Taiga lists UPU‘s priorities in improving Urhobo nation

The President General of Urhobo Progress Union (UPU), worldwide, Olorogun Moses Taiga, has listed top six agenda to be achieved by UPU under his leadership.

Taiga, who made the disclosure during a media parley with TheNewsGuru.com in Lagos said he went round all the kingdoms in Urhoboland with a clearly enunciated five to six points manifesto, which he and other members aim to achieve during the current administration.

Taiga noted that the first priority on the association’s list is to ensure past leaders of the UPU are immortalised.

He explains, “We want to honour our 2nd President General, UPU, Mukoro Mowoe, who led the association form 1931 to 1948.

“We intend to establish a university in his, Mowoe’s name, and Urhobo people are very excited about this development. We have about 24 kingdoms in Urhobo and nearly all are asking that it should be cited in their location.

“Initially we wanted to call the school, “Mukoro Mowoe Memorial University”, but we consulted the immediate past Secretary General of National University Commission, Prof. Julius Okojie, who advised we should simply name it it “Mukoro Mowoe University.”
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“We have commenced plans on the formation of the university; we want to partner with specific well-to-do Urhobo people to take each faculty and finance it. For example, we can give College of Journalism to Mideno Bayagbon [Publisher of TheNewsGuru.com], and he will finance that, and we will do the same thing with the engineering faculty, among others.

“The second project is what is most important to the Urhobos. We were unique in the whole country in setting up an institution named after a nation: ‘Urhobo College.’ No other tribe in the country has done that.

“I sent my people to go and look at the school and that same old school that produced eminent Urhobo people including myself is today in a sorry state. This same school that produced the likes of Orodje of Okpe, king of Umiagwa, eminent engineers, among others, has gone down the drain …we intend to renovate the school, fence it, get them quality teachers, etc., and we are glad that the government has said they will make the school a model college, so ours will be to up it to a better standard.

Taiga mentioned that third item on UPU’s list, is to empower the Urhobo children with means of livelihood, by helping them cultivate technical skills that will be useful in the larger society.

“A friend of mine visited the Warri Shoprite in Delta State and narrated to me that he saw several technicians who were majorly from Ghana, Togo while our own children were carrying loads or driving ‘Keke Napeps.”

“There are two technical schools in Urhobo land: the Ogor Technical College in Ogor; and there is also Sapele Trade Centre, where our people can learn carpentry, welding, electrical repairs, etc.

“We will encourage our children to learn technical trade; we are already getting in touch with government to ensure that those schools are opened.

Also in Taiga’s led UPU’s agenda list are Urhobo women (5th item), who he describes as very hardworking.

“Our women are known to be very hardworking. They believe in Atamu, a philosophy which dwells on the concept of people doing what they ought to do in the best way.