Enwe Imoka, the mona, Porto-Novo, Benin. Photo: Okouneva Olga via Wikimedia Commons.
Okoli Ijeoma was a 19th-century merchant warlord of the Aro settlement of Ndikelionwu in today’s Anambra State. He was notorious for his recruitment of the militaristic Ada people of the Cross River area for wars against his enemies or for the services of those who paid him. He was the grandson of Ikelionwu who founded Ndikelionwu in the 18th century.
Ikelionwu, sometimes Ikelionwu Ufele, Ufere, or Uvere, was born in Ifite Öka. Notedly an mgburuichi, Ikelionwu was a child with noble ichi marks. Ikelionwu came from the family of Eze Oshie. The name Ikelionwu appears to be a contraction of ike emelị ọnwụ, meaning ‘strength does not conquer death’.
“10 Aug. 1905. Edet market, Ndiya. An Inokun (Aro [Igbo]) man.” Charles Partridge. British Museum.
In one account, Ikelionwu was kidnapped by the Amantogwu and later bought by a wealthy Aro woman named Ufere Mgbokwa who took him in as a son and carried out the necessary rites to take him out of slavery. Some accounts say Eze Oshie was the one who was sold. Ikelionwu had taken some of the wealth of Ufere Mgbokwa on her death, this was said to have been done incrementally by Ikelionwu while she was alive due to his later confirmed fears that he would not be able to inherit from her as he was not her blood descendant. Other accounts say an Aro merchant warlord named Ufere Mgbokwu Aka was the enslaver of Ikelionwu.
Ikelionwu established his own lineage of Ndikelionwu in the territory of the Omogho, similar to other Aro settlements in the north-central Igbo area (Anambra), particularly the Nde Eni cluster of Aro settlements under the founding Mazi Eni. Aro settlements were trading and slaving springboards into other areas. The Aro infiltrated communities through allies, marriage ties, and trading.
Ikelionwu later helped Öka with the drawn-out war started with Amantogwu over his kidnapping and was able to use the newly introduced gun from Arochukwu to Öka’s victory. The Aro were the main introducers of guns from Europeans and middlemen at the coast to Igbo communities in the interior in the 18th century.
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