A Federation of Thrones

In most Urhobo kingdoms the ruler bears the title Ovie. He stands at the head of the kingdom's indigenous government, carrying its highest traditional authority, and in ceremony and custom he stands for the continuity of the kingdom's culture and the memory of its ancestors.

Yet the throne is younger than the people. As Peter Ekeh observed, not every Urhobo community historically had a king: well into the twentieth century most communities governed themselves through councils of elders, and only Ogor and Ughelli had reigning Ivie before 1945. Most of today's Ovieships date from the expansion of kingship in the 1950s, in the era of Action Group politics, as the Urhobo Historical Society records.

Many royal traditions trace their founding lines to princes of the Benin (Edo) court, and some royal titles and insignia echo Benin's. Historians add a caution: the Urhobo communities themselves were settled before the rise of the Benin Empire in the 1440s, with the earliest settlements in the south-east of Urhoboland, and each kingdom's monarchy developed on its own terms alongside a strongly gerontocratic order. Traditional councils describe Agbon as among the oldest of the kingdoms, and the Urhobo Historical Society regards all of them as ancient.

Beneath and before the thrones runs an older principle: age. At the level of town and village the indigenous political head is the Okpako Orere, the eldest man of the community, a figure known in different kingdoms as Okpako r'Orere, Okarorho or Okalorho. He presides with a council of elders that guides the community on land, disputes and the common good.

The principle is gerontocratic, and the Agbon maxim makes it plain: the oldest man is the community's king. Not every Urhobo community historically had a king at all; many governed themselves entirely through their councils of elders, and the elders' order remains the bedrock on which the kingships stand.

The modern revival of Urhobo kingship has a date and a story. The Urhobo Progress Union, founded on 3 November 1931 in Warri as the Urhobo Brotherly Society and renamed in the mid-1930s, became the pan-Urhobo voice, with Mukoro Mowoe as President-General from 1937.

The famous episode came in Okpe. The throne of the Orodje had stood vacant, by Okpe tradition, for about 166 years. The Okpe Union, founded in 1930, led the campaign to restore it, and the UPU lobbied the colonial government in support of reviving the title. On 1 January 1945, Esezi II was crowned Orodje of Okpe. Mowoe's personal influence, his biographer Obaro Ikime records, helped secure British recognition in June 1948. Okpe accounts, it should be said, credit the restoration to the Okpe Union alone.