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Texan Crowned as Nigerian Tribal Chief

by John Astad | January 26, 2008 at 04:21 am

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Overhelming distances of over 6,500 miles across the Atlantic Ocean between the Nigerian village of Achalla and Beaumont Texas are no barrier to ancient tribal customs that still endure in todays fast changing technological world. Ben Okadigbo, a highway engineer with the Texas Department of Transportation and son of Chief Meraife was recently crowned new chief of Achalla, Nigeria after a five day festive ceremony.

Okadigbo -the eldest of 72 siblings fathered by his late dad and his 18 wives -was crowned the new chief of Achalla, a village in his native Nigeria, this month. His wife, Francisca, was crowned the "iyom," or queen, during the ceremony as his four children looked on

Twenty-five years ago, Chief Ben Okadigbo immigrated to Texas in 1983 where he eventually completed his undergraduate and graduate studies.

After he received a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from Texas A&M in 1985 and a graduate degree from Lamar University in 1988, Beaumont became the African immigrant's new home.

Achalla is located in the state of Anhambra, Nigeria, which is the initial region where massive oil exploration was conducted in Nigeria. Today Nigeria is the fifth largest importer of global crude oil to the United States.

Video of Ceremony

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jordan

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 08:56 on January 26th, 2008

This is a really cool story; I can't find a better way to describe it! Okadigbo's life just got a lot more complicated, though.

John Astad

at 09:23 on January 26th, 2008

Thanks Jordan,

I could hardly believe the story myself, when I first
read about it in the Beaumont Enterprise Newpaper online posting, which I
receive daily email updates from. Nigeria is a beautiful country that unfortunately, as we all know from daily news reports, plagued with unrest amoungst it's people concerning oil revenues and wealth distribution.

Hopefully someday some sort of peace will develop between the differing factions.