a passion for Abavo without expecting anything in return to become a member of the Abavo People’s Voice if you have not already done so.

Conquer fear as the force massing behind you is as great as that of the biblical Jehoshaphat who won a mighty battle while his men stood still.

Abavo will rise out of this ash and become great again.

God bless you

God bless Abavo

Smart M. Ajaja