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Urhobo Historical Society |
On the Matter of
Clans and Kingdoms in Urhobo History and Culture
By Peter P. Ekeh
Chair, Urhobo Historical Society
Presented as a lecture at an Assembly of Urhobo Community,
As a term for describing a basic unit of Urhobo culture, the word
�clan� came into existence at the onset of British colonial rule in
Urhoboland in the beginning decades of the 20th century.
From prehistoric times, and even during that era of colonial rule, the
Urhobo people employed their own native expressions, including
ẹkpotọ (that is, ẹkpo r� otọ in full phrasing),
to describe these units of Urhobo culture. Other words that were so
used to describe Urhobo�s cultural units were
ẹkuotọ and
ubrotọ. However, that colonial term
of �clans� dominated Urhobo studies and everyday analysis of Urhobo
ways of life until its authority was undermined in the late 1990s.
Its current rival term of �kingdom� was first applied to the special
case of Okpe by Onigu Otite in his 1969 Ph.D. thesis for
The recent widespread upsurge in the use of the word �kingdoms� in
the cultural life of the Urhobo people followed from the publication
of a book of a different genre. Titled Urhobo Kingdoms: Political and Social Systems
and published in 1997, its authors were notable: they were the
Ovie1
of Ogor, His Royal Highness O. I. Adjara III,2
and his co-author Andy Omokri. Although this book cannot be said to
have made any academic impact beyond Urhoboland and its Diaspora, its
import on Urhobo social life has been considerable. While it is hardly
known outside the leading circle of Ivie3
and high chieftains in Urhoboland, its influence in this dominant
group of aristocrats appears to have been immediate and positive.
Today, the term �clan� has largely been swept off Urhobo political
vocabulary. However, it is uncertain whether �kingdoms� has
effectively replaced the British term �clans� or indeed traditional
indigenous Urhobo terms, such as ẹkpotọ,
for which the British had coined the word �clans� a century ago.
Indeed, this note of disquiet may well be phrased differently, as a
query: Is it possible that the introduction of �kingdoms� has done
more harm to Urhobo�s cultural circumstances than any appearance of
prestige that it has bestowed on our royal institutions? What one can
say with some certainty is that there is considerable confusion in the
usages and meanings of �kingdoms� in modern Urhobo cultural life.
Certainly, the term �kingdoms� has left out of its semantic sway whole
areas of culture that are of traditional concern to the Urhobo people.
Into this deepening confusion has now strolled the Delta State
Government waiving what appears to be an all-embracing new claim that
it has an inherent power to decree Urhobo �kingdoms� into existence by
way of government gazettes. Without a doubt, a dark cloud of cultural
crisis now hangs over the Urhobo horizon. In these circumstances,
there is need to clarify the historical and cultural meanings of
�clans� and �kingdoms.� To be silent and allow this confusion to be
waged in ignorance serves no one well � not Urhobo culture, not the
Delta State Government, and certainly not Urhobo chieftains.
Before I proceed any further with this analysis, I want to make a
point abundantly clear. This paper is not intended to defend the
British colonial term �clans� or to attack its putative rival
�kingdoms.� On the contrary, it is to invite an engaging conversation
on a vital aspect of Urhobo history and culture which is currently
under distress. Urhobo culture is ours and we must not allow it to
flounder.
Pre-Historic Origins of Urhobo Cultural Units
For now, permit me to put aside the two controversial terms of �clans�
and �kingdoms.� In their place, I will use the politically neutral
expression of �Urhobo Cultural Units� or more simply �Urhobo�s
Subcultures.� These are sociological notions for which the word
�clans� or �kingdoms� had been suggested as a shorthand. Note that I
have not employed another popular expression, polities, in
characterizing these subunits of Urhobo culture. That is because the
word polities is limited by its political anthropological
baggage to matters political whereas the
units of Urhobo culture that are the subject of our discussion
here have vast historical and cultural nuances and
interpretations.
