Rivers Crises: A Challenge To Nation-Building

 By Obasi Igwe

Peace happily returned to Rivers, Ijaw nationalists having precipitately weighed-in for Fubara, turning party affairs ethnic, and leaving Wike with barely feeble support. Rivers State is a contrivance emphasising power over harmonious development, another expression of a flawed Nigerian structure awaiting statesmanly healing, hopefully under a modern democratic secular state of equal laws and equal applications built on civilised Common Law principles in an organically restructured true federalism. 

*Fubara and Wike 

Never force strange bedfellows into marriage merely to spite another. Rivers disproportionate volatility is not from multi-ethnicity, but due to a malign doctrine of Igbo landlocking undergirding it, whereof Igbo communities, nicknamed “Igboids,” are decoupled from their hinterland kith and kin; Bonny, Opobo, parceled to Ijaw trusteeship; leaving Andoni, Ogoni, askant. Negative contradictions of sharing booties of machination are behind Rivers problems, and until resolved the “fire next time” could be unimaginable.

Crosscheck history, even Willink’s, unlike today’s Abandoned Property beneficiaries, no Bonny king, no mainstream Rivers Igbo leader, whether Amabibi Nsirim, Emmanuel Aguma, Francis Ellah, Jackson Mpi, Nwobidike Nwanodi, Obi Wali, albeit pursuing Ikwerre rights like Anioma, Waawa, preferred life with Ijaw in a COR state or wherever to life with fellow Igbo speakers. Ijaw sought self-determination ideally in an all-Ijaw state; Ogoni demanded self-rule; each group with their ports.

With these facilities blockaded, frustrated Igbo diverted to Lagos for import-export and North for trade. Everything expensive became done to develop Rivers and Niger Delta (13% derivation, Amnesty, East-West road, NDDC, Niger Delta Ministry, Ogoni clean-up, etc), except the one cheap policy that can do so: lifting the economic blockade against the East by reopening Port Harcourt, Bonny, Opobo ports for Igbo use! Otherwise, aside few elites, the structured poverty in and beyond Rivers would intensify, with bitterness and recurring violence everywhere.

Organic restructuring will relink Kalabari Ijaw to Bayelsa; Ogoni and Andoni form their state; and Igbo, insulted as “Igboids,” reunite with their hinterland stock to recreate an Eastern pole of development spanning the Middle Belt to Maiduguri, with minimised pressures on Lagos escalating a Western pole spanning to Sokoto. Five coastal regions: East/Igbo, West/Yoruba, Southeast/AkwaCross, Southwest/Bini-Ijaw-Ishan-Isoko-Itsekiri-Urhobo, South/Andoni-Ogoni; and five riparian complements: North/Hausa and Fulani, Northeast/Kanuri, etc., Northwest/Nupe, etc., Northcentral/Jama’a Federation-Plateau Highlands, Middle Belt/Idoma-Igala-Tiv, meet requirements of contiguity, relative cultural homogeneity, true federalism; substantially solves the national question of ethnic relations, class question of power distribution between formations; and by minimising wars for central power, enhances national stability.

Central to Rivers problems are Ijaw claims on Bonny, Opobo, and Rivers Igbo ignoring them procured uneasy calm. But in hasty defence of Fubara Ijaw leaders re-implied the narrative of three Ijaw families migrating to Igboland; after four generations left Igboland to open Bonny around the 12th century; in 19th created an Opobo extension; with Ijaw sojourn in Igboland making it appear as if it was Igbo that opened Bonny. Or, Ijaw and Igbo fought war, and Bonny and Opobo became trophies? Apart some politicians, distinguished Professors Alagoa and Kay Williamson, feed this complex narrative:

Ijaw’s Bonny Narrative
Opuamakuba, the eldest atop high priest Alagbariye and Okpara Asimini, of three “Ijaw” families, purportedly led a “dispersal” from “Central Niger Delta” into Ndoki and, reaching Bonny, that “Ijaw” eldest and first leader inexplicably transformed into second leader under an Igbo Okpara Ndoli who only joined the group at his Ndoki community, but surprisingly became first ruler and only king of Bonny over “the Ijaw.” 

