Meet The Ofoni People Of Bayelsa, The Only Urhobo Tribe In Bayelsa - Culture

Ofoni is an Urhobo community in Sagbama Local Government Area in Bayelsa State of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Ofoni is about 40 kilometres by water to Sagbama (headquarters of Sagbama Local Government) 5 minutes by land to Odorubu and about 120 kilometres by road through Odorubu toYenagoa (Bayelsa State capital) respectively.

The community which is a peninsula, due to its almost being surrounded by water, is about 6 square kilometres in size and it is made up of three sub communities (villages) of Ekrediagbo, Ekreogbe and Ekreyavwien which in turn, have a total of seven quarters.

Ofoni which is in Bayelsa West Senatorial District has Iseni, Uduere and Ofoni Oil Field of the SPDC. It has oil facilities such as pipeline as well as drilled and capped oil wells.

The community shares boundaries with River Forcados, Lalagbene, Angalabiri and Ayamasa in the North, South, East and West respectively. Ofoni is in high forest agro-ecological zone of Nigeria.

The community has sandy loam and clayey soil texture; the settlement is generally gentle slope susceptible to flooding, erosion, land degradation and pollution (air and water).

Ofoni has some levels of depletion of animal and plant species largely due to various human activities over the years. It also has six creeks, lakes namely Agbaka, Amavwaresa, Ekadeya and Ukrogo as well as River Forcados.

The community has bimodal or double maxima rainfall pattern spreading through late March to early November, that is, about eight month of annual rainfall.

Population, Social Structure and Institutions

The present estimated population of Ofoni obtained from community sources is about 30,000 persons made up of 12,900 male and 17,100 female, that is, male/female ratio of 43:57.

There are more children (≤ 17years) accounting for 12,000 or 40% of the population than the youths (18 – 45 years) and the adults (46 years and above) which constitute 9,900 (33%) and 8,100 (27%) respectively.

Ofoni is about 92% indigenous community with the remaining 8% made up of other tribes across the country. Both men and women often contribute to the cost of maintaining the family.

An average of thirteen persons constitutes a family. Presently, polygamy is the more popular form of marriage in the community, although monogamy still accounts for some reasonable percentage of the marriage types. The divorce rate is relatively low, there are some cases of single parenthood and about 10% of the households in Ofoni have female heads.

Ofoni has twenty-one (21) churches of various denominations, no mosque and ten (10) shrines. The community is made up of over 75% Christians and less than 25% African Traditional Religionists (ATRs).

The community has no central cemetery as the dead are buried at their respective homes. The predominant spoken languages are Urhobo, formal English Language and Pidgin English respectively. The time of the day and various occasions such as wedding, burial etc attract different greetings.

The formal greetings for ‘Good Morning’, ‘Good Afternoon and ‘Good Evening’ translate to “Migue”, “Migue” and “Migue” respectively, while “We-ko be cha” (Meaning Thanks for coming Or Welcome in Urhobo ) and “We-ko biruo” translate to “Welcome” and “Thank you”.

Furthermore, Ofoni can boast of various social institutions categorized as NGOs, CBOs, Government Agencies and Private Sector.

Urhobo Wadooo !!!!


Credits: Naijafuse.com.ng