… Paradox of an Ogwashi-Uku of Igala Contesting Land with Igbuzo-Isu
Part 4
By Nwankwo T. Nwaezeigwe, PhD
There are four inherent historical contradictions in the historicity of Ogwashi-Uku as an Igbo community that border on her relationship with Ibusa before the emergence of British colonialism which need urgent answers.
The need to put these contradictions in their proper perspectives becomes pertinent because most Ogwashi-Uku people have overtime been living with the delusion of untenable pride in their historical past in relation to Ibusa.
The fact that the people of Ogwashi-Uku ascribe their origins majorly to one Adaigbo from Nri makes it even more germane for my timely intervention not just as the Odogwu of Ibusa, but as an expert-scholar of Igbo history and culture with strong emphasis on Nri-Eri traditions of origin, migration and settlement in Igboland.
It is also instructive to point out that under the aegis of this expertise I have severally in the past been a historical consultant to such towns in Anambra State as Ikenga-Nri (Akamkpisi-Nri) where Adaigbo is said to have migrated from, Adazi-Nnukwu and, Igbo-Ukwu. (See: The Igbo and their Nri Neighbours by Nwankwo T. Nwaezeigwe published in 2007 by Snaap Press, Enugu, and Academica Press in 2020 in Washington DC.)]
The first contradiction is that Ogwashi-Uku from its foundation as a satellite Ibusa settlement founded originally for the purpose of warding off the encroachment of Ezemu descendants of Ubulu-Uno, Ubulu-Uku and Ubulu-Okiti on Ibusa land had never been an independent community until the emergence of British colonialism; but deflected between Ibusa and Benin colonialism.
The second contradiction is that outside Ibusa historical connections, every aspect of Ogwashi-Uku tradition of origin is no more and no less a glorified folktale and fabricated myths and legends.
The third contradiction is that any indigene of Ogwashi-Uku who proudly claims Adaigbo from Nshi-Agu (Nri) as his progenitor (Ancestor) is a descendant of 16th century Igala immigrants in Igboland and thus lacks any moral and historical justification to contest any part of Ogwashi-Uku land, nay Ibusa land with the people of Ibusa.
Fourth and finally, there is the contradiction of a kingship construction on the basement of eclectic abuse of the very customs and tradition on which the institution of kingship was founded, which without the political paternity of Ibusa should have gone into extinction.
On the first contradiction that Ogwashi-Uku from its foundation was a satellite Ibusa settlement designed to ward-off the encroachment of Ezemu descendants of Ubulu-Uno, Ubulu-Uku and Ubulu-Okiti on Ibusa land, and had never been an independent community until the emergence of British colonialism, but deflected between Ibusa and Benin colonialism; the evidence are as germane as they are incontrovertible, especially when applied in conjunction with the Ubu River thesis of Ibusa-Ogwashi-Uku boundary.
Indeed it will be more appropriate to define Ogwashi-Uku relationship with Ibusa in the context of Amawbia-Awka relationship in Anambra State; especially when it is noted that all the five satellite villages of Ogwashi-Uku— Aboh-Ogwashi, Azagba-Ogwashi, Edo-Ogwashi, Isa-Ogwashi, and Olo-Ogwashi were founded at the instance of Ibusa.
Traditionally, Ibusa has boundary with the following towns: Asaba and Oko to the east, Abala to the southeast, Olodu to the south, Ubulu (Ubu-Uno, Ubulu-Uku and Ubulu-Okiti to the west, Issele-Azagba and Okpanam to the North. Apart from Ubulu towns which boundary was obliterated with the planting of Ikelike settlement and later other communities that make up Ogwashi-Uku town today, Ibusa still maintains its traditional boundaries with other towns, although with minimal disputes. Ninety percent of the land housing Asaba Airport and the whole land space housing NNPC Mega Filling Station along Asaba-Benin Expressway belong to Ibusa.
The practice of Ogwashi-Uku planting such satellite villages as Aboh-Ogwashi, Edo-Ogwashi, Isa-Ogwashi, and Olo-Ogwashi at the very tip of her boundary with neigbouring towns was advocated by Ibusa to ward off the encroachment on her traditional land. A closer observation of these satellite Ogwashi-Uku villages will notice that just as Aboh-Ogwashi is located at the exact boundary of Ibusa with Ogwashi-Uku, so is Isa-Ogwashi to Ubulu-Uku, Olo-Ogwashi to Olodu, Edo-Ogwashi to Ubulu-Okiti and Azagba-ogwashi to Issele- Azagba. Therefore the case of Abo-Ogwashi and Ibusa cannot be different from this general pattern of Ogwashi-Uku settlement.