These basic subunits of Urhobo culture were prehistoric. That is,
their existence predated modern historiography that assigns dates and
ascertainable time periods to historical events. Today, Urhobo
scholars and culture artists have arrived at a sum total of twenty-two
of these units of Urhobo culture. By saying that they are prehistoric,
we mean to say that all of them -- Agbarha-Ame, Agbarha Otor, Agbarho, Agbon, Arhavwarien,
Avwraka, Ephron, Evwreni, Eghwu, Idjerhe, Oghara, Ogor, Okere,
Okparebe, Okpe, Olomu, Orogun, Udu, Ughelli, Ughievwen, Uvwie,
and Uwherun
� were well settled before the rise of significant historical epochs
that defined the boundaries of medieval and modern Urhobo history.
Thus, it is presumed that all these twenty-two subunits of Urhobo
culture were in existence before the rise of Benin Empire in the 1440s
and before the arrival of the Portuguese in the Western Niger Delta in
the 1480s.
To say that Urhobo�s subcultures were ancient and prehistoric is not
to suggest that they are of the same age and generation. On the
contrary, a group of these subcultures was of great antiquity, giving
birth to newer subcultures. In general, the older subcultures were
geographically separated from the less ancient ones. There is ample
evidence from internal Urhobo folk knowledge and rituals that suggests
that the oldest cultural subunits of Urhoboland are in the low-lying
swampy southeastern region which is bounded by
Figure 1.1
Michael Nabofa�s Geographical Display of Urhobo�s Cultural Units
It is noteworthy that in precolonial times, Iyede in modern Isoko was
counted among the earliest subcultures of Urhoboland. It has since
been re-assigned to Isoko, suggesting that the cultural walls that
separate Urhobo from Isoko are thin.4 The migrations into Urhoboland that are variously claimed to
have occurred, with points of origin in lands once ruled by the Ogiso
dynasty in areas now named Benin, most probably followed the creeks
into this swampy region of southeastern Urhoboland and Isokoland;
rather than through the impenetrable rainforests of northwestern
Urhoboland.
Urhobo's Subcultures and the Conquest of Western Niger Delta�s
Rainforests
Urhobo folk history suggests that it was from the swampy southeastern
Urhobo region that the conquest of the bigger and more ample
rainforests of northwestern Urhoboland was launched and accomplished.
Those who achieved this extraordinary feat of conquest were fresh
units who founded new sub-cultures in areas that they conquered,
spreading Urhobo language and culture across these virgin tropical
rainforests. Some of these sub-cultures were established in groups.
Thus, the so-called Oghwoghwa Cultural Group (see Erivwo: 2003: 109-113) --
consisting of Ogor, Ughelli, Agbarha-Otor, and Orogun � probably
launched their campaign in tandem, occupying contiguous vital lands in
the rainforests of the Western Niger Delta. Other groups went farther
away from the southeast homeland. Thus, having followed similar paths
from Isoko (in the case of Agbon) and Erhowa (in modern Isoko, in the
case of Okpe)) and having both registered settlements in Olomu in
southeastern Urhobo, the ancestors of the Okpe people and of Agbon
conquered and claimed vital territories closer to River Ethiope.
Another genre of campaign of expansion of territory by a group of
Urhobo sub-cultures in the rainforests of the Western Niger Delta is
noteworthy. Just as Olomu proved to be a fertile starting point and a
gateway for secondary groups of sub-cultures for campaigns of
conquests of large portions of rainforests of the Western Niger Delta,
so has Agbarha-Otor turned out to be a veritable cradle in breeding
new tertiary sub-cultures. It was from Agbarha-Otor that groups left
to found Agbarha-Ame, in modern Warri, naming their subculture after
their ancestral land as Agbarha. Then an even more arduous campaign
was waged when two separate groups of Agbarha-Otor migrants crossed
the River Ethiope and occupied virgin rainforests on the Western side
of an untamed river. They named their new sub-cultures after their
ancestral towns in Agbarha-Otor as Idjerhe and Oghara.