Quote: “Of the Ibo-speaking Ndoki … Okpara Ndoli … joined the migrants in the area,” and “In the genealogies of the founders,” stood alone as “King Okpara Ndoli.” A “joiner” of group became its first ruler, its only king! Great grandson of Opuamakuba, Prince Edimini, fifth Bonny ruler, being Ndoki-born, proves that the claimed migrants spent over four generations (father, son, grandson, great grandson) in Igboland.

Is “first and only” not founder? Assuming the migrants were Ijaw, which they weren’t, on what basis would anybody become first ruler and only king over others if he wasn’t leader of the expedition and founder of the settlement? Should Igbo courageously lead Ijaw to Bonny or Opobo only to abandon Igbo people or ascribe the feat or ownership to Ijaw? Can a “joiner” fabricate a first position in an order of leadership preexisting him? Can original migratory teams still be intact after four generations?

 Must Ijaw first live with Igbo before founding Ijaw settlements? Could a great grandfather have embarked upon new adventures? Recently, attempting some “answers,” Ndoki’s Okpara Ndoli vanished from “only King” status, replaced with “migrant” Asimini (with “Okpara” silent) as “first crowned King” – yet, unexplained why Igbo, as “King” or “Leader” was head over “Ijaw.”2 Whereas Bonny Kings and indigenes proudly trumpeted their Igboness to European explorers, under Origin and Migration, organisers threw more surprises at guests during the Silver Jubilee of reigning Edward I: “Bonny (an European corruption of Ibani) people are Ijaw, who left their homeland in the central Niger Delta Area … present day Bayelsa State passing through … Ndoki territory to their present location in Eastern Niger Delta about the 11th century.”
Ijaw claims over the eastern coastline and Igbo ports of Bonny and Opobo are unjustified

If blood is anything Igbo and Ijaw should cooperate. Igbo opened their Igweocha, Ubani, Opobo ports; Ijaw their Akassa, Brass, Burutu; others theirs. Easterners intermixed, without dragging territory or hindering another maritime life despite European contacts. European commerce proceeded with negligible antagonism between “tribes.”

Nigerian shoreline is characterised by discontinuities: bays, bights, channels, estuaries, water-bodies opening for maritime nationalities contiguous territories to their coasts, ports and territorial waters. Moving eastwards: Yoruba: Apapa, Lekki, Tin Can ports; Benins: Gelegele, Ughoton; Itsekiri: Ode Itsekiri, Ogidigben; Urhobo: Sapele; Ijaw: Akassa, Brass-Nembe, Burutu; Igbo: Bonny, Opobo, Port Harcourt; Ogoni and Andoni: Ngo, Onne; AkwaCross: Bakassi, Calabar, Ibaka, Oron. etc. Ijaw brothers blanketing anywhere into “ownership” beyond Burutu and Kalabari River, doubly blocks the Igbo around the Rio Real and Imo basin, and undermines these peaceful organic traditions.

Revisions should end; the hopes of repeated lies becoming “truths,” if successful for Bonny, Opobo follows in the “foundings” by Ijaw; while with Rivers Igbo “de-Igbonised” or blackmailed, Port Harcourt becomes Ijaw co-owned, rendering Igbo balkanised, deprived their ports, and checkmated by Ijaw. Reciprocating ancestral affections and Igbo pre-oil shared prosperity seem a much worthier alternative. 

Or “booties of war”? Igbo-Ijaw ancestors never fought; never will, for Igbo hardly met Ijaw along the ever-busy Igweocha-Ubani, Azumini-Opobo waterways, and despite colonial divide and rule, at major historical moments true Eastern lights always embraced. Thus, many Igbo, civil, military, though fought on federal side, never demanded Brass, Burutu, to punish Ijaw brothers for “luring” Igbo into war by suggesting Biafra to terrified Easterners.

