THE ARO EDION EDO is the Shrine dedicated to the Spirits of the collective dead of Benin City. It is situated at the approaches to the Urbo Okperhe the main public entrance to the Benin Palace It now shares with the elevated Water Tank in front of the Palace the intervening piece of land which separates the Oredo Local Government Secretariat building from the Palace grounds

The little building which houses the Shrine is well constructed with modern durable materials of sandcrete blocks and correlated iron roofing sheets the walls are fluted, like those of the Palace adjacent, denoting that it is a building of traditional importance. On the walls, and also on the railings of the perimeter fence are depicted the artefacts of the symbols of royalty and authority in Benin land, the State Swords of the ADA and the EBEN, done in iron

The little building has only one door. Inside the building is an altar on a raised dais, on which stands the stave the Ukhurhe, which represents the collective dead of the City. These multitudinous dead, citizens who have lived in, and cared for, this town for over a thousand years are exhorted, invoked and propitiated through the wooden stave, the UKHURHE EDION, which represents their collective presence.

The ESOBAN of Benin is the ODIONWERE of the City, and therefore the Priest of the Aro Edion Edo.He alone officiates at the Shrine, at the behest of the Oba of Benin.

When the Esogban dies the Ukhurhe, the stave at alter, is made to lie horizontally until another Esogban is appointed by the Oba. When the City has her new Odionwere the Ukhurhe, is stood upright again and so remains until another Esogban transition occurs.

The Aro Edion Edo has always been in occupation of its present location for as long as human memory can recall. There is oral evidence to suggest that Oba EWEDO was not the first Benin monarch to occupy the present site of the Benin palace. The site was said to have been first occupied by the palace of later OGISOS of the first Dynasty. The last occupant was Ogiso OWODO who lived at the beginning of now dying Second Christian Millennium, about a thousand years ago. When that line of kings died out the palace became derelict and was taken over by bush. It ultimately disappeared and the area became known as:

Ogbe Ogiso n’ Uzamokon

Later it was also referred to as: Ogbe Ogiso n’ Oghionba during the early decades the Obaship dynasty. The huge drum Agba with which those Ogisos of old summoned towns meetings was said to have been sited where Oba EWEDO later built his IKOHAE, the temporary abode which sheltered him when the first arrived in Benin Urban, fresh from his suburban USAMA palace. It was while living in the IKOHAE that the young king tackled the arduous task of building himself a palace in the grounds of the cemetery that the Ogbe Ogiso had meantime became. The location of the Ogiso’s Agba drum, and later of Oba EWEDO’s IKOHAE is near where the URHOKPOTA Hall now stands. The Edion Edo Shrine was, even at that time probably already where it occupies today, at the approaches to the palace.

The Edion Edo Shrine is the first Station in the Processional Route of Honour, the Pilgrimage through the City, which the new Chief has to make as the chore in the long process involved in the validation of his title. The Chief comes out in procession from the palace where the Oba, seated on the Throne had already received his thanksgiving. He walks forward a short distance and then turns lift to the Aro Edion Edo.

In front of the Aro Edion Edo the Chief disengages his arms from the supporting hands of his ENOBORE, his Arm-Supporters, and takes the EBEN, the Junior Sword-of-State, possessed by all Chiefs, from his Eben-Bearer. He trills the sword four times, in thanksgiving and in self-identification, to the Spirits of the collective dead of the land. He hands the EBEN back to the Eben-Bearer, and re-surrenders his arms to his two arm-supporters. With the drums egging him on, and the stirring songs of the chorus women remaining him of the historical past, the nobleman comes fully into the realisation of who he truly his yet another link in the unbroken chain of the long history of the ancient land. With quickened and lightened step he departs the presence of the collective dead, and strides out on his long pilgrimage through the streets of Benin.

The celebrants might have been conferred with the senior title of an EGHAEVBO. This honour entitles him to share with the Oba of Benin the possession of the two swords of authority in Benin land, the ADA and the Eben. These two swords have been emblems of authority in Benin for one and a half thousand years .They were inherited by the Obas from the Ogiso monarchs.

