UBULU-UKU – NDOKWA RELATIONS IN PRE-COLONIAL

UBULU-UKU – NDOKWA RELATIONS IN PRE-COLONIAL

ABSTRACT

Through examining the connections between the Ubulus in Aniocha and the other Ubulu Communities in Ndokwa throughout the pre-colonial era and demonstrating their common progenitor (Ezemu and Obodo). .The special aspects of their relationship in terms of their political, economic, diplomatic, and sociocultural ties would be highlighted.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

It might be claimed that the histories of the Ubulu communities in Aniocha South Local Government Area and Ndokwa East Local Government Area, both in Delta state, are connected. However they are distinct due to their nationality or race. Although Ubulu-Uku and the Ubulu Communities in Ndokwa belong to different nations—Ukwuani and Aniocha, respectively—these people share a great deal of sociocultural traits. It is impossible to overstate how similar their languages are, but the Ubulu in Aniocha are distinct from all other Aniocha speakers because of the “shi” sound in their dialect.

The connections between these people’s migration patterns, trade, marriage, culture, traditions, etc. are documented in the literature that has already been written. Legends link these people’s ancestry or certain founding fathers (Ezemu and Obodo) who left Afor in Delta State’s Ndokwa East Local Government Area on their parents’ orders to settle wherever the pot of power they were carrying with them landed. They traveled through Abbi, Amai, and Ogume before settling in Ubulu-Unor. Currently, Ezemu is revered as a deity in the communities of Amai, Afor, and Abbi, while Obodo is revered in Onicha Ukwuani. Ubulu-Unor is regarded as the ancestral home of the Ubulu people.

A case in point is Umubu in Amai, who sought the assistance of Ubulu-Uku, Ubulu-Unor, and Ubulu-Okiti to fight against their enemies and reclaim their territory. This is evidence that the Ubulu-Uku people and the Ubulu in Diaspora leaned towards one another to solve common problems, such as the warding of infiltrators from their territories. Ubulu-Uku, Ubulu-Unor, and Ubulu-Okiti are three fingers of one hand that share the majority of things in common, including culture, traditions, and faiths, according to an existing study on Ubulu Communities. No matter where their fruits are located, no matter the dispute, the value comes from the same ancestral root since they share the same ancestral root path. The lack of information about the numerous Ubulu-Uku Communities in Ndokwa and the Ubulu-Uku People in Aniocha until recently has contributed to the general public’s perception that there is just a linguistic connection between the Ubulu in Ndokwa and the Ubulu in Aniocha. My attempt to uncover the connection between the Ubulu-Uku and Ndokwa people will go a long way toward adding to the documentation of the life of the Ubulu people and filling in the knowledge gap, just as everyone is putting their minds together to try and link up the past life with the present in order to determine what the origin might be.

1.1Geography

Ubulu towns in Nigeria are West and East of the River Niger and span a sizable area with a population of about 900,000 in the Northern region of Delta State.

This study will look at the connections between the people of Ubulu-Uku in Delta State’s Aniocha South Local Government Area and their relatives in the Ndokwa towns of Okwelle in Abbi, Ndokwa West Local Government Area, Amoji in Onicha Ukwuani, Ndokwa West Local Government Area, Obetim in Afor Ndokwa East Local Government Area, and Umubu in Amai, Ndokwa West Local

1.2Traditions of Origin

A people’s culture, history, and geography define them. Most crucially, a people’s identity is determined by how they see themselves; in other words, a people is what they claim to be. 1 A segment of the Ubulu people would relocate and build a new home, keeping the memory of its origin, Elizabeth Isichei writes in her work. While history records that the Ubulu people are of one lineage despite having varied versions of their origin. 2 The Ubulu Villages in Ndokwa are like this.

The Ubulu people of Ndokwa and their relatives in Aniocha have frequently been classified as two separate nations by historians and academics. Nonetheless, the origin traditions and migratory path of this group would be examined in this chapter.

1.3The Umubu People

One of Amai’s five quarters, which also include Nge, Umuekun, Umuoselle, Umubu, and Ishikaguma, is the Umubu. Several accounts of this people’s migration have been provided. 3

Oral sources claim that the Umubu people moved from Igala in Kogi State to Aboh, where they briefly resided before moving on to Umuebu, which is very near to the current Abbi junction. They remained there and began to grow in population. It is important to note at this point that Umuebu was the Umubu people’s original settlement before they relocated to their current location.