Bonny’s global testimonies:

Coveting Bonny shows hatred for truth: “European visitors speculated on the origin of the Ibani…from the Ibo…Adams thought the Ibani language was similar to Ibo…also thought the rulers of both Bonny and Elem Kalabari were of Ibo origin. De Cardi asserted that “the Bonny people claim to be descended from the Ibo tribe…Leonard published two traditions of Ibo origin…Talbot postulated an early Ijo migration followed by an Ngwa Ibo group. Dike accepted… tradition of the Ngwa hunter, Alagbariye. Jones related the Ibani to the Ndoki…from the “central Ijo area.”

Only Talbot imagined partial Ijaw connection – initially: “The people of Bonny … are a mixed Ibo-Ijaw race, the Ibo portion is said to have come down from Azumini several hundred years ago and…intermarried with the earlier Ijaw settlers.” Talbot afterwards discovered: “According to Captain Crow, at the end of the eighteenth century…inhabitants of Bonny…(were) chiefly a mixture of the Eboe, or Heebo, and the Brass tribes … Bonny and the towns on the low line of the coast on either side of it were originally peopled from the Eboe country…before the commencement of the slave trade …”.

Talbot verified from a Bonny chieftain: “Okolo-Ama (“Curlew Town”) is the original name of Bonny. Its founder was a hunter who came from Azumini down to the sea…” On Ikwerre, a lexicon still gestating when (Foreword), “Most…matter contained herein was…1914-1916,” Talbot continued: “Ibo…(of) this region, the inhabitants of which, though undoubtedly of the same stock as those dwelling further northward, are known among themselves as Ihura-Onhia” (face or front of country). Iruoha in Union Igbo, for revealing Igbo to explorers; Iwhuruowhna around Obio-Akpor dialect.

All authorities, six European (Adams, Cardi, Crow, Jones, Leonard, Talbot), indigenous Bonny chieftain, foremost African historian, and a colonial Bonny-embracing declaration, were unanimous that Bonny is Igbo, emphasising: “The Ogoni division is divided from the Brass and Degema divisions by a broad arm of the sea which runs up to Port Harcourt, and by a long stretch of Ibo territory which culminates in this town. Port Harcourt is an Ibo town.” In metropolitan cities, “non-indigenes” usually outnumber “indigenes;” hence, “the indigenous branch of the Ibos…out-numbered by Ibos from the hinterland.” Igbo favour a continuing respect for that “broad arm of the sea,” “long stretch of Ibo territory” to the coast separating Ijaw from Ogoni.

Wanting Igbo disappear from coast and “live in the hinterland beyond the delta,” Bonny’s Ndoki founders become Ijaw, Jaja founding Opobo for Ijaw, Igbo communities being “Igboids” or “small/independent ethnic nationalities” besides “homogenous” Ijaw, and justifying ethnic-cleansings against “conquered communities,” look extreme. “Cultural intolerance … is not … unusual … It has been exercised by speakers of the languages of conquering groups over the ages … which then supplanted the languages of the conquered communities, causing … language shift”. Then, “people who live in zones of linguistic and cultural transition face acute problem of identity”. “Conquering groups,” “conquered communities,” “language shift,” “new data from oral traditions”10 altering original data; ought these be routes to Bonny ownership?

Reasons Igbo hardly respond to Ijaw claims abound. First, disharmonies of unjust governance discourage likely reminders about them. Second: stalwarts needed time to digest whether becoming “majority” anywhere, either from trade, ethnic-cleansings, etc translates into founder or owner. Another: many territorial claims were basically addressed in Willink’s, and the delicate relationship between Ijaw and Igbo groups (Ijaw’s “Igboids”), require patience to enable brothers respect others’ rights. Then, not every Ijaw seems interested in transferred animosity against Igbo cousins and, they, like great Professor Kimse Okoko, late President-General of the INC and friend of this writer, need be upheld. Lastly: it’s not Igbo alone that Ijaw stalwarts regularly taunt: the AkwaCross, Bini, Itsekiri, Urhobo, Yoruba, with own coastal histories, had been targets of Ijaw territorial vehemences, except that Igbo seem the choicest scapegoats. Examples:

