Ndokki

Ndokki — Ndoki, also called Ọkwa — is a clan of the Igbo of the Imo River country, whose people moved from the river into Abia, Rivers State and Akwa Ibom, and whose town of Akwete weaves the cloth the clan is known for.

Ndoki, also called Ọkwa, is a clan of the Igbo in the country between the Imo and Aba rivers, and its people are also in the coastal region of Bonny and Opobo. Pre-colonial Ndoki covered about four hundred and fifty square kilometres of farmland, from the Imo River on the east to the Aba River on the south. Today its people are in Abia State, in Rivers State and in Akwa Ibom State.

The clan's own account is that it came from the Imo River. Some of its people went south into Rivers State and east into Akwa Ibom, and through long contact with neighbouring Igbo they made their own dialect of Igbo and a strong Igbo culture of their own.

In Abia its villages are Akwete, Ohanso, Ohambele, Ohanku, Obohia, Ohuru, Akirika, Akirikaobu, Abaki, Mkpukpuowha, Obozu, Umuogo, Azumini, Eti, Mkpuajakere, Ubaku, Ohandu and Umuibe. In Oyigbo local government area of Rivers State fourteen villages are mainly Ndoki: Umuagbai, Mgboji, Ayama, Obunku, Umosi, Obeakpu, Azuogu, Egberu, Afamnta, Afamukwu, Okoloma, Obete, Okpontu and Marihu. In Etim Ekpo in Akwa Ibom there are Ndoki villages at Mkpukpuaja, Ogbuagu and Ohaobu.

Akwete, one of its towns, is the one Southern Igbo village with the craft of weaving cotton cloth, and the cloth rose with the trade of the river. Bonny held the markets of Ndoki in the middle of the nineteenth century, then Opobo under King Jaja held them, and by the end of the slave trade Ndoki was chiefly a palm oil depot. Masquerades are still part of the year, among them Oku-kpum and Eru-Onwa at Azumini and the Ari-ada.