A 19th-century trader who refused to let the British Empire dictate his terms is getting a new king on Friday. Opobo has been here before.

Opobo Kingdom crowns its sixth Amanyanabo, Charles Douglas Mac-Pepple Jaja, on September 26, according to reporting on preparations under way in Rivers State. He succeeds Dandeson Douglas Jaja, Jeki V, who died in December 2025 after more than two decades on the throne.

The kingdom's name comes from its founder, Jubo Jubogha, who was born in what is now Imo State around 1821, sold into slavery as a child, and rose to control one of the most powerful trading houses in the Niger Delta. When conflict with rivals in Bonny forced him out, he relocated his followers and founded a new city-state he named Opobo, building a monopoly on the palm oil trade between the interior and the coast that ran directly through territory the British wanted for themselves. In 1887, British vice-consul Henry Hamilton Johnston invited him aboard the warship HMS Goshawk for negotiations, promising safe passage. Instead he was arrested, tried in Accra, and deported into exile, first to London and later to the West Indies. He died in 1891, on his way home.

A new king in Opobo isn't just a ceremony. It's a kingdom whose founding story is economic defiance choosing, again, who carries that story forward. On Friday, Opobo will remember that resistance and enterprise aren't opposites. They built the same throne.