Enemies Within Benin: How Ozolua Fought to Secure His Kingship

The political situation after Ozolua's coronation

Ozolua's accession followed a period of considerable uncertainty in Benin.

As discussed in Part 2 of this series, the senior chiefs known as the Uzama Nihinron attempted to govern the kingdom after the death of Oba Olua.

Jacob Egharevba dates this arrangement to approximately three years. He records that the administration failed to maintain order and that people from neighbouring communities entered and looted the capital.

The chiefs eventually invited the exiled Prince Okpame to return.

Okpame had previously been expelled following the reported killing of Prince Owere, another candidate for the throne. When he returned from Ora, he was crowned at Usama under the royal name Ozolua.

The restoration of the monarchy did not mean that all those who had exercised authority during the interregnum accepted the new ruler without opposition.

Peter M. Roese and Dmitri M. Bondarenko, in A Popular History of Benin: The Rise and Fall of a Mighty Forest Kingdom, preserve traditions identifying several influential figures who had held power during the period without an Oba.

Among them were Elekidi of Ogbelaka, remembered as a warrior and military commander, and a woman named Enae, who was associated with authority over Ogbe, the palace quarter.

Roese and Bondarenko describe Elekidi as the strongest of the appointed rulers in their account of the interim administration.

Egharevba also identifies Elekidi as one of Ozolua's early opponents.

The accounts place the struggle against him among the conflicts that followed the new Oba's return to the capital.

Sources: Egharevba, 1968, pp. 22–23; Roese and Bondarenko, 2003, pp. 96–97; Sargent, 1984, pp. 112–115.

Elekidi of Ogbelaka and the betrayal by Eyowo

Elekidi's opposition to Ozolua forms one of the earliest confrontations described in the traditional history of the reign.

He was associated with Ogbelaka, a quarter of Benin City, and was remembered as a formidable political and military opponent.

Egharevba records that Ozolua went to war against Elekidi and that the latter was eventually defeated through the betrayal of his wife, Eyowo.

The tradition does not establish the precise information Eyowo supplied, the means by which she communicated with Ozolua, or the circumstances under which she decided to assist him.

What Egharevba records is that her intervention helped bring about her husband's defeat.

Elekidi was killed in the conflict.

Ozolua subsequently married Eyowo.

The marriage did not last.

Egharevba states that Ozolua ordered her execution only a few weeks later. The explanation preserved in the account is that the Oba feared Eyowo might betray him as she had betrayed her previous husband.

Eyowo therefore appears in the same tradition as a woman whose actions contributed to Ozolua's victory and who was later killed on his orders.

Roese and Bondarenko preserve the account of Elekidi's defeat and Eyowo's subsequent execution.

Neither account establishes that Eyowo was tried before being executed. The sources also provide no reliable evidence of her personal motives, her family background or whether she had been compelled to participate in the events surrounding Elekidi's defeat.

Her actions and death are known through accounts transmitted from the perspective of Benin's royal history.

What happened to the authority exercised by Elekidi?

Elekidi's place in the story is connected to the earlier attempt to govern Benin without an Oba.

Under the version recorded by Roese and Bondarenko, he had been one of the principal rulers appointed during that experiment.

The struggle with Ozolua consequently involved someone who had exercised political authority before the monarchy was restored.

Robert Arthur Sargent, whose doctoral research examined the political and economic development of Benin and the Benue Basin, interprets Ozolua's reign as a period in which the position of the monarch strengthened in relation to competing chiefly institutions.

Sargent particularly associates the reign with attempts to reduce the influence of the Uzama Nihinron over royal succession.

He also describes a longer-term shift in political authority towards the Eghaevbo, the town and palace chiefs, although the Uzama continued to perform ceremonial functions connected with the installation of an Oba.

Sargent's institutional interpretation does not establish that every confrontation involving Ozolua's opponents was undertaken as part of a single planned reform.

The conflict with Elekidi is documented in the supplied traditions as a struggle against a particular opponent who had exercised power during the previous administration.

Sources: Egharevba, 1968, p. 23; Roese and Bondarenko, 2003, pp. 96–97; Sargent, 1984, pp. 114–115.

