Long time ago, the Umuobasi people of Abia state lived in a place called Amugho. They were named “Umuobasi” which means “children of Obasi ” because Obasi is the first man that discovered that settlement and came to live there with his family.
The Umuobasi people were farmers and they were very successful. They acquired lots of hectares of fertile land which they cultivated and produced a lot of food items and crops such as yam, vegetables, cassava, coco yam, beans and so on.
The Umuobasi people were successful farmers and because of that they were envied by a neighboring village called Okoko Item.
The people of Okoko Item conspired to kill the people of Umuobasi and take over their land. The plan was that in four days time, they will go to the village where the people of Umuobasi inhabited and kill them all and take over all they have, this plan was sealed with an oath that no one should tell the Umuobasi people and if anyone tells them, they will die.
Fortunately for the Umuobasi people, one of their daughters was married to a man from Okoko Item. When she heard it, she was disturbed and searched for a way to send a message to her people warning them about the evil plans of the Okoko Item people.
She couldn’t tell them the plans directly because of the oath so she tried another way. She called her son who was a young man and prepared him for the journey to warn her people. She put palm-front in his mouth so he would not speak and he went along with his hunter’s gun. He arrived Amugho the afternoon of the following day. When he arrived, everyone had gone to the farm except an old woman and a lame man. When he arrived, he went straight to the village square where there was a very tall tree called “Akpu” also likened to the Iroko tree because it is as tall as the Iroko tree.
He went close to the tree and shot the tree four times, he then removed the palm-front from his mouth and said “You Akpu tree in four days time termites will eat up your stem”. He said this four times and he turned and went away. The old woman present immediately got the interpretation of what he said. She immediately sent children to the farm to call everybody back from the farm.
When they all came back from the farm, she narrated everything that happened to them. They were all frightened and there was chaos because they knew that the people of Okoko Item were stronger than them and would win, if they were to go to war against them.
The people of Umuobasi decided to vacate Amugho peacefully instead of fighting the people of Okoko Item. While thinking of where to go, they remembered that one of the brothers of Obasi (the founder of Amugho) whose name is Aja lived in a place called Ugwueke. So, that night they prepared themselves and packed all they could and left Amugho that same night to Ugwueke.
The lame man was the only person left in Amugho because he could not walk and no one could carry him. He was the only one that was killed when the Okoko Item people came searching for the Umuobasi people.
The Umuobasi people currently reside in a place called Umuobasi or Amachara in Ugwueke community till this present day.
Story Source – Miss Elizabeth Chinomso Agbai
Photo Credit – Google Search Engine
