Nembe

The Origin of Nembe:
The Advent of the lselema or Warri Race
As narrated to the author of this book (Rev. Daniel Ogiriki Ockiya by Chief Apo of Big Warri on the 13th of August 1939 during the author's visit there:
“The leader of the deserters to Nembe was a very rich man who had buried so many earthen pots full of coral beads in the ground to the knowledge only of his sister who was married to the then king, the Olu. He strictly warned her not to reveal it to anyone, but somehow, she revealed the spot to her husband who went and dug them out to enrich himself.
Not long after this, a war broke out between the Itsekiris and Ovurugbo (an Isoko town). The Olu called his brother-in-law and made him the head or captain of the army. The prince also accompanied them: When they came to the battlefield, they fought desperately, vanquished their enemies and burnt the town.
To their great surprise however, the prince entered the king's palace and sat on the poisoned stool of the king, and got fastened to it. They tried all their possible best to take him on board canoe, but failed. At last they were obliged to leave him there and proceed home. As they dared not enter the town for fear of being killed in cold blood by the Olu, they decided upon desertion; and so, having come to the town in the dead of night, they took away all their belongings with the male-god which they took to the war and came as far as to Nembe for protection.”
Further, their head or captain was of the family of one of the Chiefs or Councillors of Benin whom Nuwa, the Oba of Benin sent with prince Ginuwa his son in the Iroko Box to rule the Itsekiri kingdom and whose title was "Ibiegbe" (vide Itsekiri History Cap. xxii page 218).
Having seen him and discussed with him as advised by the Olu of Warri (Ginuwa II A.K.A Emiko Ikengbuwa (7th February 1936- 8th January 1949)), Chief Apo and the other chiefs showed the author the female-god and also the quarter left vacant by the deserters (still left uninhabited) and added that even now, they were still expecting the return of the Nembes.

The Olu entrusted the author with a message to the Nembe Chiefs informing them that despite the home-call of the King. Anthony O. Ockiya (the Amanyanabo-Mingi IX) to whom he had sent an invitation to be present at his coronation to perform the ceremony usually performed by the descendant of Ibiegbe but then still unperformed. He was still expecting them for the purpose in order to complete his coronation ceremony. On the Nembe Chiefs at a general meeting held in the court hall on the 11th of September 1929. It was at this time that the author had the privilege of seeing the Olu in Royal estate, who sympathised with him for the premature death of my brother King Mingi IX, the Amanyanabo of Nembe; and after due conversation, strictly requested me to tell the surviving chiefs of Nembe, that though their Amanyanabo is dead, he is still waiting for them to come and perform their part of the customary ceremony on his installation to the Olu-ship, which message I did deliver to a greater part of the chiefs in council on the 11th of September 1939, of which I intimated the Olu also in writing.

The race of the Iselemas who came and took refuge at Nembe, appeared to have now been the stock from where the present race of Nembe spring or pro-generated, and not from any other place; they did inter-married; with other tribes, such as Aboh, Ijaw, Ogbeyan (Ogbia), etc., and begat children, but that does not automatically assign to originate from here and there; for we still maintain that we sprung from Iselema.
Alepe who was afterwards known as Nembe was the leader of the said Iselema or Warri race; he begat sons and daughters; and the most prominent amongst them were namely:
1. Ogbolo
2. Amasara
3. Bele and
4. Agbo;
By whose names the latter three names were assigned to three compounds of the town and from the eldest the term Ogbolomabiri originated.
In or about the year 1896 a certain man of the house of the late Chief Kairi by the name of Otiotio went to Warri for trade transaction; he was accosted with this question from a very old man there,

Are Ogbolo, Are, Amasara, Bele and Agbo, sons of Alepe still alive? And he replied him in the native; when the said old man began to narrate to him the history of the desertation of Alepe and his people from Warri to Nembe, etc. Alepe being one of the prominent chiefs of Iselema or Warri from the stock of Ibiegbe, it became customary that at the installation of any King or Olu to Olu throne, representatives from Nembe must be present- to perform the necessary assignment assigned to them; consequently when the present Olu was to be installed, an official letter of invitation was sent to Mingi IX the King Anthony Ofieyefate Ockiya, Amanyanabo of Nembe, which but for his sickness and untimely death, he would have complied to, by either going personally, or by sending his ambassador in a stately war-canoe to grace the occasion; failing to do so, the Nembians who were at Warri and the vicinity at the time took upon themselves to represent the Amanyanabo of Nembe at the occasion.