Several academics who have written extensively about the interactions between the Umubu people and the Ubulu-Uku people have provided a variety of accounts with the latter’s assistance, they defeated their adversaries and took back their land. This is correctly agreed upon by another source. One version claims that Amai, the founder of Amai, had four sons who went on to found the Umu-ekwum, Ama-Nge, Ishikaguna, and Umuosele sectors of Amai. While he married an Amai woman, an immigrant from Ubulu formed the fifth quarter in the Asaba division. 4

1.4The Okwele People

One of Abbi’s three quarters is Okwele; according to E.O. Okohigbo, this quarter was established by a party of hunters who stayed on their route from Benin toward the south. 5 These hunters are thought to be Ezemu and Obodo who traveled via Abbi, Amai, and Ogume on their way to Africa.

According to an another account, Okpalla Ogwezi, who is supposed to be the son of Ekei and to have immigrated from Ubulu-Uku after having disagreements with the Ubulu-Uku king over a treacherous conduct, was the founder of Okwele. But he arrived at Abbi, where he made his home. He first resided in Azu Oji (Ukwuani), then moved to Ogbe nkpu, and finally made his way to the Okwele One  of the quarters that makes up Abbi.

One Ogwezzi Okwelle Ekei, according to an intriguing oral narrative at Abbi, fled Ubulu Uku after having carnal knowledge of his father’s wife. According to legend, Ogwezzi strayed and found refuge between Abbi and Orogun. He eventually developed a bond with Orogun through his marriage to a daughter of the Urhobo tribe. The Okwele of Abbi still celebrate their Ubulu-Uku ancestry and inform people that the Obi of Ubulu-Uku comes to their annual Ukwata Festival.

The founder of Okwele was an Ubulu-Uku person, according to the numerous accounts of the inhabitants of Okwelle in Abbi. This demonstrates the close ties between the inhabitants of Ubulu-Uku and Okwele in Abbi; Ezemu is also acknowledged as an important deity and worshipped by these people.

1.5The Amoji People

The origin and migration stories of the Amoji people have frequently sparked debates about the group’s originator.

The inhabitants of Amoji assert that they are descended from Ezechima, who left Benin during the upheavals that occurred in that country between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and caused Ezechima to leave.

6

The founder of the Onicha-Ukwuani people, according to this story, is Ezechima, however another tale about the origin of the Amoji people strongly contradicts this one. According to this narrative, Chichi and Ozar were born to Obodo, Ezemu’s older brother. Later, Chichi got married, gave birth to a boy, and gave him the name Ata. Ubulu-Unor refers to the Umuata as the Okpala Uku in Ubulu-Unor till date.

1.6The Obetim People

The Ubulu-Uku people are descended from Afor. Obodo, Ezemu Aniga Ekeli, and their parents were the founders of this community’s original settlement.

They were convinced to leave Afor after a fierce siege by the enemy army by their worn-out and elderly parents. A pot of power (Ududu) was also given to them, along with the directive to camp wherever the pot cracked.

Obodo, Ezemu, Aniga, and Ekelie departed Afor while being escorted by family members, housekeepers, and their spouses. They traveled through Umubu and left some individuals behind. In order to prevent extinction during the battle that resulted in the deaths of many Umubu people, individuals left Umubu. Some of them returned to their old homes in Afor, while others who  moved to Ubulu-Uku. Those who went back to Afor are those who make up the present Obetim.8

1.7Ubulu-Uku People

Several individuals and academics have offered different accounts of the Ubulu-Uku people’s origin. According to a conversation with Obi Anene, the Ubulu-Uku people originated in Ife. He said that some characteristics of the Ubulu-Uku people indicate interaction with the Yoruba, and that Ezemu staff is still referred to as the “annals of the living palace” today. Certain Yoruba-derived works are exclusively found in the Ubulu dialect of the Igbo language; for instance, the Yoruba term for “cat” is “ologbo” in Ubulu-Uku, although it is “onogbo” among other Igbos, and “ewa,” which means beans in Yoruba, is pronounced “iwa” in Ubulu-Uku. 9

On some of the claims of origin for Benin,

According to Chief Ikeji of the Ubulu-Uku Community, Anugwe led a party out of Benin on the Oba’s orders to track down and deal with a ferocious rebel gang. Anugwe and his crew failed to complete their task, and fearing the wrath of a furious Oba, they made the decision to dwell close to their current location, which was rich in soil. 10

