By Steven Ebehiremen
Warri is a place that has one of the best road networks amongst all the towns have visited in Nigeria. Its road is connected in such a way that one might think that the town is even well planned than the FCT Abuja. Driving through the oil city of Warri has it is popularly known can be quite a pleasure.
Because of the presence of its natural endowments the town has a lot of strangers from neighbouring states which contributed to the development of the town. It is one or the only town in Nigeria that people don’t speak the local language alone the road or when relaxing in a bar. The aborigines of the town are majorly the Urhobo speaking people. While the Itsekiris and the Ijaw are dominant in the hinterland, the Urhobos are found in the heart of Warri.
The people are miss-judge often especially by those who have not really had contact with them or visited the town.” Warri nor dey carry last”is a term accustomed to Warri people and their admirers. It’s not a slogan of mischief of dubiousness, but a term to imbibe the consciousness of mental alertness and the ability to think on your feet. The street life is quiet fun filled especially on Sundays and they love outings as if something is chasing them in their houses.
There are a lot of attractions in the town of Warri. The entrance to the town at Effurun is the Effurun massive roundabout, with water fountain, sit-out, and giant displayed television for advert broadcast and during match days, commuters may stop and spend as snappy as 1 or 2 minutes trying to get a glimpse of score line, some may just spend as much as how much time left for the game. Beside the roundabout is park that serves almost the menu and facilities of a motel except accommodation.
There are some good hotels in Warri that can be counted more than the fingers of both hands. These may include Wellington Hotel, Protea Hotel, Woodrigde Hotel, Palm Grove Motel, Hotel Charles David Lots, Hotel Excel, Mega Hilton, Siro Hotel and others. All of the above mentioned and others not listed are some of the Hotels have visited. Like the slogan of Petrus Hotels Abuja, “Guaranteed comfort in style” is an expectation that can be expected when visiting any of these Hotels in Warri. Due to the high level of awareness obsessed by the people, they try as much as making everything the preeminent of quality. The hotels are standard, their mood of operations are classic, the quality of materials used are trusted and they strive to meet the customary or quality seen in other places like Abuja and Port Harcourt.
Night life in Warri is a juxtaposing of good and bad phenomena. Like every other major cities and towns, Warri can sometimes be rough at night. It will be advisable for visitors who want to go out at night to be accompanied by someone who knows the nooks and crannies of the town. Most of hang outs in Warri, Hotels, bars and sit-outs are majorly patronized between twilight and midnight. The clubs can be over crowed during week days especially Wednesdays as if their rents were paid to club owners and at weekends-Fridays and Saturdays-the clubs attendance may confuse one for church crusade.” I like this town” was the confession of my colleague.
The Warri people are one the best dressed set of people. The young boys and girls dressed as if every day is Christmas. One may think they are in competition with each other. I believe they strongly hold the notion of “Looking good is a good business”. Though they have good sense of colour combination and fabrics selection, some girls can go way out. Traditionally, the Warri attire is a blouse of lace textiles and a set of wrappers for the women while the men wear men blouses and a wrapper. The dominant food eaten by the majority traditionally is starch and Ogwo soup. They also enjoy taken palm wine like the Easterners and use Kola nuts and local brewed gin Ogogoro for prayers during festivals and ceremonies.
If you are visiting Warri for the first time or planning to do so, try as much as you can to get to your destination before night fall or make sure someone is coming to pick you at arrival. This is not pertaining to Warri alone but to whatever town or cities you may be planning to visit.
