Professor Igho Natufe. Photo/Starconnectmedia
Professor Omajuwa Igho Natufe is a high quality Nigerian political scientist who has been in exile for long years which only he can accurately give a precise period or duration – or account of “ to our pleasure or displeasure. Two Wednesdays ago, that is, precisely on Wednesday, March 20, 2024, he entered the octogenarian starting point.
In other words, on Wednesday of this said day or date he was providentially admitted into the octogenary circle and cycle as a circler and cycler. This is no mean feat especially for a Nigerian who by choice is living all alone without his blood relations, wife or partner (?) and friends who are friends in a foreign land that happens to be the white mans land. Our subject has the feats of strength and of wisdom as well as of intelligence to get to where he has gotten to in the Diaspora.
This, however, is not why the columnist is exalting or adoring him today. Professor Natufe, an original Safarian, that is, an original Sapele denizen and fellow who was born, significantly bred and nurtured in this coastal city of cities, that once meant so much to our erstwhile white colonisers, has in all his years of voluntary exile been in touch with his roots. He never permanently turned his back on Nigeria and Okpe-land and Itsekiri-land “ his respective paternal land and maternal land, but particularly the former which he serves steadily, efficiently, remarkably and patriotically without question and without blemish as president-general world-wide of the Okpe Union (the first and foremost cultural organisation of Okpe people world-wide) as per his explicitly inspirational electoral victory sanctioned by rule of law.
Every consistently creative, critical and inspirational and patriotic reader of this every Friday column would easily recognise that Professor Omajuwa Igho Natufe has until very recently been a regular (or quasi-regular) contributor to ideas, among those of other contributors, that stimulate and illuminate this column and help it to flourish. His contributions, or, better, his suggestions, lay claim to courageous and objective truth which illustrated his radical and positively rebellious mien and mind. At no time would you not see him as an angel or arch-angel of objectivity whose radical or rebellious action was never taken to achieve any compelling political end or goal that is dangerously selfish to satisfy his personal urge.
He reads my column and other columnists in diverse newspapers, Nigerian or non-Nigerian, but especially Nigerian newspapers (in addition to his core academic/intellectual studies) in order to be broad-minded enough in his assessment of the Nigerian condition in the endeavour to advise honestly his Okpe people and non-Okpe comrades on the way forward in his country and region in the land “ his country and region, your country and region, my country and region, our country and region.
At 80 years of age two Wednesdays ago, as already said, Professor Igho Natufe still struck me in his combination of very whitey-grey and white bear beard, reminiscent of numerous Marxists, as a personage of actively active, alertly alert intellect whose possessor is not a false preacher and teacher of what he preaches and teaches. His theory of culture and of politics is densely and richly patriotic, and is not in any way based on deception or myths of vindictiveness or of aggression or illusions of self-glorification or omnipotence as president-general of Okpe Union world-wide or as a NADECO chieftain in the Diaspora.
As a matter of fact, as I am writing this, he is seriously coordinating “ if I am using the right word “ now the NADECO Committee on a new constitution that NADECO is patriotically proposing to the presidency and relevant body of law makers in Nigeria for patriotically selfless consideration. This will be after NADECO will meet to consider diligently pertinent submissions from invited representatives of all ethnic groups from the most minor to the most major. As far as I know, equity, fairness, justice and other positives shall be the guiding principles and watch-words and key-words of the envisaged NADECO submission that shall be fully divorced from any propagandistic and manipulative trap of obvious conservative danger and glaring radical pragmatism.
The intended constitution shall and must save Nigeria of (further) human cost of blood and destruction. Falsification, distortion, cut-throat combat of any kind shall and must cease to be aspects of our human reality in Nigeria. But I am merely thinking aloud.
I shall glorify Professor Omajuwa Igho Natufe if he and his eminent NADECO philosophers and comrades and fellow Awoists can help Nigeria and truthfully interpret and re-interpret Nigeria and give us the country of our earthly dream and explicit human reality. Nigeria is over-ripe for change that is change.
Now I must focus, albeit briefly, on why I am really doing this brief essay on the glorification of Igho Natufe. Sometime ago, I read something which he and some Okpe patriots jointly authored regarding Okpe people who they claimed (with infallibly persuasive argument) as a distinct ethnic group in Delta State of the Niger Delta. The tendered argument, to all intents and purposes, was/is that Okpe people are not Urhobo. They are rather a unique ethnic group as Itsekiri, Ijaw, Isoko, Igbo, Ukwani (whom I called Kwale until I was rightly corrected), and Benin, etc., etc. I did a column to this effect, and I got several calls/responses from distant places, including England (where some Okpe chiefs/persons expressed their gratitude to me.
But my concerning concern (which I am sure I didnt state before now) has always been this: How come core Urhobo-speaking persons/groups dont speak or understand Okpe language (or dialect)? And why is it that Okpe-speaking people understand and speak Urhobo with relish? Most importantly, why is it that at this point in time Professor Igho Natufe is embarking on what I should call here his and his groups linguistic nationalism? Without waiting for Professor Igho Natufe to do me an answer, let me for his and his groups education/edification quote these words of Ngugi Wa Thiongo, the famous Kenyan novelist, short story writer, playwright and literary and cultural critic: If you know all the languages of the world and you dont know your mother tongue, or the language of your culture, that is enslavement.
Clearly, before he closes his eyes forever Professor Igho Natufe wants to help to liberate his Okpe people from the stranglehold and enslavement of political and cultural imperialism “ internal or external. Am I right? Whatever the case may be Professor Omajuwa Igho Natufe, as he enters his new circle and cycle deserves this glorification that is his glorification which I yield him in the twilight of his humble but significantly significant accomplishments which I am deliberately not dwelling on in arousing and engagingly engaging manner as I should have done here and now and now. Why is this so? The columnist refrains from answering this question, at least for now.
To be concluded.
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