This story may be accurate because Anugwe allegedly asked the Oba of Benin for assistance in organizing troops against Ezemu while claiming that his agricultural labor stopped him from challenging Ezemu for the Obiship. Ikemefuneh and Anene make this claim in their book. As Anugwe rejected kinship and preferred yams, the Oba gave him a matchet to advance his farming ability and predicted that he would succeed Anugwe as the leader.

between farmers. Nowadays, the Ubulu refer to them as “ndi julu eze shali ji,” those who rejected the monarch for yam. The matchet is still present in Ubulu-“fejokwu Uku’s Eshumeshu,” a revered location. 11

According to oral history, Ezemu and his brothers were convinced to leave their village of Afor in the Ndokwa West Local Government Area of Delta State by their worn-out and elderly parents in order to protect the steaming guardian pot of power known as “Ududu” and prevent their impending extinction by a warring army under siege by their reigning monarch of Idu land. Obodo, Ezemu, Aniga, Ekehe, and other families that had survived the initial siege were among those that left Afor. Ezemu and Obodo left and traveled eastward accompanied by their wives and family members, passing through Abbi, Amai and Oguma.

They got to a place where “Ududu” fell and broke and so Ezemu and his brother Obodo, Ekehe and Aniga settled there and set up their first home about one hundred and twenty kilometer from their original home Afor. This new place of settlement became known as Ani-Obodo, now Ubulu-Unor and is seen by all Ubulus as the ancestral home of the first settlement of Ezemu and Obodo.12

Another account has it that there were a lot of controversies which transpired between Ezemu and his brothers, when they got to their new place. It went further to state that during the process of Ima-Ani” (a practice where a tree is planted as a symbol of who first settled in a particular place) Obodo as the senior had insisted on holding the bottom of the stick to be planted while Ezemu held it at the top. When it was time to appease the gods under the tree, Ezemu wanted to pour libation to which Obodo refused, insisting as a senior, he alone had the right to pour libation and besides he was the one that held the planted tree at the bottom, while it was put into the ground and as such, the land belonged to him.

And so, Obodo addressed the place as Ani Obodo to the dismay of Ezemu. Ezemu wanting to have a place of his own took his own family and journeyed inward towards the big tree where he had often gone to hunt but not without a portion of the broken calabash and egbo tree. Ezemu while under the “ubulu” tree sighted smoke at a distance, he became curious and traced the smoke. Just by the edge of the present Isho quarters of Ubulu-Uku, Ezemu met Oza who showed him the road to Ani-Ekei, on the west side of the Ubulu-tree. Ezemu met these  blacksmiths living in a land they called Ani-Ekei and ruled by Obi Ekei and befriended them. On the east side of the tree, Ezemu ventured deeper and met some farm settlers who identified themselves as Umu Anugwe.

These two clans Ani-Ekei and Ani-Anugwe were probably unaware of each other until Ezemu brought them together. Their meeting soon developed into friendship. Ezemu continued to visit his friends and soon gained their confidence so much that he suggested an alliance to enable them become lord to give final verdict at deliberations. The two friends Ekei and Angwe rejected the offer with the excuse of being very busy or old. Ezemu thus became the first king of Ubulu-Uku.13

At this point, one must not forget Ani-Obodo which was the first settlement of Ezemu and his brothers (Obodo, Anigai and Ekelie). An account has it that when Ezemu was given the go ahead to become the king of Ubulu-Uku, he went to Ani-Obodo to tell his brother about the good news. The brother in return shaved his busy hair to make him look neat on the day of his coronation. Today, every Obi of Ubulu-Uku must go to Ani-Obodo (Ubulu-Unor) to have their hair shaved by the descendants of Obodo.14

According to E.N. Nwogwonwe, though any other person could have visited the Ubulu tree before Ezemu, Ubulu orogin is certain that it was until Ezemu named his new settlement after the Ubulu tree that the tree became of significant importance.

“Ubulu” with its shady leaves and trees tends to symbolize plenty to Ezemu who saw the name Ubulu as welcoming for a young developing village and by adopting it then began the legendary Ubulu clans.15

Conclusion: Despite the fact that the Ubulu Communities have diverse migration histories, they all acknowledge Ezemu and Obodo as their ancestors. In both Aniocha and Ndokwa, the Ubulu people regard Ezemu as a significant deity. With the exception of Onicha-Ukwuani, who worshipped the god Obodo, all of the Ubulu communities in Ndokwa had shrines to Ezemu and Iyi-Agor. This demonstrated the connection between the various Ubulu Communities in Ndokwa and Ubulu-uku, who see themselves as descended from a single line and are welcome wherever they are in Ubulu.