Ordinarily, Warri is not a name of a town. Rather, it is the name of a kingdom, the Warri Kingdom, the Itsekiri homeland, founded by Ginuwa 1, son of Oba Olua of Benin, about 1480 AD. The kingdom embraces all Itsekiri towns, communities, and villages from, in, and around the Benin and Warri Rivers right down to Escravos/Ugborodo and environs. The traditional capital of the kingdom (Ode-Itsekiri) was thus known as Warri (after the name of the kingdom) and in later years when the new township that is now referred to as Warri emerged, became known as, and is still widely known as, Big Warri – depicting the relative sizes and importance then of the capital and the new township. The size of the developed portion of Ode Itsekiri (Big Warri) today, compared to the township now referred to as Warri, must make anyone that is not apprised of the historical background wonder as to why the otherwise remote and largely rural community of Ode Itsekiri will be regarded as “big” whilst the larger township is impliedly referred to as “small”. The fact, however, is that life started out there in Ode-Itsekiri when the Warri township of today did not even exist. Thus, and only thus, is it that Ode Itsekiri is referred to as Big Warri even today by all and sundry. In the face of contrary claims as to the origin of the word “Warri”, a fact worthy of note is that Ode-Itsekiri would never have been called Big Warri by the Itsekiri themselves if the word “Warri” were by any stretch of the imagination of a foreign lexicon.
In its formative years, Warri township began with some Itsekiri communities that sprung up in the ensuing expansion of the Warri Kingdom sequel to the founding of that kingdom about 1480 AD. These communities – Okere (comprising the five Itsekiri quarters of Odekporo, Idimi Jakpa, Ode-Ile, Ogunobite and Ajamimogha, and an Urhobo quarter of Idimi-Sobo), Alders Town, Ugbuwangwe, Ekurede, Ugbori, Odion, Merogun, etc., – were later joined by the Agbassa, an Urhobo group that came in from Agbarha Kingdom subsequently. The Agbassa also later spread from their initial locale in the township, Ub’umale (also referred to as Agbassa to date and was and remains the site of their shrine) to form the Edjeba, Igbudu, Ekurede-Urhobo, and Ogunu communities in the township.
With the exception of Okere, which was founded by Ekpen, a Benin war general in 1497, and by extension, those other communities founded by his grandson, Ogitsi-Ekpen and his descendants in the initial years before their assimilation and acculturation by the Warri Kingdom, there is and never has been any area of this township that was not part of “Warri”, i.e. Warri Kingdom, as recorded lavishly in history. It is the existence of the kingdom that foisted the name “Warri” on this amalgam of communities as, being more hinterland relative to other parts of the kingdom, it acquired commercial significance and more and more people from far and near moved in to settle. The same is true for cities like Benin, Lagos, Calabar, or Port Harcourt where lesser known communities have been subsumed in the general description of what is now known as Benin, Lagos, Calabar, or Port Harcourt. In the case of Warri, the real Warri town as such was Big Warri, otherwise known as Ode-Itsekiri.
Thus the Warri township of today is and has always been comprised of separate, smaller communities founded separately by Ekpen (the Benin war General on the trail of Ginuwa 1) and his descendants, and by Princes who migrated from Ode-Itsekiri in later years, as well as the Urhobo communities that emerged subsequently. Each of these communities always had their own names.
From the foregoing, the indigenous ethnic groups/tribes of Warri township are the Itsekiri and Urhobo of Agbassa stock as well as the Urhobo of Idimi-Sobo (aka Udumu-Sobo or in modern times Okere-Uhrobo).
The Urhobos also inhabit the more hinterland areas of Effurun, Ekpan and Enerhen in Uvwie Local Government Area, as well as Udu in Udu Local Government Area. Close-by Ijaw communities like Isaba and Ogbe-Ijoh are across the Warri River in Warri South West Local Government Area.
Non-Indigenous groups abound in the township like in most other cities the world over. So, there are other Urhobo people from further hinterland areas like Agbarho, Ughelli, Eku, Abraka, etc., Ijaw from Burutu, Forcados, Bomadi, Patani in Delta State, and from Bayelsa and Rivers States, Igbos from East of the Niger, Hausas from the North, Yoruba from the West and the Edos from the neighboring Edo State amongst others. There is also a sizable expatriate community in the employ of the thriving oil and gas industry for which the township serves as headquarter west of the Niger. Warri is thus a town bustling with activity, and it is the diversity of her people that make it so. For a town its size, it is a remarkable place to experience.
