- National Coordinator of Niger Delta Grassroots Organization, NDGO, Itsekiri-born Comrade Weyinmi Olley says alternate plans should ensure crowning Olu Designate, Tsola Emiko, on schedule and not allow search for the missing sacred crown to set Warri Kingdom back.
Olley spoke to newsmen in Warri, Friday, against the background of probe by the police in Zone 5 headquarters in Benin towards recovering the missing crown. Reports say the keys to the room where the gold and silver crowns and other paraphernalia were kept have been found.
“Instead of thoughts of retrieving the missing crown for the forthcoming but imminent enstoolment, I think we should have commenced alternative plans towards crowning the Olu Designate, Tsola Emiko, on schedule. We do not know the extent the physical crown has traveled and what has been done to it. We should leave the stealers of the crown to the handling of God and our ancestors who can imbue a new crown with the potency and wisdom the throne needs”, Olley said
The activist argued that “the continuing search for the important and sacred crown was embarrassing to the Itsekiri nation. The police case may run the knife deeper through the Itsekiri nationhood in divisions not needed now”.
Addressing concerns that the crown was sacred and ancient, about 400 years and so needed to be recovered, Olley said: “The Itsekiri nation and the monarchy is older than the 400 years old physical but sacred crown. So it is not the first crown of Warri kingdom. It is the head that wears the crown that makes the crown. Whenever those crowns are found, they can enrich our archives”.
Olley appealed to the Itsekiri leaders to work hard at reconciling aggrieved parties in the succession crisis including “lifting suspension of Ologbotsere Ayirimi Emami” towards uniting the Itsekiri nation under the new king