Who Speaks For Obi-Mbieri ? The Answer Is Already Written -In Our Constitution, In Our Courts, And In Our Conscience

-A response to Newspoint’s News Analysis of Monday, 2 November 2026

By JC Jan

The question of who speaks for Obi-Mbieri is neither new nor unfamiliar. It is a subject that has surfaced repeatedly in newspaper publications, public commentaries and community discussions over time. Each time it resurfaces, it gives the impression that the legitimacy of Obi-Mbieri’s leadership is still an open question waiting for public opinion to settle.

For example,

August 25, 2026. This directly examines the competing claims of authority in dealings with Seplat.
Obi Mbieri’s Seplat Representation Dispute: Who Really Spoke for the Community? | Eziokwubundu https://eziokwubundu.com/api/functions/articleOG?slug=obi-mbieris-seplat-representation-dispute-who-really-spoke-for-the-community

“The Great Obi-Mbieri Oil Heist” — National Newsbreak, August 31, 2026. It asks, among other things, who Seplat met at the palace and in what capacity, and who actually has authority to speak for Obi-Mbieri.
https://nationalnewsbreak.com/re-the-great-obi-mbieri-oil-heist-the-questions-remain-unanswered/

However, there comes a point when repeatedly asking the same question should give way to examining the answers already available.
The issue is not simply what one faction claims, what another disputes, or what an external organisation chooses to recognise. The more important consideration is what the law has established, what the recognised institutions of the community provide, and what common sense demands of everyone dealing with Obi-Mbieri.

It is therefore necessary to look beyond the recurring newspaper debate and return to the fundamental principles of justice, legitimate authority, institutional respect and collective interest.

This response is not intended to revive old hostilities, or create further divisions. Rather, it is an attempt to address the matter from the standpoint of law, reason and the long-term interest of Obi-Mbieri.
A question does not become unanswered simply because some people are unwilling to accept the answer.

Nigeria Newspoint deserves commendation for asking again the question many sons and daughters of Obi-Mbieri have carried quietly, and sometimes publicly for a very long time: who truly speaks for us? It is a simple question, but in a community sitting on oil, simple questions carry heavy consequences.
Our elders say: Egbe bere, ugo bere; nke si ibe ya ebela, nku kwaa ya. Let the kite perch and let the eagle perch; whichever denies the other a place, may its wing break. That ancient wisdom is, at its heart, a doctrine of fairness. Fairness is exactly what this matter demands.
The law has spoken; it must be respected.

Common-sense tells us that a judgment of a High Court is not a suggestion. The Imo State High Court, Iho Division, in Suit No. HIH/63/2023, delivered judgment on 24 June 2025. As the report notes, an appeal does not on its own suspend that judgment; a stay of execution was sought and refused on 22 May 2026. Until a higher court says otherwise, that judgment stands. SEPLAT should know better and any corporate body, however large, that engages a community in a manner inconsistent with a subsisting judgment is not being “neutral”. It is choosing a side, while calling the choice neutrality.

Lord Denning put it memorably: “Be you ever so high, the law is above you.” No company, no council chairman and no faction stands above a subsisting judgment. Cicero reminded Rome that we are servants of the law so that we may be free. Obedience to a court’s decision is not a burden on SEPLAT; it is the very freedom that allows it to operate with confidence and without suspicion.

Philosophically, neutrality is not the absence of action; it is fidelity to an agreed rule. In a dispute over leadership, the agreed rule is the court. A company that steps around the court has abandoned neutrality, even if it never says so aloud.

John Locke warned that wherever law ends, tyranny begins. The old legal maxim is equally clear: Fiat justitia ruat caelum, let justice be done though the heavens fall. Justice is not done by convenience, by proximity to power, or by whoever arrives first at the company’s door. It is done by respecting what the court has decided.

