Emu

Emu is a Ukwuani clan and a traditional kingdom in Ndokwa West, Delta State, whose five towns — Emu-Uno, Emu-Ebendo, Emu-Obodeti, Emu-Iyasele and Emu-Obiogo — share one district and one postcode. Emu-Uno is the ancestral seat and the headquarters of the Ezemu kingdom.

Emu stands in the Anioma country of the lower Niger, in Ndokwa West, about a hundred kilometres from Asaba, sixty from Warri and two hundred from Benin City. It borders Utagba-Ogbe to the north, Ozoro to the south, Abbi to the west, Ogume to the south-west and Ashaka to the east.

The clan is five towns. Emu-Uno is the ancestral heartland and the administrative seat of the kingdom; Emu-Ebendo is the largest of the others and the one the local agricultural and resource work sits in; Emu-Obodeti lies north-east of Aradhe; Emu-Iyasele and Emu-Obiogo are the two remaining constituent communities.

It was governed by a gerontocracy — the elders of the towns — until the centralized kingship was revived as the Ezemu kingdom. The year turns on the Ukwata festival in February, which marks the new farming season and the new year together.

Farming is what Emu does: the towns sit in the rainforest belt and their people cultivate by hand, which is also true of the Ukwuani country as a whole.