Historic Significance of the Conquest of Western Niger Delta�s
Rainforests by Urhobo Cultural Units
It is probably unnecessary at this point of our analysis to attempt a
blow-by-blow account of the founding of the twenty-two sub-groups of
Urhobo culture. But it is important that we attach some significance
to the above statement of the groups of founding subcultures that are
now more controversially labeled as �clans� or �kingdoms.�
Modern Urhobos correctly boast that they represent the largest group
in the Western Niger Delta. Moreover, Urhobo occupies a sizeable chunk
of the dry lands of the Western Niger Delta. All these we owe to those
whose courage and heroism enabled the Urhobo to occupy prime
rainforests. We must not forget that we shared the same rainforests
with the Isoko and the Ukwuani. That our share of these lands is
enviable owes everything to the fact that our prehistoric ancestors
were able to conquer them.
�Conquest� is an evocative term in historical scholarship. Conquerors
often subdue their own people and then overcome others. Such
conquerors of peoples are frequently crowned as kings. But the
conquest upon which our ancestors embarked was of a different type. It
was the conquest of an untamed and unoccupied rainforest that was
deemed to be dangerous. Today, we cannot imagine how fearsome these
lands were in their pristine form. They had wild animals in abundance.
That they are all gone from our territory is probably due to the fact
that part of the responsibility of our founding ancestors was to
destroy wild animals. It is said that Evwreni was founded by a group
of hunters who were hired by Iyede to kill menacing elephants.
Elephants (eni in Urhobo), lions (okpohrokpo), tigers (ẹdjẹnẹkpo), gorillas (ọsia), and hippotemuses (ẹrhẹ) have all gone
from our lands, but they were once here in Urhoboland in some
abundance.
There is another point of significance to be stressed. Apart from the
fact that the secondary and tertiary subcultures of northwestern
Urhoboland have larger territories than those in the low-lying swampy
southeast, it is noteworthy that -- with the remarkable exception of
Olomu -- these primeval subcultures of the southeast are almost all
single-town cultures. In contrast, the larger secondary and tertiary
subcultures of the northwest are multiple-town cultures. The
multiplicities of towns and villages in these cultures � in Ughelli,
Agbarha-Otor, Orogun, Okpe, Agbon, Agbarho, Idjerhe, etc. � are
striking. Such multiplication of settlements of towns and villages
within each subculture enabled the conquest and occupation of as much
territory as was accomplished in these lands that were once
untamed.
Properties and Characteristics of Cultural Units of Urhoboland
These subcultures of Urhobo have borne the burden of Urhobo history.
They also carry the weight of Urhobo culture and its political
organisation. Together, they all bear certain markers and
characteristics that set Urhobo and its people apart from other
cultures and peoples. So that we may be sure that these subcultures
define what Urhobo is, we should map out their properties and
characteristics.
(i)
Territory with Boundaries and Integrity
Every Urhobo subculture has a territory that has boundaries with
other sub-cultures and occasionally with non-Urhobo cultural entities,
such as the Isoko, Ijaw, and Ukwuani. A unique aspect of Urhoboland is
that the Urhobo people were the first to occupy their own portions in
the hinterland of the rainforests of Western Niger Delta. In most
instances, therefore, bearers of each subculture of Urhobo occupy
territory that their ancestors were the first to conquer and occupy.
This attribute of Urhobo�s subcultures has imparted a sense of
collective ownership of the territories of these units of Urhobo
culture. The integrity of each of Urhobo�s subcultures derives from
its ownership of its own territory that it has conquered and occupied
through its own exploits.
(ii)
Sub-Cultural Headquarters and Eponymous Ancestral Shrines
Each subculture has its own headquarters. It is usually located in
the first place in which the founding ancestors settled. These
headquarters have eponymous ancestral shrines, venerating the spirits
of the founding ancestors whose names are associated with the entire
subculture.
It is noteworthy that the high regard for these ancestral shrines is
shared across all communities, including Christian families. In
effect, these eponymous ancestral shrines are regarded as historic
institutions.
