The pilgrim departs the Aruosa N’Akpakpava and moves down Akpakpava Road towards the City Centre; soon he turns right into EWAISE Lane and gains Forestry Road. He crosses Forestry Road directly into the premises of the IYASE NOHENMWEN. This stop at the Iyase NOHENMWEN‘s officially the last Station in the Pilgrimage made round the City by the ennobled citizen of the Benin Kingdom

Chief OHENMWEN was one of the most famous Iyases of Benin. He died around the year 1838, at a great old age. He was therefore probably born about 1750. He had strong Ijaw antecedents. His father hailed directly from EROGBO Village, near the Ekehuan and Ughoton water-side villages. And also remotely from BRASS now in Bayelsa State in the rivers. His mother was an Iyekorhionmwon lady, from IGUODOD0 Village. Ohenmwen was successively the Eribo and the Osodin of Benin before he was conferred with the premier title of the Iyase by Oba Osemwende. He was one of the richest Iyases of Edoland. His immense wealth was derived from his inheritance from his father ODIA (TELEMA in Ijaw) of Erogbo village in the Ovia territories. This inheritance provided him with the capital which ensured that he became a successful merchant in the Benin overseas commerce, trading in European textiles which he purchased from the European merchants tiding with Benin, and also in African textiles which were hand woven in the Edo, Yoruba and Idoma hinterland areas. These latter he sold to the European traders in Ughoton who resold them in other West Africa ports from the Congo in the East to the Gold Coast and beyond to the west.

The Iyase Nohenmwen at the height of his fame and wealth decided one day to stage a public demonstration of the immensity of his riches. The method he chose for this demonstration was that which had been employed by chief Ehengbale the Uwangue of Benin during the reign of Oba Eresoyen about ninety years earlier Ohenmwen invited Osemwende the Oba of Benin to be an honoured guest in his house in the UGBAGUE premises which now house his shrine Osemwende accepted the invitation.

The day of the royal visit soon dawned. The Iyase spread on the ground numberless pieces of red linen of European manufacture which the Edos call Ododo. The carpeting began at the Urho Okperhe the main public Gate of the royal palace. It coursed through the Unuogua now the National Museum Complex ground and crossed the Uroghotod in High Street into Forestry Road (Ewaise Road). The red carpeting led along the length of Forestry Road into Ohenmwen’s Ugbague.

Stationed at regular intervals along both edges of the carpet, and along its whole length and holding the edges down with the tips of their toe, were a large number of servants. Each of the servants, young men and nubile maidens bore an ekpoki box on their heads. The boxes contained money the cowries’ currency of the period. They also contained coral beads, bottles of Aromatic Schnapps (ayon ebo) damask, velveteen (ukpon ebo) and sable scarves of the sheeriest silk which the Edos call eto ovbiohue (Cats fur) Other items included in the boxes were manillas which were locally called Ugianran. The Ugianran were the high-denomination currency with which the Benin overseas trade was transacted. The manillas were of the alloys of copper zinc and lead  and were of different sizes  They represented the “gold-ingots’ the maximum-value repositories of the Benin economy Ultimately these manillas found their way into the furnaces of the IGUN Street Bronze-Casters, and were converted into the artefacts which made Old Benin famous only after she had died in 1897.

Oba Osemwende exited from the Palace with a large royal party consisting of chiefs and other retainers. With the Duty Omada he alone walked on the carpet of red linen between the two rows of servants bearing the ekpoki boxes. The remainder of the huge entourage walked along the flanks of this lane of honour.  

The concourse with elephant-tusk trumpets blaring poured into the premises of the Iyase where Ugbague Street opens into the Forestry Road. The red carpet ended not at the main entrance into the Iyase’s house but at some distance away before a blank portion of the outer wall of the premises. At this portion of the wall a doorway had been freshly cut that morning. The new doorway was guarded by strong men of war who ensured that no living thing, man or beast, passed through it either into or out of the house. The adventitious doorway which would cease to exist before the end of the day, was meant for only the Oba of Benin.

The Oba of Benin normally did not visit his subjects in their houses but whenever he did so a virgin doorway was the only aperture deemed fit to provide his Person with entry into and exit from, his host’s house An example of such an emergency doorway is still extant It is to be seen on the wall of the more than one hundred years old OGIAMIEN House along Sokponba Road now a National Historical Monument. To the right of the main entrance is a mud-tilled hiatus in the wall where an Oba of Benin once passed through into the house as a guest of the landlord of the premises.

