Nana Olomu (also written Nanna Olomu; born Eriomala; – 3 July 1916) was an Itsekiri palm oil merchant and political leader in the western Niger Delta. He inherited his father Olomu's trading organisation and was chosen by Itsekiri elders as Governor of the Benin River in 1884. He held office during the interregnum that followed Olu Akengbuwa's death in 1848, when leading merchants exercised much of the political authority in the Warri Kingdom.
By the early 1890s, Nana controlled much of the trade between European firms on the lower Benin River and Urhobo palm oil producers inland. His organisation relied on commercial alliances, credit, armed canoes and enslaved labour. British officials initially supported his governorship, but the expansion of direct administration from 1891 brought them into conflict with his control of inland trade. In 1894 British forces blockaded and captured his fortified town of Ebrohimi. Nana escaped to Lagos, where he surrendered voluntarily. He was convicted on four charges in a consular court without legal representation and sentenced to deportation for life. He was held first within the Niger Coast Protectorate and later in the Gold Coast, before being allowed to return home in 1906.
Early life and commercial rise
Nana was born Eriomala at Jakpa on the Benin River, probably in 1852. He was one of Olomu's younger sons. His mother, Memese, was an Urhobo woman from Evhro (modern Effurun). Olomu later founded Ebrohimi and became the leading Itsekiri merchant on the river. By the early 1870s Nana spoke English and acted as his father's deputy. In 1876 he represented Olomu before a British consul after the family was accused of killing prisoners taken during a conflict near Abraka.
Olomu died in 1883, having arranged for Nana to inherit his trading organisation intact rather than dividing the property among his children. This was unusual among Itsekiri merchant families of the nineteenth century. Nana inherited trading connections, canoes, weapons and a large enslaved workforce, but also faced opposition from merchants who had competed with his father.
Governor of the Benin River
The office of Governor of the Benin River existed before British consul John Beecroft intervened in Itsekiri affairs in 1851. Under the Olu, governors had collected comey, the duties paid by European ships, and supervised the ruler's trade. After Olu Akengbuwa died in 1848, the absence of a successor gave the office greater political importance. British consuls sought to influence the choice of governor and use the office to regulate trade. In 1851 Beecroft helped secure Idiare's election as governor.
Olomu held the governorship from 1879 until his death. More than a year later, Consul Edward Hewett asked the Itsekiri elders to choose a successor. They selected Nana on 12 July 1884, making him the fourth governor since Idiare's election in 1851. His appointment broke the pattern of alternating the office between the royal or Emaye group and the Ologbotsere group, to which Olomu's family belonged. Ikime attributed this departure to Nana's greater wealth and power. Vice-Consul David Boyle Blair formally presented him with a staff of office on 6 May 1885.
On 16 July 1884, Nana and other leading Itsekiri men signed a treaty with Hewett that placed Itsekiriland under British protection. They reserved Articles VI and VII for further negotiation. Article VI would have allowed people of all countries to trade and establish premises throughout their territory; Article VII concerned missionary access. British officials later treated Article VI as binding, although the signatories had not accepted it. Ikime also found no basis for later claims that the treaty placed Urhoboland, or the whole of what became Warri Province, under Nana's government.
British officials and Itsekiri leaders differed over the governor's duties. Hewett expected Nana to maintain order and settle disputes at the inland markets. Blair regarded him as the official responsible for enforcing consular decisions. The Itsekiri elders who elected him also expected the office to protect their trading interests. Restrictions on trade could therefore bring Nana into conflict with British officials who regarded them as a failure to obey consular authority.
In 1888 Nana protested against treaties made by the Royal Niger Company with Ijoh communities on the Forcados River. He opposed rule by the company, which competed with Itsekiri merchants, and preferred administration by the British Crown. Hewett supported Nana's claim to authority over Burutu and Goolah. During an inquiry in 1889, however, Claude Maxwell MacDonald rejected that claim after residents disputed Nana's overlordship. When consulted about the future administration of the Oil Rivers, Nana said he would accept Crown government on condition that slavery and polygamy would be retained.
Trade, slavery and regional power
Nana expanded his father's trading organisation along the Ethiope and Warri rivers. Senior enslaved agents and their assistants lived at waterside depots near Urhobo communities, where producers and local traders brought palm oil. Nana secured supplies through advances of imported goods, gifts, personal relationships and marriages. In interviews conducted by Ikime, people in several Urhobo communities remembered him as a reliable trader who paid for oil, even where they also recalled armed conflict with his family.
By 1894 Nana dominated much of the trade, although estimates of the number of people in his organisation varied widely. His business depended heavily on enslaved labour. Oral accounts collected by Ikime described the seizure of people as security for debts, retaliatory raids and occasional abductions by Nana and his agents. Some accounts distinguished the actions of agents from Nana's orders and recalled occasions when he punished an agent or paid compensation. Lloyd likewise concluded that some of Nana's representatives acted tyrannically, but cautioned that hostile rivals exaggerated allegations against him.