It is important to further point out that early European visitors never recognized Ogwashi-Uku as a town of considerable importance among the towns of what was then known as Asaba hinterland (Present West Niger Igbo). This was marked by the earliest British Colonial Anthropologist who undertook detailed study of Asaba hinterland, Northcote W. Thomas. Thomas on page 3 of his Anthropological Report on Ibo-Speaking Peoples of Nigeria, Part 4 law and custom of the Ibo of Asaba District, S. Nigeria, published in 1914 wrote:
“The district is remarkable in one way, as the towns are considerably larger than any on the east of the Niger. Ibuzo is said have 40,000 inhabitants, Asaba 27,000, Oboluku 20,000, and there are one or two other with more than 10,000.”
It should be recalled that Ibusa formed the limit of Benin monarchical type of traditional government because of her ability to defeat the army of Benin Kingdom; in the process of which Ogwashi-Uku was brought under the suzerainty of Ibusa, till the coming of British colonial administration.
In fact to the British Colonial officers, Ibusa was next to Benin Kingdom among the Igbo of West Niger. This is borne by the report of the London Times of 1898 after the war of 1898, as reported on page 170 of Prof F. K. Ekechi’s Missionary Enterprise and Rivalry in Igbo land 1857-1914 in the following words:
“Even some British papers referred to Ibusa as a second Benin with respect to human sacrifice. After the 1898 war, for instance, the London Times and other British newspaper informed the British public that the Royal Niger Company carried out the expedition against Ibusa because ‘hundreds of people are … sacrificed there every year.”
It is important to point out that having an Obi (King) imposed by the Oba of Benin in pre-colonial times does not define any form of superiority over Ibusa by those communities having it, like Ogwashi-Uku; rather it profoundly expressed their act of subservience to the political authority of the Oba of Benin. The record is there that Ibusa once had an Obi (king), Obi Ezechi, who was imposed by the Oba of Benin, like the cases of Ogwashi-Uku and other similar West-Niger Igbo communities.
Obi Ezechi was later deposed and driven away by Ibusa people. Obi Ezechi subsequently invited the Benin army to restore him to power, which Ibusa resisted and subsequently trounced the invading Benin army with her forces under the command of Odogwu Okwugbea of Umudiokolo Village, Ezukwu Quarters. Coincidentally, Odogwu Okwugbea was my paternal grandmother’s great-great grandfather and a descendant of Ihum-Aboh, whose mother was from Umuokwe Village, Ogwashi-Uku.
The evidence of that Ibusa-Benin war are the present Ogbe-Odafe village in Ogwashi-Uku, Ogbe-Omogwu Village in Ejeme-Aniogor where the dethroned king fled to; Umuoshomi Village in Onicha-Ugbo, Achalla Village in Akwukwu-Igbo, Ogboli-Ekea and Ogboli-Olosi in Onitsha, Anambra State; all of which are descendants of Ibusa refugees.
The further evidence is that after the defeat of the Benin army by Ibusa, while such kingdoms as Ubulu-Uku, Issele-Uku, Akwukwu-Igbo, Onicha-Ugbo and other towns of Asaba hinterland continued to pay tributes to the Oba of Benin till the coming of British colonial administration, Ibusa barred Ogwashi-Uku from paying any further tribute to the Oba of Benin or risk having their king dethroned and the institution of monarchy abolished as in Ibusa. Ogwashi-Uku was subsequently directed to pay all tributes formerly paid to the Oba of Benin to Ibusa, and it remained so till the Ibusa-British war of 1898. Even the people of Asaba took the advantage of the defeat of the army of Benin Kingdom by Ibusa to dethrone their nascent Obi then of Ogbeosowe Village, who also fled to Ejeme-Aniogo. One does not therefore understand the basis on which Ogwashi-Uku will be laying claim to any portion of Ibusa land today.
Even in contemporary times, Ogwashi-Uku has never proved any form of dominance against Ibusa in any manner whatsoever. It is on record that Ibusa effectively confronted and subsequently blocked the advancing Federal troops from entering the town and diverted them back to Ogwashi-Uku from where they later moved through Issele-Azagba and Okpanam to Asaba.