Egbaen of Iwu captures Ozolua

The confrontation with Egbaen of Iwu occupies a different place in the traditions.

Egbaen did not merely oppose Ozolua successfully for a time. Egharevba records that he captured the Oba and held him prisoner.

The source does not provide a precise date for the campaign.

Nor does it identify the number of soldiers involved, describe the location where Ozolua was held or explain exactly how Egbaen first gained possession of him.

Egharevba's account concentrates instead on the political consequences of Ozolua's captivity.

While being held by Egbaen, the Oba appealed to chiefs in Benin City for assistance.

The chiefs were not immediately willing to provide it.

They demanded additional titles.

Ozolua agreed to their demands, apparently expecting the grant of new honours to secure the help he needed.

The chiefs received the titles but did not immediately assemble to rescue him.

According to Egharevba, they remained occupied with celebrating their appointments.

Ozolua eventually escaped on his own.

He then reinforced his army and returned to fight Egbaen.

The renewed campaign ended in Egbaen's defeat. Egharevba states that Ozolua ordered him beheaded.

Roese and Bondarenko preserve substantially the same narrative, including the capture, the demand for titles, Ozolua's escape and the final defeat of Egbaen.

The significance of the chiefs' demands

The account gives an unusually direct example of political negotiation taking place during a military emergency.

The chiefs did not simply refuse to support their ruler. They made their assistance conditional on receiving titles.

Chieftaincy titles in Benin carried recognised status and authority. Their award was therefore more than an exchange of ceremonial compliments.

The tradition does not identify the individual chiefs who made the demands or the particular offices they received.

It also does not state whether Ozolua subsequently revoked the appointments, punished the chiefs or allowed them to retain their new positions.

Those details cannot be supplied from the available account.

The episode does, however, show why historians studying Benin's military institutions have examined relations between the Oba and the senior chiefs alongside the campaigns themselves.

Military command required the mobilisation of men whose obligations and allegiances were connected to the political organisation of the kingdom.

What military historians make of Egbaen's victory

Osarhieme Benson Osadolor discusses the Egbaen campaign in his doctoral dissertation, The Military System of Benin Kingdom, c. 1440–1897, submitted to the University of Hamburg in 2001.

Osadolor records Ozolua's capture, imprisonment, escape and subsequent victory over Egbaen.

He suggests that the experience may have contributed to improvements in Ozolua's military strategy and tactics.

This is Osadolor's interpretation, rather than a claim that a surviving fifteenth-century military document records reforms introduced after the defeat.

In the same study, Osadolor reconstructs the military organisation of Benin during the era of its warrior kings.

He identifies the Oba as the supreme military commander, with the Iyase serving as general commander and the Ezomo and Edogun occupying other senior military positions.

The army included troops mobilised from the capital, royal forces and contingents supplied by surrounding communities.

According to Osadolor's reconstruction, Benin did not possess a single permanent army organised in the manner of a modern national military service. Regiments could be assembled for particular campaigns, while royal troops and guards maintained a continuing connection with the court.

The Egbaen tradition does not specify which units Ozolua commanded when he was captured, nor which forces joined him after his escape.

Osadolor's discussion of the broader military system provides institutional background without identifying the precise composition of the army in this particular battle.

Sources: Egharevba, 1968, p. 23; Roese and Bondarenko, 2003, p. 97; Osadolor, 2001, pp. 93–95, 116.

Ise of Utekon: the sword-bearer who challenged the Oba

The conflict with Ise of Utekon has been preserved in more than one form.

Egharevba's A Short History of Benin identifies Ise as an opponent whom Ozolua eventually defeated with assistance from a man named Orimworia.

A considerably fuller account appears in Egharevba's earlier work, Some Stories of Ancient Benin, published in 1951.

In that version, Ise was not originally an outside ruler confronting Benin.

He was one of Ozolua's own sword-bearers.

His duties placed him within the royal household, close to the Oba and the ceremonial objects associated with his authority.

Egharevba describes him as a young man recognised for his physical courage and strength.

The confrontation reportedly began during a discussion at the palace.

Ozolua was recounting his military victories and named Utekon, Ise's birthplace, as a community he intended to attack.

Ise objected.

He challenged the suggestion that Ozolua could conquer his home and declared his willingness to defend it.

