Years before, Ja-Ja had been brought to Bonny as a humble Ibo slave. He was tall and handsome and proved a genius at trading. After most of the slaves were liberated, he led one faction of them in a revolt against George Pepple, the King of Bonny. He was beaten by the leader of a rival faction of ex- slaves and fled with his people to the safety of a neighbouring creek, Opobo. He was finished — so it appeared. Within a few years he emerged as the king of the biggest black trading empire on the coast. He sold 8,000 tons of palm oil a year to the white traders at Opobo and he imposed a ruthless monopoly on the black producers in the oil-palm forest inland. Anyone attempting to touch this monopoly, black or white, ended with their canoes smashed and their bodies floating in the creek.
– Thomas Pakenham, The Scramble for Africa, 1990, p. 192
We know that Jar Jar crashed at least one of Boss Nass’s canoes, excuse me, “heyblibbers”. And as Darths & Droids tells us, he’s also a genius.