Three Years Without a King: The Jester, the Mice and Ozolua's Return to Benin

The throne left vacant after Olua

As examined in the first instalment of this series, the succession crisis began after Oba Ewuare's death.

Ewuare's son Ezoti succeeded him but died shortly afterwards. Ezoti's son Owere was nominated as the next ruler, only to be killed in an incident attributed in Benin tradition to his uncle Okpame.

Okpame was banished, while another son of Ewuare, Olua, eventually accepted the kingship.

Olua's accession did not immediately eliminate the danger associated with his brother. Robert Arthur Sargent, in his 1984 doctoral dissertation, Politics and Economics in the Benue Basin, c. 1300–1700, records that Olua stationed his youngest son at Eho to prevent Okpame from approaching the capital by force.

Okpame remained at Ora, away from the Benin court.

Olua's eldest son, Iginua, also occupies an important place in the succession accounts. Sargent identifies him as a holder of the Edaiken title, which designated the crown prince. Traditions discussed by historian Alan Frederick C. Ryder later associate Iginua with the establishment of a royal settlement among the Itsekiri.

After Olua died, the problem of succession returned.

The available traditions do not identify another prince who was able to command sufficient acceptance to ascend the throne immediately. Sargent describes the situation as a political vacuum in which several possible successors had either been killed or banished.

The Uzama Nihinron, the senior chiefs traditionally involved in selecting and installing Benin's Obas, then assumed responsibility for governing.

The arrangement became known in historical accounts as Benin's republican government.

Sources: Egharevba, 1968, pp. 20–22; Sargent, 1984, pp. 108–109, 112; Ryder, 1969, pp. 12–13.

What Benin's three-year republican government involved

Egharevba's account dates the establishment of the government to the period immediately following Olua's death.

In his chronology, the chiefs remained in charge for approximately three years.

Egharevba does not describe an elected assembly or a government chosen through popular voting. The administration was placed in the hands of existing political authorities, chiefly men who already possessed recognised titles within the kingdom.

It is therefore important to understand the term republican government in the sense in which it appears in the historical accounts. Benin did not become a modern republic. Rather, senior chiefs attempted to exercise governmental authority without a reigning Oba.

Sargent gives a more specific description of the experiment.

He identifies the Uzama Nihinron as the body responsible for the arrangement and states that the Oliha served as its president.

The Oliha was one of the kingdom's senior hereditary titleholders. His position in the administration reflected the authority of the established chiefly institutions, not a separately elected executive office comparable to a modern presidency.

Sargent interprets the arrangement as an attempt by the Uzama to strengthen their position within Benin's political system.

During the preceding succession disputes, the chiefs had nominated candidates, reconsidered their decisions and attempted to avoid the installation of Okpame. After Olua's death, they no longer had to negotiate with a reigning monarch whose authority could conflict with their own.

According to Sargent, the government they established increased the political standing of the Uzama while attempting to reduce, or perhaps even dispense with, the office of Oba.

He also considers the possibility that the experiment reflected an older form of government, one in which chiefly institutions had exercised greater authority before the monarchy became firmly established.

This is Sargent's interpretation of Benin's political development, rather than proof that the chiefs consciously intended to restore a precisely identifiable earlier constitution.

The religious tensions discussed in his reconstruction of the succession crisis also remain relevant.

Sargent had suggested that Okpame's apparent association with Ifa might have contributed to opposition against him during the earlier struggle for the throne. He nevertheless acknowledged the difficulty of assigning the rival royal candidates to particular religious factions.

Opposition to Okpame could also be understood through the traditions concerning Owere's killing and the danger that Olua had feared from his exiled brother.

Sargent treats the republican experiment as part of this longer struggle over royal succession and the distribution of authority between the monarchy and the titled chiefs.

Sources: Sargent, 1984, pp. 109, 112, 114.

The disorder reported in the capital

The government did not endure.

Egharevba states that the officials entrusted with administering Benin failed to manage the kingdom's affairs effectively. Their instructions were disregarded, and the authority of the government weakened.

He also records incursions into the capital by people from neighbouring villages and other settlements.

According to his account, these groups entered Benin City and looted it.

The narrative portrays a government unable to maintain order in the capital or to exercise dependable authority across the surrounding country.

Egharevba does not provide a numerical estimate of the people involved in the disturbances or a detailed chronology of individual attacks. Nor does the passage establish the extent of physical destruction within the city.

The reported looting nevertheless occupies an important place in the traditional explanation of why the chiefs abandoned their attempt to govern without an Oba.

Sargent also describes the experiment as unsuccessful.

In his account, the attempt to enlarge chiefly power did not produce a stable administration. The men who had assumed authority eventually had to consider restoring the monarchy.