(iii)
Endowment of Individual�s Identity as an Urhobo Person
Every person who claims to be Urhobo does so only through his or her
membership of a subculture or subcultures as their father�s or
mother�s birth right. No one can claim to be Urhobo directly, without
belonging to a subculture or subcultures of Urhobo. This attribute
carries with it the claim of certain rights from members of the
subculture who are expected to work for the survival and improvement
of the entire subculture. But it is an attribute that also imposes
important responsibilities on the subculture in its relationship to
individual members. Until recent times, protection of the individual
and care for his remains after death were responsibilities of the
subculture or its further divisions.
(iv) Totems and Taboos of Sub-Cultures
For the sake of maintaining the spiritual welfare of its members,
some subcultures instituted their own set of totems and taboos whose
observance would be binding on their communities. The power of totems
instituted by Ughelli and Orogun � even over those of their members
who are now converted to Christianity � is legendary. Other
sub-cultures have similar regimes of totems.
(v)
Sub-Cultural Control of Urhobo�s Linguistic Dialects
In the realm of language, Urhobo is a
land of great dialectic variability. Remarkably, each subculture has
its own dialect of the Urhobo language. Native speakers of the Urhobo
language can easily tell from what sub-culture a speaker of the Urhobo
language hails.
(vi)
Urhobo Sub-cultures and the Institution of King (Ovie)
One of the most powerful cultural tools that each of Urhobo�s
subcultures has (or had) at its disposal was the institution of
kingship. Called Ovie throughout Urhobo culture, an Urhobo king
exists only at the sub-cultural level. Each subculture controls the
rules that govern the ascension to the subculture�s throne. More
importantly, each subculture could decide to exercise its right to
have a king or not to have one. However, by common Urhobo usage, no
subculture is allowed to have more than one Ovie at a time.5
It is
noteworthy that until the explosion of royal institutions began in the
1950s, from instigation from various Nigerian governments, only a
handful of Urhobo�s sub-cultures exercised their inherent rights to
have kings. Ogor and Ughelli had stable regimes of kingship for a good
portion � but by no means all � of their history. The Okpe had an
historic instance of monarchy that went awry and thereafter the Okpe
were reluctant to revive the institution, until 1945, centuries
afterwards. The Agbon people chose for centuries of their history to
make do with the maxim Okpako r� Agbon oy� Ovie r� Agbon �
meaning, Agbon sub-culture�s eldest is its King. Many other attitudes
toward royal institutions emanated from the other subcultures of
Urhoboland. The point is, it was their right to determine whether they
wanted a king and if so on what terms.
(vii)
An Axiom of Co-Equality among Urhobo Sub-Cultures
There is an underlying axiom in the relations among the units of
Urhobo culture. It is that they are co-equal. For instance, although
Okpe and Agbon are each many times larger in land and population than
most of the Urhobo subcultures of the southeast, they cannot claim to
be culturally superior to the much smaller sub-cultural units of
southeast Urhoboland, such as Okparebe and Arhavwarien.
British Colonial Rule and the Naming of Urhobo�s Sub-Cultures as
Clans
British colonial rule in Urhoboland began effectively in the first
decade of the 20th century, following a delay lasting many
years (1894-1899) on account of a dispute between the Royal Niger
Company and agents of the Niger Coast Protectorate Government over
what British interest had administrative jurisdiction in Urhoboland
(see Salubi 1958). When British colonial rule commenced, it was clear
that the British had little knowledge of Urhobo culture. This was
largely because missionaries had not been as active in the Western
Niger Delta as they had been elsewhere, say in Yorubaland and Igboland
(see Ekeh 2005).
The British made up for lost ground in their understanding of Urhobo
culture by relying heavily on �intelligence reports� provided by
colonial administrative officers. For centuries, Europeans, including
the British, relied on Atlantic coastal peoples for their information
on the Urhobo. As it turned out, much of that information was either
wrong or outright mischievous.6
Now, the colonial administrators� intelligence reports sought to paint
a correct picture of Urhobo ethnography. These efforts led the British
to conclude that Urhobo culture was essentially based on a clan
system. They identified the units that we have been calling Urhobo�s
subcultures along with many of their properties that we described
above.
