Asa

Asa is the Igbo clan and country of Ukwa West in Abia State, whose dialect is its own and whose people are also in Oyigbo in Rivers State.

Asa is mostly in Ukwa West local government area of Abia State, whose headquarters is at Oke Ikpe. It is not one village but a people and a country of many communities, and they have held this land for generations.

The Asa speak a dialect of their own, close to Igbo, and it is part of what makes them who they are. Their history is kept in what is told rather than written down.

The land carries cassava, yam, maize, plantain, vegetables and palm produce, and palm oil, palm kernel and palm wine have long been part of the local economy and of its customs. Ukwa West is also the heart of the oil-producing part of Abia State, with crude oil and natural gas under it, and the communities of the area have gone on asking for roads, power, health care, schools and clean water.

Asa people are in Rivers State too, about Oyigbo: Obeama-Asa, Kom Kom, Uzuoma-Asa and Mmrinwanyi-Asa among them. The communities on both sides of the Abia–Rivers boundary are one people in history, culture and speech.

Asa is counted with Ndokki beside it, and the two have been neighbours and kin. Asa also gave its name to one of the two Igbo elements the Ngwa are made of: the Ngwa formed where the Isu-Ama and Asa met the Mboko already on the land.