BETWEEN AWASIA AND NWANZE VERSIONS: A CRITICAL VIEW OF THE ORIGIN OF OKO CLAN OF DELTA STATE

By Emeka Esogbue

(Pen Master)

The Oko clan of today, geographically situated in Oshimili South Local Government Area of Delta State, is one of the Anioma communities with its history rarely in print or in public assessment for researchers interested in the history of the clan to take scholarly advantage of, amounting to controversies, one of which is that which raged between both analysts of clan as discoursed in this piece.

The people are located close to Asaba and Ibusa that are neighbouring communities but Odifulu shares boundary with Abala-Oshimili in Ndokwa East. The Oko people are riverine, lying exactly on the mouth of the River Niger and they speak Enuani version of Igbo being a dialectic categorization of Asaba, Ibusa and Akwukwu-Igbo communities in near exactness. All the Oko communities are ancestrally related and also share homogeneous culture in every respect.

Although Chief B. N. Awasia, as recent as in 2016 did the people a book on the history of the people, a critique was later published by His Highness, Onihe Odimegwu Nwanze, the Okakwu of Oko-Amakom in Blank News Online who expressed disagreements with series of historical arguments held by him in the said work of history.

Major departures in the historical belief of the writer of history and the Royal Father are first, the original founder of the Oko Kingdom and second, the original settlers. Although Chief B. N. Awasia had attributed the foundation of Oko to Odeaja, His Highness, Onihe Odimegwu Nwanze differed, affirming Oko to be a foundation of several progenitors that included Odeaja. Essentially, it is his view that Oko was founded by a group of migrants.

Writing in Blank News Online, Nwanze differed:

"That Oko Kingdom was not founded by Odeaja alone but with many other people like Uwaile (Isiani), Umuogwu, Umuokpai, Inyele, Igbulie and Umungwu as he falsely wrote in his book to suit his claimed lineage".

Incidentally, while Nwanze had gone ahead to mention these quarters, he rarely supplied the names of the founders of such quarters which could have helped readers to get proper understanding of the migrants that joined in founding the Oko clan as claimed.

At this stage, emphasis must be drawn to the meeting point of both writers. They both agree that all founders hailed from Igala. In this work wholly, published in blanknewsonline (2016). Nwanze justified this foundational claim via his trace of 16th century Uwaile Isiani to Prince Ajor who migrated from Uwaile Quarters at present, in Idah, Kogi State according to him.

Another point of controversy is that while Awasia claims Odeaja to be the original founder, Nwanze, on the other hand, claims Uwaile to be the original founder who was only later joined by other groups, all of which I have already mentioned in this piece. The implication of this, is that all the founding groups including the children of Awasia met Uwaile, Isiani in Ajor Oko thus, the "Isiani" in the name which means, "the head".

The reconciliation also seems to be that both writers agree that the word, "Oko" means "farm" in Igala language. Interestingly, both writers are not historians by training and have heavily relied on legends of the people, making authoritative historical affirmations a bit difficult to ascertain.

In any case, it would do Anioma scholars intellectually good to visit the history of the Oko clan with a view to digging deep into the origin of the people. They may have determined Igala as their root but beyond that the order of settlement is a necessity.

Oko, as it exists today comprises of six communities which are Oko-Amakom, Oko-Obiokpu, Oko-Ogbele, Oko-Umuoko, Oko-Amakom, Oko-Anala and Odifulu.

Credit: Blank News Online

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Emeka Esogbue

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