How did the British colonial officers come up with the word �clans� to
describe these subcultures of Urhoboland? By the early 1900s and
1910s, when the label was applied, Colonial Social Anthropology was
not mature enough to be helpful to colonial officers in their efforts
at understanding such entities as Urhobo. It is more likely that the
label was picked up from Scottish history of Clans. In many ways,
Urhobo sub-cultures were very much like ancient Scottish clans.
Urhobo Reactions to British Colonial Ethnography of
Urhoboland
As can be imagined, Urhobos were the principal informants for those
who composed the intelligence reports. These reports were of course
not made public, but key decisions were made on the strength of the
information provided in them. It was therefore the British policies,
apparently based on the intelligence reports, which the Urhobo people
could judge. While accepting and even appreciating many administrative
policies of the British Colonial Government, a good number of them
were rejected by the Urhobo people who fought against their
implementation and indeed for their reversal.
Two instances will illustrate the point. The British wrongly assigned
Orogun and Avwraka (which they misnamed as Abraka) to Kuale [that is,
Ukwuani] Division in
Urhobo Progress Union arose in the 1930s as a vehicle for conveying
Urhobo concerns to the British Colonial Government. One of the first
public responsibilities of Urhobo Progress Union was to convey
Urhobo�s objection on the wrong rendering of their name to the
British. Urhobos objected to unacceptable names given by the British
to Urhobo and its sub-units, obviously owing to pronunciation problems
that the British encountered with complicated Urhobo names. Thus, the
British had difficulties with the �rh� in Urhobo. They simplified it,
changing �Urh� to S� and thus yielding �Sobo,� a name that Urhobos
found offensive.7
Urhobo Progress Union fought very hard to change Urhobo�s spoilt name
and it succeeded when the British made a correction in a Gazette of
October 1, 1938. Urhobo Progress Union was itself involved in making
changes in its own sphere, changing its name from its previous version
of Urhobo Progressive Union in the late 1930s.
We have pointed to these Urhobo reactions in order to highlight the
point that the Urhobo people were not unaware of what the British were
doing with their cultural institutions. Urhobo Progress Union
certainly knew of the label �Clans� which the British used to describe
Urhobo�s sub-cultures. It had no objection. Indeed, UPU employed the
term clans in its official duties of working for Urhobo progress.
Right up until the mid-1960s, when UPU was in its high phase of
activities on behalf of the Urhobo people, it used the term clans
frequently. Thus, in his 1965 address to the General Council of Urhobo
Progress Union, the President-General of the
I would love to hope, indeed expect, that the degree of oneness and
unity so transparently exhibited at Sapele on the occasion [of Urhobo
National Day Celebration] will diffuse down to our different
clan areas and be reflected in our ordinary life and
day-to-day dealings with one another in our towns and villages (Salubi
1965, emphasis added).
It should be added that Nigerian nationalist scholars, including
especially historians, objected to the use of such anthropological
terms as tribes and clans, considering them to be derogatory and
offensive. However, the general rejection of �clans� was from outside
Urhoboland. The much preferred term of �kingdoms� did not catch up
with Urhobo nationalist sentiments until the late 1990s!
Nigerian Governments� Interactions with Urhobo�s Sub-Cultures
Various Nigerian Governments, at the Regional and State levels
particularly, which followed British Colonial Government, have also
dealt with the significance of these sub-cultural entities that the
British labelled as clans of Urhoboland. It is fair to say that most
Nigerian Governments have accepted and respected the fact that Urhobo
is in essence a confederation of twenty-two sub-cultures whose bases
and roots are ancient and prehistoric. Until the bizarre incident of
2006 in which Delta State Government sought to split an Urhobo
sub-cultural unit into two, all previous Nigerian Governments had
respected the integrity of each of the twenty-two units of Urhobo
culture. Before dealing with the abnormality of that 2006 legislative
episode by the Delta State Government that clearly violated the creed
of Urhobo history and culture, it will be helpful to sketch how
various previous generations of Nigerian governments, responded to
Urhobo�s cultural system. Such an outline will probably help us all to
see why the 2006 legislative affront on Urhobo history and culture is
so remarkably different from the conduct of previous Nigerian
Governments.
