• Thursday, March 28, 2024
businessday logo

BusinessDay

Kula, oil-rich ocean community, resolves 37-year-old dispute

Kula, oil-rich ocean community
To pave way for multi-billon naira development projects from oil companies, the two warring factions in Kula town in Akuku-Toru local council area of Rivers State have resolved their age-old dispute.

 

The warring factions in the 37-year-old chieftaincy tussle thus held a reunification meeting at the Anglican Church Field in Kula town to put their differences aside to embrace peace in the interest of economic development that comes from peaceful co-existence.

 

The traditional rulers, chiefs and community leaders from the Sara Royal House and the Oko Royal House who could not see eye to eye with each other for years sat together and embraced themselves at a ‘Peace and Unity Meeting’ in Kula community.

 

The king, Kroma Eleki of the Sara Royal House and the other king, Bourdillon Ekine of the Oko Royal House, officially dissolved and collapsed their councils of chiefs into a new body known as the ‘Kula Supreme Council of Traditional Rulers.’

 

This marks a new dawn in the history of Kula that has been plagued with aged-long traditional rulership crisis, which threatened to balkanize the once most peaceful kingdom in the Niger Delta. Development had eluded Kula for decades because both factions disagreed and created violent situation that scared away oil companies and government agencies from coming in with projects. It also offered a canopy of excuses to development partners especially oil companies not to bring in projects.

 

Kroma Eleki, who is the Amanyanabo of Anyame-Kula in his remarks said history will be kind to an illustrious son of the area, an engineer and oil magnet, Jack-Rich Tein Jr. for initiating the peace move.
He urged all Kula sons and daughters to promote love, unity and brotherliness, and eschew hatred, disharmony, disunity and all divisive tendencies capable of causing disaffection amongst them.

 

In his own remarks, the other king, Bourdillon Ekine, who is the Amanyanabo of Opu-Kula (the Old Shipping), also acknowledged the role played by Tein Jr. in developing the area, creating wealth and uniting the people.
He said the era where different royal houses operated with isolated traditional rulership in Kula were gone for good.

 

Bourdillon noted that no community can make any meaningful progress in an atmosphere devoid of peace and cohesion among the people particularly the traditional leadership who are the custodian of the culture of peaceful co-existence.

 

Some Stakeholders of Kula, which include Alapuye Elekiye-Okpara and Wapakabuari Ebejiye-Gaga, who spoke on the sideline of the occasion, described the inauguration of the Kula Supreme Council of Traditional Rulers as historic.

 

They regretted that Kula has suffered so much setback and avoidable deaths in the past as a result of the age long chieftaincy tussle in the area.

 

The stakeholders urged the Rivers State government to support the peace move in Kula by recognizing the newly inaugurated Kula Supreme Council of Traditional Rulers as the highest decision making organ and authority of Kula Kingdom.