■ The kidnapping of King Jaja of Opobo was partly due to the idea that the king prepared a retreat into the Igbo country as a plan against British aggression. Most Igbo areas were not accessible to the British at the time.
The notion came from the fact that King Jaja was originally kidnapped from his home in Umuduruoha, Amaigbo, in today’s Imo State. He was born as Mbanaso, into a wealthy lineage, the Okwaraozurumba of Umuduruoha, in the 1820s.
■ Jaja was sold to Bonny houses and came to settle in the Anna Pepple house which he was later elected to lead in 1863. He later split from Bonny, founding his own kingdom at Opobo with other Bonny people in 1869. Opobo rivalled Bonny, especially in trade.
■ It was at Bonny that he got the name Jubo Jubogha, shortened to Jo Jo, Europeans calling him Ja Ja. The Igbo around the Imo River knew him as Jojo Ubani.After his kidnapping, his family led to a search that failed to provide any other information apart from the fact that he was last seen at the Ugwuta slave market.
A story tells of his reuniting with his family after he had become king of Opobo. A kinsman of his had been at Opobo and accidentally fell into a river and called out to the ancestral deity of Umuduruoha which King Jaja recognised.
■ Jaja sent for the rest of his kinsmen in Amaigbo through Agburum Nwaole Ezealaduru, the man of Umuduroha who apparently fell into the river, and he was reunited with his Amaigbo roots. Today, Jaja’s descendants in Opobo maintain a connection with Umuduruoha.
King Jaja died on his way back from exile in the West Indies in 1891. He was given the funeral of a king in Opobo and that of a prominent kinsman in Umuduruoha.
Peoplesmind