How Western Nigerian Government Dealt with Action Group�s
Difficulties with the Urhobo People
The first Nigerian Government which the Urhobo had to deal with was
led by the Action Group party of
The Action Group did its utmost to insinuate itself into Urhobo
political affairs. Its bluntest tool was invocation of a property of
Urhobo sub-culture. It is that every sub-culture was entitled to have
an Ovie. It so happened that in the 1950s few of Urhobo�s sub-cultures
had their own Ivie. The Action Group Government therefore orchestrated
the selection of candidates for the throne of Ovie in each sub-culture
where there was no seating Ovie. The Action Group supported its own
candidates for these thrones.
Although this ploy did not work in convincing Urhobos to vote for the
Action Group at the polls, it opened up a new chapter in Urhobo
history. Playing within the logic of Urhobo culture that allocated the
right of kingship to its sub-cultures, it nonetheless expanded
Urhobo�s royal institutions well beyond what the Urhobos themselves
wanted. One reason why many sub-cultures of Urhobo neglected to
exercise their right to have a king was that it was costly to maintain
an Ovie. Now, members of the new class of Ivie were more dependent on
Government subsidies than on their own people, opening up new dynamics
in Urhobo public affairs.
Mid-West Government and Ordered Selection of Ivie
By the time the Mid-West Region was carved out of the Western Region
in 1964, it was very well established that kingship was mandatory in
Urhobo sub-cultures, still then called clans. What the Ministry of
Chieftaincy Affairs sought to do was to bring order to the selection
of the Ovie of each sub-culture. Urhobo chieftains seemed to have
warmed up to the idea of this widespread kingship, hoping that it was
one way of gaining sponsorship from the Government.
Two facts followed from this inordinate expansion of royal
institutions in Urhoboland. The first is that the resulting Ivie were
now ever more dependent on the Government. But their sheer numbers
meant that they could not be as well cared for as if they were fewer.
The other fact is that the kings became less dependent on their own
people. These are dynamics that were liable to affect an institution
that was invented from the necessity and imperatives of survival in a
dangerous rainforest. It was no longer quite clear what the functions
of the Ivie were. No doubt, many Government functionaries saw them as
agents of the Government.
Whatever views one holds of the institution of Ovie, the Government
had come to play a major role in moulding its place and functions in
Urhobo culture. The catastrophic events of the 2006 legislation that
sought to create an Urhobo sub-culture from the thin pages of a
Government Gazette probably represent the ultimate in the unintended
consequences of Government take-over of an ancient Urhobo convention.
But before we examine that notorious event, we must first weigh the
semantic changes that occurred in the characterization of units of
Urhobo culture.
Renaming Urhobo�s Sub-cultures as Kingdoms
There is a measure of trivialization that has recently crept into the
naming of Urhobo institutions as they are rendered in a culturally
alien English language. For an Urhobo -- particularly for an Ughelli
person -- there is an emotional difference between saying: �Ovie r� Ughele� (in Urhobo) or �Ovie of Ughelli� (in English). The
trivialization gets worse, along with the rather serious grammatical
infraction that should be evident, in a new popular rendering in
English of the same appellation: �Ovie of Ughelli Kingdom."8
The infatuation with this new-found word �kingdom� descends down the
chain of the modern Urhobo aristocracy. To give an example from
another sub-culture of Urhoboland: In his exemplary curriculum vitae,
which was crafted some time in the early 1980s, Chief T. E. A. Salubi
cites one of his most valued titles as �Okakuro of Agbon.� Since the late 1990s, the same title is now cited by its holders
as �Okakuro of Agbon Kingdom."9
Such banality
of language regarding aristocratic titles in recent times has arisen
from the introduction of the English word �kingdom� into modern Urhobo
culture. Its rampant and gratuitous use has caused several problems
for our understanding of Urhobo institutions. First, �kingdom� is
virtually untranslatable into Urhobo language. Second, it has been
used as a replacement � that is, supposedly, as the synonym -- for the
English word �clan.� Remember that �clan� was introduced into Urhobo
by British colonial administrators as a way of characterizing Urhobo�s
sub-cultures.