The ADA is a matchet, but curved at its tip where it is broadest. The ADA links Benin land immemorially with the Eastern world of Egypt, Arabia and Persia. The scimitar became the main battles word of the Muslim world after the birth of Mohammed a little less than one and a half thousand years ago. The presence of the ADA in Benin and the high profile it enjoys in the culture of the kingdom is one more tenuous evidence which could be cited by those who believed that Upper Egypt or Sudan is the area of origin of the Benin people.

The EBEN, on the other hand is a thrusting sword, a double edged weapon, descended directly, in shape, from the sword of the Bronze Age man, of more than four thousand years ago, when men had not yet learnt to handle and work the much harder metal of iron. The EDEN could therefore be said to have arisen in this land a creation of the NOK culture, the civilisation which arose in this part of Africa and which straddled the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages of the technological development of the people of this area.

If the Benin people originally “came from Egypt” then they arrived here with their Desert Sword, the Scimitar the ADA. They probably met here the native sword, the EBEN, as the main battle weapon of these parts. The OGISOS adopted these two instruments as the conjoined emblem of the authority of the organised state which they created here, in the same manner as the “Double Crown” of the pharaohs of Egypt was elaborated by a conjoining of the Crown of the conquering Upper Egypt with that of the conquered Lower Egypt.

If the Ogisos came from nowhere else and arose natively in this land then it is probable that the scimitar had already travelled across the Desert and had the main battle weapon here before the Ogiso ruler-ship over Benin was established.

The ADA is the superior emblem, and it takes precedence, wherever it appears, over the EBEN. All chiefs are invested with the authority to possess the EBEN. But it is only a number of them who are additionally conferred with the right to possess the ADA. Titles which have this right are called EGIE ADA. In old Benin an Enogie or Ovie (in Urhobo-land) could not order the execution of any of his subjects unless the right to possess The ADA had been conferred on him by the Oba of Benin.

The EGIE ADA Chiefs of the OGISO era notably the UZAMA nobles: the Oliha, the Edohen, the Ero, the Eholor n’ ire, hoisted their ADA as they made their way through the streets of Benin to OGISO palace, and later with the change of dynasty, to the Oba palace at USAMA. But some seven hundred and fifty years ago when Oba Ewedo came to the throne and moved from USAMA to the Ogbe Ogiso n’ Uzamokan, the present Benin Palace site he engineered the loss of their right by the Egie Ada Chiefs. Since that time no other Ada has remained aloft in the presence of the Oba of Benin and his own lofted Ada.

The Ekponmwen Orere Pilgrimage round the City by the new Chief provides the only opportunity nowadays when the Egie Ada Chiefs able to go round the town with his Ada held aloft before him. He leaves his home that morning decked in all the perquisites with which t he title has been endowed, including his Ada and Eben Swords of authority, held aloft by attendants

But even on this special day the Chief’s lofted Ada does not get into the Oba Palace rounds Only the Eben does. At the approach to the Palace, and by the ARO EDION EDO the chiefs OMADA, the Ada-Bearer, would drop out of the procession and wait patiently by the Shrine until picked up again by the concourse returning from the Palace. Thereafter the Ada was held aloft before the Chief, until the completion of the Pilgrimage, and the celebrant arrived back at his home The Ada would henceforth feature only in the ceremonies which took place within the premises of the chief.

