The story of Asaba

"I have chosen well"

By tradition, Asaba was founded by Nnebisi, and the town's own name for itself, Ahaba, comes from his exclamation "Ahabam": I have chosen well. The town once had nine quarters; conflict and the slave trade reduced them to the five of today, Umuezei, Ugbomanta, Umuaji, Umuagu and Umuonaje.

The Asagba of Asaba is the town's traditional ruler, and the heads of each quarter, the Diokpa, speak for their communities.

Explorers and a trading company

In 1830 Richard and John Lander sailed down the Niger past Asaba and proved that the river reaches the Atlantic; a memorial marks their anchorage. In 1886 the Royal Niger Company made Asaba its headquarters and put up a timber house named after the explorer Mungo Park, now a national museum. The company ran the lower Niger from here until it handed its territory to the British government in 1900.

The company's push inland met fierce resistance. Towns across the Asaba hinterland fought it, and then British rule, in the Ekumeku movement, from 1898 until 1911.

The bridge and the war

In December 1965 the Niger Bridge joined Asaba to Onitsha, and the Western and Eastern regions of Nigeria. Two years later the Civil War reached the town. A section of the bridge was destroyed in 1967, and in October that year federal troops killed hundreds of Asaba's men and boys, an atrocity the town still mourns.

Capital of Delta State

When Delta State was created on 27 August 1991, Asaba became its capital. It has grown into the state's centre of government, with its own international airport and a second bridge across the Niger, inaugurated in 2023. In 2023 UNESCO named Asaba a Creative City of Film, recognising its place in Nollywood.

Visit it

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  Mungo Park House

  Asaba

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  Lander Brothers Anchorage

  Asaba riverside

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  The Niger Bridge

  Asaba to Onitsha

Read next

• The Royal Niger Company
• October 1967: the Asaba massacre
• The Anioma peoples
• Things to do in Asaba