The Kingdom of Nri was a center of learning, religion, and commerce in pre-colonial West Africa. Historians have compared the significance of Nri, at its peak, to the religious cities of Rome or Mecca.
It was the seat of a powerful and imperial state that influenced much of the territories inhabited by the Igbo of Awka and Onitsha to the east; the Efik, the Ibibio, and the Ijaw to the South; Nsukka and southernIgala to the north; and Asaba, and the Anioma to the west.
The rulers of Nri did not use military conquest, but used religious authority and control of commercial routes as tactics in the spread of their city-state. The kingdom, believed all violence was an abomination, and served as a safe haven for all refugees and slaves for a thousand years, all the way up until 1911.