During his time as the Chairman of the Finima Youth Congress (FYC), Charles Brown’s youthfulness, versatility, urban worldview, resourcefulness, and passionate about issues concerning young people, especially, as it relates to their input in achieving social impact, communal harmony, and development.
The Telecoms Engineer with Globacom in Bonny Local Government Area, who is married and blessed with two beautiful daughters, obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the Rivers State University, Port Harcourt, and also doing business and involved in philanthropy. Combined with these roles, Brown also serves as a Youth Pastor in the Redeemed Christian Church Of God, Bonny.
In this interview with Kristina Reports’ Publisher, Godswill Jumbo, he provides some clarity to the recent developments in his home community, Finima, and asserts that despite the challenges, Finima Community remains a destination of choice for Investment and Tourism. Savour the read:
Kristina Report: We would like to have you introduce yourself.
Charles Brown: Okay, my name is Charles Brown, I’m the immediate past Chairman of the Finima Youth Congress. I’m also board member, Bonny Health Insurance Scheme, I’m an Electrical Engineer; a Telecoms Engineer, I presently practice with Globacom Nigeria Limited.
Recently, your community, Finima was in the news. There was this uproar recently when your chieftaincy house, the Brown House installed its Chief and then proclaimed him, not only as the Chief and Head of the Buoye Omuso (Brown) House, but also as the Amadabo of Finima. A lot of people are worried about that Amadabo title, which some people said means paramount chief; can we have some clarity about this?
Concerning the installation of our Chief and Head of Buoye Omuso Brown House in the person of Engr. Dagogo Lambert Brown, you should know the title of Amadabo was not created by him. In my little life I’ve spent on earth I met two chiefs – I met Chief Idamieibi Brown. I also met Chief Yibo Brown. Now, those are predecessors to the present chief and the title they are known as at then which I came to meet was Amadabo of Finima. So, the name Amadabo was not created by this our chief. It is a title that his predecessors, like I said I met two of them. So, I am not going by history because a lot of histories are flying all over. I’m going by what I came to meet.
You are actually speaking to a global audience. Some people may be versed in Bonny, Ibani custom and tradition and then there are millions of others who might not know what it means. What does Amadabo literally mean?
Amadabo means a clan head. It means the head of a community. I think there’s a little bit of communication or language barrier or gap because when you don’t understand the meaning of Amadabo you now see it as the same thing as ‘Amanyanabo’ which is totally different. The title of the Amanyanabo stands for the king and the ruler of Bonny Kingdom. And, of course, you know the kingdom comprises of many communities, which Finima is one of them. The title of Amadabo is for the chief of Finima Community and like I said it did not just start now.
But the concern has been that Finima like some other communities in Bonny like Abalamabie, like Ayama (Peterside), like Oloma, have more than one chieftaincy houses within it. Now why would one house proclaim its own chief as their Amadabo?
Well historically, I might not be very excellent in this field but historically that is how it has always been in Finima Community, from the old Finima. That’s why I said this Amadaboship was not created by the present chief.
Who was the first Amadabo of Finima?
With all fairness, I don’t know because I’m not very deep. That’s why I said the two chiefs that I came to meet bore the title. So, it also means that there are predecessors but I don’t want to go back to their predecessors, I’m talking about the two chiefs I came to meet alive that they had that title. So, I don’t want to go to the period before they came on board.
How would you respond to this? Some people who know a few things about Finima say Attoni House and Tobin House are smaller in population, smaller in resources and all of that; that even if you combine the two houses, they may not be up to 10 or 20% of what Brown House is. They say that this Amadaboship is a further entrenchment of the domineering nature, the subsuming nature of the Brown House; that they just want to trample on these two houses.
Well, the truth is that the Brown house that I’ve come to know has never exhibited dominance over the smaller houses, never! As a matter of fact, the Brown House has been accommodating. Now everybody is telling history their way. Of course, people tell history based on what they know and not every history that we hear is correct. I can only speak of what I know not only what I’ve read in books. The Brown House has never been domineering. We’ve never shown oppression to our sister houses and don’t forget history tells us – I don’t know how true it is – but history tells us the three houses are of the same family; that’s what history tells us.
That Awanta, Omuso and Doghubo are of the same parents?
No, Awanta and Omuso were of the same mother, while Doghubo belongs to Omuso. All were living together as one House and one Community from the commencement of the Chieftaincy leadership of Omuso, Omoni (Jack Brown), William (Brown), (John Green) Owupele to Thomas (Berepele Brown) to Thomas who resigned in 1934, before the emergence of Adum and Attoni Chieftaincy Houses. The first Tobin House Chief in the Bonny Chiefs Council was late Chief Owunabo S. Tobin installed in 1961. So, you see that we’re related.
But if you say you’re accommodating, sometime last year, we heard that the Brown House seized the ekere (gong) of the Tobin House and that almost led to some crisis. Isn’t that evidence of intimidation?
You know, it has never been. Now, let me put it this way, there are things that precede me. I don’t know where they came from but it is actually beyond my knowledge. Now, there’s a tradition I’ve come to meet that the custodians of the ekere – if also you ask my Tobin House brothers and others they will tell you – the custody lies with the Brown House. Now, if in all these years of our existence, it has always been the responsibility of the Brown House to knack (sound) the ekere, if there’s need for a change, of course, on the table of dialogue every issue can be resolved. Thank God that the Tobin House showed restraint because it would have escalated to a very high level and thank God peace prevailed. This is what we as young ones came to meet and if you ask me further, I cannot explain what happened. It’s something that has always been.