Ijaw Tribe

Some Ijaw “histories” root for ready-made lebensraum than truths, claiming almost the 895-mile coastline as Ijaw. See the Sunday Guardian of  June 05, 1994, pages A14, A20 and June 12, 1994, page A14; declaring the Yoruba “land-based,” never coastal, by the Ijaw Ethnic Nationality Rights Organisation of Nigeria, “the authentic political mouthpiece of the Ijaw” led by Chief George Albert Weikezi (President General) and D. M. E. Odondiri (Secretary General); Sunday Guardian of June 05, 1994, pages A14 and A20, making insinuations on “landlocked” Igbo or so, with efforts to excise Bonny and Opobo from Igbo history; possibly also reason for the Ondo’s Ilaje and others condemning an “Ijaw national agenda to overrun the entire coastal region of the nation . . .”. See The Guardian, Tuesday, November 24, 1998, page 15 or so, and also complaints from Bini, Yoruba – Sunday Guardian, April 10, 1994, pages A14–15, and the Saturday Guardian, December 04, 1993, page 18, on similar issues.

Claimed Ijaw dispersals were mainly Igbo movements
Imo River valley made Ndoki to Opobo and Igweocha to Bonny competing Igbo contiguities: The “route of migration through the Ibo hinterland … sojourn in the region of the Imo valley in the territory of the Ibo-speaking Ndoki … Bonny traditions claim that the Ndoki had originally come with them, from the Ijo Central Delta to settle in” places “…that Ibo people already lived . . .”11. So, stories abound of Igbo Deltaic movements, like the “Ijaw dispersals” that were essentially Igbo migrations, as the above-acknowledged Ndoki migration from central Delta to rejoin other Ndoki where “Ibo people already lived!” Problems usually arose once Ijaw joiners started dragging ownership with Igbo hosts. It’s hypothetical if without the Igbo, including attractive Abandoned Property, British House Rule Proclamations and Ordinances, Ijaw brothers may not have remained a largely canoe-house wandering “nation” by close of 20th century.

Many are puzzled why cousins that played no part in founding or developing Bonny, none in an 1869 Bonny Revolution that was an affair between two illustrious Igbo sons, Oko Jumbo and Jaja, triggering the creation of Opobo, and almost none in centuries of Bonny-led trans-Atlantic history, are very pertinacious to “found” and “own” these ports? Jaja wasn’t Ijaw or “sold” to Ijaw family; so, what is the link to Ijaw?Central Delta problems are largely man-made, not soluble by harming others. For, the Great Balancer buried enormous wealth beneath Ijaw to overcome them if corruption permits. With Nigeria’s complimentary ports and lands potentials, seeking pounds of flesh would dissipate energy needed for ports riparian poles of development to promote prosperity and peace nationwide.

Therefore, let “new data” go with the unfortunate past. For, Ijaw claims on Bonny and Opobo; “re-interpretations” of oral traditions; their so-called linguistics, glottolinguistics, lexicostatistics; and devotees’ reliance on such ingenuities, greatly abuse coastal history targeting Igbo; ridicule Eastern ancestors’ goodly relationships; mislead youths trusting leaders for honest inspiration; and suggest discomfort that Igbo survived unwarranted riverine ethnic-cleansings. How “Ijaw settlements gradually emerged in the territories of the Igboid peoples” are recorded.

Falsifications dishonour illustrious Igbo pioneers; European explorers,’ missionaries’ and administrators’ testimonies; bespeak a LASAT (Late Arrival Superior Aggression Theory) syndrome, and scorn centuries of unparalleled Bonny-centred Igbo trans-Atlantic sacrifices, which constituted a primary source for Black Western hemispheric presence, the plantation Americas, part-industrial Europe, the Abolitionist movement, the ensuing struggles for national liberation and independence, and foundation for later-day global civil rights revolutions.

Igweocha, Bonny, Opobo, symbolise centuries of globalised Igbo modern history. Africans shouldn’t allow these contributions to human progress wiped off memory. Late Obong Idongesit Usoro appealed: “Let us . . . be fair to one another, and work in synergy, to create value . . .” Relatives in same corner of the earth should appreciate the wisdom of a purposeful God, and build a live and let live mutually fair existence listening to such wise counsels.

*Prof. Igwe is of the Department of Political Science, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.