It is also on record that for nearly the whole period of Nigerian civil war, while Ogwashi-Uku, Asaba, Issele-Azagba and Okpanam were effectively occupied by the Federal troops from the beginning of the civil war to its end, Ibusa remained a centre of battle of attritions between Biafran forces and Federal troops. The people of Ibusa stayed protected from the attacks of Federal troops in their surrounding farmlands and forests by the large number of their sons in Biafran army till the end of the civil war under two sectors divided by the Asaba-Ibusa-Ogwashi main road.
The Northern Sector linking the northern part of Ogwashi-Uku, Issele-Azagba and Okpanam was commanded by the fearless Lt. Onwuenweoyi Uwaechue, a. k. a Oliewunaji, while the Southern Sector linking the southern part of Ogwashi-Uku, Olodu, Abala, Oko and Atani in Anambra State was commanded by another fearless son of Ibusa Lt. Anikamgbolu Okolichi. Indeed it took some elders of the town to go inside the forest and convince their sons to drop their arms following the end of the war.
It is equally on record that before the outbreak of the Nigerian civil war in 1967, Ibusa produced the highest number of senior army officers among the entire towns in Nigeria by the standard of the time. Ibusa had Lt. Col Nduka Okwechime—the first Nigeria commander of the Nigerian Army Corps of Engineers and General Olusegun Obasanjo’s first African commander; Ibusa had Lt. Col Henry Igboba—then Nigerian Army best gunner who was beheaded in Benin Prisons by the advancing Federal troops in 1967; Ibusa had Lt. Col S. B. Nwajei and Major Albert Okonkwo, the Administrator of Midwest Region during the Biafan invasion.
The post-civil war period also witnessed some Ibusa sons rising to senior ranks of the Nigerian Armed Forces before the emergence of the former Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Dele Ezeoba. Ibusa had produced one-time best Nigerian Armed Forces paratrooper-jumper in Africa, Lt. Col Emmanuel Nzekwue who is the current Ozoma-Onyia and Eze-Imanukwa of Ibusa, as well as Navy Captain Peter Boderin Onwordi.
It is therefore insulting for any Ogwashi-Uku man to associate Admiral Dele Ezeoba with any form of military violence as a means of maintaining Ibusa’s right of occupancy on her ancestral land currently housing Admiralty University, as if Ibusa as a people would need the support of the military to physically defend their possessions outside the confines of the law.
On the second contradiction that outside Ibusa historical connections, every aspect of Ogwashi-Uku tradition of origin is no more and no less a glorified folktale and fabricated myths and legends, beyond the earlier statements of fact founded on the territorial rights of Ibusa, it is important to emphasize once again that the claim which links the origin of Ogwashi-Uku to one Igala-born Adaigbo from Nshi-Agu (Nri-Agu) is a mendacious fabrication. Is it not the same Ogwashi-Uku that went to the Supreme Court in Obi Izediuno Ezewani V. Obi Nkadi Onwordi & Ors and denied the same tradition of origin it presented in the High Court case of 1962? According to the Supreme Court, referring to Ogwashi-Uku’s attempt to fabricate another version of her history outside what was presented in 1966:
“It is significant that in their own Amended Statement of Defence the defendants pleaded in paragraphs 16 – 23 thereof another traditional history different from the one relied upon in the 1962 cases. Moreover, they denied that they were parties to those cases.”
The fundamental question here is if Ogwashi-Uku decides to go back to court tomorrow against Admiralty University, but definitely not against Ibusa, because they lack the locus standi to do so, which traditional history will they rely on? Will they rely on the one recounted in the 1962 case which they later denied, or the one they later fabricated which they Supreme Court dismissed?
It is a historical truism that Ikelike Village which constitutes the descendants of the first settlers in Ogwashi-Uku could not have migrated from Benin or met an uninhabited land as alleged by Ogwashi-Uku moon-light tale oral tradition. The Ikelike were Igbo of Isu sub-ethnic group and were granted the present land defined as Ogwashi-Uku by Ibusa; the same way Umuokwe Village from Abo settlement of Ihum in Ibusa was later granted the right to join Ikelike. These were the earliest settlers of the present Ogwashi-Uku town before Ikelike later granted Adaigbo the right of settlement. The question might be asked, who was Adaigbo? Was he originally Igbo or Igala? This is where the third contradiction comes in.
To be continued.
Nwankwo T. Nwaezeigwe, PhD
Odogwu of Ibusa Clan
Institute of African Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria
Leader, International Coalition against Christian Genocide in Nigeria (ICAC-GEN)
Website: https://icac-gen.org Email: Nwaezeigwe.genocideafrica@gmail.com
Date: 11 December, 2023
