– Indigenes of Warri are seeking establishment of a university exclusively owned and controlled by Itsekiri people
– The group seeking the establishment visited the palace of the Olu of Warri seking his blessing for the establishment of the university
– The monarch gave his blessing to the group and pledged to mobilised for funds from all agencies in the Warri environ
A group under the aegis of Concerned Iwere People for Higher Education has approached the Olu of Warri, HRM, Ogiame Ikenwoli, asking for his support to establish an Itsekiri owned university in Warri, the oil city of Delta state.
The Olu of Warri, Ogiame Ikenwoli, gave his blessing to the university. He promised to mobilised agencies and companies in Warri to pull resources for the takeoff of the university
The group of lecturers led by one Professor Nelson Omatseye was at the palace of the Olu to give his blessing to the ongoing effort by members of Warri academia who are desirous of the move to establish the university in Itsekiri community.
Prof. Omatseye told the Olu that the establishment of the university was necessary following the challenge that Itsekiri students seeking admission to higher education were either rejected or pushed to faculties they did not ask for because Itsekiri are the only ones who neither own nor control any university in their homeland.
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Omatseye said: “Our Urhobo neighbours own and control three universities. Ijaw control one, E.K. Clark University, Kiagbodo. Itsekiri PhD or Masters’ degree holders seeking employment as lecturers are either rejected or dribbled with counterparts from favoured nationalities getting employed.”
Omatseye disclosed that the proposed University of Warri had already been offered a 160,000 acres site by Obitugbo community, Warri North local government area, adding that a take- off fund of N500 million would be raised by well-meaning Itsekiri individuals, families and institutions.
Responding, the Olu of Warri said: “Your vision is perfect. If we had 5-10 Itsekiri with this zeal in the past, we would have built this university long ago.
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“I am fully in support of this vision, but depending on individuals to raise the major funding may not bring us up to the needed speed.
“There are lots of resources coming into Itsekiri nation through Chevron, Shell, NDDC, Niger Delta Ministry, DESOPADEC and other development agencies.
“If we can agree, we can say to these development partners, let all allocations available to Itsekiri for a set period be channeled towards a befitting UNIWARRI. If we do that, N500 million take-off fund is small. We can get up to N2 billion. And that goes for other central infrastructures. But we must all have to agree as I said.”
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