The composition of Asaba is mainly of Igbo people, Itsekiri, Urhobo, Isoko, Ijaw, Hausa, and Yoruba people.
The Edo capital was Ubinu, known as Benin City to the Portuguese who first heard about it from the coastal Itsekiri, who pronounced it this way; from this the kingdom came to be known as the Benin Empire in the West.
The area is growing with immigrant communities of Itsekiri, Urhobo, Isoko, Ijaw, Hausa and Yoruba people .
The decision caused an outburst of violence among the Ijaw, Itsekiri and Urhobo people of the area, known as the Warri Crisis.
In May 1952 the government of Western Nigeria changed the title of the Itsekiri ruler from the Olu of Itsekiri to the Olu of Warri, at the request of the Itsekiri.
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The Ijaw, Urhobo and other people of the community objected to the change, since they felt the new title implied that the Olu was ruler of Warri, not just of the Itsekiri.
In July 2003 Ochulor called for leaders of the Ijaw, Itsekiri and Urhobo ethnic groups in Delta State to work together to create peace in the troubled Warri region.
The relations between the two were peaceful until the Berlin Conference of 1884-85 and the ensuing Scramble for Africa, which led the British to try to bypass the Itsekiri middlemen so as to trade directly with the Urhobo people.
The western (or Northern) Niger Delta is an heterogeneous society with several ethnic groups including the Urhobo, Igbo, Isoko, Itsekiri, Ijaw (or Ezon) and Ukwuani (Igbo) groups in Delta State, along with Yoruba (Ilaje) in Ondo State.
This has given birth to heated disputes between the Ijaw, the Itsekiri and the Urhobo about which of the three groups are "truly" indigenous to the Warri region, with the underlying presumption being that the "real" indigenes should have control of the levers of power, regardless of the fact that all three groups enjoy ostensibly equal political rights in their places of residence.
Until the arrival of Sir George Goldie's National Africa Company (later renamed the Royal Niger Company) in 1879, Itsekiri chieftains monopolized trade with Europeans in the Western Niger region.
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When the title was changed by Awolowo's Western Nigeria government from Olu of Itsekiri to Olu of Warri in 1952, members of the other tribes (Urhobos, Isokos and Ijaws) saw this as an attempt to impose an Itsekiri ruler over them.