Osemwegie Ebohon, writing in the 2005 volume Benin, a Kingdom in Bronze: The Royal Court Art, likewise places an approximately three-year period of republican government between Olua's reign and Okpame's return.

Ebohon describes the interval as one of disorder and presents the decision to recall Okpame as a response to the inability of the existing administration to govern effectively.

The precise sequence and duration remain dependent on the traditional chronology. Egharevba places Ozolua's accession around 1481, but the dates attached to Benin's late-fifteenth-century rulers are approximate.

Sources: Egharevba, 1968, p. 22; Sargent, 1984, pp. 112, 114; Ebohon, 2005, p. 109.

A different account of the government without an Oba

Peter M. Roese and Dmitri M. Bondarenko preserve additional details in their 2003 book, A Popular History of Benin: The Rise and Fall of a Mighty Forest Kingdom.

Their account differs from Egharevba's in several respects.

They associate the establishment of a government without an Oba with dissatisfaction during Olua's reign and describe an attempt to abolish the monarchy in favour of appointed rulers.

The administrative arrangement extended beyond the capital in their version, involving appointments to positions of authority both in Benin City and in the provinces.

One of the figures they identify is Elekidi of Ogbelaka.

Elekidi was remembered as a powerful warrior and military leader. Under the arrangement described by Roese and Bondarenko, he became one of the principal figures exercising authority in Benin.

The authors also identify a woman named Enae as a ruler associated with Ogbe, the palace quarter.

Enae's inclusion is notable because the narrative concerns offices that exercised authority in the absence of an Oba. Her role is recorded alongside that of Elekidi rather than as part of a royal succession.

These figures would later appear in traditions concerning Ozolua's attempts to consolidate his kingship.

Roese and Bondarenko also record that the chiefs offered Okpame a position within the new political arrangement.

The proposed office was Okhae Ighele, a title associated in their account with command over the young men or a section of the kingdom's fighting force.

The offer would have given Okpame a military role without placing him on the throne.

He refused it.

This is an important difference between the accounts. Egharevba and Sargent describe Okpame's absence principally in connection with his banishment over Owere's death. Roese and Bondarenko preserve an additional tradition in which he declined a military appointment under the alternative government.

The versions need not be treated as interchangeable accounts of the same conversation. They preserve different explanations of how Okpame remained outside Benin's political administration.

Source: Roese and Bondarenko, 2003, p. 96.

Okpame's life at Ora and the advice of Egbe

Ora was not simply the place where Okpame waited for events in Benin City to change.

Roese and Bondarenko identify it as his mother's community. In their account, Okpame exercised authority there while remaining outside the Benin capital.

The authors also introduce Egbe, one of his wives, into the story.

After Okpame rejected the proposed military office, Egbe advised him to withdraw to Ora.

He followed her advice.

This detail differs from the account centred on his punishment for Owere's killing, but it gives Egbe a specific role in the decision that kept Okpame away from the capital.

No description of Egbe's family background, age or later life is established by the passages under consideration. Her recorded involvement is limited to the advice she gave Okpame when he faced the proposed appointment.

Ora's connection with Ozolua would recur in traditions about his descendants.

Egharevba later identifies Uguan as one of Ozolua's sons and connects him with the people of Ora. Bradbury's research on the Ivbiosakon communities likewise records genealogical traditions deriving Ora's ruling families from Ozolua's lineage, although Bradbury cautions against treating the associated dates as certain.

Those traditions belong more fully to the later history of Ozolua's family and provincial appointments. At this stage of the story, Ora matters because it provided the setting for his exile and the political base from which he eventually returned.

Sources: Roese and Bondarenko, 2003, p. 96; Egharevba, 1968, pp. 24, 26; Bradbury, 1957, pp. 85, 87.

The Ezomo, the Iyase and the consultation of an oracle

Roese and Bondarenko provide another account of how the movement to recall Okpame began.

They identify two senior officials, the Ezomo and the Iyase, as central to the decision.

Both offices held considerable importance within Benin's political and military organisation. The Iyase was associated with senior military command and administration, while the Ezomo occupied another prominent chiefly position.

According to Roese and Bondarenko, the failure of the appointed government left the established chiefs and elders without effective control.

The Ezomo and Iyase consequently sought guidance through an oracle.

The response, as preserved in the tradition, was that Okpame should be recalled.

The authors do not establish that the consultation can be independently dated or verified. It is part of the transmitted explanation of how the decision to restore the monarchy was reached.

Its inclusion, however, makes the account different from a straightforward political decision by the chiefs.

In Egharevba's version, the chiefs and people of Benin invited Okpame to return because the government had failed and the kingdom required protection.

In Roese and Bondarenko's narrative, the decision also involved consultation with a religious authority before messengers approached him.

