Killing a shark in my kingdom is like killing a human being –King Collins Daniel

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King Collins Daniel, a lawyer and former Permament Secretary in Bayelsa State, is the Olila Ebhugh (the Paramount Ruler) of Abureni Kingdom in Ogbia, Bayelsa State. In this interview with SIMON UTEBOR, he talks about cultural practices in his domain and other sundry issues

How would you describe your kingdom and the throne?

 

I am the Paramount Ruler of Abureni in Ogbia Local Government Area of Bayelsa State. We have the spread of the clan in three LGAs. Two LGAs are in the present Bayelsa State and another local government, Abua-Odua in Rivers State. The settlers in Abua-Odua are the Kubors.

The Kubors comprise the Emagors, Amurotors and Akanis. Then in Nembe LGA, you have the Okoroba, Agrisaba and Okpoma. In Ogbia, you have Amurikeni, Idema, Odeduma, Ebor and so many other satellites.

I am addressed as the Olila Ebhugh of Abureni. That is a mark of distinction from other royal majesties in Ogbia. Other paramount rulers are called the Obanobhans. Olila Ebhugh is a First Class king.

Did you ever imagine you would one day become a traditional ruler?

Well, I never in any imagination thought I would become king because that was not my calling. It is because the people sometimes look at the antecedents and activities of some individuals and they say, ‘okay, come and lead us.’

I never imagined that I would become the clan head of Abureni and that is why nobody ever wanted to contest with me. Then the electoral committee was constituted and they asked for nomination. The moment my name was nominated, that was all.

So, the kingdom is not run a hereditary system?

No, ours is not hereditary. The Olila Ebhugh throne is not hereditary and so most of the clan traditional stools in Ogbia are non-hereditary. They are creations. We are admitted under the clan system.

Most people believe that there are so many sacrifices and rituals performed before one could ascend a throne. What was it like in your own case?

Well, mine was guided by constitution. When it became obvious that I was going to become the Olila Ebhugh of Abureni, I gave the kingmakers conditions. I told them I am a Christian and I will continue to be a Christian in my life and that I would not want to be involved in fetish things.

So, the Constitution was written in such a way that if you are a Christian, they administer the Holy Bible on you. You will not be subjected to drinking from the mud. In my place, there is a place they dig and said some of the ancestors are there. They will now bring a mud from that place, mix it with gin, pray on it and bring it for you to drink. I did not drink that because there is a constitution guiding my kingship. I have the constitution with me, I can show it to you. So, I did not do that. But then, those who are not Christians, those who are traditionalists may be administered, because it was a choice they gave me.

And they found out that because of modernity, some of these practices needed to be changed. I think some of them don’t take us anywhere. But if you are a believer and believe in what is in the Holy Bible, you have to keep your faith.

How long have you been on the throne?

I was installed on July 12, 2008. I have been on the throne since then.

Are there some decisions you have taken as a king and later regretted those decisions?

There are certain decisions, actually within your mind, you feel are the best of decisions, but sometimes, they affect individuals. When you find out the decision is not going the right way, you have to regret.

But kingship decisions are not decisions you take unilaterally. You have to do it with a wide range of consultations before you arrive at a decision. If it is a military rule, you can by fiat give directive, but in a traditional setting, decisions are very democratic.

Let me tell you how decisions are taken in my domain: If there is something very urgent to send done, I have to call the Palace Secretary and ask him to do an invitation to stakeholders. Even if I am not travelling to my domain, I can invite them and take care of their logistics.

In that case, you will involve the village heads, some lineages and some elite because the place is not only ruled by traditional leadership, there are still some chiefs that wield a lot of authorities. We call them leaders of thought because they are thinking what they are seeing, they have the exposure and their exposure also helps in taking decisions. You call all these people, table the matter before them and you discuss. When you come out with a decision, such decision will stand the test of time.

In that case, you as the head will stand to defend it because it’s in your name that the town crier will go and make the proclamation, so you don’t need to back pedal in making that kind of decision.

Do you have taboos in your land?

Yes, we have taboos. In my domain, by virtue of the history handed down to me, we don’t eat a shark, we also don’t kill the shark. If you kill it, it will be seen as if you have killed a human being. Again, you don’t pour ash dust into the river, it is never done.

Then, we don’t sell periwinkles, you can give them out to people, but we do not sell them. Our areas have a lot to do with water. Our place is a meeting point of salt water and fresh water, so we belong to two worlds (world of the salt water and the world of the fresh water). You can now see that it is a meeting point and also a boundary clan between Rivers and Bayelsa.

Must somebody be really rich and have so many wives before such a person can be fit to be a king in your domain?