The origin of this new usage of �kingdom� has been traced to HRH
Adjara III and Andy Omokri�s (1997) Urhobo Kingdoms: Political and Social Systems. This is how the late Professor F. M. A. Ukoli sketched the rise of
the term �kingdoms� in modern Urhobo culture:
The Urhobo constitute an ethnic group, but there is great diversity
in the origins of the various clans as well as diversity in their
culture. Indeed, the differences are so marked that H.R.H Adjara III
and Omokri, in their recent book Urhobo Kingdoms,
elevate the 22 clans which constitute the entire Urhobo tribe to the
status of kingdoms (Ukoli 2007: 647).
Remarkably, Adjara III and Omokri did not discard the term clan in
their analysis of Urhobo social and political systems. In fact, once
one moves beyond the rather dramatic title of their book, they were
fairly respectful of the term �clan.� They define Urhobo in terms of
its clans, not kingdoms: �At present there are twenty-two clans in
Urhoboland. Most of the clans are made up of groups of villages which
trace their origin to a common ancestor� (p. 5). Similarly, they
define the Ovie in terms of the clan: �The institution of clanheadship
in Urhoboland is a most revered one. In some clans, the clan head is
known as Ovie literally translated to be king� (p. 16).
Whatever Adjara III and Omokri intended to say in the pages of their
book, it is the book�s title �Urhobo Kingdoms� that has won the day.
Adjara III�s aristocratic colleagues have understood the book as
recommending that the term clans be replaced by the apparently more
appealing and more ponderous �kingdom.� And the Government of Delta
State has readily adopted the new terminology, with consequences that
are far removed from what any lovers of Urhobo history and culture
will be pleased to accept.
Throughout the course of Nigerian history, from the 1950s onwards at
any rate, Nigerian Governments have accepted and then manipulated
existing institutions of traditional rulership. They operate in that
way probably in order to seek advantage for their political parties
and to please powerful individuals in those parties. In doing so, they
have deposed opponents and installed supporters as occupiers of such
existing traditional institutions of rulership. Some prominent
examples will illustrate this point. In the 1950s, Ahmadu Bello�s
Government of Northern Nigeria removed Emir Sanusi of
In all these instances, previous Nigerian Governments accepted the
traditions of the people and the institution of rulership that they
mandated. What these previous Nigerian Governments did was to exploit
the logic of these traditions by placing their supporters on the seats
of traditional rulership, while removing their opponents. None of them
defied the traditions of the people by creating new realms. The
Government of Northern Nigeria did not split
In such respects, the conduct of Delta State Government in 2006 in
splitting up Urhobo�s Idjerhe sub-culture and in creating a new
�Kingdom� of Mosogar from the ancient territories of Idjerhe is
unprecedented in the annals of Urhobo history and culture. Moreover,
it would be difficult to find similar examples of the Government�s
defiling of a people�s traditions elsewhere in
The British had active and intense contacts with the Urhobo people for
at least fifty years, for much of the first half of the 20th
century. Although they came as colonizers, they nonetheless respected
the integrity of Urhobo history and culture. They correctly identified
Urhobo�s ancient sub-cultures and acted within their framework and
logic. Similarly, the Action Group Government that took over from the
British respected the traditions of the Urhobo people, despite
historic difficulties between them and the political party that
controlled the Government at that time. And it is fair to say that the
Mid-West and Bendel State Governments were largely respectful of
Urhobo traditions.
