Asagba of Asaba, Obi (Prof.) Joseph Chike Edozien

By Jethro Ibileke

The traditional ruler of Asaba, the Delta state capital, His Royal Majesty, Obi (Prof.) Joseph Chike Edozien, has reportedly passed on.

Edozien who was the 13th Asagba of Asaba, joined his ancestors on Wednesday.

The Asagba of Asaba only recently commenced activities marking his 100th birthday anniversary.

The news of the monarch demise filtered into the streets of Asaba on Wednesday with residents of the state capital describing his death as a great loss to the entire Asaba kingdom.

Although the palace was yet to officially announced the passage of the revered monarch, several sources confirmed the sad news to Niger Delta Today.

At the time of filing this report, efforts to get an official response from the Palace Secretary, Chief Patrick Ndili, were unsuccessful.

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The traditional ruler of Asaba, the Delta state capital, His Royal Majesty, Obi (Prof.) Joseph Chike Edozien, has reportedly passed on. He was 99.

Edozien who was the 13th Asagba of Asaba, joined his ancestors on Wednesday. He would have clocked 99 on 28 July 2024.

The Asagba of Asaba only recently commenced activities marking his 100th birthday anniversary.

The news of the monarch demise filtered into the streets of Asaba on Wednesday with residents of the state capital describing his death as a great loss to the entire Asaba kingdom.

Although the palace was yet to officially announced the passage of the revered monarch, several sources confirmed the sad news to Niger Delta Today.

At the time of filing this report, efforts to get an official response from the Palace Secretary, Chief Patrick Ndili, were unsuccessful.

Professor Joseph Chike Edozien, CFR, JP, the Asagba was born on 28 July 1925 in Asaba.[2]

According to biographical writings on him (aggregated by Wikipedia), his father was Nathaniel Okafor Edozien a direct descendant of Nnebisi the founder of Asaba, and one of the most senior indigenous officials of the Nigerian Coal Corporation in Enugu. His mother, Nwakuso Edozien née Odogwu, was the daughter of a prominent Asaba chief, and a notable trader.

His father sent him at an early age to live with an uncle who was a school master in Warri, Delta State then Bendel State, Nigeria. He attended the Catholic School in Warri from 1933 to 1937. He attended Christ the Kings College, Onitsha for his secondary education from 1938 to 1942. In 1942 he attended the Higher College Yaba and then proceeded to Achimota School, Accra, Ghana.

His university education began with an admission to the University College Dublin, Ireland in 1944. He completed his BSc with honours in Physiology from the National University of Ireland in 1948, MSc in Physiology in 1950, Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery(MBBCh) in 1954. He won several academic awards in the process.

His academic career began with an appointment as a lecturer in Clinical Biochemistry in Middlesex Hospital Medical School, University of London in 1951. In 1952 he was appointed as a Senior Lecturer in Chemical Pathology at the University College, Ibadan. He returned to Ibadan after further studies in Ireland.

In 1955, he married Modupe Smith a radiographer at the University of Ibadan teaching hospital. Her father was one of the first indigenous managers of the United Africa Company and her maternal grandfather was Herbert Macaulay, Nigeria’s first surveyor and one of the principal actors in Nigeria’s independence movement.

He was appointed a professor in 1961 and became the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine in 1962.

Edozien’s career at Ibadan ended in 1967, a casualty of the political crisis that ended the euphoria of the late 1950s and early 1960s and resulted in the coups of 1966 and eventually led to the Nigerian Civil War. He relocated outside Nigeria.

After a period as a refugee in France, he was appointed as a professor of Nutrition at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA. In 1971 he became a professor and head of Department of Nutrition, of the School of Public Health of the University of North Carolina.

In 1990 Edozien was appointed the Chairman of the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research. Shortly thereafter he was selected to become the 13th Asagba of Asaba. In 2012, he was appointed the Eze Ndieze. He retired as a Professor Emeritus of the University of North Carolina and returned to Nigeria in 1991.

Edozien’s tenure as the Asagba of Asaba has coincided with dramatic changes in the character of the town. When the government of President Ibrahim Babangida created Delta State out of the old Bendel State, Asaba was chosen as the capital. Its new status as the seat of the state government has brought much of the chaotic development associated with contemporary Nigerian urbanization. The population of the town has grown and the influx of non-Asaba indigenes has strained the traditional institutions of the town.

A central theme of Edozien’s tenure as the Asagba has been the challenge balancing rapid development, modernization of traditional norms and institutions with preservation of the positive aspects and moderating influence of traditional values. Several on-going initiatives such as the Asaba permanent palace and civic centre and the documentation of the town’s traditional laws and customs have sought to balance these concerns.