No. Those are not conditions for you to be a king. You are elected and subsequently installed a king. Those are desires of the man. You do not need to be a king to be a polygamous man. So, that is a personal desire and in my clan, it is not a condition precedent.

How many wives do you have?

I am a polygamist, I have two wives. But I have had those wives before I was made king.

Are you the same person since you became king or can we say things have changed?

Things have changed drastically since I became a king. I can’t be the same. As a king there are things that you cannot do; there are places you cannot go, there are things you cannot see as a king, So, I am not the same person again.

And there are things I see that you do not see. There are people who come to talk to me that cannot talk to you – they are hidden people, not human beings. Initially, I did not believe that there are ancestors. I can now see that there are spirits beyond spirits.

Don’t you think these spiritual beliefs might elicit some controversies?

Yes, but there are spirits. As a king, if something wants to happen in my domain, I will be given a sign. Let me give you an instance. Not quite long, a 96-year-old man wanted to die. I was to go to my community. When I woke up, it was revealed to me in another way. The revelation showed that somebody wanted to die but I did not know the person. So, I came out and was troubled. I told my wife that something was about to happen. In four days’ time, I just got the news that that nonagerian had died.

Not only this. There are things that want to happen, they are shown to me. You can see that it is beyond what you see. You can only see these things when you are holy.

As a king, it is difficult for someone to plan against you and get you if your hands are clean. There are other things that will fight on your behalf. God fights for you. God fights for the king and those in authority. That is why they say pray for those in authority because they are carrying so much load. So, God gives you that grace that people should not harm you. It is not by your power. And I have come to believe that leadership carries a lot of responsibilities.

Do you still relate with your old friends as a king?

The moment you are a king, there are things you do that tend to bring down the stool. So, the don’ts are contained in your code of conduct. It is just like a judge. The moment you are made a judge, you become a reserved person.

There are places you cannot go. There are places you go, you don’t need to make a comment, you just keep quiet. This is because your statement can be misinterpreted. If you make a statement, it is not you that are making the statement, you are making a statement of authority.

In law, a corporate entity is different from a person. So there has to be a distinction between yourself as a person and a company that you are on the board.

So, your friends are still your friends, but the moment you have become so elevated, your friends too should also realise that it is no longer the person they used to know, let us accord him that respect.

Today, ordinarily, my father is 86, but if I am in council and my father comes, I can’t leave council to go and do certain things. Other people will go and attend to him because I am carrying responsibility. That does not mean that I have dislocated myself from my father. That office has to be respected. You cannot go everywhere, you cannot dress anyhow. If I wear simple dresses like T-shirt, I would be fined because that is not the dress any more.

If you are going to a meeting, you must put a doll with bowler cap or some other hats. My community is one of the early communities to have had contact with the whites. We have that advantage because we are very close to the Atlantic. As a royal majesty, you must be majestic in your attire.

Are there some traditions you used your own powers as a king to abrogate in your kingdom?

Yes, when I became the Olila Ebhugh of Abureni, I considered it very necessary to set up a committee on culture and I gave them terms of reference. There are some of our cultures that are atavistic. They are not things you can present where people are. Let me give you an instance. The committee came up with a report, we considered it and adopted it. You have to define what is death for instance. Death has a definition. In Idema, my community, death to me is death but for my people, it has a definition. Do you know how they define death? They define death from different perspectives. If you die by accident, your corpse is not supposed to come home, you are supposed to be buried without rites. If you climb a coconut tree, maybe the rope you use to climb the coconut has been weak and you are flung down and you have an accident, and eventually, you are taken to the hospital and that wound did not heal until you die; because you died with a wound, they say it is a bad death and so, the person cannot be buried and given full rites. If your wife is under labour and in the process she could not make it, ooh, they say she died with the child and that it is a bad death. But if eventually she was able to push down the baby, after a while, she was still in blood and she died and blood was still coming out of her, they say she was not clean and that she had died a bad death. If you are a woman growing beards, if you die you cannot be buried where others are buried. So, we had all these kind of beliefs that were there. So, we changed all of that.

So, these were the kind of the things I met and I said no, let us look at them. We looked at them and came up with a report and we have started implementing the report and we hope God on our side, because when you now have this, you are likely to have some challenges because there are diehard people in the community, they will say you want to denigrate this community. They will say, look, we have been doing this over time, why is this king coming with his stubbornness to do this and that?

People have their different opinions about these things, but I feel that for us to move forward, there must be a beginning. These were some of the cultural practices in my clan that I decided we have to abrogate to give way to modernity.

Were there times you wished you were not the traditional ruler?

Of course, yes. There were several times I wished I should not have been in this position. The position of a traditional ruler is like somebody carrying a big basket. In my own dialect, a traditional ruler is a dust bin. What you know and what you don’t know, it’s the king. So, you will use your own money to do almost everything. They feel that you are capable, that is why they put you there.

