Publisher's Synopsis
This is the culmination of a research work that spanned close to twenty years, I am very lucky to have lived in Ogwa for about seven unbroken years, before and during my days as a student of Ogwa Comprehensive Secondary School. Having many relatives and friends scattered all over Ogwaland whom I visited now and then, I heard from my elderly relatives, parents and relatives of my numerous friends about our ancestry, who killed a leopard to institute their shrine at Durueke when others use goat and at most, cow.Our illustrious and glorious past, terrorizing other communities during the inter-communal wars, how we became primus inter-pares in education and development among other communities, making others look at us with envy and respect, our unity and the sacrifices of our fathers. All these fired my young mind with zeal and love for this great clan and I decided, this great story of uncommon feats will not be entered with the bones of our fathers but preserved that every Ogwa man and woman will know whom they are- the offsprings of a lion that should not chew curd like mere ruminants.
I started preparing for this work around 2002, shortly after my national youth service and have the luck of knowing and discussing many times with Chief Alphonso Nnadi, a great historian and custodian of Ogwa tradition and culture from who I learnt a lot about our past. Observing and interacting with my uncles, Chas Ekeanyanwu and T.N. Nwibe both of blessed memory in the service of Ogwaland, gave me an insight into the goings on around. The deaths of these great men made me paranoid and pushed me to act fast, as the population of those that know and made history in Ogwaland were fast depleting. After publishing the first edition of this book, it received a lot of reviews and accolades, especially from students and other researchers who used some aspects of Ogwa history and culture as their case study. The book became a saving grace, as it's the only published work on Ogwa history and culture. This motivated me to go into more research. Between the first edition and now, I was able to go for a Masters degree and a Doctorate, my research ability was greatly improved. I then decided to make the book more academic by including chapters that were not in the first edition and made some other chapters like Colonialism in Ogwaland more elaborate. This edition will be students' and researchers' delight. At the risk of immodesty, I will say that no book will be written on Ogwaland now and in the near future without a recourse to this work for ordinarily, I wouldn't have been able to squeeze out the time and resources I put in the research, if not for the Covid 19 holidays and prolonged ASUU strike during the period of research. For more than eight months, I was moving from one archive to the other and visiting villages and communities within and outside Ogwaland, who said adversities do not have good sides too? In the search for our origin and consanguine affinities, I visited many communities and villages like Idem Anara, Umuegbe Owere-Ebeiri, Oboro-Amurie, Amiyi-Umuaka, Umuanu-Amigbo, Ogwa-Ezioha, Umuarusi-Amandugba, Ogwa Camp, Umuokpo Emeabiam, Ogwa Mgbuishi Ilile, Abazu-Akabo and Abazu-Okwudor. What was discovered was interesting; while some are mere coincidences, others were a nostalgic reunion with somebody from their ancestral home. This work also x-rayed the major wars in Ogwaland, which explained the living pattern and why many towns of Ogwa origin exist outside Ogwaland today. This also explained the antagonism and frosty relationship that exists among some villages in Ogwaland even till today.
