The Challenges Facing Ebiraland: A Perspective

The prevailing ethno-centric gloom hanging ominously over Ebiraland today is a cause for real concern. Never before have there been such widespread feeling of helplessness and resignation as the entire community careens, within the last decade, dangerously from one violent flashpoint to the other and there seems to be no end in sight.

Ebira is gradually becoming a no-go area. Commuters driving to the North or South are now being advised to seek alternative route rather than passing through the area. Anebira living in Lokoja, Abuja, Lagos and other places stay for years without going home for fear of their lives. It used to be that indigenes residing in other places work hard and save with intent of returning home to build a shelter for themselves and their families. Those nursing such ambition are having a rethink because of the pastime of arsonists and the insecurity of lives and properties. The security guards of the deputy governor, Philip Salawu also from the area are reported to be shooting warning shots in the air to ward off potential adversaries each time he is in town.

Not that Ebiraland is an isolated island or that the numerous hills surrounding the community makes it impervious to external influences. Throughout the country conflicts have erupted and are still raging over determinations of who owns the land as in Plateau or Benue states, other violence are sectarian in nature as in the sharia states or Kaduna and just now, the concerns over allocation of resources is fuelling the show down in the Niger delta. In the most serious of these conflicts like in Niger delta, the army have often been called upon to restore order. Ebiraland has always prided itself as a community with tradition of tolerance and adept at managing its internal conflicts.

That tradition and adroitness is facing the toughest challenge yet after the war that erupted between Adavi and Okengwe over the right of possession of Ete-Oniyewa or irapa, the powerful symbol of the Ohindase, in the eighteenth century. The challenge is much more complicated today because the cause of hostilities is not clear-cut, involving powerful egos locked in a vicious battle for clan supremacy, votes, power shift, government contracts and chieftaincies. The hard pressed local and national economies have radicalised the youths of the Niger delta and prompted the agitation for resource control there. In Ebiraland, it made available cheap and abundant surrogates fighting the battle for the chiefs, clans and the politicians over vaguely defined causes.


The two-clan groups in the Okene local government area, Agada and Okovi, have resolved to be rotating the chairmanship of the LGA. Previously, Eziogwu, the dominant clan in Agada and, Omoye, the equivalent in Okovi battled each other over the meaningless political issue of who really owns and controls Okene. (Each of the clans there, as in other parts of Ebiraland, has their portion of the land). The Eziogwu and Omoye hardly agree over the choice of candidate for elective positions preferring instead to field two separate candidates or belong to two different political parties. This was the case in 1979 during the 2nd Republic, where Eziogwu supported the UPN and Omoye were overwhelmingly supporters of the NPN. Nowadays, the various development associations that cut across the clans in Ebiraland has proposed a novel arrangement, which holds that all elective positions shall be rotated amongst all the clans in an election district or constituency to forestall the outbreak of violence emanating from the open contest and the battle for clan supremacy. This arrangement sounds simple in theory but in practice, it is as complicated as Ebiraland itself.

Within clans, rotation is also in place to ensure that all the abara, clan units, having a shot at elective offices. Some clans have up to a dozen abara. The arrangement is symptomatic of the dysfunction of society. Elsewhere, people used to narrow their differences for the sake of the larger goal, over all interest of the community. This is however not the case in Ebiraland where, sadly, personal interest takes precedence over the community interest and where, during the last primaries, no fewer than ten individuals wanted to be the flag bearer in a particular party partly explaining the escalating communal violence since May 1999.

Rotation of elective positions addresses the symptoms of the dysfunction of the society. So also is the plethora of measures to tackle violence during the cultural festivals, which had once been banned, they do not address the fundamental causes of unrest like unemployment, falling standards in education, lack of recreational facilities, breakdown of the family, rampant corruption, revisionism and egotism. The favoured measure to tame the cultural festivals now includes restricting performances during the festivals to individual okokoro. Some have suggested a hefty fine for slanderous and malicious lyrics. In culture as well as politics, the heavy hands of the clans are visible all over the place. The various musicians and custodians of the night masquerades are, so to speak, spokespersons of their respective clans and it is from among them that the core supporters and funding are drawn. To turn the corner, the musicians and custodians of the night masquerade must now be prevailed upon to use their immense talent in promoting the value of tolerance and peaceful coexistence.

The clans were the epicentre of the chieftaincy violence that rocked Obehira in May last year and the recent disturbances at Ihima. On the surface, normality seems to be returning, but below it lays tension and uneasiness with the intellectuals joining the fray. No fewer than four important works (Ohindase Stool: Facts of History by Professor Y.O Aliu, Ohindase: Stool of Ebiraland by Yakubu A. Yusuf, Committee Report on the Antecedents / Ascendancy to the Ohindase Stool by Okovi Youths Forum and Ohindase Chieftaincy Stool: Facts, Fiction and Outright Falsehoods by Asuba A. Ibrahim) have been published in one year, 2004 – 2005, concerning a particular chieftaincy stool. The published works and the violence at Obehira revolved around the right of succession to the first indigenous chieftaincy institution in Ebiraland. So far Avi, Omavi, Omoye clans and Evini, an abara in the Ogwu clan have rotated the Ohindase Stool amongst themselves and this view is supported by the work of Yakubu A. Yusuf, the findings of the Okovi Youth Forum and the memo from Asuba A. Ibrahim. The opposing view advanced by professor Y.O Aliu maintains that the Eyire clan is among the Ohindase clans. It was left to the musicians Diyo ozi Momohjimoh from the Omavi clan on the one hand and Fashion of the Eyire clan on the other hand to join the opposing views. The conflict that ensued was widened to involve the Ehebe clan, the archrivals of the Eyire at Obehira.