A brief history of the towns and communities that make up the township of Warri follows.
OKERE
Okere is situated at the heart of Warri township. It was founded in the 1497 AD by a war general from the Benin Kingdom, Ekpenede (Ekpen for short), and his army, sent after the entourage of Prince Ginuwa by angry Bini chiefs whose first sons formed Ginuwa’s entourage. They had not been privy to Oba Olua’s plot to have his son found a new kingdom. Exhausted from their long quest and finding that the prince had established himself as king in a new kingdom, Ekpen was compelled to end his chase and settle before the river in a place the Itsekiri people christened “Okere” in reference to the depleted size of his army. He is said to have planted his staff in the center of the new community with the invocation, “Ogungbaja Okere Odola”, literally meaning that war will never come to Okere. This staff grew into tree and stands majestically at the Okere Market junction today as a major historical landmark.
Ekpen later returned to Benin with his first son, Obayagbon, leaving the headship (Olare Aja or Ogieboro) of his newfound community to his grandson, Ogitisi-Ekpen. The community as at then comprised of five Itsekiri sub-communities or quarters, viz. Odekporo, Ogunobite, Ajamimogha, Idimi Jakpa and Ode Ile. Some 150 years or so later, the Idimi-Sobo sub-community was established following the arrival of some Urhobo in-laws of the fourth Ogieboro, Arunkuneyi. The in-laws were fleeing their homeland, Okpare, due to internecine strife there to their mother’s village, Ugbokodo, but stopped over in Okere to greet their sister, Idiboye, one of the Ogieboro’s wives. At their sister’s behest, they were allowed to stay in Okere.
The people of Idimi-Sobo have in recent times sought to prise themselves off the Okere community following a Supreme Court judgement in 1976 which gave them possessory title to some 281.1 acres of land in Idimi-Sobo which they now prefer to refer to as Okere Urhobo clan or kingdom. [See the THE STORY OF OKERE Page of this Blog for more details]
The Okere people have a major annual cultural festival known as the “Awankere” festival, popularly known as “Okere Juju”. It takes place over a period of five weeks between July and August each year taking up one successive day of the each week for a total of five outings. It is fertility and purification festival, a joyous occasion with lots of fun and entertainment with visitors and tourists from across the country and beyond in attendance, particularly at the final outing. Outside the shrines, participation is literally open to all comers throughout the festival.
AGBASSA (AGBARHA)
Agbassa was founded some time in the 18th century by some indigenes of Agbarha-otor who had moved away from home prompted also by some internecine conflicts there. Their nucleus was a place called Ub’umale, popularly known as Agbassa. From there, as their numbers grew through further migration of their kith and kin and by procreation, some of the more affluent families moved out in subsequent years to form other Agbarha communities in the township. These communities include Edjeba, Igbudu, Ekurede-Urhobo and part of Ogunu.
The Agbarha-Urhobo of Warri township have an annual festival popularly known as “Agbassa Juju”. It is held about April/May every other year and participation cuts across all their communities. The festival features rituals and dance with lots of clanging of machetes by male youths such as would compel onlookers to watch from safe distances!
UGBUWANGWE
Ugbuwangwe is an Itsekiri community and host community of the Federal Government College, Warri and the Nigerian Ports Authority, operators of the Warri Ports complex.
Ugbuwangwe was founded by Prince Yonwuren, one of the sons of Ogiame Akengbuwa I, an Olu of Warri. A secondary school by the founder’s name exists in the community.
ALDERS TOWN, PESSU TOWN AND ODION
These are Itsekiri communities founded by descendants of Ogitsi-Ekpen of Okere in the 16th and 17th centuries. One striking feature in these communities is the architecture of some of their storey buildings. The oldest storey buildings in the metropolis stand here – archeological testimonies that they were here before the others in other parts of the township that only opened up within the last half century.
UBEJI & EKPAN
These communities host the refinery and petrochemical complexes in Warri township.
Ubeji is an Itsekiri community founded by Egharegbami, the Iyatsere to Ogiame Akengbuwa I, the Olu of Warri about 1810. Egharegbami’s son, Emebi, later joined by some Urhobo folks from Effurun, founded the adjoining town of Tori which was later re-christened Ekpan.
The siting of the refinery and petrochemical complexes as well as the Nigeria Gas company in these areas carried the frontiers of Warri township to these communities thus absorbing them in the vortex of activity and movement that is Warri and opening them up for development.
