THE NEWLY ENNOBLED, on leaving the EMOTAN Shrine proceeds westwards for a short distance along the Oba Market Road, then turns left and plunges into the innards of the Oba Market, along the old:

Ode Noru-Nagban:
“The Route of the Successful”

The Ode Noru-nagban was not always through the bowels of the Oba Market. It was once a street which skirted the western Uzebu end of the Market, and connected the Oba Market Road with Unu Abehe Street. Since the beginning of the Twentieth Century the increase in the size of the Market has encroached on the Street and swallowed it up. But like birds in their unchanging migratory flight- paths the new chief insists on treading the same grounds which have been hallowed by the footsteps of chose who, through the centuries, have borne responsibility for the good of the City and the Kingdom He plunges into the bowels of the Oba Market, and moves in procession, along the Ode Noru-nagbon amongst the market women with their wares of pepper, rice, palm oil and goats, until he exits through the back of the market, onto Unu Abehe Street.

If the Oba of Benin should decide to let the Ode Noru-nagban skirt once again the Uzebu end of the Oba Market as it did in Old Benin, instead of as passing through the market-in-session as it does at the present time this decision would lead the procession, on leaving the Emotan Shrine, to the western end of ¡he Market where Ekpenede Street joins the Oba Market Road.

At Unu Abehe the Chef turns right, towards the main Ekpenede Shrine situated along Ekpenede Street. There, at the fourth Station in the Pilgrimage Route, if one took no official notice of the IDEN GRAVE, the keepers of the Shrine of the great chief usually sit, awaiting the arrival of the new chief. The chief is welcomed into the Shrine All drumming stops, and the women singers pace their immemorial songs only with the percussions from their Ukuse castanets. The celebrant emerges from the Shrine. The drummers give voice once again to their drums, and the procession pulls out, Long Ekpenede Street, towards the next Station on the Pilgrimage Route, the Oto Ogbe Shrine.

The OTO OGBE Shrine is represented by an Ikhinmwin tree located on the right hand side, the Moat side, of Ekpenede Street, near the south-end of that thoroughfare. A half-wall forming a partial alcove shields the stein of the Ikhinmwin tree from behind and to the sides.
The spot is the ritual centre of one of the Quarters of the OGBE district called OGBE EWUARE.

The Shrine of Oto Ogbe is usually referred to in popular speech as the institution which gave birth to IDU, an EDO mythical figure: The Edos say;
Oto ogbe –Oto Alaka no bie IDU

IDU is the ancestor- worship deity of the Benin Royal Family, portions of the history of the hoary past of the Edo people would be clearer when more is known about this mythical figure. Some important questions would be adequately answered if IDU was as well the ancestor-worship deity of the Ogiso rulers of Benin as he is of the present dynasty of the Obas. Or was it the Obas who brought this faintly deity along with them from ILE IFE eight hundred years ago?

The worship of the IDU deity is headquartered in the Benin Palace. But satellite shrines of it accompany each newly created princely Duke or Enogie to his new domain, and there reconstituted. The IDU deity links all the Dukedoms in the land in a spiritual filial bond with the Benin Palace. Therefore the Oto Ogbe-Oto Alaka Shrine the “parent” of their ancestor- deity IDU is much more an object of passing interest to the Enigie of Benin land.

The newly ennobled Chief on arriving in procession at the Oto Ogbe Shrine would recognise the Shrine with some trills of his ceremonial sword. He would present cowries and chalk representing a portion of the wealth and the happiness with which he has been blessed by life. Then he would move on towards the next Station on his route.