Okrika (Kirike)

Tradition names two men as the first to settle the island. One is Kirike, after whom some say the town is named. The other is Oputibeya, whom the dictionary records as the founder of Kịrịkẹ. When Oputibeya met Opuogoloya, the founder of Ogoloma, and found that they spoke one language, he said “Wa kịrịkẹ” — we are not different. Kịrịkẹ and Ogoloma still debate which of them arrived first.

Britannica describes Okrika as an Ijo fishing village in the mangrove swamps that became the capital of the Okrika kingdom in the early seventeenth century. Its place on the Bonny River drew it into the Atlantic trade of the eastern Delta, first in enslaved people and, after the 1830s, in palm oil. Port Harcourt, built on the mainland from 1912, later overtook it as the region’s port.

The Amanyanabo of Okrika has come from the Ado royal house since the early seventeenth century. King Ibanichuka (Ado VI) signed a treaty of protection with Britain in 1888. Sir S. P. U. Ogan (Ado VIII) reigned from 1964 to 1997 and saw the stool raised to first-class status in 1978. The succession since then has been contested in the courts.

From 1965 pipelines from the refinery at Alesa-Eleme were laid to a jetty on Okrika Island, and the town regained some of its old importance as a port.