By Ogbonnaya, Emeka Daniel
Uzuakoli is an ancient chiefdom in Bende Local Government Area of Abia State. It is made up of five villages: Amamba, Eluoma, Ngwu, Amankwo and Agbozu. It is believed that Ozu had five brave sons whose names were Oma, Ngwu, Mbah, Nkwo and Ozo. When these sons grew up, they built their homes a little further away from their father’s, which became the central meeting point.
It is from their five homes that the five villages which make up Uzuakoli developed. The five villages united to form Uzuakoli, a compound of the names of their father, Ozu, and their grandfather Akoli, the name was corrupted to Uzuakoli by the railway authorities and Uzuakoli is the version generally used today .
Uzuakoli has a total landscape of 28.8 square kilometers, bounded in the North by Lohum; East by Ozuitem; and South by Ubani and Lodu Imenyi, respectively. It falls between 7.32 and 8.36 East of the Equator. The climate of the area does not differ from the rest of the rain forest belt of Eastern Nigeria. Uzuakoli enjoys a warm tropical climate with well-defined wet and dry seasons .
Prior to the establishment of colonial rule in Igbo hinterland, Uzuakoli was a notable slave market with many middlemen from Awka, Aro, Bende and surrounding communities living and trading there. It assumed this role of an important slave market after the colonial military conquest of Bende in1896 , which robbed the latter of her middlemen role as a slave market to the Aro and thus the Aro moved over to nearby Uzuakoli that was a more central location and had long lobbied for the market. Slaves were bought at Eke-oba and Eke-Ukwu (the two markets made up the Abangwu market in Uzuakoli), and taken through the slave route to Bende via Ozuitem, Arochukwu and then transported oversea through Cross River State. Apart from slave trade, Uzuakoli has remained an agrarian society noted mostly for yam and cocoyam cultivation/production with a population of 60, 000 according to the 2006 census result.