Long before the Niger Coast Protectorate became a firm instrument of British rule, the Niger Delta was already a complex commercial world. River routes were the highways, and influence was measured by who could negotiate access, organise credit, command loyalty, and keep trading channels open. In this setting, powerful merchant leaders emerged, not as modern corporate figures, but as political and commercial brokers whose authority rested on alliances, obligations, and control of movement along the creeks and waterways.
Nana Olomu, often written as Nanna Olomu, rose within this world as an Itsekiri chief and palm oil merchant, remembered for his wealth, his influence over Benin River commerce, and his eventual collision with British colonial power.
Who Nana Olomu was, and what made him powerful
Nana Olomu was an Itsekiri leader from the western Niger Delta, active in the second half of the nineteenth century. He built his reputation through trade, especially palm oil, and through the kind of political skill that mattered in the Delta, negotiation, reputation, and the ability to mobilise people and resources quickly.
He is widely described as the fourth Itsekiri holder of the office known as Governor of the Benin River. That title can be misunderstood today, it was not a sovereign kingship, and it was not a modern governorship with constitutional powers. It was a British recognised commercial and diplomatic position that grew out of treaty relations and trading arrangements along the Benin River, where the office holder could act as a key intermediary between British officials, European firms, and local trading interests.
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In practical terms, Nana’s influence came from his ability to regulate access to trade routes and to operate through networks of riverine depots, allies, and settlements that allowed goods to move from inland producers toward coastal export points.
Why Britain wanted “direct trade”
By the late nineteenth century, British officials and European firms increasingly pushed for more direct access to inland trade, with fewer checks from coastal brokers. This shift threatened the long established Delta system in which middlemen and merchant chiefs managed the flow of goods and extracted duties, commissions, or leverage through negotiated control of access.
British policy language often used terms like “free trade” or “open trade”, but the reality in the Niger Delta was broader. Commercial access, treaty enforcement, strategic dominance, and the dismantling of autonomous power centres tended to move together. The goal was not only cheaper palm oil, it was also greater political control of the waterways and the communities linked to them.
For merchant leaders such as Nana, these changes were not abstract. They struck at the foundation of influence, the ability to decide who could trade, where they could trade, and under what local conditions.
Ebrohimi, a trading stronghold, not a royal capital
Ebrohimi became closely associated with Nana Olomu because it was one of his most important trading settlements. Some modern retellings call it his “capital”, but that wording can mislead readers into imagining a centralised state. The Niger Delta’s commercial politics were typically network based. Nana operated through multiple posts and relationships, with Ebrohimi standing out as a major node because of its scale, its location, and its function as a strong trading base.
That prominence is one reason British forces targeted Ebrohimi when conflict escalated. Destroying a major trading settlement was not only a military action, it was also a statement that the river order was changing.
The 1894 Ebrohimi expedition
In 1894, British forces carried out a punitive expedition against Nana, commonly described as the Ebrohimi expedition. It unfolded over the middle months of the year into the later part of 1894, and it fits a wider pattern of British punitive campaigns in the region, used to impose authority, punish resistance, and reshape local political economies.
The expedition against Ebrohimi was not simply a clash over a single trade dispute. It reflected the deeper struggle over who would control commerce, who would be recognised as legitimate authority on the rivers, and whether the old intermediary system could survive Britain’s expanding imperial reach.
The attack on Ebrohimi damaged Nana’s power base and signalled an accelerating shift toward colonial dominance of the waterways.
Surrender, removal, and detention on the Gold Coast
After the conflict, Nana was ultimately removed from the Niger Delta and sent into exile on the Gold Coast, in present day Ghana. Scholarly work on imperial incarceration notes that Nana was detained at Christiansborg Castle under an ordinance passed for the purpose, and that the legal route used in his case differed from other well known removals, including that of Jaja of Opobo.
This point is important for readers who want the true historical picture. Nana’s removal was not the outcome of a normal criminal process as understood today. It reflected an imperial system in which executive authority could detain influential African leaders to neutralise political power, while still presenting the action as lawful administration. British parliamentary discussion and press reporting from the period also treated Nana as a figure to be kept under supervision rather than returned quickly to the Niger Coast Protectorate.
Nana later returned to Nigeria, and he died in Koko in 1916, leaving behind a legacy that still shapes local memory and public debate.
The Koko museum, memory, and contested heritage
In Koko, the building associated with Nana’s former palace became a museum known as the Nanna Living History Museum. It stands as a local archive of memory, a physical reminder of the 1894 expedition, and a cultural landmark tied to Itsekiri history.
Public reporting in recent years has also linked the museum to broader conversations about colonial violence and displaced heritage. Some of Nana’s associated items are reported to be held in British institutions, and the question of where such objects should be kept, and who should control their story, remains part of a wider restitution debate affecting many African communities.
One detail is often reported but not always consistently dated across sources, the museum’s designation as a national monument is commonly reported as occurring in 1990, while other accounts describe earlier heritage recognition. What remains clear is that Nigerian heritage authorities have treated the site as nationally significant, even as local advocates continue to push for stronger preservation, funding, and recognition.
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Why Nana Olomu’s story still matters
Nana Olomu’s story matters because it captures a turning point in Niger Delta history. It shows how merchant power worked before full colonial control, how Britain’s expansion could turn commercial disputes into military campaigns, and how imperial authority used exile and detention to dismantle local influence.
It also matters because the story is not only about the past. The museum in Koko, the survival of community memory, and the location of Nana’s associated heritage objects all raise modern questions about ownership, preservation, and historical justice. For readers today, Nana’s rise and fall is both a Niger Delta history lesson and a reminder that the consequences of nineteenth century conquest can still be felt in twentieth and twenty first century cultural debates.
Author’s Note
Nana Olomu’s life reads like a Niger Delta drama of power, trade, and survival, a man who mastered the rivers, built influence through networks, and then faced a new empire determined to rewrite the rules. The fall of Ebrohimi in 1894, his removal to the Gold Coast, and the long afterlife of his story in Koko show how quickly a thriving local order could be targeted, broken, and reframed by colonial authority. The real takeaway is simple, Nana’s story did not end with exile, it continues wherever people argue about memory, museums, and who gets to hold the evidence of a people’s past.
References
Obaro Ikime, Merchant Prince of the Niger Delta, The Rise and Fall of Nana Olomu, Last Governor of the Benin River
Cambridge University Press, Imperial Incarceration, Chapter 6, “Removing Rulers in the Niger Delta, 1887 to 1897”
Royal Historical Society Blog, “Nigerian cultural heritage abroad, the case of an Itsekiri chief”
The Guardian, “Tiny Nigerian museum marking a forgotten British invasion pushes for recognition”The Times reports and British parliamentary discussion on Nana’s detention and supervision at Accra, late 1890s