His response was particularly serious because he was speaking as a member of the royal household to the reigning Oba.

Ozolua challenged him in return.

Ise maintained his position and requested release from his duties as a royal sword-bearer.

Ozolua granted the request.

Egharevba states that the necessary discharge ceremonies were performed before Ise left the palace for Utekon.

The narrative does not identify the officials who conducted these ceremonies or describe the full procedure.

The journey back to Utekon

Ise's departure was followed by another unusual episode.

According to Egharevba, Ozolua sent someone to observe Ise as he travelled away from the capital.

The observer was to determine whether Ise would look back before passing a place called Iguisi, which Egharevba associated with Lagos Street in Benin City.

Ise did not turn back.

The account states that he continued towards Utekon without looking behind him.

When Ozolua received this information, he was surprised and decided to postpone the confrontation he had previously proposed.

Egharevba records that the hostility between them continued, with challenges exchanged by both sides.

The story places the eventual military expedition approximately two years after Ise's departure.

No independently dated document confirms that interval.

The timing belongs to the version Egharevba published in 1951.

Source: Egharevba, 1951, Some Stories of Ancient Benin, pp. 24–25, reprinted in 1971.

Ozolua attacks Utekon while Ise is away

Egharevba states that Ozolua eventually advanced on Utekon with a substantial force.

Ise was not at home when the army arrived.

He was on his farm.

His mother, identified in the tradition as Eruvbi, confronted the invading forces.

According to Egharevba, she resisted Ozolua's troops but was killed.

The account does not describe how many people defended Utekon alongside her or identify the weapons they used.

News of Eruvbi's death reached Ise at his farm.

He returned to Utekon.

Egharevba states that Ise then killed a number of Ozolua's warriors for use in the funeral and burial ceremonies associated with his mother.

The account presents the killings as part of the actions Ise undertook before confronting the Oba directly.

It does not provide the number of victims.

Ise subsequently engaged Ozolua's forces in battle.

According to the tradition, he killed several of the Oba's soldiers, captured others and caused surviving troops to flee.

Ozolua retreated.

Ise pursued him.

The encounter then moved from the battlefield to an episode involving a kola-nut tree, an intervention by a third man and an agreement to settle the conflict through wrestling.

Source: Egharevba, 1951, pp. 25–26.

The kola-nut tree and the intervention of Orimwonria

The account in Some Stories of Ancient Benin states that Ozolua climbed a kola-nut tree while trying to escape Ise.

Ise pursued him and prepared to cut down the tree.

Ozolua protested.

He reminded Ise of the religious importance of the kola-nut tree, whose nuts were used in sacrifices connected with destiny, good fortune and departed ancestors.

In Egharevba's version, Ise accepted the prohibition against cutting down the tree.

He did not leave.

Instead, he remained beneath it, waiting for an opportunity to confront Ozolua when the Oba came down.

A man named Orimwonria then arrived.

The name also appears as Orimworia in later accounts of the episode.

Orimwonria reportedly saw Ozolua in the tree and Ise waiting below. After learning what had happened, he proposed that they settle the dispute through wrestling rather than continue fighting with weapons.

Both men agreed.

Ozolua descended and wrestled Ise.

Egharevba's narrative states that Orimwonria assisted Ozolua during the contest, enabling him to throw Ise to the ground.

Under the custom described in the story, a defeated warrior who had fallen in this manner could not rise again because of the shame associated with the defeat.

Ozolua then killed Ise.

Egharevba specifies that the Oba severed his opponent's head with three strokes of his sword.

The account combines military conflict with explanations of religious prohibitions, physical prowess and customary behaviour.

Its description of the kola-nut tree's sacred status does not establish that a historical battle ended in precisely the manner recounted.

The full episode belongs to the oral tradition preserved in Egharevba's collection.

Source: Egharevba, 1951, pp. 26–27.

Why Ozolua also killed the man who helped him

The death of Ise did not end the traditional account.

Egharevba states that Ozolua initially thanked Orimwonria for the assistance he had provided.

Orimwonria subsequently began boasting about his role in the Oba's victory.

The boasting offended Ozolua.

According to the story, the Oba killed Orimwonria with a stroke of his sword.

