Ohafia

Ohafia is an Igbo clan of Abia State whose ancestral village is Elu-OHAFIA, the central settlement of the town, and whose twenty-six villages make it one of the largest clans in the old Bende country.

Ohafia's people were warriors, and they have never stopped saying so. The knitted leopard cap, okpu agu, is theirs; iri agha, the dance that retells a warrior's killing, is theirs; and the memory of the mercenary companies that fought for whichever town paid them is still the centre of how the clan describes itself.

Twenty-six villages make the clan, and Elu is the ancestral one — the first settlement, and the seat from which the rest are reckoned. Ebem holds the administration of the local government area today, and the Nigerian Army's 14 Brigade is based in the town.

The country is farmland: yam, cassava, melon and vegetables, with trade at the Amavo market, and blacksmithing and wood carving alongside it. The clan sits about fifty kilometres from Umuahia.