The newly coronated Olu of Warri Oba Tsola Emiko Ogiame Atunwatse lll, has said his selection for the throne was a divine act directly from God.
He said this came after a sense of feeling that his confirmation could be truncated at the last moment.
Emiko was on Saturday crowned as the 21st ruler of the Warri Kingdom in Delta State.
He was born on April 2, 1984, to Prince Godwin Toritseju Emiko, the late Ogiame Atuwatse II and Gladys Durorike Emiko in Warri.
In an interview with BBC News Pidgin, he opened up about his childhood and the process that led to him being named the Olu of Warri Designate.
The 37-year-old said growing up as a prince, he didn’t get a different treatment in school.
He said unlike Prince William and Prince Harry who attended schools in England where they were recognised as the grandchildren of Queen Elizabeth, he had to leave his father’s kingdom to study in another state in Nigeria
“Had I gone to boarding school here in Warri, maybe there would have been some sort of semblance of that,” he said.
“I probably would have gotten in trouble because of that, some people would have picked on me for that reason.
“The boarding school I went to was in Kwara State, about five hours drive from here(Warri). This was between 1995 and 2001. The school was quite the elite boarding school in Nigeria.
“A lot of prominent people’s children were in that school. Captains of industry, military governors’ children… In fact, when the late Head of State died, we woke up the next day and the son of the new Head of State happened to be in our school.
“There were prominent monarchs whose children were in our school.
“I didn’t stand out because I was a prince, which was because the school had other nobility.”
On becoming the Olu of Warri Designate, he said, “It was a slow build. My uncle passed in December and I was not formally presented until early April. Even before April, it was evident that it was going in a certain direction.