All ennobled citizens pay obeisance with Eben at the Aro Edion Edo when in procession to and from the Palace the OGIEFA NOMUEKPO is the only chief who does not do honour to, or offer worship at the Shrine. This is because of what happened some five hundred and fifty years ago
OGUN later Oba EWUARE was a fugitive Prince with his life forfeited if caught He sought and obtained refuge in the Forestry Road premises of Chief Ogiefa Nomuekpo. Helped by his slave called EDO the Ogiefa hid Prince OGUN in the depths of a dry well in the premises

EDO helped OGUN to escape when the bondsman discovered that his lord the Ogiefa, under great pressure, had yielded the secret of Ogun’s hiding place to his fellow chiefs. For this gross act of insubordinate the Ogiefa punished the bondsman by hanging him near the spot through where the IYAERO Moat was later dug by Oba Ewuare

When Ogun became the Oba he purchased Edo’s remains from Chief Ogiefa Then he exhumed whatever was left of the remains and gave the slave his freedom posthumously. He had the remains buried underneath the altar of the Ukhurhe Edion, at the Aro Edion Edo. He invited the people to join him in honouring this bondsman who lost his life in order that he, Ewuare might live.

The Oba went further in an action reminiscent of our current national and local habit of re-naming streets, Universities and airports after our national and Sports heroes Ewuare changed the name of his City, his Kingdom, and the language which he and his people spoke, to EDO, the name of Chief Ogiefa’s chattel slave. He ordered that the name UBINI or UBINI- UHE, until then the prevailing name of the city and kingdom be dropped.

But prevailing circumstances played tricks with the instructions of the Oba. Ewuare’s attainment of power In Benin coincided with the first tentative exploratory voyages to the West Coast of Africa by Portuguese sailors. Neighbours by the sea identified the City and Kingdom to these visitors from another continent by the name UBINI the kingdom’s pre-Ewuare name written down by these literate visitors the old name has survived and thrived as BENIN.

Since the reign of Oba Ewuare five and a half centuries ago the Ogiefa of Benin has stoutly refused to give the Eben chiefly salute at the Aro Edion Edo. He remembers the status of the personage buried at the Shrine, in relation to himself, and he says “I owe no honour or worship to any sold slave of mine”, as he moves past the Shrine with an affronted air.

The titles of the two Ogiefa chiefs, the NOZEBEN and the NOMUEKPO, are hereditary The family has been here for as long as Benin as an organised community has been in existence, serving a sizeable number of the thirty one Ogisos of Benin, and all of the so far thirty-nine Obas of the land As mentioned earlier the bondsman EDO was owned by the Nomuekpo.

The priesthood of the Aro Edion Edo is vested, as mentioned earlier, in the Odionwere of Benin City And accession to this Odionwere-ship is appointive, in great contradiction to what happens in the case of the hundreds and perhaps thousands of the other Odionwere-ships in the Benin Kingdom the accession to which is by natural selection In order to bring into bold relief the uniqueness of the Esogban as the Odionwere of Benin City it would be necessary to look briefly at the Odionwere-ship in Benin land.

As in all other societies all over the world the Benin society insisted on knowledge as the main attribute to which should be surrendered the ruler-ship of the community. In the non-literate world of the old Benin, where the quantum of knowledge available to society was virtually static and only very slowly added to from generation to generation, the citizen was more likely to have acquired more of this available and finite body of knowledge than the younger person. He was therefore adjudged the more qualified to lead society, physical strength and material wealth were desirable and useful but were not pre-eminent and had to yield place to knowledge, and therefore to age, in the guidance of the community.

Natural selection allowed determining for the community the personage in whom knowledge, in its richness mixture, resided, who had had a longer time acquiring and using it then anybody else.

To this person the community gave power to rule whenever the position fell vacant through the death of the erstwhile ruler.

The grassroots ruler-ship of all Benin Communities is determined as spelt out above. The large town of the kingdom, including Benin City itself are regarded as of villages and each “village” unit in the City determines its local ruler-ship in the manner.

The ruler chosen by means of this natural selection is called the ODIONWERE, literally translated as: "The Eldest of Elders”

In him was vested the legislative, Judicial and executive powers of the community, as well as its spiritual powers. He interceded with the collective dead of the community on behalf of the living .A fitting duty for him, for it was accepted that, in the natural course of things the Odionwere was the living citizen of the community who would soonest join this dead collectively in their eternal duty of ensuring his natural random the welfare and the prosperity of the village.