This practice had a corollary in the habits of the fighting men of old Benin. On exitting from their homes on their way to war the citizen-soldiers never left through the main doorway of the house. They departed through a side - door cut in the wall of their private bathroom.The private bathroom was called the egun In the egun which was built around a central impluvium. an oteghodo, were a number of large pots of herbal potions called osun. The fighting man bathed with each of the herbal potions in turn. The potions reinforced his invincibility in battle and ensured that he would return safely home. To ensure that the efficacy of this protective ritual armamentarium was not in any way abbreviated the warrior avoided the main doorway of his house. Using the side-door of his egun protected him from any chance contact with any person or object which might be considered ritually debilitating.

If these precautions against ritual contamination were necessary for the soldier going to war, they were even more so, perhaps even imperative, for the king head from whose physical person radiated the well being and the wholesomeness of the kingdom and the Empire.

The newly installed Ogiamien on arrival at his from USAMA which is located opposite the Ogiamien palace enters his palace for the first time formally as the Ogiamien of Benin through an extraneous doorway cut in the perimeter wall of the edifice. The emergency doorway is filled in and obliterate immediacy the chief gains the innards of his palace. Henceforth he make use of the regular palace gateway

Doorways of this nature also provide entry to a few other hereditary chiefs of Benin on their arrival at their palace from their own USAMA.
Interestingly it was this same honour which the ancient Greek City State like SPARTA and ATHENS bestowed on their Olympic Games Champions seven hundred years before the birth of Christ. The citizens cut a fresh doorway into  their house to admit the sportsman who arrived home triumphant in any of the events in the four-years Games held in Olympia.

Osemwende walked the red carpet to where it ended opposite the freshly-cut doorway in the wall of Ohenmwen’s house. He and the Duty Omuada passed through. The rest of the royal entourage poured through the regular gate into the embrace of the sumptuousness of the hospitality of Chief Ohenmwen the Iyase.

At the end of the visit the Oba and his Omada came out of Ohenmwen house again through the accessory doorway whereupon the access was immediately sealed up with kneaded mud and the continuity of the wall restored.
The Iyase folded up the hundreds of pieces of the Ododo linen which made up the length of the red carpet upon which Osemwende trod to his house tied them into bales and sent the bales as a gift an Imuohan to the monarch. Included in the gift were all the ekpoki boxes which had lined the royal route with their contents. To complete the gesture with a flamboyant flourish Ohenmwen added the ekpoki-carrying young men and maidens of the guard of honour to the gifts that went to the palace.

Back in the palace and impressed by all that the Iyase had done Oba Osemwede brought out the Isemwenrigho totem. This was an artefact which ensured not only the actualisation but also the immutability of the Oba’s spoken word. With the Isemwenrigho Osemwende blessed the Iyase n Ohenmwen and the generations that would spring from his loins. The Oba then added Ohenmwen premises to the Stations which a new Chief must call at in his Thanksgiving Pilgrimage through the City. At death the Iyase would remain a beneficiary of the gratitude of the numberless Chiefs of the future and partake of the propitiatory offerings they would bring to his shrine.
As was customary Ohenmwen the Iyase was the husband of the UVBI NOKHUA the senior princess of the realm and the eldest daughter of the reigning monarch. The princess in the instance was AGHAYUBINI the name means:
“We will yet be able to return to Benin”

Aghayubini was born in EWOHIMI town in the Ishan territories during the travails of her father Prince EREDIAUWA later Oba Osemwende in his succession struggle with his junior brother Prince OGBEBOR for the throne of Benin.
Ohenmwen was already grandfather many times over before Princess Aghayubini came of marriageable age and was betrothed to him in obedience to the custom of the land. The young royal wife became pregnant and had a son for her husband. The baby boy was Osemwende’s first grandchild and the fulfilled grandfather named him IDEHEN:My pedigree has achieved stabilisation Idehen became the first Aiweriohene of Benin a title which affirms the permanence the unsupplantability of the Ooni-ship of lle-Ife whence came the Obas of Benin. (The title Aiwerioba) has the same meaning but in this instance is affirmation is with regard to the Obaship of Benin).
Princess Aghayubini became pregnant again and then tragedy came calling at the Iyase N’Ohenmwen’s household. The Iyase was perplexed at his wife’s pregnant state because since Idehen’s birth Aghayubini had not been invited to share her husband’s bed with him Ohenmwen was getting on in years and his libido fires had burned low When the sniggering in his household could no longer be left unattended to and the Princess would not take her husband into confidence regarding the queries which were being raised the Iyase went to the Palace and put the matter before the 0ba his father-inIaw.

