Similarities between Benin and Opobo (2), by Dakuku Peterside.
For several years after the treaty, Oba Ovonramwen continued to rule his state in the tradition of his ancestors, refusing to “compromise his independence in order […] The post Similarities between Benin and Opobo (2), by Dakuku Peterside appeared first on Vanguard News .
This week, we continue the similarities between Benin and Opobo The implications of these, as later events were to show, were not fully explained to the Oba of Benin.
This stage was thus being set for the overthrow of Benin”.
It was against that background that Vice-Consul James R. Philips, going against warnings about the provocation such a visit would cause in Benin, embarked on a mission to assess the strength of the Benin Army and visited Oba Ovonramwen on January 18, 1897. Phillips and a large number of his men were ambushed outside the city, to which the British responded with the punitive expedition of February 1897. Benin fell in that battle, and its Oba was dethroned and deported to Calabar, where he died seventeen years later, in 1914.
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