Superimposed upon this natural selection of the ruler-ship of society is the Monarchical system where a single family keeps the rein of ruler-ship permanently in its hands. The two systems have co-existed in Benin land for more than one and a half millennia. During this long period only two families, the Ogiso followed by the Oba have maintained the kingly heritage of a son succeeding his father at the apex of society.

In those Benin villages where the monarchical system co-exists with the ever-present Odionwere system of ruler-ship the ENOGIE, as the Viceroy of the Oba of Benin, takes precedence over the Odionwere in all thing and at all places, except at the OGUEDION or the ARO EDION of the village, where the Odionwere’s position is pre-eminent. This fact is highlighted by the usage which allocates fully one of the two hind-legs of any propitiatory animal slaughtered at the ARO EDION to the Odionwere whereas it is only a fore-Iamb or a portion of the other hind-leg which goes to the Enogie of the village.

This general rule that the oldest male in a close knit community takes over its ruler-ship has been modified in a few instances in parts of the Benin Kingdom. In the village of OVA in the territory of the EGOR Dukedom the Odionwere-ship is restricted to only a single family. This family is an off-shoot of the IKPEKETE guild, the guild of the Royal Drummers whose ancestral home is the IKPEMA Quarter in Benin City. Some members of the guild were settled in Ova village in the distant past by the Enogie of Egor, on the instructions of the Oba. In the course of time the Odionwere-ship of the village a community founded by one EDIAE, became the exclusive preserve of this re-settled lkpekete family. The functional links of this family with the Benin Palace probably enabled them to up-grade the Ova village Odionwere-ship to the near-monarchical status which it now enjoys, attainable only through heredity, like an Enogie-ship.

In the IHOGBE Quarters of Benin City, the district of the official paternal relatives of the Obas of Benin, the “oldest man” rule does not determine who becomes the Odionwere either The Odionwere-ship of the IHOGBE is determined by the length of time an IHOGBE man has been a member of the EDION in IHOGBE. An IHOGBE Odion is called an ENILA. An Enila who has been longest in that grade, irrespective of his natural age in relation to the other Enila becomes the OWERE ENILA or ODIONWERE of IHOGBE. Longevity in the Edion grade in this instance takes precedence over the naturally determined longevity in attaining this position of prime social responsibility in IHOGBE

The IHOGBE also have their own quaint terms for the other cadres of the Benin Kingdom age-grade system as spelt out in the table below:

No	BENIN KINGDOM NOMENCLATURE	IHOGBE NOMENCLATURE
1	Emwin-rhoba-evbo (5-15 years of age)	Ikherhuan
2	Eroghae (Ihema) (16-30 years of age)	Ikherhuan
3	Eghele (31-50 years of age)	Ihogbe-Nibie
4	Odion (51 years and above)	Enila
5	Odionwere (The naturally Odion)	Odionwere Ihogbe (The longest serving in the Enila grade)

THE BENIN CITY ODIONWERE-SHIP
There are as many OGUEDION or EDION Shrines in Benin City itself as there are Guilds and Quarters, and they are to be numbered in their twenties and thirties. An Odionwere presides over the affairs of each of the Oguedion. But there is an overarching Odionwere-ship for the City, and the incumbent is the head of the large number of the Edionwere who help to run the City.

Natural selection does not is mentioned earlier, play any part in the attainment of this Benin City Odionwere-ship. Neither does heredity attainting it is by the deliberate choice of the monarch determined by whom the monarch confers the title of the ESOGBAN of Benin upon. The ODIONWERE-SHIP of Benin City constitutes only one of the many responsibilities of the great office of the ESOGBAN of Benin.

The word ESOGBAN is Yoruba- derived, The original Yoruba word being É4SOGBON meaning, “the Manufacturer of Wisdom”, or “the Source of Wise Counsel”. The name defines the role of this title.

The ESOGBAN a title created by EWEDO, the fourth Oba of Benin, who had spent a number of his prematurity years growing up in the UGBOIILAJE Yoruba riverine territories, ranks second to the IYASE, the premier chief “ of Benin land. With no military responsibilities whatsoever the Esogban was the head of any “Think-Tank” available to the Oba of Benin. Cogitation the weighing of options was his primary duty.

