Walter Okafọ Okerulu Nwatakwọchaka Amobi, Founder of Amobi Dynasty in Ogidi.

The man in the picture below, Igwe Walter Amobi, birthed the Amobi dynasty which dominated the traditional rulership of Ogidi throughout the 20th century.

Walter Kwọchaka was born in the middle of the 19th century to one Abraham Amobi who was an early convert to Christianity when the CMS missionaries first showed up at Ọnịcha in the 19th century. Thus Walter Amobi was educated and raised as a Christian. As an adult living in Ọnịcha, he made a living as a butcher and was prosperous and popular.

Though a non-indigene, he was active in the Palace Council of the Obi of Ọnịcha. He soon caught the eye of the British and in 1898 he was appointed a Political Agent of the Royal Niger Company and placed in command of his own contingent of soldiers.

It was because of his influence with the British and the Royal Niger Company, that he was approached around 1903 by the Ọka people to help invite the Brits to come and end a protracted civil war in Ọka [a story I will still tell.]

The British found him very useful when they mounted the Onitsha Hinterland Expedition which brought a huge swathe of territory behind Ọnịcha into the British Empire. As reward for his services, the British recognised him on July 9, 1904 as the Paramount Chief and, consequently, first king of Ogidi.

Walter Amobi is said to have married 62 wives and fathered some 108 children. It is no surprise then that the Amobi family is reckoned as the largest family unit in Ogidi today.

He died in 1925, and his offspring held the traditional stool of the town till 1998, when the people of Ogidi decided that the traditional stool was not the Amobi family heirloom. The throne remained vacant until 2016 when Igwe Alex Onyido (not an Amobi, apparently) ascended the throne.