Uwakeno: Orugboh fires back, says Stephen Ajueyitsi is not the head of Egire Family

The embattled Trust Chairman of Uwakeno Community in Warri South Local Government Area, Delta State, Mr. Fidelis Ete Orugboh, has responded to the letter purportedly written by the Egire Family of Uwakeno Community to David Olumami Akiuyatsemi, with the imprimatur of Stephen Ajueyitsi, saying: “Pa. Dele Urowayino is the most senior man and head of the Egire family and not Stephen Ajueyitsi. Stephen Ajueyitsi is a man without integrity and he is not Secretary to the Elders Council as claimed”.

Recall that the Egire Family of Uwakeno, had in a letter addressed to Mr. David Olumami Akiuyatsemi and made available to This Newspaper, yesterday, Thursday April 7, said Fidelis Ete Orugboh, “has ceased to act as the family (Egiri) representative”.

In the letter dated March 25, 2022, copying the Olu of Warri, His Imperial Majesty, Ogiame Atuwatse III, the Egire Family of Uwakeno Community, stressed: “MR. FIDELIS ETE ORUGBOH is no longer the representative of Egire Family of Uwakeno Community. He has ceased to act as the family representative”.

In a swift reaction via a detailed signed statement, sent to Fresh Angle International, today, Friday April 8, Mr. Orugboh, emphasized: “I am the incumbent Chairman of Uwakeno Community. My Chairmanship position is not based on any form of recommendation from the Egire family. In our usual norms, Uwakeno Community can be represented by any accredited person or group of persons from the two families (Egire and Osigidi) provided both families are adequately recognized and properly carried along”.

Mr. Orugboh further explained: “In Uwakeno Community, there is nowhere or has there been any situation that would warrant the nomination or recommendation of any Egire family or Osigidi family member to represent a family. Therefore, apart from me being the Community Trust Chairman, one would imagine the particular position I am currently occupying that they would want me to relinquish. It will interest the general public to know that the only money that has ever been shared to me as the trust Chairman since 2020 is N9,000 and I have spent well over N2,000,000.00 in keeping the Community going.

“I have never occupied the Uwakeno Secretary position for 16 years as claimed, rather, I Fidelis Orugboh, the incumbent Trust Chairman of Uwakeno Community and Mayomi Boyitie, the immediate past Trust Chairman, amongst other well-meaning leaders of the community, woke up to revive the community when it was abandoned for over 10 years after the infamous Warri crisis. I was only secretary to the OML-150 Communities’ Consultative Forum for a single 4-year term, not 8 years as he claimed. And I was never nominated by the Egire family, but was nominated by the entire community.

“I, Fidelis Ete Orugboh and Mayomi Boyitie, gathered money to clear and recover the entire community when it was terribly bushy, without human inhabitants and we/I, further fought to ensure that the State government provide housing units for the community. The housing units were all personally built by me and I single handedly fought and prevail on the State government to build a modern community town hall. The said Town Hall, was also personally supervised and built by me. As it stands now, Uwakeno Community Town Hall, is the most beautiful Town Hall in the whole of OML-150 Field and all is born out of my desire to develop and uplift the community. Yet the people are writing to pull me down, because they have a chief in the Palace, who is assisting them.

“It is pertinent to add that before now, the unhallowed practice in Uwakeno Community was that, in every executive body (Council of Elders, Trust exco, BoT and the youth body) formed, the Egire Family would always be just one person amongst all the Osigidis on ratio 9:1, meaning for every nine Osigidi family members in an exco, one Egire family member will be admitted i.e out of ten executive members, there will be only one Egire family member admitted, even though Egire is the eldest and none of them, including the Stephen Ajueyitsi, were able to fight for the adequate representation of the Egire family, not until Mayomi Boyitie (Osigidi family) emerged as the Trust Chairman and my humble self as the Trust Secretary, woke up to correct the anomaly. Instead of honouring us, they are coming to the public to disown a man, who had made lots of enemies, because of them. What a shame and betrayal of trust.

“Based on the aforesaid, Mr. Mayomi Boyitie led Trust executive and with my humble self as Secretary, adequately brought the Egires into all the leadership organs in the community and that was what brought about the hatred and anger from some members of the Osigidi family, who do not want Egire to be part of the community activities. There was one occasion where a case was instituted against me for bringing too much names of Egire family members into the money shared in the community and the case was called by Madam Akima Umuko.

“The Egires fighting to pull me down from whatever representative capacity of which I don’t know of, are the same people I brought into the Uwakeno system to nurture them to the level of leadership they are now. This we did, because we thought they will be our back in times of trouble, to always uphold our community norms and defend us, but they rather prefer to do the opposite due to envy and strong jealousy”.

×