The citizen appointed as the Esogban of Benin, always a man adjudged to be of dependable judgement, was more often than not, a blood relation of the monarch, chosen generally from the ranks of the children of the Princesses of the realm

In old Benin the Esogban title carne near to having an official location of residence in the City. A newly appointed Esogban was usually obliged to move house, from wherever he might have earlier been domiciled, to as near the royal Palace as could be contrived, and yet to arrange it so that he still remained in the Ore-nokhua half of the City, as he was the second-ranking Eghaevbo-Nore Chief Many of the Esogbans of old Benin therefore had their houses in the Ogbe Eguanran area of Benin, the stretch of land fronting the Oba Market Road, bounded to the west by the beginning of LAGOS Street, and to the east by the beginning of FORESTRY Road. Mission Road is a re—creation of the Twentieth Century. It once existed, probably extending to the UGBAGUE junction at that time. It was then a street of only a single row of houses, facing the bush opposite But it became de-populated following the great loss of lives which accompanied the civil commotion that took place in the City at the beginning of the Nineteenth Century, a story well told by J.U. Egharevba. This commotion was given the name OKPUGHE. The street was thereafter abandoned, and it reverted to bush.

THE OKPUGHE struggle arose out of the personal animosity which developed between two men, age-mates who were also look-alikes in their physical attributes. One was OSIFO, son of AKENGBUDA, the Oba of Benin.. He was the Crown Prince of the Empire and the EDAIKEN of Uselu. The other man was OSOPAKHARHA. He lived in UGBAGUE Quarters. He was the son of Chief AHIYE, the Esogban of Benin

Osopakharha was the Warlock of a powerful Benin City Witches Coven, This Witches assembly was called the Eniwanren-Ason:” The Elders of the Night” Oba AKENGBUDA was the Patron of this Coven and OSE, his wife and mother of Crown Prince Osifo, was the Matron of the group.

These two dandies, Prince Osifo the Edaiken in his Uselu domain, and Osopakharha in his Ugbague Quarters in the City, very simply hated each other, thoroughly and irredeemable Osifo was said to have hated Osopakharha for the latter’s pretensions, his popularity, his guts, and the flamboyant manner in which he used his considerable material resources to display all the above-named attributes to devastating advantage. Osopakharha hated the Edaiken for daring to hate his guts, for attempting to set limits on the scope of the flights of fancy that he Osopakharha might decide to indulge in. And Benin City proved to be not large enough to accommodate these two personages at the same time.

So when Osifo, as Oba OBANOSA, became the monarch off the kingdom and the Emperor of the Empire he disregarded the advice of caution given him by his parents regarding his feelings towards Osopakharha. He carried out the threat he had publicly proclaimed several times when he was the Edaiken in Uselu, and ordered the death of Osopakharha.

The tragedy of the situation was that the order was uncharacteristic and unexpected of this Prince. The Oba, even before he began his reign, was reputed to possess the potential of developing into one of the wisest Obas of Benin He was sagacious and his deep understanding of the human condition made the elders of the city to chuckle to themselves in great contentment. They bestowed on him the highest of all praise names, calling OBANOSA

“The Oba with the wisdom-attributes of God himself”

Osifo had decided to retain this praise name as his official Royal name on the day he was crowned.

The order to kill Osopakharha was inexcusable, but was perhaps understandable. Confirmed stories had been received at the Palace that Osopakharha, already popularly referred to as the Oba Ason the “Oba of the Night, and who had continued, demonstratively and provocatively, to do everything he could think of to match the King-head of the Empire in flair and grandeur, had further raised the stakes in his contest with the Palace. He had become the lover of the Queen mother, the lyoba OSE, the monarch’s own mother, in her Palace at Uselu.