Egharevba records that Ozolua then arranged for Orimwonria's remains to be buried, planted an ikhinmwin tree at the burial site and appointed a priest to perform worship at the shrine.

The tradition further states that an image of Ise was cast in brass on Ozolua's orders and preserved in the Royal House of Iwebo in recognition of Ise's courage.

These details are not included in every shorter account of the Utekon campaign.

The version in A Short History of Benin concentrates on Ise's defeat, Orimworia's assistance and the execution that followed.

The longer 1951 narrative adds Ise's former service at court, the dispute over Utekon, his departure from the palace, Eruvbi's death, the fight, the kola-nut tree, the wrestling contest and the traditions concerning the shrine and brass image.

Egharevba's earlier account is therefore useful for understanding how the confrontation was remembered beyond its outcome on the battlefield.

Sources: Egharevba, 1951, pp. 24–27; Egharevba, 1968, p. 23.

Another account of the challenge at Utekon

A later study from the University of Benin preserves additional material about Ise and his community.

In The Role of Women in the Socio-Economic and Political Life of Utekon Village in the Pre-Colonial Times, a 2021 undergraduate history project, Godspower Etinosa Igbinovia records traditions concerning Utekon's origins and its relationship with Ozolua.

The study identifies Utekon as a community in Ovia North-East Local Government Area of Edo State.

It describes four principal streets: Oke-Ize, Oviomon, Iduwe and Uhron.

The origins of the community are not presented as uniform across all four areas. According to the study, inhabitants of Oke-Ize claim to represent the earliest settlers, while a tradition associated with Oviomon connects its inhabitants with migration from Ibiwe.

A principal origin tradition identifies Ise, remembered as Ozolua's sword-bearer, among Utekon's ancestral founders.

The project also records a version in which Ozolua threatened to attack Utekon and return through Okun, a neighbouring community described in the tradition as closely related to Utekon.

Ise responded that he would defend his people.

In this telling, the confrontation involved a heavy royal sword called Umozo.

Ozolua challenged Ise to lift it, which he reportedly did. The Oba then instructed him to carry the sword towards Utekon without resting or looking back as evidence that he was prepared to defend the settlement.

The account differs in emphasis from Egharevba's 1951 narrative, which describes Ise's formal release from palace service and Ozolua sending a watcher to observe whether he looked back during the journey.

The University of Benin study also preserves the tradition that Orimworia's intervention enabled Ozolua to defeat Ise and that Orimworia was subsequently killed after boasting of his assistance.

The study was an undergraduate research project rather than a peer-reviewed historical monograph. Its value for this report lies in documenting traditions discussed in relation to Utekon, not in independently establishing the fifteenth-century events.

Source: Godspower Etinosa Igbinovia, 2021, pp. 10–12.

Utekon's earthworks and the memory of Ise

Archaeological observations have also been connected with the traditions surrounding Utekon's resistance.

Patrick J. Darling, writing in The Nigerian Field in an article titled “The Earthworks of Benin: Some Cross-Profiles”, examined the ditches and embankments associated with Benin and neighbouring settlements.

Darling describes the practice of constructing and enlarging defensive earthworks, known in Benin as iya.

In discussing Utekon, he suggests that part of its defensive earthwork system may have been deepened in the late fifteenth century, during the period traditionally associated with Ise's rebellion against Ozolua.

His article includes a cross-sectional drawing of an earthwork at Utekon.

This observation provides a possible historical setting for traditions of conflict at the settlement.

It does not identify a particular ditch as the work of Ise, nor does it establish that the confrontation between Ise and Ozolua occurred exactly as described in the kola-nut tree story.

Darling's archaeological discussion concerns the physical development of the earthworks and the possible relationship between defensive construction and remembered conflicts.

The distinction between a surviving defensive feature and the individual events of an oral account is important.

Source: Patrick J. Darling, “The Earthworks of Benin: Some Cross-Profiles”, pp. 159–161.

How Ise is remembered in Utekon

The Utekon tradition extends beyond accounts of the conflict itself.

Igbinovia's University of Benin study describes Ise as an ancestral figure associated with religious practices in the community.

The research records an Ise shrine and a festival involving prayers, purification and remembrance of the confrontation with Ozolua.