Authority flows from the people, not from an office down the road

Obi-Mbieri is an autonomous community with its own traditional institution and its own elected town union leadership. It is reasonable to ask, as the lawyers have, on what legal basis a Local Government Chairman could recommend or appoint a President-General for a community. A council chairman administers a local government area; he does not elect the leaders of the people within it. When the duly elected President-General, Chief Samuel Oparaugo, insists on this distinction, he is not fighting for himself. He is defending the right of every Obi-Mbieri person to choose who represents them.
Aristotle taught that it is better for the law to rule…
As our people say, Igwe bu ike: the multitude is strength. That strength belongs to the people of Obi-Mbieri, and it speaks through the leaders they freely choose.
The host village must not become a spectator in its own land
There is a natural justice in the principle that the immediate host village should have the first right of refusal in appointing a Community Liaison Officer. Those who live where the drilling happens bear the noise, the risk and the environmental cost. It is only fair that their designated representatives, including the Village Head of Umuagwu, Chief Jonathan Osuji, are the ones speaking on matters of exploration. Anything else asks the people closest to the impact to have the least say.
The old saying is true: only the wearer knows where the shoe pinches. Those who sleep beside the rig know its cost better than anyone who visits it. Justice listens first to those who carry the burden.

Divide and rule is an old tactic with a predictable ending
The most serious allegation in the solicitors’ letter is that funds have been channelled to one faction. If true, it would be the oldest strategy in the extractive playbook: split a community, fund one side, and negotiate with whoever is easiest. History across the Niger Delta shows where that road ends: mistrust, youth restiveness, broken families and, eventually, disrupted operations for the very company that sowed the division. Peace is not only a community interest; it is Seplat’s interest too.

In Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe’s Obierika laments that a knife has been put “on the things that held us together.” Obi-Mbieri must never allow that to be its story. The Roman historian Sallust observed that by concord small things grow, while by discord the greatest things fall apart. A divided community helps no one, least of all the company working in its land.
What Obi-Mbieri is asking for is reasonable
Let it be clear: this community is not anti-SEPLAT and not anti-development. We want oil to bring roads, schools, jobs and dignity. What we ask is simple and lawful:
Respect the subsisting judgment of the court.
Hold engagements openly, at the neutral Obi-Mbieri Community Hall, with fair notice to all six constituent towns.
Deal with the duly recognised representatives, and disclose the criteria used to recognise anyone else.
Do not encourage, promote, fund or support any illegality in Obi-Mbieri. There is no authority in an empty palace.

These are not hostile demands. They are the ordinary standards of good corporate citizenship that any responsible operator should welcome.
Our elders say that when the right hand washes the left and the left hand washes the right, both hands become clean. SEPLAT and Obi-Mbieri are those two hands. Neither can be clean alone.

The choice before SEPLAT

The seven-day window offered by O.O. Kalu & Associates is an opportunity, not a threat. SEPLAT can use it to clear the air, publish its engagement criteria and show that it stands with the rule of law. Doing so would earn more goodwill in Obi-Mbieri than any donation ever could.
Martin Luther King Jr. wrote that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. The reverse is also true: justice done in Obi-Mbieri builds trust everywhere SEPLAT operates.

Obi-Mbieri will speak with one voice when the process is fair. The courts have pointed the way. All that remains is for everyone, including SEPLAT East Onshore Limited to follow it.
A company that steps around the court should not be found hiding under the word: “neutrality”. In the case of Obi-Mbieri, the only neutrality is the unturned, live, existing, judgment of the Imo State High Court.
In conclusion,

SEPLAT should come clean and explain to the public how a previous unsuccessful appeal and another appeal that is still pending can somehow be given an “equal share” of legitimacy or weight with the very judgment being challenged. If a judgment is being appealed, the natural question is: on what basis can the unsuccessful or pending appeals be placed on the same footing as the judgment itself?

The public deserves a clear, coherent explanation—not ambiguity or competing narratives. This is not about taking sides; it is about understanding how the legal process is being interpreted and why the same judgment can apparently be treated as both authoritative and, at the same time, subject to competing claims arising from appeals against it.