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Urhobo Historical Society |
Editor's Note:
The excerpt below is lifted from T.
E. A. Salubi: Witness to British Colonial Rule in Urhoboland and Nigeria.
It is the foreword to UHS's fourth monographic publication. It was
provided by Dr. Esiri and is notably one of his last activities in
Urhobo public affairs.
Peter P. Ekeh
editor@waado.org
FOREWORD
For My Friend and “Brother”
Adogbeji
Salubi
By Chief Dr. Frederick O. Esiri
Former President-General,
Urhobo Progress
Union
We started as friends and ended
as
brothers. People who knew both of us thought that we were real blood
brothers.
My acquaintance with Adogbeji
Salubi started when I was a student
at King’s College, Lagos, 1928-1931. While I was in the football field
one
evening, a fellow student came to tell me that some people were looking
for me.
They turned out to be two Urhobo men, Adogbeji Salubi and Joseph Akpolo
Ikutegbe. They said that they were informed that an Urhobo man was in
King’s
College. We greeted warmly and chatted.
King’s College, Lagos, was the
premier Government secondary school
in colonial Nigeria. Gaining admission into it was rare. Before me
there was no
Urhobo student in that prestigious secondary school. Ikutegbe and
Salubi came
in search of me for the sole purpose of establishing contact with a
pioneering
Urhobo student. What was remarkable in that visit was that it occurred
before
the pan-Urhobo association, Urhobo Brotherly Society, was formed in
1931. It
clearly established Adogbeji Salubi and his life-long devoted
associate, Mr.
Joseph Akpolo Ikutegbe, as Urhobo patriots before such acts became
fashionable
under the aegis of organised associations.
By the time I was admitted into
Yaba Higher College Medical School
in 1931, Urhobo Brotherly Society had come into existence at its
originating
headquarters at Warri. At its inaugural meeting in Lagos in November
1934,
Adogbeji Salubi was elected its Branch Secretary and I its Assistant
Secretary.
Because of my academic workload in medical school, I had concerns on
the
adequate performance of my duties as Assistant Secretary. Salubi urged
me not
to be worried, generously offering that I should just take minutes of
the
meetings. He promised that he would take care of the correspondence to
all the
branches and any other assignments demanded of the office.
Adogbeji Salubi and I worked
very well together. As he reports in
Appendix I of this volume, a signal achievement of our common
commitment to our
work for the new Society was our joint suggestion that the name of the
new
association should be changed from Urhobo Brotherly Society to Urhobo
Progressive Union. Our idea was accepted by the Lagos Branch. The Home
Union at
Warri also took it seriously. After due study, our proposal was amended
as
Urhobo Progress Union, which is the name that the association still
bears up
till now.
After the completion of my
course at Yaba Higher College in 1937,
I joined the Colonial Civil Service and was posted to Calabar. I came
back to
Lagos in 1939. Salubi was still the Secretary of Urhobo Progress Union,
Lagos
Branch. He pressed that I should resume my duties as Assistant
Secretary.
Later in 1941 I was transferred to Abeokuta, not far from Lagos.
Our
friendship waxed strong. I often came to Lagos to spend the weekends
with him.
There were humorous sides to
our friendship. One weekend, Adogbeji
Salubi came to Abeokuta to spend sometime with me. While we were
together, I
had a call from the office and I rushed there, as medical men were wont
to do.
By the time I came back from the office, Salubi was packing his baggage
for
return to Lagos. He joked: “Anytime I come to Abeokuta it is always
work, work,
work. You should be coming to Lagos to spend your weekends and run away
from
this work.”
There were sombre occasions in our association
and common service on Urhobo
matters. One such pungent instance occurred in 1948. I had been
transferred to
Bukuru, Jos. I came back to Urhoboland on leave in 1948 and I went to
see
Mukoro Mowoe in Warri. There was then a vicious epidemic of liver
disease – a
virus of hepatitis -- that swept through the East and the Delta areas.
It
affected Mowoe. I went to Warri to see Mowoe on my way to Abraka, my
hometown.
When I got to Mowoe’s residence, his mother-in-law was at the door. I
was not
allowed to see him, as everyone else who called to see him was
disallowed. So I
told my friend, Adogbeji Salubi, that he should keep me abreast of the
Chief’s
situation. The following day, Salubi sent word to me that Mowoe had
passed on.
In a positive sense, Adogbeji
Salubi literarily spent his adult
life in the service of Urhobo causes. While he worked in Lagos, he
provided
active leadership on Urhobo matters. Even while he was away in England
on
Government scholarship during World War II, Salubi was actively engaged
in
Urhobo affairs, writing on Urhobo Progress Union from England. He was
therefore
the natural choice to become the President-General of Urhobo Progress
Union in
1962, the year of his retirement from the Nigerian Civil Service.
Salubi’s tenure as
President-General of Urhobo Progress Union,
from 1962 to the year of his death in 1982, was brilliant. The old
spirit of
selfless service to the Urhobo people and to the Union was revived. He
vigorously protected Urhobo interests against those who bore ill-will
towards
the Urhobo people. When there was a military putsch in 1966, most
ethnic
associations were disbanded by the new military rulers on the grounds
that they
were politically active. Urhobo Progress Union, then under the
leadership of
Adogbeji Salubi, was spared because it was largely perceived as a
cultural
association. Chief Salubi very wisely then pursued a subdued policy,
urging the
Home Union and the branches of Urhobo Progress Union to avoid
celebratory
and pompous occasions that might provoke the military.
That policy was in force when I
took over the Office of
President-General of Urhobo Progress Union, following the death of my
dear
friend, Chief T. E. A. Salubi, in 1982. Among his great achievements,
Chief
Salubi built the edifice of Urhobo National Hall at Okere Road, Warri.
He did
not complete it before his death. It was my responsibility to complete
it.
Salubi visited the UPU branches in the country and established an
effective
mode of communications between the Union’s Headquarters at Warri and
its
diverse branches throughout the country. He worked hard to resolve
conflicts
wherever they arose, either among Urhobo communities or between Urhobo
people
and their neighbours.
Chief T. E. A. Salubi left
behind him an indelible footprint in
Urhobo affairs. I am delighted that his heir, Dr. Thomas Edogbeji
Akpomudiare
Salubi, has invited me to write this foreword for a book that
celebrates his
life. I thank him for his generosity. Furthermore, on behalf of the
Urhobo
people, I thank Professor Peter Ekeh and Urhobo Historical Society for
devoting
their intellectual resources to this well-deserved study of one of the
most
accomplished and important Urhobo men of the 20th century. I
am sure
that this study will reveal that he was also one of the most remarkable
Nigerians of that past century.
Chief Dr. F. O. Esiri
35 Cemetery Road
Warri, Delta State
Nigeria
Saturday, August 2, 2008
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