Both accounts lead to the same immediate difficulty.

Okpame was asked to return, and he refused.

Sources: Roese and Bondarenko, 2003, p. 96; Egharevba, 1968, p. 22.

Why the first invitation failed

Egharevba states that the chiefs invited Okpame to return to Benin and occupy the throne that belonged to his royal family.

The invitation was not presented merely as an opportunity to claim a title.

In the circumstances described by Egharevba, the chiefs also wanted him to protect the kingdom from the incursions that had accompanied the failure of their government.

Okpame did not accept immediately.

The historian records his refusal but does not provide an independently verifiable explanation of his motives.

His earlier treatment by the chiefs offers obvious context for the refusal, but the source does not establish whether he feared renewed exclusion, distrusted the messengers or had other reasons for remaining at Ora.

Roese and Bondarenko describe more than one unsuccessful attempt to persuade him.

Their account states that earlier messengers were unable to change his mind before the royal jester Oden volunteered to undertake another mission.

The choice of messenger introduced a different approach to the negotiations.

Rather than relying on another formal appeal from the chiefs, the tradition places the decisive encounter in the hands of a man whose recognised position at court gave him unusual freedom of action.

Sources: Egharevba, 1968, p. 22; Roese and Bondarenko, 2003, pp. 96–97.

Oden and the place of the royal jester

Oden appears in the accounts under more than one designation.

Egharevba identifies the messenger as Akaromwon or Oden and describes him as the royal jester.

Roese and Bondarenko use Oden and refer to the protected status traditionally enjoyed by jesters in Benin's royal household.

They connect the institution of court jesters with Ewuare, Ozolua's father.

In their account, the jester's position carried a recognised liberty that allowed him to speak and act in ways that could have been dangerous for an ordinary messenger.

The tradition does not suggest that Oden possessed authority over the chiefs or commanded troops.

His special standing lay in his court role and the protection associated with it.

That protection became important when he appeared before Okpame at Ora.

According to Roese and Bondarenko, Oden addressed the exiled prince as a monarch, despite the fact that Okpame was not then the reigning Oba in Benin.

The gesture acknowledged the kingship the chiefs wanted him to assume.

It also carried a risk within the story: Okpame had already rejected previous appeals, and the jester was approaching him with a deliberately unusual message.

Oden relied on the customary protection of his office while carrying out the mission.

Sources: Egharevba, 1968, p. 22; Roese and Bondarenko, 2003, p. 97.

The leather box containing two mice

The shorter and more familiar version of Oden's mission appears in Egharevba's A Short History of Benin.

The messenger carried a leather box.

Inside were a house mouse and a bush mouse.

When the box was opened, each animal moved towards the surroundings familiar to it.

The house mouse ran towards the building and climbed onto the roof. The bush mouse fled into the bush.

The distinction between the animals is essential to the story. One belonged to the domestic surroundings of a house, while the other belonged to the uncultivated vegetation outside it.

Okpame observed their movements.

Egharevba records that he drew a comparison between the animals' instinctive return to their places of habitation and his own continuing absence from Benin.

He concluded that he should return to his ancestral home.

The episode should be understood as a traditional account of persuasion, not as a documented experiment involving animals.

The source does not identify the species of either mouse. Nor does it provide details about where the animals were obtained or who prepared the leather box.

The significance of the encounter in Egharevba's narrative lies in Okpame's response.

After receiving the message, he decided to leave Ora.

Source: Egharevba, 1968, p. 22.

A second version adds a bird and a promise to the shrines

Roese and Bondarenko preserve a longer version of the same episode.

Their account contains three animals rather than two.

Oden took a house mouse, a country mouse and a bird called umobie.

The authors also record that before undertaking his mission, Oden promised offerings at shrines if he returned safely.

This religious undertaking does not appear in the shorter passage given by Egharevba.

The later account follows Oden to Okpame's court at Ora, where the jester used his unusual position to address the prince.

He then released the animals.

The umobie flew into a tree. The house mouse moved towards the roof of a building, while the country mouse escaped into the bush.

The animals' movements provided the demonstration around which Oden's message was constructed.

Okpame interpreted what he had seen as evidence that each creature knew where it belonged.

He then decided to return to Benin.

Roese and Bondarenko do not establish that the addition of the bird represents an earlier or more historically accurate version of the story.

Nor does the presence of the promised shrine offerings establish that the jester actually carried them out after the mission.

The account preserves those details as part of the tradition transmitted to later historians.

The bird, the two mice, the protective status of the jester and the promise to the shrines all belong to this more elaborate version.

Source: Roese and Bondarenko, 2003, pp. 96–97.

Okpame leaves Ora

In Egharevba's account, Okpame did not prolong his departure once he had accepted the implication of the animals' movements.