So why has this grave violation of Urhobo history and culture
occurred in a governmental regime that has no standing quarrel with
the Urhobo people? Two explanations have
been offered by some Urhobo leaders who have bothered to discuss this
matter. The first is that people in Government do not bother
themselves with the creed of Urhobo history and culture. They say that
some politicians would be surprised that any worries about Urhobo
history and culture have been expressed. The second reason that has
been suggested for permitting this brazen act of violation of Urhobo
history and culture to occur is that the term �kingdoms� has become so
trivialized that people in Government now believe that they can create
them. As one Urhobo leader put it, �People in Asaba would hesitate to
create �clans� but not �kingdoms.��
It must be noted that the Delta State Government has no
Constitutional powers to create local governments in
Unforeseen and Untoward Consequences of
There are numerous reasons why the Urhobo people should be troubled
by the spectre of Delta State Government taking over the control of
Urhobo traditions, an instance of which was the so-called creation of
a �kingdom� in Idjerhe sub-culture of Urhoboland. We will confine
ourselves to only a few of these reasons.
First, the Idjerhe episode of �kingdom creation� is most likely to be
imitated and repeated elsewhere � if it is allowed to survive. If
every new installment of Delta State Government that comes to power
has the right and authority to create �kingdoms� in Urhoboland, then
we should expect a multiplicity of new �kingdoms� -- or �clans,�
designating them by their other English label � to be created for
Urhobos within several decades. There are everywhere short-sighted and
ambitious politicians who will ask to be made kings of even small
villages if the opportunity arises. Internal divisions within each of
Urhobo�s sub-cultures may precipitate such clamour for kingship of new
�kingdoms.� While there may be ready-made cases of divisions that will
readily prompt any new Delta State Governments for new �kingdoms, the
greater danger is that even the more stable and established instances
of kingship in Urhoboland will not be safe from the spread of the
cancer of Government�s �kingdom creation.�
Second, any increase in the number of Ivie in Urhoboland is a threat
to the strength of our royal institutions. Many Urhobo leaders of
thought already consider the twenty-two Ivie, who derive their
authority from Urhobo culture, to be on the high side. It should be
recalled that in the 1930s and 1940s, opinion leaders in Urhoboland
and its Diaspora seriously weighed the option of initiating a single
Urhobo kingship. If we cannot achieve such a goal, we must
nevertheless not further weaken our circumstances by foolishly
allowing the creation of artificial �kingdoms� in Urhoboland at the
whim of Governments who may not always be well disposed towards the
vibrancy of Urhobo cultural formations. The addition of a single Ovie
to the system of twenty-two kings that we now have is a threat to our
culture and to the dignity of those who currently occupy the thrones
of Ivie in Urhoboland.
Concluding Thoughts on Necessary Remedies
When the Urhobo people face a collective crisis, our usual resort is
to ask Urhobo Progress Union to intervene on behalf of the Urhobo
people. In our estimation, the Idjerhe episode of �kingdom creation�
represents a crisis of a high level of disorder in our cultural
existence as a people. We must rely on Urhobo Progress Union to
persuade the factions in Idjerhe to do what all patriotic Urhobos do:
at the end, the survival and welfare of our hard-won culture are
important for our individual existence. What does it profit an Urhobo
man if he becomes an Ovie, if by doing so he weakens the institution
of Ovie? And what does it profit any Urhobo community if it gains a
�kingdom� that leads to the downfall of a system for which all of our
ancestors fought so hard? We trust that the UPU will be able to bring
all the sections in Idjerhe together to settle what ought to be an
internal problem.
On this score of persuasion, we also ask the UPU to apply gentle
suasion on the Delta State Government to rescind its ill-advised
�kingdom creation� exercise in Urhobo�s Idjerhe sub-culture and to
kindly desist from any attempt to control Urhobo culture. It is not
something that the Urhobo people should permit.
Finally, we appeal to Urhobo Progress Union to consider most seriously
setting up a Committee that will study and recommend ways of
regulating the titles that our kings and chieftains bear. It may be
discovered, to the pleasure of us all, that there is no need to render
Urhobo aristocratic titles in English at all. We are sure that this is
a matter that will be of interest to the esteemed Kings of
Urhoboland.
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