NATURAL RIGHTS IN ACTION: Ongoing Organized Activities of the Duawaris (Founding, Aboriginal, Ancestral and First Nation Ijaw Royal House Communities) of Bonny Kingdom to Uphold their Natural Rights
Authors: Bristol-Alagbariya Edward T. 
Published: April 2023

Bonny Kingdom, also known as Grand Bonny Kingdom, Ancient Grand Bonny Kingdom and Ancient Ibani nation (Ibanise), is an integral part and parcel of the Ijaw ethnic nationality of the Niger Delta. This study is essentially about the God-given, inalienable and inviolable natural rights of the Founding Ancestors of Bonny Kingdom (Ibanise KoromaTaduapu), and how the Blood-descendant Houses of the Ibanise KoromaTaduapu (the Duawaris) and their members are making efforts to uphold their natural rights in the Kingdom and beyond. The study describes the Duawaris as the Founding, Primaeval, Premier, Primordial, First Class or First Nation as well as Blood-Descendant, Blood-Related, Big Freeborn and Aboriginal Ijaw Royal (Aseme) Category of Lineages, Sections, Wards, Families, Houses or House Communities of Bonny Kingdom, whose members founded the Kingdom, originated and sustained its Welfarist House System of Public Sector Governance and established its civilization during its primaeval, primordial or aboriginal era, as a classic Primordial African sovereign state, the pride of Ancestral Ijaw nation and the entire Primaeval Delta region of modern Nigeria. The study explains that the aboriginal era of Bonny Kingdom covered from before about 1000 AD to about 1740 AD. From the origin of Bonny Kingdom (circa about before 1000 AD) to present day (a period of well over Ten Centuries and Two Decades), the Duawaris have been the inalienable and inviolable owners and producers of the Monarchs/Kings (Amanyanapu) and Substantive Amadapu (Community/District Heads) of the Kingdom. The study discusses various organized forms or ways whereby the Duawaris are making efforts to uphold their God-given natural rights in the Kingdom and beyond, which ways are herein described as ‘natural rights in action’. Generally, the natural rights of the Ibanise KoromaTaduapu are being inherited, through birth, first and foremost, by their Blood Descendants and Blood-descendant Houses, and subsequently by other people (indigenes) and Houses of the Kingdom, especially through the sustained Welfarist House System of Public Sector Governance of the Kingdom. The study demonstrates that the Duawaris of Bonny Kingdom started to make efforts to promote, protect, actualize and sustain their natural rights because of how they and their members began to experience neglect, marginalization and deprivation in the Kingdom, from the second phase of the reign of King Perekule I (Pepple I/Captain Pepple), namely about 1740 AD onwards. Considering the magnitude of neglect, marginalization and deprivation being occasioned on the Duawaris and their aboriginal populace of Christianized, fundamentally oil-rich and highly industrialized Bonny Kingdom, against the dictates of the prevailing worldwide era of sustainable development (SD), the agitation and activities of the Duawaris are centred on truth, namely overall truth, as well as natural justice and fairness in the Kingdom and society at large. So far, among other things, based on their organized activities and worldwide community of members, the Duawaris have been able to register their umbrella association in contemporary Nigeria, as the ‘Association of the Duawaris - Founding and Aboriginal Royal Houses - of Grand Bonny Kingdom, with Corporate Affairs Commission of Nigeria Registration Certificate No: CAC/IT/No. 100619, on which platform they are progressively embarking on specific programmes and projects within and outside Christianized Bonny Kingdom, in the ongoing worldwide era of SD. As indigenes, more so as Duawaris of Bonny Kingdom, the Incorporated Association of the Duawaris and its worldwide community of members, are protesting against the prevailing inhumane, unfair, unjust, inequitable and thus unsustainable situation of neglect, marginalization and oppression, depriving them of the fruits of their God-given, universal, fundamental, inalienable and inviolable natural rights in their aboriginal homeland (Christianized Bonny Kingdom). Therefore, in the prevailing era of SD in all countries and nooks and crannies of the world, the Association of the Duawaris and its worldwide members are agitating and demanding that they deserve to be treated better in their aboriginal homeland, particularly by successive Monarchs, who are members of the Association, as well as greatest beneficiaries of the natural rights being inherited from the Ibanise KoromaTaduapu.