So, talking about this, some days ago there was some skirmish around an aspect of the community, I think somehow some stakeholders came in to contain it. What is it that your house in particular and the leadership in Finima doing to entrench peace and good neighbourliness within Finima Community?
Well definitely, just to give you a little preamble… Finima Community is one of the most peaceful communities in the whole of Niger Delta. I’m not telling you statistics that we formulated, it is the statistics that was taken by the Nigeria Police and last year they told us, in fact, it is even in the news that we are the most peaceful community because there’s no community that houses four multinational companies. I’m talking about NLNG, Shell, Mobil, and BelemaOil. There’s no community. That’s because of the efforts that the leadership of this community has put in place. Secondly again, last year Finima Community was awarded the most hospitable community in the whole of Africa. Now, that tells us something that there is something unique we are doing here, that the leadership is doing here, that the youths are doing here to maintain the peace. So, it shows that we are a people that embraces peace.
Now, no doubt we have our little issues around but somehow God has helped us to contain these little issues. He has never allowed it to escalate as it is happening in other communities in the Niger Delta. However, for the present incident that happened, I think the leadership is taking the right step, advising the youths to keep calm, they’re providing support to the Police to make sure they do their job. All we want – I can stand anywhere to attest to it – that we, the leadership of Finima, even the youth leadership, we are totally against violence, absolutely against violence. It has never been recorded before in history that the youths of Finima Community left Finima Community to go and attack another community. It has never been recorded. But we’ve received that twice. Now, that doesn’t mean the third we’ll go and do it, we will never do it, we are peaceful in nature and we’ll keep supporting peace in every way possible.
Some may want to disagree with you, given that in this incident, a native of, in fact, and in particular, a native of Brown House, a bonafide member of your community was said to have been attacked by Finima people in Finima; does this agree with the position you’ve just expressed?
There are procedures and processes how things are done. The leadership of the community totally condemned that action…
Which action?
I’m talking about actions where two Bonny people, Finima and Finima are fighting. Our leadership does not encourage violence in any form and we resist violence.
So, has the leadership reached out to him (Evans), given what you’ve just said now?
Well, that, I wouldn’t know; sincerely, that, I wouldn’t know.
But you agree that that’s an anomaly, for a member of the community to be assaulted by his own community, no matter what he did?
Let’s put it this way, I’ve seen videos – I wasn’t there that day – I’ve seen videos I’ve seen pictures, of people that came to invade this community with arms. They’re on social media. Let’s not try to pretend over this thing. People coming into my community with arms as against security advice.
Okay, there was a security advice that…?
There was a security advice that there might be an escalation if our brothers from Bonny come into Finima that night. Totally, we are against violence. But listen, if our brothers yielded to the security advice – as I am today, if they say Charles don’t come here today, these are professionals that have been trained for that – I should show restraint. I’m supposed to listen.
Let’s move on, peace is important for development especially the drive to attract investors to Finima, going forward, what is it that the whole world should look out for? That post-this incident and all of this Chieftaincy drama that Finima is conducive, that Finima is convivial, that Finima is a destination of choice for investment?
Well, I believe no investor, nobody wants to throw his money into a place where there’s violence. No normal investor will want to do that because we don’t practice slave trade anymore. So, you can’t oppress the people and expect to invest in their land. This is the reason why Finima has attracted a lot of investors, recently, the deep-sea project that’s coming up. It’s possible that that project could have been sited in another community; Finima is not the most excellent community to play host to that project, no. but I believe the Federal Government, in their wisdom, must have analyzed the risk including violence risk and the best place after analyzing was Finima. So, my own advice to every would-be investor is that Finima says ‘Welcome’ to you. We are peaceful in nature; we will keep on maintaining our peaceful disposition. We’ll keep on encouraging our peaceful disposition as much as possible. But one thing I know that the Finima man will always do is to stand and defend our rights and privileges given to us by God and the Constitution of this country and we will always keep that.
But before we let you go, you held the Finima All-White Beach Party and with testimonies coming from all over it was much of a successful event. Now, are there initiatives like this that the Brown House, the Finima Community is looking at as a way of attracting more people around the Finima environment?
Absolutely, I think the target of the Finima Community leadership today is that Finima becomes a tourist attraction, I mean two weeks ago we got recommendation from the State House commending the beach party, the way everything was organized and everything. You know I think that’s a good one, every 31st (December) people, who move from all over the country, come to settle in Finima; you know that on that day, more than 4,000 or so gathered there and never have we for once had any form of violence there. That’s the Finima that we want to project to the world. So, the leadership, for instance, just opened the Amadapu Dupuyo. To me, with all due respect to other places, that is the best memorial site for leadership you can see anywhere in Africa. People come there just to see how beautiful the place is. The aruwari, which is the place where we keep our gigi (traditional war canoe) is under construction and is also going to be an epitome of beauty and the (Finima) Nature Park is there, even though it is not managed by us but by NLNG, it’s also a place where people come to visit. Finima today is one of the places where expatriates walk freely and not being guarded by any security, that is the Finima that we want to project to the world. We’ll keep selling the good part of us not when we have problems about Finima people we take it to the world. When we have problems with other families, we take it to the world. No, no, no, no; despite all that has happened, the Browns, the Tobins, the Attonis, we have lived together for only God knows how long with our little, little problems and we will keep living together because this community is indivisible by God’s grace and we keep moving together. So, we say welcome to anybody that wants to invest here and visit, Finima is a nice place.
You’ve made some decent points there. I looked on the internet for additional information about the issue and found most individuals will go along with your views on this site.