Ayegba Ọmaidoko

Ayegba Ọmaidoko ('Ayegba, child of Idoko') was the Ata, or paramount king, of the Igala kingdom at Idah in the early sixteenth century, remembered in tradition as the ruler under whom the Igala won their independence from the Bini of Benin. When relations between the long-allied courts of Idah and Benin broke down and war threatened the kingdom, the oracle is said to have demanded the life-burial of the king's most cherished child; his daughter, the princess Inikpi, gave herself to be buried alive on the bank of the Niger, and the Igala prevailed. Ayegba is included here as the historical anchor of the Inikpi tradition and as the figure whose royal Idoko line, the dynasty of the Ata Igala, the legend turns upon.

Children

• Princess Inikpi

Domains

• kingship and the ata

Epithets

• Atta IgalaJ. S. Boston, The Igala Kingdom (Ibadan: Oxford University Press for the Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research, 1968). (secondary)

Sources

• Ayegba Ọmaidoko was the Ata (king) of the Igala who led the kingdom's sixteenth-century war against Benin and whose daughter Inikpi was sacrificed to secure victory.: J. S. Boston, The Igala Kingdom (Ibadan: Oxford University Press for the Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research, 1968). (secondary); Emmy Ikanaba Unuja Idegu, The Legendary Inikpi: A Historical Play on Princess Inikpi (Ibadan: Caltop Publications, 2005). (secondary)