Osemwende sent for his daughter. He received Aghayubini at the Iwe Omo the Palace chamber where the Obas of Benin interacted with their children. He enquired from his beloved daughter about the paternity of her pregnancy .To that question even though asked repeatedly  Aghayubini would give no reply Exasperated Osemwende ordered two Emada equipped with whips to carry out a flagellation of the Princess peradventure that action might bring about a loosening of her tongue.

The Emada set to work and at once the princess found out that the cavernous hall of the Iwe Omo had became suddenly too small to distance her from the whiplashes which came to her from all directions. Beseeching her father for a respite from the punishment the young lady ran hither and thither under the flagellation until the tip of one torso-girdling lash curled round her face and ended in her left eye giving the princess a severe eye injury in the form of a corneal laceration.

Aghayubiní collapsed with awail followed by a groan and then a moan. It was clear immediately that some damage had been done to her. The Emada stood back even before the king had had time to order a stop Osemwende distraught with anxiety rushed to his daughter’s side where she had collapsed and closed to himself.

Aghayubiní  lost the eye. To the end of her days in an effort to hide her acquired disability from public view she adopted an article of clothing called Obo adaze whenever she dressed up for any outing .The Obo adaze was a shawl of European manufacture soft and silken which the princess draped her shoulders and over a portion of the forehead in such a manner that the area of the left eye remained covered up.

A few days after this accident while coping with the pain of her left eye injury and the discomfort of the desperate attendant medication by virtually the whole corps of the City’s herbalists the princess also lost her pregnancy.
Akenisi was the Iyase n’ Ohenmwen’s first-born son Ohenmwen at this time was the Benin City Chief responsible to the Oba for the maintenance of the hegemony of Benin over AKURE town. The DEJI of Akure was in turn responsible to Ohenmwen in this regard. The Iyase household was therefore the staging post for all the traffic in goods and personal which flowed between that Yoruba town and the Benin Palace.  An Akure damsel had been given by the lyase as a wife to his son Akenisi when the Youngman came of marriageable age. A son, IGBINOBA had been born of this union Igbinoba was the patriarch of the OTOKITIS of Benin.

Oloi UGIOMO, a lady of Evboesi village in the Iyekorhionmwon districts was the eldest wife of Oba Osemwende. She was the Eson, the Head of the royal Harem. She was the mother of Princess Aghayubini, and of Prince ODIONVBA, the future OBA ADOLOR of Benin. She was a doting mother, in the habit of sending an unending stream of presents to her married daughter in her matrimonial home in Ugbague Quarters. The gifts usually consisted of kitchen items such as would be useful to a married woman and a young mother “Take these to the Uvbi-Nokhua”, Ugiomo would tell her servants.

Her servants, like the servants of the other Iloi in the royal Harem, were usually teen-age girls who handled the interactions of their Mistresses with the outside world. They were not as strictly bound by Palace protocol as their mistresses, but were still regarded as Palace women who, at full maturity would be disposed off in marriage at the Obas pleasure. Those amongst them who showed uncommon promise or were otherwise liberally endowed with winning attributes were accommodated by the Monarch and became full consorts. The persons of these young women were therefore sacrosanct, protected by the Palace rules which gave protection to their sequestered mistresses. They were called ivbi - iloi: “Little royal Consorts” they wore a brass ankle bangle on one of their legs denoting that they were Palace personnel of the ‘inner chambers” Those of them who at full maturity found favour with the Oba would thereupon acquire for the other hitherto unadorned leg this badge of exclusivity, of the brass ankle bangle.

It transpired that during these visits of the lvbi-iloi from the royal Harem to the harem of the Iyase n’Ohenmwen AKENISI espied one of damsels with whom he contrived to shrike up a relationship.

The fact of this relationship soon became known, and once again the household of the Iyase n’Ohenmwen was thrown into deep distress.
The concerned ovbi-Oloi was arrested and confined in the Ewedo, the Palace Prison. Akenisi was assumed to be under the restrictive custody of his father the lyase until the final determination of the matter.

The offence of the cuckolding of the Oba of Benin was, as in Old England regarded as treason, and the penalty was, in both countries death
And so was re-played in all its essential particulars the tragic story of Iyase Ekpenede and his son Idodia which had taken place some two hundred and fifty years earlier during the reign of Oba Ehengbuda. Iyase n’Ohenmwen set to, and with a will to rescue his eldest son, his Edaiken from the certain fate which awaited him.

