Igbodo

Igbodo is an Ika-Igbo community of six villages that remembers itself as having been formed by people coming from different places to one settlement — Igbodo bia abia.

Igbodo is an Ika-Igbo community in Ika North East local government area of Delta State, made up of six principal villages: Anikpekwu, Anieyime, Ilabor, Ndobu, Idumu-Obior and Idumu-Ozei. The local government recognises the same six.

Its history is unusual because the community itself remembers being formed by people coming together from different ancestral settlements; the saying Igbodo bia abia, Igbodo came from different places, is how the town puts it. Its own account names seven places of ancestral connection, among them Ute-Ogbeje, Nri, Obior, Issele-Uku and Mbiri.

The village traditions are kept apart rather than merged. Anieyime traces itself to Ute-Ogbeje and names Eyime its founder, and rejects the later assumption that it shares an origin with Anikpekwu. Ndobu keeps a Nri connection, its people tracing to Ihi in Nri; a branch of it, Ndobu Idumu-Mbiri, traces on the maternal side to Ikeze in Mbiri. Ilabor traces to Ukhun and names Kehue its founder, whose sons Amasi and Zenakpo head its branches. Idumu-Obior was founded by Ohem'Ugbede, remembered as an Iyase of Obior, and Idumu-Ozei by Ozei; Umuasibe came later from Obior and Idumu-Isei from Issele-Uku.

It distinguishes clan chiefs from village chiefs: the Nzele Ani and the Nzele Ogbe, each holding the titles Iyase, Odogwu, Isama, Oza and Okwulegwe, with Onihe among the clan titles and Uwolor among the village ones. The titles are distributed and succeed differently from village to village, and Olikeze is never given to a native of Igbodo. In the modern system the community is also under an Obi, the keeper of its traditions, and the six villages keep their own leaders within the kingdom.

Its language, its village structure, its lineages, its age grades and its titles belong to the wider Igbo political and social life of the Anioma country.