Activities described in the study include the use of charcoal on participants' faces, the carrying of cutlasses and a mock battle recalling Ise's resistance.

The festival was associated with a period after agricultural work had been completed.

According to the research, a priest known as the Okakuo officiated in the proceedings.

The participants gathered at the ruler's palace, where elders received drinks and kola nuts and offered prayers.

The procession then continued to the Ise shrine.

The study describes the priest carrying Ise's sword, called Umozo, while participants danced and sang.

Ritual activities were also performed at Uhron, one of Utekon's four principal streets, including a mock battle commemorating Ise's conflict with Ozolua.

These details concern practices documented or described in a twenty-first-century study of local traditions. They should not be taken as evidence that the festival was performed in exactly the same form during Ozolua's lifetime.

Egharevba's Some Tribal Gods of Southern Nigeria also lists Ise of Utekon and Egbaen of Iwu among figures remembered through the worship of departed heroes.

Their inclusion indicates that both opponents occupied places in Benin's religious and historical memory beyond the immediate accounts of the wars in which they confronted Ozolua.

Sources: Igbinovia, 2021, pp. 15, 18–19; Egharevba, Some Tribal Gods of Southern Nigeria, 1951, p. 44.

Other opponents remembered from Ozolua's reign

Elekidi, Egbaen and Ise were not the only adversaries named in Benin traditions about Ozolua.

Egharevba's list of opponents includes Okhonmiovo of Iguisi, Ogiemabo of Oka, Atabatibo of Ogbe, Idemu of Evbiakagba, Aighalama of Ishan, Ohekeghede of Idumwoza and Ese-Uhe of Amagba.

Other names in the account include Ovbierhe, Okeze, Ogigbehu, Olokhumwu, Ovbivbi and Egbomarhuan of Okhumwu.

The sources do not provide an equally detailed account of every confrontation.

For some opponents, their names and communities are the principal information preserved in the short history.

Egharevba associates many of Ozolua's campaigns with Iyekorhiomwo, east of the Orhionmwon River, and describes fighting that could continue for months.

Historian Alan Frederick C. Ryder, in Benin and the Europeans: 1485–1897, likewise portrays Ozolua's reign as one of extensive military activity. Ryder records that Benin's armies could undertake two campaigns in a year.

He also acknowledges a major defeat during Ozolua's military career.

The defeat is not securely identified in the passage used here, and it would be unwarranted to equate it automatically with any one of the named confrontations.

Egharevba records the tradition that Ozolua sometimes preferred to take comparatively few men into battle because he wanted to experience the full difficulty of the fighting.

He also identifies Laisolobi, whose name appears elsewhere as Elaisolobi, as a military companion whom Ozolua regularly took on campaigns.

Barbara Winston Blackmun, writing in The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1994, discusses the importance of Elaisolobi in Benin's traditions concerning Ozolua.

The general is remembered both as a trusted companion and, in one version of the Oba's eventual death, as a figure persuaded to betray him.

That later tradition belongs to the final stage of Ozolua's reign and will be examined in the instalment devoted to the Uromi campaign and his death.

Sources: Egharevba, 1968, p. 23; Ryder, 1969, p. 12; Blackmun, 1994, p. 107.

From opposition at home to campaigns beyond Benin

The traditions concerning Elekidi, Egbaen and Ise describe opponents with different relationships to Ozolua.

Elekidi was associated with political authority exercised during the period without a reigning Oba.

Egbaen was a military opponent who reportedly captured the king and whose defeat followed a dispute between Ozolua and chiefs asked to rescue him.

Ise had served as a royal sword-bearer before leaving the palace to defend Utekon.

Their stories have been preserved through sources that differ in their treatment of events and in the amount of detail they provide.

The account of Ise is particularly revealing in this respect. Egharevba's 1968 history gives a short description of a military victory made possible by betrayal, while his earlier collection of stories preserves a long narrative involving palace service, family, religious prohibitions and local commemoration.

The next instalment turns to the wider military campaigns for which Ozolua became known.

Those include repeated expeditions in Ishan, warfare at Ejide and Siluko, the relationship between Benin and Owo, and competing claims about the conquest of Ijebu-Ode.