Firstly he enriched the treasuries of the other great chiefs of Benin with money coral and individual human beings: ese omwan hoho. Then he turned his attention to the Benin Palace. He begged for the sparing of his son’s life, and as proof of the depth and the earnestness of his supplication he offered as a ransom the village of UZALLA near UTEE, across the Ikpoba River, which he had founded and peopled. With the village went the men and women who inhabited it, with all their Livestock, their farms and the market which the village controlled. When it seemed that the favourable response which he desired was not forthcoming Ohenmwen doubled the reparatory gift by adding to it the village of IGUOHENMWEN on the Ughoton road. This was the village which he had also founded, which bore his name, which was near to EROGBO, his Ijaw father’s riverine village and which was very early on, the centre of his trading activities which consolidated his wealth.

But the Palace could not sell to the Iyase what the Iyase so fervently desired to purchase with such horrendous outpouring of wealth. Osemwende could do nothing to help his favourite chief. The last word in such perplexing circumstances was:
Oba gha kue, Osodín ti kue:
“The Oba might be willing; (to grant a waiver) But the Osodin would demur

The Osodin is the Chief who is responsible for keeping the women in the royal Harem, up to one thousand of them in old Benin in good conduct.
When it was clear to Akenisi that nothing now stood between him and a date with the Isienmwenro, he made a sojourn to AKURE home of his father in-law.

He took his wife with him on the journey, At AKURE apologised to his father in-law for the happenstance which had landed him in the parlous circumstance in which he now found himself. He confided in his in-law that it was unlikely that he would survive the trouble. Then he journeyed back to Benin with his entourage. On arrival home he committed suicide.

The Ovbi-OIoi who was implicated with Akenisi in the offence was hanged by the lsienmwenro from the branches of the Okha n ‘Ohue tree which stood near the present-day St Saviour’s Road junction, beyond Ovbiyeneva (The Two Sisters”) Moat Crossing, at the commencement of Upper Sokponba Road, Benin City.

The Iyase N’Ohenmwen was luckier than the Iyase N’Ekpenede in that Ohenmwen had been blessed with many children. His second son, IS0, moved up to fill the first slot formerly occupied by Akenisi.
OHENMWEN, the Iyase of Benin developed three notable properties in Benin City during his lifetime. Two of these properties were in Ore-Nokhua, and the third was in the Ogbe half of the city. He gave a distinctive name to each of the properties, names which encapsulated his hopes and his experiences in the course of the successful life he had led.

He had bought some land in Ugbague Quarters from chief OROBATOR, one of the EFA chiefs of Benin. There he built his main residence, his Igiogbe. He lived there, and his Shrine is situated there to this day. He called the, premises:
Aghayubini ii hin Ogbe:
“The Ikhinmwin tree is never absent from the ancestral homestead”
Early in his life when Ohenmwen first arrived Benin from Iguododo, his mother’s village in Iyekorhiomwon he had been warded by the Oba to Chief Uso of Erhie Quarters. Later in life, after he became a man of substance he acquired a landed property in the Quarters and built a house there. He called the premises:
Eti ii mu uloko:
“Thickets do not stunt the full growth of an Iroko tree”.

The Erhie Street premises as mentioned earlier became, because of its size and its remoteness from the built-up areas of the city at that time, the communal burial ground for the whole of the Ohenmwen clan.
Ohenmwen was said to have spent a portion of his youth as a servant in a household in Ogbe Quarters, along Unu Abehe Street, behind the Oba Market. He later in life acquired the premises and built a third house there, which he named:
Oleloba ii de:
“Faithful service to the Oba Ensures infallible insurance against Iife’s vicissitudes”.

It was from this house that the Iyase probably set out for the Palace during those ceremonial occasions when he had to appear in full regalia of his office.
In his old age he willed these three Benin City houses to his elder children. To ISO, his surviving eldest son belonged the lgiogbe, the lkhimnwin ii hin ogbe at Ugbague.

To IDOVA his second son the Iyase N’Ohenmwen gave the Erhie Street premises, the Eti ii mu uloko. Idova’s grandson IYAMU, the Inneh of Benin, raised the first Storey Building in Benin City on the property.
To his third son ODIGIE the Iyase bequeathed the Oleloba ii de house in his Unu Abehe premises.

The newly ennobled citizen is welcomed lino the Shrine of the Iyase N’Ohenmwen by the Keepers of the Shrine, who are themselves the Elders of the descendants of the great Chief. The Pilgrim has successfully completed his pilgrimage when he exits from that Shrine.