Obaseki: How a Nsukwa Family of Anioma Ruled Benin Empire as an Oba

 Obaseki: How a Nsukwa Family of Anioma Ruled Benin Empire as an Oba

- Emeka Esogbue

The Obaseki family of Benin is indeed of Anioma ancestry from Nsukwa Kingdom in Aniocha South Local Government Area of Delta State. Other communities lying close to Nsukwa are Umute, Aba Ukwu, Adonte, and Ejeme Aniogor. According to J. P. Nkem Onyekpe, "Nsukwa" is an Anglicization of Nchukwa. Since its foundation, Benin and Anioma communities have enjoyed relations in the form of trade, marriage, diplomacy, and wars but these particular Benin-Nsukwa relations are a relationship that defines cultural association.

As was the cultural practice within the period under discussion, Agho who was the Crown Prince to the throne of Nsukwa Kingdom was sent to Benin for training on administration and he struck a friendship with Overamwen Nogbaisi, the other Crown Prince to Benin Kingdom.

With time, Overamwen ascended the throne as the Oba of Benin and conferred the title of Obaseki of Benin on Prince Agho, his childhood friend who was now placed in charge of trade and foreign affairs in Benin but in the years ahead, particularly in 1897 disaster struck when Consul Philip and his group of the British expeditionary to Benin were waylaid with some of them killed by Benin forces which irked the British. 

After the trial in which Overamwen and several of his chiefs were either executed or exiled, Obaseki Agho became de facto Oba of Benin, holding the kingdom together that had now lost the empire in her in peace. The new patriarch of Obaseki also had two of his children taking up the "Obaseki" title after him. 

Obaseki Agho never returned to Nsukwa, his land of birth, an Anioma community located in Aniocha South Local Government Area of Delta State today to assume the kingship of the kingdom as royally expected of him and at the passage of time, the family surname became Obaseki as borne today. 

As it turned out, Godwin Obaseki would rise to democratically emerge as the Governor of Edo State on a term political contract, ironically he could appoint anyone to stay in charge of commerce, the position once enjoyed by the patriarch of his revered family.

Obaseki is a popular family name today in Benin but it was originally a traditional title conferred on an Anioma son who tradition did not permit him to live together with his father and also needed training on kingship. Nsukwa which claims Benin origin according to HRM Obi Ezegbunem 1, the Obi of the community as stated in an interview granted by The Punch Newspaper on February 9, 2019, first settled in Umunede and later Kwale in search of peace, before finally arriving at Uso Ukwa (Beside the breadfruit) where they finally settled. 

It is from this "Uso Ukwa", that the name that the community bears today is derived. The Obaseki family may have chosen to remain in Benin but history remembers them as being Anioma from our Nsukwa community.