Ohafia

Ohafia
LGA and Town
Ohafia

Location in Nigeria

Coordinates: 5°37′N 7°50′E / 5.617°N 7.833°E / 5.617; 7.833Coordinates: 5°37′N 7°50′E / 5.617°N 7.833°E / 5.617; 7.833
Country  Nigeria
State Abia State
Population
 • Ethnicities Igbo
Time zone WAT (UTC+1)
Postcode 442

Ohafia is a clan as well as a local government area in Abia State, Nigeria. It is an Igbo speaking region. The ancestral capital of Ohafia clan is the centrally located village of Elu. Ohafia Local Government Area, is an administrative jurisdiction assigned by the Nigeria Government, which covers the entire Ohafia villages and other clans such as Abiriba and Nkporo, with its Administrative Headquarters at Ebem Ohafia.[1]

The ancestors of the Ohafia people were renowned as mighty warriors.[1] This aspect of the Ohafia peoples history remains fundamental to the Ohafia people's sense of identity. The warrior's cap or "leopard cap" (Igbo: Okpu agu)[1] is well known and is an associated product of Ohafia. The Ohafia warrior tradition is embodied in the performance of iri agha.[1]

Ohafia is home to the third largest military base in Nigeria, named Goodluck Jonathan Barracks. It houses the headquarters of the newly established 14 Brigade and 145 Battalion office complex. Typically, Ohafia encompasses over twenty-six howntowns with population strength ranging between 800,000 and 916,000 as at 2014.

In furtherance, Ohafia is overwhelmingly replete with varied ritualistic and superstitious traditional rites and taboos, making crude recourse to ancestral identification and heritages such as: 'Ite Ogbere'-demeaning rites performed to shame a renowned thief by making them to dance round the village naked; 'Ikpo Mmadu'-a rite involving disposing excrement,refuse and other untidy materials in the hamlet of a taboo defaulter etc.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "A Brief Description of Ohafia". Retrieved 2008-11-20.


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