Carrying out the order to kill Osopakharha involved Considerable Street fighting with a great deal of bravado and dare-devilry exhibited by both sides Defeating Osopakharlla’s troops became a mini-civil war in which, it was said, about five thousand people died. Whole streets of houses adjoining Ugbague Quarters were permanently deserted The precursor of the modern Mission Road suffered the greatest despoliation and it became defunct, as mentioned earlier Lt. R. O’Shee’s Map of Benin City n March 1897 about a hundred years after the OKPUGHE episode reveals no trace of the future Mission Road in the recently conquered city.

After Osopakharha’s death one thing led to the other. The Oba became ill It was oracularly determined that the displeasure of his mother OSE regarding the Osopakharha matter was responsible for the monarch’s indisposition Obanosa ordered her execution, there in her Palace at Uselu, an order which was carried out using the same method by which Oba Ohen was despatched four hundred years earlier stoning to death with moulded bricks of white chalk osorhue. The Oba then quickly rushed through the dead Iyoba s funeral obsequies in payment of the final debt he owed her: to settle her soul in peace and quiet in the nether world, and save it from the restless wandering which afflicts the soul of the ritually unburied.

A few days after the death of his mother and the successful completion of her ritual burial, Oba Obanosa himself died. Vindicating Osopakharha’s warning to him

Obo no bi ekhu, kevbe ekhu, ero gba yowa
“A hand that opens a door goes with the door in the direction the door takes“

OGBE  Eguanran was where Prince IDUBOR, alias ARHUANRAN had his residence. after he came back Victorious from his OKHUNMWUN. War, and before he was created the Enogie of UDO by his father Oba Ozolua.

Flanking the back of Ogbe Eguanran is IVBIZUA Street. Ivbizua Street was the traditional area of town which provided residence for the widowed or otherwise un-attached Princesses of the realm. The last famous Princess to live there was EHENDIA, eldest daughter of Oba ADOLOR who moved there from the Owina Street comer of Sokponba Road after her husband, Chief EDO the Iyase of Benin, popularly known as the lyase N’Oduhobo, died.

There at the Ogbe Eguanran the new Esogban would build his residence, across from the royal Palace, from which it was separated only by the Uroghotodin High Street and the Unuogua, the large open space fronting the Palace and which is now called the King’s Square, housing the National Museum Complex.

This domiciliary arrangement for the Esogban was necessary because the Chief was liable to be called upon, at any time of the day or night, for private consultations in the Palace. Also, frequently and informally, the Oba himself was wont to cross the Unuogua and the Uroghotodin, usually under cover of darkness, into the Esogban‘s residence, with only two or three Emada in tow, for confidential one-to-one consultations with the Odionwere of the City.
The Esogban of Benin is the Priest of the Orhie day, the second week-day of the Edos, after the Eken rest-day. He looks after the day, tending it and labouring that the day should bring only prosperity and peace to the Oba and the land.

The Esogban is the head of all the Native Doctors in Benin land, He is therefore, organisationally and administratively the premier Physician of the Kingdom.

The Esogban of Benin is the Warlock, the premier - Witch of the Kingdom. The monitoring and control of the activities of the witches of the realm fail within the portfolio of the Chief.

In old Benin the administration of the sass-wood potion the iyin, to people accused of witchcraft was regulated by the Esogban, in the same manner that the Chief OSODIN was in charge of the igban stricture, which determined which woman would, or would not. Remain in the royal Harem as the Oba’s consort.

All those were some of the responsibilities which the Esogban of Benin added to his Odionwere-ship of the City, to his being the OKAO or the Odionwere of all the other Edionwere in the City and the kingdom .He of course also took over the role of the Iyase during palace functions whenever that personage was unavoidably absent.

Only two other non-hereditary titles in the old Benin had pre-determined locations of residence attached to them. They were the IYOBA title, located to Lower Uselu, and the EZOMO title to UZEBU Quarters. It was this prior localisation of residence which determined the citing of the seat of the Ezomos of Benin when the title was ultimately made hereditary to EHENUA by AKENZUA the first nearly three hundred years ago.