Emeka Esogbue

 From Country to Confusion: The Colonial Conflation of Aboh from a Distinct Deltaic Identity to a Blurred Ethnic Classification  - Part One By Emeka Esogbue Introduction This article revisits the historical identity of the Aboh polity of the lower Niger once one of the foremost riverine kingdoms of precolonial West Africa. It examines how Aboh’s distinct political, cultural, and diplomatic traditions were gradually obscured by colonial ethnography, which subsumed the people under broader linguistic and administrative labels such as “Ukwuani” and “Igbo.” Through historical reconstruction and comparative analysis, the author argues that Aboh was not a mere dialectal cluster but a sovereign Delta kingdom whose unique identity was diluted through colonial simplification and postcolonial repetition, an outcome of the British mechanical process of ethnic classification. Aboh in the Delta Province By the fifteenth century, Aboh had emerged as an organized and powerful riverine kingdo...

 Akwa-Ocha is the Attire for Anioma Traditional Marriage - Emeka Esogbue In case you are Anioma or getting married to an Anioma bride or groom, the pictures below will help your curiosity about how the Anioma people dress on the day of their traditional marriage.   Anioma is one of the ethnic groups in Delta State with the rest as Urhobo, Ijaw, Itsekiri, and Isoko. The traditional fabric of the Anioma people is generally called Akwa-Ocha but it is also called Otogwu and Ogbeyi-Akpani in other quarters of the region. It is an indigenous hand-woven material produced by the people, especially from the Aniocha axis.  The fabric traditionally comes in Ibe-ator (three layers) for men and Ibenabor (two-layers) for women though some huge women may go with Ibe-ator to support their large body size.  In the olden days, the possession of the Akwa-Ocha used to differentiate the wealthy from the poor because it was expensive to purchase yet a cultural necessity though cheape...