The book, J.D. Owodue: His Legacy and the Contemporary History of Olomoro, connects a biography to a wider story of ethnic self-assertion that culminated in the recognition of Isoko Division in 1963, with J.D Owodue as one of the Nigerian nationalists of Isoko extraction that contributed to the recognition of the Isoko Division.
The trajectory of J.D. Owodue was remarkable, but the book's intrinsic value to the historian lies in what the trajectory illuminates.
The book records and account of how Christianity, literacy and development travelled in rural communities during the colonial era in Nigeria. Several historical works have identified a pattern of the Gospel of Jesus being relayed through an intermediary language in African rural communities in the 19th and 20th centuries. In this book, we meet one of such intermediaries - James Dhekpukoli Owodue.
The book is an historical account of how people from different parts of colonial Nigeria organized themselves into community unions away from their home towns, first for welfare and mutual aid, and then for the development of their home town just as Olomoro men in Forcados, Warri, Port Harcourt, Lagos and the Gold Coast (present day Ghana) organised themselves into a union. J.D.'s own correspondence with the Urhobo Brotherly Society (UBS), the Urhobo Progress Union (UPU), the Isoko State Union and Olomoro Development Union portrays him as an active member of socio-cultural and town unions.
The book also traces the Isoko grievance of being administratively lumped into the "Sobo" Division, and the agitation of the Isoko State Union nationalists.
The book also highlights how early infrastructure development in rural parts of Nigeria were often community-led and championed by community leaders with government following behind, a narrative that still exists.
