Peter Murphy, videographer of the interview, was part of a film crew for the history series, Benin: An African Kingdom, a series of five episodes using archival film, dance and drama and storytelling as a resource for primary and secondary school audiences. He visited Evbohighae in 1993, meeting a man who remembered the deposing of Oba Ovenramwen in 1897 and interviewed him. Obeh Okakuo, a small child when the sack of Benin occurred in 1897 in Evbohighae, a small town South-East of Benin City.

Translation of the interview: 07.11.1993

00:46 As a child I had no reason to go to Benin [City]

01:16 I was very young and my mother had just had the second child after me when we heard that Ovenramwen had been arrested and taken to Calabar. So, my parents had packed all us children to go and hide on the farm. So, we were at the farm and after a couple of days a man called Obano (?) came to tell us that Ovenramwen had been captured by the white men and that it was only Overamwen they were after, they were not after any other Bini person so it was only then we came back from the bush.

03:51 What I was told was that the white man had brought a white lady as a wife or a gift to the Oba Ovenramwen.

04:59 When the Oba heard that they were bringing him a wife he sent some chiefs to go and receive her and bring here to him. And when the chiefs saw her, they were overwhelmed and thought, when the Oba sees her he will drive out all the other wives in the palace and she will be the only one left, which ultimately means that she will be the one to give a son who will eventually become the Oba. As far as they were concerned the authority was being shifted to the British, or wherever the white men came from. They felt the woman was just too much.

07:17 There was a serious conflict in the palace in the sense that when the chiefs came, they reported to the Oba that all was well, and the Oba said, where is the woman you were supposed to bring, and they said they saw her, but the people who brought her had taken her back. So they did not tell the truth and the Oba did not know what really happened.

09:30 … Ologboshere, Ero and Obarahaghve (?) these three chiefs and some others I can’t remember, were the chief antagonists against the white men. They were in the bush fighting. Asoro is like an aide de camp to the Oba, so he was just protecting the Oba. So Asoro would really like to have made peace. But since he could not communicate the best thing he could do was fight off the British and give the Oba a chance to escape. that was Chief Asoro’s role. The rest of them were out to push the British out of the kingdom.

13:15 At the time, I was young, hadn’t even been to Benin, but what I was told was that Asoro was only protecting the Oba from being arrested, so that is why they moulded his sculpture on the ring road, but Obahabavghe, Ero and Ologboshere, the three chiefs were in a conspiracy to drive the British back and to stop a treaty being organised between the Oba and the British king.

15:14 I was a young man then but the mood of the time was that we had no head, no king, no chief, we were leaderless. So, it was the elders at the time who could say how much it was disturbing to them. But what I realised was that Benin was in a state of anarchy, it was every man for himself. But there were some chiefs who normally went to Calabar on horseback to consult with the Oba and come back.

17:54 Iyase, Chief Iyase, was among those who went to the Oba and would came back and do things to purify the land and govern the little that was remaining of the kingdom.

20:20 The people believed that another Oba would come because it’s only the son of an Oba who could be an Oba, but what we did not know was what was going to happen to the present Oba who was carried away and they had to try to find out if they can save him.

21:07 I was very young and didn’t know what was happening. My mother had just had two children after me, but what I heard from my parents was that the white man had arrested Ovenramwen for a crime he did not commit, they believed that Ovenramwen was innocent. So they just wanted to wait to see if they would free him or not.

23:08 (vehicle noise over) I had only two brothers after me when they arrested Ovenramen, and there is no way I can know how old I was, but I do know that when Emeke came in to power I was already a young man.

25:16 Why wouldn’t I be happy? I am a servant of the Oba!

25:33 It took almost 3 months of celebration all over the Bini kingdom, all over the villages and the towns. They were so happy they were no longer leaderless. And now his son had come to power inherit there was peace all over the land again.

26: 43 At our level in the village we have no life of our own except what comes from the Oba’s palace. Everything belongs to the Oba, so when the Oba was arrested we were unhappy because we felt the Oba owned the land, and the owner of that land had been arrested. But when the son was enthroned we all became very jubilant and happy. At my level I couldn’t tell the change because I was so young, but they were telling me, life has changed.

28:28 As a kid they just carried me and ran into hiding.

30:08 Every person lived under themselves, apart from immediate family, no one goes to stay anywhere else. In every village the oldest man is the village head, they used to carry all their problems to the village head, but otherwise they are on their own. It’s the oldest son who inherits the title after the father, and if they understand there is a calamity they can call their brothers who will gather and do what they can, the sacrifices and so on, to clear whatever problem they have foreseen. And that’s how they lived then. Anything outside the village was just foreign.