The recent violence at Ihima, inspired by another chieftaincy dispute, involved the Emani and the Ohogwa clans. People have complained about the imbalance in key appointments within the state. They point to the fact that only the Ohinoyi of Ebiraland is a first class chief in the Central senatorial district, whereas Kogi East and West have 5 and 4 respectively. A recent reorganisation in the state’s traditional council was supposed to partly address this imbalance but the ill-advised decision to create a new traditional institution, the Adanihima of Ihima, as a first class chief to be rotated amongst the six clans of Ihima ended up pitching two of the dominant clans against one another in a violent confrontation. The Obobanyi of Ihima clan, Emani felt slighted by the elevation of a nascent traditional institution while the Ohogwa historically an implacable foe of the Emani enthusiastically embraced the new Adanihima. So far, uneasy calm have returned to Ihima but the issue remains far from being resolved and is sure to re-ignite again given the slightest pretext.

The Ohinoyi of Ebiraland has remained contentious ever since the Indirect Rule expedient to British colonial administration in Africa led to its creation in the early 20th century. The first occupant of this coveted position, Ohindase Arudi Adano, installed in January 1917 only to be unceremoniously relieved of his responsibilities and sent in exile eleven months later. The powerful Alhaji Ibrahim Onoruoiza popularly known as Ibrahim Atta succeeded him. Even though his reign from 1917 to 1954 witnessed remarkable achievements like the N.A schools, the Middle School (now the Okene Secondary School), the Works Yard, the Okene Water Works, road networks and territorial expansion he was criticised for high handedness, human rights violations and forced to abdicate the throne on June 30th, 1954 and went on exile to first Dekina and then Lokoja following a petition signed by 23 of the 25 elected members of the Ebira Native Authority Council to the colonial government in March 1954. The opposition to the Atta’s rule coalesced behind the Igbirra Tribal Union (ITU), whose members were veterans of the 2nd world war, converts to the Roman Catholic Church and the mass of ordinary folks. The ITU successfully made the unpopular poll tax on women since 1924, for which the Atta was blamed an issue in the campaign for the local councils’ election of 1952. In that election, the Igbirra Progressive Union (IPU), a status-quo party whose members included the associates and patrons of the Atta and their families, suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the ITU.

Powerful individuals like Ozigizigi Opoh and Akpata of Ihima who lost out during the selection of the Ohinoyi in late 1917 were also some of the harshest critics of the Atta administration and the poll tax. They went into "voluntary" exiles for security reasons to Auchi and Agege in Lagos respectively. Other powerful personalities like Achegido Okino also fled the Atta Ebiraland because of the taxation. The descendants of these historical figures alive today are still at pains because of the perceived injustices suffered by their ancestors. Not to talk of the revisionists who harbour the idea of returning the descendants of Atta Omadivi to the chieftaincy stool sometime in the future.

The militant early fifties and the revolution it ushered in Ebiraland was preceded by a period of relative calm following the Atta’s abdication and the succession of Mohammed Sani Omolori, an ITU man as Ohinoyi in 1956. His death in 1996 plunged Ebiraland into another succession struggle once more. At the end, Alhaji (Dr.) Ado Ibrahim, 77, emerged as the successor on the 2nd June 1997. The time of the present Ohinoyi on the throne so far coincided with the period of the worst violence ever to hit Ebiraland. Theories abound to explain away the violent and chaotic period. Some have wondered whether the Almighty God have visited this violence on Ebira as punishment for our sins. Others blamed it on the Igalla who, it was said, did sacrifice to their oracles to condemn Anebira to a life of internal fighting to enable them consolidate their power and positions within the State. Still others blame it on TV transmitting pictures of violence and the insurgence in Iraq to Ebiraland. Anebira are inherently a violent people, they enjoy causing destruction to life and properties even without apparent cause, others contend. I do not buy any of these theories. They distract and divert attention away from the search for peace.

The signature of the clans is boldly written across all the organised and politically motivated acts of violence, which have being sweeping Ebiraland in this decade. The clans, a very conservative institution, have served as the basis of peace and cohesion in the past. They are now serving as the core base of the politicians, the stronghold of the supporters for musicians, day and night masquerades, they groom candidates to succeed the chiefs of the clans, promote chauvinism and regularly issue clan almanacs. It is time to use the clans once again as agents for peace and progress rather as vehicles for intolerance, death and destruction. If any body is well equipped to tackle the challenge of bringing peace back to Ebiraland for the sake of this generation and future generations, the present Ohinoyi is the one.

As the father of the people, put aside insults and do what you have always done that earned you the respect of the people and deserving of your present calling: defend the interest of Ebiraland. Call all heads of the clans, traditional rulers, leading politicians, academics, Members of the State House and National Assemblies from your domain to a summit. The summit should discuss the outstanding issues in the violence, some of which I touched upon here, and ways of ending it. They should consider the possibility of setting up a commission to look into people’s grievances with a view to reconciliation and forgiveness. As a symbolic gesture, to underscore the seriousness of the commission’s work and as a form of atonement for the sake of your Domain, Ebiraland, apologise yourself to whomever that you have offended and ask for forgiveness.