UGBORI AND EKUREDE
Ugbori and Ekurede are Itsekiri communities. Ugbori was founded by Prince Ewolufun, the sixth son of Ogiame Akengbuwa I, the Olu of Warri in the 19th century, while Ekurede is said to have been founded by one Oforodu. Between Ajamimogha in Okere, Ugbori and Ekurede lies the palace grounds of the Olu of Warri.
LANGUAGES IN WARRI
Consistent with the indigenous people of Warri Township, i.e. the Itsekiri, the Agbarha-Urhobo and Idimi-Sobo Urhobo, the local languages of the township are Itsekiri and Urhobo. However, diverse other tribes have come to settle in the area for many years now already; so, there is a proliferation of languages which underscores the fact of the town being indeed a metropolis.
The Itsekiri are a mono-ethnic group and speak the Itsekiri language, a language akin to that of the Yoruba but which is unique in its own right having a blend of words from the various languages of groups of people that migrated to the area in the pre-kingdom years as well as from the Portuguese with whom the people traded in the kingdom years.
The Agbarha Urhobo speak an Urhobo dialect akin to that of their kith and kin in Agbarho in Ughelli North Local Government Area. The Urhobo of Idimi-Sobo in Okere (aka Udumu-Urhobo), speak the same dialect although Itsekiri used to be the lingua franca amongst them until recent years.
By virtue of colonial heritage, the official, formal and second language to all and sundry across the breadth of Nigeria is the British English language. It is no crime, however, to throw in some American slangs here and there, provided you are not writing an English language examination!
As mentioned earlier, several other languages could be heard along the streets of Warri township. Chief among these are the Uvwie dialect of the Urhobo language spoken by the people of the adjoining communities of Effurun and Ekpan in Uvwie Local Government Area, as well as Isoko which is spoken by the Isoko people from the Isoko Local Government Areas and Okpe spoken by people of the Okpe Local Government Areas. Igbo language is relatively common, and Yoruba to a lesser extent. One would hear the Hausa language spoken in and around the Hausa Quarter area in Igbudu, off the Warri/Sapele trunk road. And one is also certain to hear the Ijaw language spoken particularly around the waterfronts and jetties where traders from the riverine Ijaw towns, and villages like Burutu, Forcados, Ogbe-Ijoh, etc. carry out their trade.
People from all of these ethnic groups and many more have intermingled with the indigenes over the years and taken up residency in the township, thus giving it a peculiar intensiveness, and character – a city of a potpourri a peoples, of hustle and bustle that births a certain abrasiveness and daring – a character that has earned the township the unenviable epithet of “Area” so popular among comedians, most of whom are not even resident in, let alone indigenous to, the township. An offshoot of the “Area” epithet is the term “Warri boy” or “Warri girl” by which persons living in the general area of the township unwittingly and ironically pride themselves, particularly as some form of implicit threat in potential conflictual situations as in, “No try me o; I be Warri boy o”, “Warri no dey carry last!”, etc.
This “character” of the township finds unique expression in the pidgin English that is common to all and sundry in the area regardless of tribe, ethnic group, age or gender, educated or uneducated! It is intuitively understood and spoken from the first unto the third and fourth generations! The language even has its own word for pidgin! They call it “brokin” – a word derived from the English word “broken” but spelt and pronounced with an “i” rather than an “e” – and therewith you have the meaning of the word “brokin“! It is, literally, broken English language in that it is spoken with no inhibition or pretense as to correctness in any respect; it is broken, brokin! This basic feature makes the language a particularly dynamic one as it opens the floodgates for innovativeness, coinage of new words, phrases, and idioms by all and sundry. And these new expressions somehow find their way into the mainstream and gain currency with astounding rapidity without them having to be announced or taught. And the language purges and replenishes itself too. Just as new words and expressions can be formed, so can words or expressions that have become “cliches” be universally dropped overnight without announcement or teaching. The language suffers not the monotony and drudgery of clichés! If one leaves the town for even a couple of months, one will on return need to get one’s ears to the ground and listen hard to get up to speed again. New words would have been introduced and some erstwhile favorite ones dropped!
Warri Township is the universally acknowledged fountain and world capital of pidgin English, aka brokin. From here, it spreads across the country and abroad and from here it is replenished. In some sense, it seems like there is some poetic justice in this pidgin English, this brokin. Maybe the British will have learnt by now not to inflict their language on other people!
WARRI PEOPLE 