The History of Ogba Kingdom of Nigeria

Ogba kingdom is as ancient as any other kingdom in West Africa. Ogba kingdom migrated from Benin Kingdom in the 15th Century, pricisely, in 1453 as a result of incessant conflict prevailing at the time and accentuated by the greed of the reigning Oba.But given the exploitative nature of the Oba at the time, Oba Obuaru (the Benin's call him Ovare), the people were not comfortable with him.He was busy at all times conquering and annexing other kingdoms, forcing people to fight in the fields. So ther was most discontent among the people because they had't enough leisure time to enjoy with their families. It got to a point where the War Lords and Chiefs got fed up with him and decided to move away.This is one side of the story.

Now the other story is that the oba had two sons and one was over ambitious, the junior one. The Crown prince must of necessity succeed the father; but the younger one having that nature of trying to usurp, reminiscent of the biblical Esau and Jacob tried to scheme his way through and in the process brought about a calamity that did not only consume himself and his brother but the entire family. After his father was left bereaved, because of his ambition, he had plotted to kill his brother. In Bini Kingdom, it was customary that in theEgwu (Egwe in Bini) festival, the Oba would give directive and the peolpe responsible to bring the lion for the festival would normally do so by sending a chief. But this very ambitious son of the Oba had tricked the people responsible for bringing the lion during the festival and told them that his father asked them to get him a leopard or tiger. They brought the animal, killed it and deposited it where he asked them to deposit it. and it was uncommon to disobey the oba's second son at the time.After depositing it, this young man went and dismembered the animal in order to use itrs vital parts to poison his brother, so he can succeed his father. He did and his brother died and before they knew it, a wicked man was cosumed by his wickedness.He never knew that he should wash his hands and unknowingly dipped his hands in his tongue and died too. Then his father had no child to succeed him. he became hostile and dejected. He suspected foul play in the fact that his two sons died on the same day.He thereby instructed that since his children are dead and he had no successor,that it would not be right to see any pregnancy in that kingdom; that any pregnant woman must be killed including the man responsible for the pregnancy. And many people died this way.

The second draconian law was that any one who impregnates a woman would die. So, as a result, it was only the elderly women who were to satisfy the sexual urge of the young and able men and there weren't many old women there who could not get pregnant. The Warlords now met and resolved to move out. In a nutshell, these incidents were responsible for the exodus of people from the kingdom. When they observed that the people had started migrating to other places,they decided to fight any person whereever they went. The Abors left. The Abors and Ogba are the same people. very large group of people in Benin Kingdom. That wasa why when they scattered, some went as far as Lagos where you have Ogba in Ikeja. So when they left some stopped at Abor and decided not to go but settle. Some moved up to Onitsha and that is why the Onitsha's dont accept being Ibo's. Any body freom Agbor speaking less than 3 meters away could be misconstrued for speaking Ogba because of the similarity to Ogba language. That is the cultural identity arising from our oneness-Agbor- Ogba. The difference in pronounciation is as a result of this problem. However, as the Oba continued to chase them,some people continued their journey eastward.From Onitsha,some went to abor to settle and from Abor, some people miraculously crossed over to Oguta. That was the begining of our journey. We moved on again andeventually arrived at Obirikom. The leader of this group was a man called Aklaka. He was a Prince and a prophetic. He moved with his wife known as Itigwe and his younger brother Ekpeye. when they arrived at Obigwe, they felt that they had moved enough. Prince Akalaka saw serenity in the placew and decided to settle there with his family. He named the place Obigwe meaning heavenly abode. while there he had his first son whom he named Ogba to commemorate his ancestral origin in Benin. He also had other children. His second son was Eke while the third daughter was Ekeoma.

Aklaka and Ekpeye were of the same parents but because of the age disparity between them, Ekpeye was believed to be the son of Aklaka. they lived for a long time.At a stage, the hostility of Ekpeye was too much. He was becoming too rude. So Aklaka's wife, Etigwe was angry over the way Ekpeye was maltreating his son, Ogba whom he eventually murdered.And before the murder, there was an event. Aklaka's wife, that is Ogba's mother saw the behaviour of Ekpeye and cautioned him against beating him again, that no one sees with another man's eye. Told the meaning of the proverb, Ekpeye now knew that he wasn't Aklaka's son. Infuriated, he then schemed to undo them. So when there was a quarell one day,he planned and killed Aklaka's second son and ran away. In a nutshell, after many incursion, he didn't appear again, Ogba inherited the father's stool and his father being a Crown Prince left a lot of legacies for him. So Ogba had his own children, the first one being Igburu, after that he had Imegi (Egi) who was born during the incessant fight between Ogba and Ekpeye. Then they had Agburu and later the last one, Alinwa. Alinwa moved from Obigwe eastward and sojourned at Ikiri. There Alinwa gave birth to Ebe Nwali. Then Agburu discovered Omoku.I would leave out futher details for now. i have only tried to show that we are the same people wiyh the Benis but the kingship did not originate from Benin.The Abor people found out that they were uncomfortable living in a marshy place, so they started making incursions which forced the Ogba people to congregate and resolve to have a king. When they were looking for someone to lead the Ogba's against the troublesome Abors, it was Okoya who volunteered and so he was unanimously made the first Oba of Ogbaland. At the time the war came, they prepared a bunker for Okoya who was prepared to stop the incursion of the Abor people. Unfortunately there was a tactical error. Okoya had a female dog. But out of carelessness of the groups detailed to keep vigil at Onosi Omoku, the Abors well charmed, crossed and moved tp Onosi Akpu and moved up to Obikeze where Oba Okoya was staying. He was in the bunker there. And only the female dog was left, so, with the tactical nature of warefare which the Abor people were very skilful,they moved in there, saw the dog and threatened it. the dog barked and ran to a place covered with laterite and stopped, thereby creating the suspicion that someone was hiding there. the Abor warriors dug the place and found Oba Okoya who fought gallantly but was over powered and killed. It was at this point that Ajie Ekeoha raised an alarm when he observed that the Oba's head had been taken away. The Abors were fiercely fought, and the Oba's head was retreived. It was from then that the female was accused of betrayal and susequently banned from entering Ogbaland. It was decided that the descendants of Oba okoya's would continue to assume the Kingship of Ogbaland as a compensatory measure.

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