Tag: Prof Sunny Awheafada

When An Ogborigbo Visited My Household

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By Sunny Awhefeada,   When I was planning what my residence would look like, I explained to the architect that I would want a number of small gardens and then a grove behind the house. I had envisaged a mini-forest behind my house where I could retreat from the buffetings of life without having to wander far. So upon completion of the house eleven years ago, I set to planting fruit trees that have now grown and turned a portion of my residence into a grove. Besides providing shelter and…

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Urhobo, Biafra, Oduduwa And The Sins Of Old

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  By Sunny Awhefeada That Nigeria is tending towards centrifugalism is only not realized by those who are numb and insensitive to the reality of the moment. What began as a call for adherence to the ideals and tenets of federalism from the Niger Delta states at the onset of the present millennium took on different modes of agitation that even culminated in armed struggle ala militancy. Two national conferences took place in 2005 and 2014 respectively. Then the buzzword restructuring took over and it is now being substituted by…

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Opinion: FUPRE, A Dream Delayed Or Denied?

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  By Sunny Awhefeada     The Federal University of Petroleum Resources, (FUPRE), Effurun, Delta State was founded in 2007 and it caught news headline as Nigeria’s nay Africa’s first specialised university, dedicated to the study of petroleum resources.   The idea of FUPRE was novel and many thought that in no distant time the university will take its place in the global commune of scholarship, technological innovation and economic advancement. Since it bears the imprimatur of petroleum, which spews forth dollars, many had imagined that the university will approximate…

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Those Who Cook Isha Have Died

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  By Sunny Awhefeada,   Kokori in the Agbon clan of the Urhobo ethnic nationality of Delta State holds a great attraction for me. Kokori is my maternal homestead. Kokori is also a place of history among the Urhobo people and beyond. Kokori attained something close to global visibility through Ubiesha Etakpo who founded the Igbe religion in the 18th century. Kokori is home to the late Justice Ayo Irikefe, former Chief Justice of Nigeria. Kokori birthed Chief Rex Akpofure, first African Principal of Kings College, Lagos. Kokori sired the…

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URM and the Future of the Urhobo

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By Sunny Awhefeada   Come Tuesday 1 st October 2019, the Urhobo Renaissance Movement (URM) will rally the Urhobo people to its inaugural public outing in what promises to be a redirection for one of Nigeria’s most resourceful and dynamic ethnic nationalities. The highlight of the event is a lecture titled “A Renaissance in the Urhobo Nation and the Quest for Leadership” to be delivered by frontline Law scholar, Professor Joseph Abugu of the University of Lagos. The URM has existed as a virtual gathering of Urhobo sons and daughters…

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If Only The Road Could Wail

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By Sunny Awhefeada The present intervention owes its title to Niyi Osundare’s If Only the Road Could Talk, a collection of sublime poems engendered by his minstrelsy peregrination. Osundare, the master poet and philosopher, rethinks and reworks metaphors and myths to create an alluring tapestry of poetic experience which put Africa, Asia and Europe in one long and memorable cartographic canvass. Lyricized and romanticized in the poems that populate the pages of the collection are people and places to which the road brings the bard. The road is the nexus…

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A Nation Without Roads

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By Sunny Awhefeada, The road constitutes a metaphor of life’s journey for Africans. It is central to the configuration and understanding of the metaphysical nexus between the abode of the dead and that of the living which we call life. The metaphoric and metaphysical essence of the road also mediates life’s journey and its uncertain twists and turns. The road is benign as it connects people and places. The road is also cruel as it has thrown people and places into mourning. The road consumes humanity. It engenders loss. African…

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