The Pere of Kabowei Kingdom, Barrister Shadrach Erebulu, Aduo lll, who is said to be the youngest king in the entire Ijaw nation – has revealed he doesn’t allow women to wear trousers, or speak any other language except Ijaw in his palace.
The young graduate of Delta State University (DELSU), Abraka – was presented with a staff of office on Monday, Oct 23, 2017 during his official installation of as pere of kabowei kingdom at the pere’s palace in the vicinity of Patani, Delta state.
In an interview with Gbaramatuvoicenews, the monarch spoke about his kingdom, which spreads across two states and his plans for his people, especially in the area of cultural revival.
Excerpts;
Can you let us know some of your achievements since you became the Pere?
Before my emergence, I understood the fact that our cultures and traditions are fast fading away. Even our youths find it hard to understand and speak our language. Due to modernisation, everybody now feels that going back to traditional language makes one a lesser person. That was eating fast into our way of life, so my major drive was that as a young traditional ruler, I should be able to reverse these things.
I think my function is not political. It is to keep and preserve the traditions of our people. I had to bring some strict rules. Before now, people came into the palace and they wanted to speak English language while addressing the king. I made it a point for anybody coming into the palace, except you are not from Kabowei kingdom, not to speak the English language, but our language. If you are not fluent in it, mix it, but endeavour to see that you can speak it.
I made it a taboo for any woman to walk into the palace wearing trousers. We see how girls wear all manner of things and walk down the street; that is not our way of life. So even within the town, I had to call the chairmen of the communities to educate their young people to see that they try as much as possible to go back to our tradition. I also set up a committee to see how we can come up with our own cultural heritage, that is how the Kabowei man used to be. Because Kabowei or the Kabo man as he is popularly called, is a unique Ijaw person. We are unique in all we do because our own tongue is different from every other Ijaw man.
If a Kabowei man speaks here, it is different from the way someone from Bomadi or Sagbama would speak. So if we can go back to the way we speak our language, it will help our culture, it will help our uniqueness, because once you lose your culture, you have lost your identity. I try to see how we can bring that back…
