OHORI-IJE IN KOOMI LAND

Missionary At Koomi Field And A Visiting Brother

The Location:

The tribe called Ohori-Ije is in Yewa North Local Government of Ogun State. They originated from Republic of Benin, between Pobe and Ketu. The Ohoris are of different sub-groups. They include Ohori-Kena, Ohori-Ketu, Ohori-Ije e.t.c. There are not many differences among these groups, except for minor variation in their pronunciations, tribal marks and their level of exposure to civilization.

Our mission work began some years ago among the Ohoris called Ije, in their main base at Orisa-da in Nigeria in 1986.

The Ohori-ijes are farmers by nature. No matter how educated an Ohori man is he cannot do away with farming. They are always interested in fertile lands for farming work and this has caused them to disperse to many places over the years. Today, they are found in Abeokuta, Owode Egba, Owode Yewa, and Oyo State. But in our research work, we carefully chose Orisa-da as our base among the tribe.


Missionary At Koomi Land And His Wife

Our Effort

Several works of prayers and visitation have been committed by missionaries who had worked on the land. Several trainings/teachings for the Church and the leadership have made the work move very fast, to the extent that they have also produced servants of God for mission work. Most importantly, the mission has produced two home-grown servants for the work of God and these people are serving among their people. Also, several local churches have sprung up in places where these disciples had gone for their farming.

The Type of Work

Our works among the Ohori-ijeh are discipleship, Church planting, building leaders and to give them formal education. These have yielded huge success to the point that we are having New Testament base local Churches in twelve different locations in Koomi land. We also have local churches in several places they have gone to for their farming work.

Because of the high level of their illiteracy which denied them of the opportunity to read the Bible and also to cater for the future of their children, we started a formal literacy ministry to enable them read and write. We started this in the year 1996 among the elderly and youth. This led to the establishment of a primary school at Orisa-da and this has given them the privilege to read the Bible and an opportunity to further their studies to secondary schools and tertiary institutions.


Converts And The Missionary In Front Of Their Meeting Place (Oko-Isale, KoomiLand, Nigeria)

The Challenges

The first challenge on the land is the problem of an idol called "ORO". Other challenges are that of herbalists and Cherubim and Seraphim movement on the land. When they (Cherubim and Seraphim) discovered that gospel is vastly spreading and the Kingdom of God is spreading across the land, they are also devising modern ways of doing things.

The second challenge is scarcity of water. We had made efforts on two occasions to sink a well. One was up to 52ft and the second one 72ft deep but no water was found, due to the nature of the land. We also made another effort to dig a bore-hole. We solicited assistance from the then Senator representing the area to dig a bore-hole, this also failed. This has continued to make life difficult for the people during dry season.

The third challenge is the school. There are not enough classrooms. The building structure is not good enough for learning. There are not enough textbooks and teaching aids. The school lacks enough qualified/professional Christian teachers who will freely serve the Lord in this area. The school has grown to eighty students’ capacity but with only two teachers; we can imagine how strenuous the works would be for two teachers.