Ase Yam Market: How Off-grid Solar Energy Provision Turns An Agrarian Community To Commercialize
The Oasis Reporters
August 17, 2025
When the Akura brothers set sail from their Ase community in present day Delta State in the late 50s to Anam in present day Anambra State to seek a new life, farming and fishing, little did they know that they were going to establish a new relationship that would blossom long after their passing to trigger an agro economy that would be so pleasantly overwhelming to encompass their homeland, Ase and their host community, Anam.
The Akura brothers, Sunday and his older sibling, Michael Akura soon settled in welcome amongst the Anam people.
After settling down in Anam they became integrated into the community and they both married in Anam, thus becoming part and parcel of the host community, where they also had children.
Then the Nigeria-Biafra civil war happened between 1967-70 and the Akura brothers were trapped there in then Biafra.
They were only able to leave immediately after the war, and by then, had lost both Anam wives that they had married.
Back home in Ase as widowers, they often received visitors from Anam, mostly relatives of their late wives trying to escape the difficult post-war economy in the entire Igbo land.
But the visitors had eyes on the ground and noticed the large landscape of land on the other side of the majestic River Ase which they noticed had no one physically living there, except to visit their farms that fetched small yam tubers and some other crops at subsistence levels.
The visitors took note of the level of productivity coming out of the land. And also noticed that the full potential of the land based on the rich alluvial Ase soil, made even more fertile by the River Ase that waters the land. They thus predicted accurately that yam tubers produced on such a combination of water sufficiency and rich soil would be highly impressive.
A few decades down the line, descendants of the earlier explorers have come to Ase community, asking the office of his Royal Majesty the Igwe of Ase Kingdom if they could settle in never before settled in, in Odaba Ase (across the river) that is low lying geographically for the purpose of farming. With permission granted, they’ve long since settled down to the business of planting and harvesting yams that are so enormous in sizes, never before seen in the kingdom.
It didn’t take long before communities with similar ecology in far places such as Umuolu and Ijaw villages took the cue, and collectively produce yams now called Asaba-Ase yam, marketed from Ase every 3rd and 4th day of the four day traditional market days (Eke and Orie).
The magical produce coming out of that land now called Asaba-Ase yam can be found in Warri, Benin, Ughelli, Oleh etc. People of different nationalities troop in every Eke market day to buy and transport yams out of Ase to different destinations, farmed by Anam people.
This has turned Ase into a bustling tourist destination, with off grid energy provided by (the Niger Delta Development Corporation (NDDC), supplemented by Solar Power installations powered by public spirited Ase citizens to cover the entire community.
The provision of Solar street lighting has also gingered some entrepreneurial ventures in some people charging phones with solar energy as well as other activities.
By Greg Abolo
