Opobo


Opobo

(ōpō`bō), town, SE Nigeria, in the Niger River delta. It is a palm-oil collection center and has fishing and boatbuilding industries. Opobo was founded in 1869 by a group of immigrants from nearby BonnyBonny
, town, SE Nigeria, in the Niger River delta, on the Bight of Biafra. In the 18th and 19th cent., Bonny was the center of a powerful trading state, and in the 19th cent. it became the leading site for slave exportation in W Africa.
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 led by JajaJaja
, fl. 1869–87, Nigerian merchant prince. A former slave, he became an important trader in Bonny in the 1860s as a middleman between the coastal markets and the Nigerian interior. In 1869 he founded his own state at Opobo on the Gulf of Guinea.
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, a middleman in the palm oil trade with Europeans. Opobo prospered, but Jaja antagonized the Europeans by hampering their trade. Jaja was deported by the British in 1887, after which Opobo declined.