Nana also stopped trade to press for better terms. In 1886, after the Liverpool price of palm oil had fallen sharply, he suspended sales to European firms in an attempt to obtain higher prices. Earlier governors had used similar measures, but British consuls increasingly treated Nana's stoppages as obstruction of commerce. His growing monopoly also antagonised smaller European merchants and rival Itsekiri traders, particularly Dogho and Dudu.
Conflict with the British
In 1891 the British appointed vice consuls and established a more direct administration in the Oil Rivers Protectorate. The new administration increasingly challenged Nana's authority over inland trade. Ikime notes that MacDonald still regarded Nana as head of the Itsekiri in 1891, although Lloyd dates the end of the governorship to that year. Nana continued to use the title, and many Itsekiri continued to recognise him as their leader. In April 1894 MacDonald formally told him that, with British administration established, he was to regard himself as head of his own family rather than governor.
The immediate crisis arose from complaints that Nana's men had stopped trade and seized Urhobo people. In June 1894 Acting Consul-General Ralph Moor ordered Nana to release captives held by his headman Ologun and recall him from Eku. Nana denied ordering a general stoppage of trade. He said that the captives were being held as security for an unpaid oil debt and agreed to recall Ologun. Although Ologun was recalled, Moor concluded that his instructions had not been fulfilled and blockaded Nana's trade on the Ethiope River.
Nana repeatedly declined summonses to the vice consulate because he feared being seized and deported, as Jaja of Opobo had been in 1887. On 2 August, in Nana's absence, other Itsekiri chiefs signed a new treaty containing the free trade provisions omitted in 1884. Moor told Nana that he could sign only at the vice consulate and ordered him to remove a defensive barrier across the creek leading to Ebrohimi. A British naval party destroyed the barrier on 3 August. Shots were exchanged, and Moor treated the incident as the beginning of open war.
Ebrohimi expedition
The British blockaded Ebrohimi and burned settlements whose leaders they regarded as Nana's supporters. On 24 August an armoured steam cutter sent to inspect the creek came under fire. Two crew members were killed and three seriously wounded. Nana later maintained that the cutter had fired first. British forces attempted an advance five days later, but the terrain and Ebrohimi's defences prevented them from taking the town. They then shelled it while demanding Nana's unconditional surrender.
Ebrohimi was captured on 25 September 1894, but Nana and many of his followers escaped through the creeks. Moor declared him an outlaw and ordered the forfeiture of his property. Nana reached Lagos and voluntarily surrendered to Governor Gilbert Carter on 30 October. His transfer was delayed by questions about the Niger Coast Protectorate's authority to arrest him in Lagos. He subsequently agreed to return voluntarily to the protectorate to face trial.
Trial, exile and return
Nana asked to be tried in Lagos, where he had consulted lawyers. MacDonald instead convened a consular court at Old Calabar, where the trial began on 30 November 1894. A career soldier without legal training, MacDonald presided without assessors. Neither side had legal representation, and the court heard no legal argument. The four charges concerned levying war and attempting to avoid the terms of the 1884 treaty, opposing consular officers, breaching the peace and inciting breaches of the peace.
The prosecution treated Article VI of the treaty as binding on Nana. The copy authenticated by MacDonald on the first day of the trial included that article, although it had been reserved for further negotiation in 1884.
The prosecution also introduced allegations of slave raids, decapitated bodies found near Ebrohimi and two executions carried out in the town, although Nana was charged with neither slave raids nor murder. He denied ordering raids or knowing of the decapitations. He argued that his armed resistance arose from fear of capture rather than an intention to make war on Britain. On 6 December MacDonald convicted him on all four counts without giving a reasoned judgment, sentenced him to deportation for life and confirmed the forfeiture of his property.
Foreign Office legal advisers later questioned the court's authority to impose deportation in this manner. They nevertheless allowed the decision to stand and decided against publishing the proceedings. Nana was first sent to the Upper Cross River. In 1896 he was transferred to Christiansborg Castle in Accra under a Gold Coast ordinance enacted specifically for his detention.
After repeated petitions, Nana was allowed to return in August 1906. He settled at a place then called America, later known as Nana Town, near Koko. Visitors from Itsekiri communities and from Urhobo communities with which he had traded welcomed him. Between 1907 and 1910 he built a new residence, where he lived until his death on 3 July 1916.
Legacy and collections
Nana is commemorated in Nigeria for his resistance to British colonial rule. Lloyd and Ikime place this resistance in the context of the palm oil trade, in which his power depended on regional alliances, commercial monopoly, armed coercion and enslaved labour.