Revisiting Customary Tenancy: Legal and Historical Clarifications on Ogbe-Ijoh and Gbaramatu
There is a recurring tactic in historical and legal disputes, when facts are weak, selective citations are weaponized. That is precisely what is being attempted with the careless invocation of a few colonial-era cases, stripped of context, exaggerated beyond their scope and presented as if they constitute a final and universal truth.
They do not.
What is being advanced is not law. It is a distortion of law. What is being projected is not history. It is a reconstruction of history designed to serve a predetermined narrative.
To properly address this, one must do what those advancing these claims have deliberately avoided, examine the cases carefully, understand their scope and place them within the broader framework of superior judicial authority and historical reality.
The repeated reliance on Suit W/116/56 and Suit W/148/56 reveals a fundamental misunderstanding or a deliberate misrepresentation of how judicial decisions operate.
These cases, decided in the 1950s, were not constitutional declarations on the ownership of all Warri lands. They were limited disputes between specific parties over defined parcels of land, adjudicated under a colonial legal environment that often failed to fully capture indigenous land tenure systems.
In Suit W/116/56, where Justice Obaseki is said to have granted possessory title over Aruteghan Creek, the operative word is “possessory”, not absolute ownership of all Warri territory. Possessory title in law is inherently limited, it does not equate to sovereign ownership over all surrounding lands, nor does it automatically reduce neighboring communities into tenants.
Similarly, Suit W/148/56, involving Chief Isuokumo Oloiki, has been grossly overstretched beyond its actual legal meaning. The withdrawal of claims by litigants in that case cannot be transformed into a permanent legal extinction of the rights of all Ijaw people. Courts adjudicate disputes between parties before them, they do not legislate for entire ethnic nationalities across time.
The suggestion that the 1967 Supreme Court decision “permanently barred” the Ijaws of Ogbe-Ijoh from asserting ownership is not only misleading, it is a profound misstatement of legal principle. Even the highest court cannot extinguish the ancestral rights of a people beyond the scope of the specific case before it. Such an interpretation violates the very structure of adjudication.
More critically, these colonial-era decisions cannot be elevated above later, superior and binding judicial authorities.
The Privy Council decision in Ometan v. Dore Numa (1926) is often conveniently ignored because it does not support the narrative of Itsekiri propaganda. In that case, the highest appellate court of the colonial era rejected claims of centralized Itsekiri authority over other groups. That judgment alone fundamentally weakens the theory of a unified Itsekiri sovereignty over Warri.
Even more decisive is the pronouncement of the Supreme Court of Nigeria in Shell v. Tiebo VII (1996) 4 NWLR (Pt. 445) 657. In that case, the Supreme Court clarified the nature of land ownership in the Niger Delta and rejected claims of external overlordship over Ijaw lands. This is a modern, binding authority, far more authoritative than mid-20th century trial court decisions.
To rely on older, limited and context-bound cases while ignoring later Supreme Court authority is not legal reasoning. It is selective advocacy.
The so-called Gbaramatu cases cited, from 1946, 1962, and 1973, suffer from the same flaw. They were specific disputes over defined lands, not declarations of universal subordination. The attempt to generalize those rulings into a blanket statement that all Gbaramatu Ijaws are tenants is an unjustifiable leap and foolishness.
Customary tenancy, in its proper legal meaning, arises from a voluntary grant of land and acknowledgment of overlordship. It is not imposed by litigation, nor can it be extended to entire kingdoms without evidence of such consent. No credible historical or cultural record exists where the Ijaw kingdoms of Ogbe-Ijoh or Gbaramatu collectively acknowledged the Olu of Warri as their landlord.
Without consent, there is no tenancy.
Without acknowledgment, there is no overlordship.
Beyond the courtroom, history itself refuses to support these claims.
Long before colonial courts existed, long before these suits were filed, the Ijaw people were firmly established in the Warri riverine axis. The account of Duarte Pacheco Pereira in 1485, documenting his interaction with the Ijos of Escravos and Forcados, places the Ijaw presence centuries before the institutional emergence of the Itsekiri monarchy or the Olu.
This is not folklore. It is recorded observation.
Even British colonial administrative records, often cited selectively, affirm that Warri was inhabited by multiple groups. The Colonial Office Report (CSO 26/Vol. 6/08549, 1927) did not describe a single overlordship structure. It described coexistence.
The concept of “radical title” attributed to the Olu of Warri must also be examined critically.
Radical title, in law, is not an abstract claim floating above reality. It must be supported by actual control, recognition and historical legitimacy. A ruler who does not exercise authority over a people cannot logically claim foundational ownership over their lands.
The Olu of Warri does not appoint leaders in Ogbe-Ijoh.
He does not govern Gbaramatu.
He does not adjudicate disputes within those kingdoms.
To then claim radical title over them is to assert ownership without authority, a contradiction in itself.
What emerges, when all the noise is stripped away, is a simple truth:
The cases cited do not establish what they are claimed to establish.
The law does not support the conclusions being drawn.
History does not validate the narrative being promoted.
Ogbe-Ijoh remains an ancient and independent Ijaw kingdom.
Gbaramatu remains an ancient and independent Ijaw kingdom.
They are not derivatives of any other authority.
They are not tenants.
They are not subjects.
This attempt to construct a sweeping claim of Itsekiri overlordship over Warri is not grounded in comprehensive legal reasoning or historical accuracy. It is built on fragments, selectively chosen, heavily stretched, and confidently misrepresented.
But fragments do not make truth.
Let the record be set straight, once and for all:
There is no and has never valid legal basis for declaring the Ijaw kingdoms of Ogbe-Ijoh and Gbaramatu as customary tenants to the Itsekiri.
There is no historical foundation for such a claim.
There is no binding judicial authority that supports it in the sweeping manner being asserted.
What exists instead is a shared geography, a complex history of coexistence and a legal reality that does not support domination by one group over others.
And no matter how often the contrary is repeated, it will not become fact.
Because truth, unlike propaganda, does not require repetition to stand.
Signed:
Chief Tiemopere Joshua ~ President
Chief Ebikeme T. Goodstime ~ Secretary
Stakeholders of Warri Federal Constituency for Truth and Justice