He summoned his enslaved attendants and set out for Benin City.

The historian describes the journey as undertaken urgently.

The passage does not supply an exact date of departure, the size of the travelling party or the route by which Okpame returned from Ora.

It also does not identify a military engagement on the journey.

The earlier invitation from the chiefs had called on him to restore the monarchy and protect the country. By accepting it, Okpame was returning to a capital where the titled officials who had previously excluded him now wanted him to become their king.

Sargent identifies the return as the event that brought the chiefly experiment in government to an end.

Ebohon likewise connects the decision to recall Okpame with the failure of the administration established after Olua's death.

The traditional accounts do not describe a negotiated constitutional settlement defining precisely how power would henceforth be shared between the restored monarch and the chiefs.

That question appears more clearly in Sargent's interpretation of Ozolua's subsequent reign, particularly his argument that Ozolua sought to limit the Uzama's influence over royal succession.

For the moment, the immediate consequence was the restoration of a reigning Oba.

Sources: Egharevba, 1968, p. 22; Sargent, 1984, p. 114; Ebohon, 2005, p. 109.

A coronation at Usama

Okpame was welcomed in the capital.

Egharevba describes the people receiving him as the man expected to deliver them from the disorder that had overtaken the country.

His account places the coronation at Usama, the traditional coronation ground associated with the Benin monarchy.

There, the returned prince was installed as Oba under the royal name Ozolua, also rendered Ozoluwa.

In the traditional chronology used by Egharevba, the accession occurred around 1481.

Sargent identifies the new ruler as the fifteenth monarch of the Eweka dynasty.

The numbering reflects the succession of rulers within that dynasty rather than an independently dated series of reigns established from contemporary fifteenth-century records.

The coronation was also a political reversal for Okpame.

Earlier, his involvement in Owere's reported killing had led to his exclusion from Benin. Olua had subsequently taken steps to protect the capital against the possibility of his return. During the interregnum, the chiefs had attempted to exercise governmental authority without installing another Oba.

Now Okpame occupied the royal office they had sought to leave vacant.

Egharevba's account provides no coronation speech by Ozolua and no detailed list of the chiefs who attended the ceremony. Those details should not be supplied through imaginative reconstruction.

The information preserved is that the prince returned, was received in Benin and underwent coronation at Usama.

Sources: Egharevba, 1968, p. 22; Sargent, 1984, p. 114; Ebohon, 2005, p. 109.

The date and the limits of the accounts

Although Egharevba dates Ozolua's accession to approximately 1481, the chronology of Benin's earlier monarchs remains difficult to establish precisely.

Anthropologist Robert Elwyn Bradbury, in Benin Studies, discusses the problems historians encounter when attempting to assign fixed dates to the royal succession before the period of sustained European documentation.

The first securely documented direct Portuguese contact with Benin in the 1480s provides an important chronological reference point, but it does not independently establish the date of every preceding succession.

Robert Sydney Smith similarly treats the association of Ozolua with the Portuguese arrival as important to the reconstruction of Benin's late-fifteenth-century chronology.

Neither the mouse story nor the account of the three-year government can be dated independently by that Portuguese evidence.

The surviving versions also differ in how they explain Okpame's absence from Benin.

Egharevba, Sargent and Ebohon connect his banishment with Owere's killing. Roese and Bondarenko additionally preserve the account in which he rejected the military office of Okhae Ighele and withdrew to Ora on the advice of Egbe.

The accounts of his recall likewise contain different details.

Egharevba records the leather box with two mice. Roese and Bondarenko add the umobie, Oden's promise of shrine offerings and the jester's reliance on his protected position at court.

These differences are part of the available historical record. They cannot be resolved by selecting the most elaborate version or combining every detail into a single supposedly documented event.

Sources: Bradbury, 1973, p. 23; Smith, 1988, p. 84; Egharevba, 1968, p. 22; Roese and Bondarenko, 2003, pp. 96–97.

The challenges awaiting Ozolua

Ozolua's coronation did not mean that everyone who had exercised power during the interregnum willingly accepted his authority.

Roese and Bondarenko's account names Elekidi of Ogbelaka among the powerful figures associated with the preceding government. The traditions concerning Ozolua's early reign subsequently describe conflict between the new Oba and Elekidi (ruler).

Other opponents were also remembered in the capital and surrounding territories.

Egharevba identifies Egbaen of Iwu and Ise of Utekon among those who resisted Ozolua after his accession.

The accounts of these confrontations include an alleged betrayal within Elekidi's household, a period in which Ozolua was reportedly captured by Egbaen and disputes involving chiefs whose assistance he sought.

Those incidents form the subject of the next instalment.

Next in the Ozolua Series: Enemies Within Benin: How Ozolua Fought to Secure His Kingship.