That is why I asked earlier if money was a factor in becoming the king…

To be a traditional ruler, it is not only money. Money is not the issue. There are people who have money but they can’t be kings. So many factors are considered before one is made a king.

Can we say traditional rulership is lucrative?

The traditional ruler does not have money but he has respect. Today, if the Chief Executive of this state addresses me in a way that is not normal, people will say he has looked down on our traditional ruler. So, you have to be very careful when you are dealing with traditional institution because you are not dealing with the person you are seeing, you are dealing with a larger population.

You do not even know who is who, that is why, it is not the money that is there, but the respect it carries.

Can you recall your most memorable moment as a king?

The most memorable moment in my life was the day I was given this mark of recognition as the king of Abureni. That day became a day of reckoning, a day of history. That day I was installed as the Olila Ebhugh of Abureni on July 12, 2008. I tend to reminisce all those things I had been doing unknowingly because if you asked me whether I wanted to be king, I would say sorry, I am not interested, because really I was comfortable. I had become a lawyer, I had risen to the position of a permanent secretary, I had held the position of the Chief of Staff, Government House, what did I need? By that time, some of my children had graduated. But then I reasoned, even if I did not accept it, these people would still be coming to me, whether I liked it or not. It was what I had been doing over time, so I had to take it.

But it has also helped, not me personally, because materially, I am not getting any material benefit. It has helped to stabilise the politics in my area, it has helped to give recognition to my people because of my personality.

As a king, do you have time for your immediate family?

Yes, I do. I have pressures at times. I do not see them as infractions. Because I have accepted a responsibility, I have to be in charge. I need to have time. I create time for my family because if the family is not strong, I will not be well seated to do my work. You can see, I hardly allow people to go to my residence. I have to devise a means to do my work. All the time I was in service, I had someone that was in the community. He had the responsibility to liaise with the people and give me information.

Can you tell us a bit about your growing up?

My growing up was quite interesting. I am the first child of my parents. I grew up in the village partly and in the township. In my community, Idema, I attended primary school. The school in my community was established in 1927. We got stuck at Standard Four for a long time until Melford Okilo became the Commissioner for Education. It was during his time that we had Primary Six. We were going to Abonema in Rivers State for school. We could not come to Yenagoa because of distance. I attended secondary school in Yenagoa in 1964. When I was a child, I was a bit rascally. I was also brilliant. I came out of school with a distinction in 1973. I also enrolled in Nembe National Grammar School. Nembe was just 20 minutes’ drive from my community by speed boat. We accessed Nembe by that time with paddled canoe. The present deputy governor of Bayelsa State was my senior prefect in Nembe National Grammar School. Senator Nimi Amange, Senator Inatimi Spiff, Jonathan Omu and so many of them were my school mates. Thereafter, I went to Port Harcourt in Rivers State for higher school. I went to School of Basic Studies. I was in the second set of Basic Studies. After that, I worked for a while before I went to the University of Port Harcourt. I came out with a Bachelor of History, Second Class Honours. I did my National Youth Service Corps in the then Gongola State.

How was youth service like then?

Youths service was fantastic. We were paid N150. At that time, I was still sending money to my wife. That was the year I got married in 1985. With N150, I had enough. Then, one full goat in Gongola was N8. I enjoyed every bit of my service. The North was a peaceful place. I started speaking Hausa after one year. Maybe that was part of the reasons I got married to a Northerner, my second wife.

After your first degree, did you further your education?

Yes, I did. After the youth service, I came back to Rivers State, got reabsorbed into my work. I was working as a junior clerical officer before going to the university. After acquiring my degree, I first applied for reabsorption. After that, I was converted and upgraded to Assistant Secretary. When I joined the administrative staff, I was eager to read more. I had to apply to the Rivers State University to study Law. I was admitted. I graduated in 1992 with Bachelor’s degree in Law. The same year, I went to the Law School. I was called to the Nigerian Bar as Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria.

After my law degree, in 2004, there was another calling. There was an advert for training in Lagos to be arbitrators which I went for. After the training, I came first in the country and was declared the overall best and winner of Justice Bola Ajibola prize for Nigerian Institute of Arbitrators.

You said you were in Government for 35 years, in which capacities did you serve?

I served the River State Government and the Bayelsa State Government for 35 years. I was engaged on the 13th of November 1980 in Rivers State and I served in the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Commence and Industry, I served in the Governor’s Office. When we came to Bayelsa State, I was in Governor’s Office as Chief of Staff. From Chief of Staff, I held positions in several ministries. I served as permanent secretary in the Ministry of Land and Survey, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Special Duties, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Trade and Industry. I was permanent secretary for nine years and Chief of Staff for two years.

Source: Punch