Ibeno Pre-Colonial Socio-Cultural And Political Institutions (1)

By Susan I.Iseyen 

Abstract

Arguably, but nevertheless true, of all the regions of Nigeria as a whole, the people of Akwa-Ibom, especially those of the Ibeno community are perhaps the least studied. Several works have been done on a few communities in Akwa Ibom State. Often, attention is given to larger communities like Ikot Ekpene, Eket, and a few others. Small communities like Ibeno are often ignored. This work therefore gives a historical examination of the socio-cultural and political lives of the people of Ibeno before European colonialism. This is necessary to prove how unique the indigenous economy and institutions of African communities were, of which Ibeno is a part, before colonial incursion. This research depended on the use of primary and secondary sources. Primary sources were obtained from oral interviews, photographs as well as archival materials from the National Archives, Enugu. Secondary sources in written form, from the University of Uyo Library, the E-library, as well as the federal and state libraries of Uyo were fully utilised.

 Introduction                 

Until the second half of the twentieth century, the history of African societies and by extension, African historiography was at the backwater of historical scholarship. Even where and when some feeble attempts were made at presenting African history, they were, as observed by a historian of African history, Okon Edet Uya, “a subject of monumental distortions, ridicule and amusement among the intellectual community” in Europe.¹ In European cast of mind and historiography, “African historical studies” was regarded as an unrewarding enterprise and a sheer waste of time. The acclaimed German philosopher of history of the nineteenth century, George Hegel, pilloried Africa as having “no movement or development to exhibit,” and by that very fact, constituting “no historical part of the world.² Added to this, the British historian, Hugh Trevor-Roper, as late as 1963, told students at Oxford University that “in future there will be some African history to teach. But at present (referring to 1963), there is only the history of Europeans in Africa. The rest is darkness …and darkness is not a subject of history.”³

In point of fact, the position of George Hegel, Trevor-Roper, and Europeans at the time was a reflection of the general impression regarding African studies, which was then in currency in most intellectual communities across Europe. However, from the second half of the twentieth century, a new trend in historiography emerged in Africa. This time, the torch of scholarship was borne by Africans themselves. African historians led by Kenneth Onwuka Dike⁴ exhibited interests in and commitment to reconstructing the histories of various African communities. In keeping up with the views of many African scholars, indigenous historians accordingly studied and documented the historical past of their people and expressed such with deeper understanding and sense of identity within the milieu of their cultural heritage. Their written accounts and monographs repudiated the positions of earlier writings on Africa which were laden with European biases and logically, consigned same to the dustbin of Eurocentric historiography on African affairs. The aftermath of this development has been the evolution of a mountain of writings on indigenous communities in Nigeria.

Who are the Ibeno People?

Arguably, but nevertheless true, of all the regions of Nigeria as a whole, the people of Akwa Ibom State, located in the coastal southern part, especially those of the Ibeno community are perhaps the least studied. Apart from the writings of the early missionaries whose works were mainly on the evolution and contributions of the Qua Iboe Church, and those of explorers, traders, administrators as well as peripheral references by authors writing mainly on other regions in Akwa Ibom State, there has been hardly any coherent scholarly study on the Ibeno: their territory, people, culture, language and more importantly, the colonial period in their history.

Extant studies like those of Percy Amaury Talbot, who authored a series of books discussing the peoples of Southern Nigeria, were outside in perspective.⁵ In fact, Talbot, in his series, only attempted to present a general outline of the culture anthropology of all the ethnic groupings in Southern Nigeria and the Cameroons. He was not interested in any particular ethnic group or community. The same could also be said of Daryll Forde and G. I. Jones, as well as Henry Nau. While the works of Daryll Forde and G. I. Jones were quite sketchy, that of Henry Nau was centred more on the Ibibio as an ethnic group, from the missionary’s perspective. In fact, Henry Nau drew his generalization mostly from experiences gained in a few Ibibio clans where he did his missionary work.⁶ This lack of scholarly study of the Ibeno people contrasts markedly with the situation regarding other communities in Nigeria of whom volumes of scholarly works have been published in Akwa Ibom, Nigeria, and other parts of the world, on their history, cultures and even territories. It is in the light of this situation of neglect of the study of theindigenous socio-political history of the Ibeno people that this research has been undertaken.

Picnickers at the Ibeno beach….picture courtesy of hometown.ng

Akwa Ibom State is in the Niger Delta area, and is one of Nigeria’s major oil producing states. The state is made up of heterogeneous groups of people comprising the Ibeno, with a common identity, cultural and linguistic heritage. It occupies a total landmass of about 8,000 square kilometres, with a coastline of about 129 kilometres long. The state encompasses the Kwa Iboe River basin, the eastern part of the lower Cross River basin, and the eastern half of the Imo River estuary. Akwa Ibom State is bounded on the east by Cross River State, on the southwest by Rivers State, to the west and northwest by Abia State, and on the south by the Atlantic Ocean.⁷Up until 1987, when it was created out of Cross River State, and made a local government area, Akwa Ibom was a part of the Old Calabar region.[1]

The community of Ibeno lies in the fossil oil-rich, coastal area of the state of Akwa Ibom, in the Niger Delta area of Nigeria. It is located at the southern end of Awka Ibom State. Ibeno is a sizeable fishing community of between 100,000 and 120,000 people. The present Ibeno Local Government Area is said to be about twenty large gazetted villages, and forty seven censored villages.⁸Together with a potentially rich area of tropical rainforest, Ibeno is endowed with arable lands on both the mainland areas of Upenekang, Okoroutip, Iwuochang and Mkpanak, as well as the riverine area of Ntafre, Atabrikang and Opolom, all of which are considered to be the seven original or “primary” villages of Ibeno as it is often called.⁹The territory of Ibeno includes a large deposit of onshore and offshore petroleum resources. It is therefore one of Akwa Ibom State’s top oil producing states, and is also host to Exxon-Mobil, one of the world’s largest publicly traded transnational oil and gas companies. There is need to mention here that the Ibeno community in this context does not refer to Ibeno Local Government, but to Ibeno speaking people.

A succinct historical examination of the socio-economic and political lives of the people of Ibeno before European colonialism proves that the indigenous economy and institutions in the community were highly significant. These socio-cultural and political institutions enabled them to stabilize their society over time.

Traditional Administrative Units and Law Enforcement Agencies

Perhaps, it is right to observe as Henry Nau did, that the people of Akwa Ibom in general had neither a tribal consciousness nor a tribal government.¹⁰ This is evident by the fact that no paramount chief like the Oba of Benin, Asantehene of Asante or Kabaka of Buganda ever ruled over the whole tribe. Rather, the people operated and have since maintained what is usually known as a “stateless society,” which is organized on segmentary unilineal principles. Thus, in orthodox scholarship and by extension, socio-political typology, Akwa Ibom area, of which Ibeno is a part, falls within the purview of “segmentary,” “stateless,” or “acephalous” categorization.¹¹

The traditional “system of government” of Akwa-Ibom area, according to Okon Essien, was the “summation of those indigenous, “native-to-soil,” “home-made”… organs, arrangements or procedures which the people in the geo-political entity known today as Akwa Ibom State used in conducting their purpose.”¹² Thus, throughout AkwaIbom area, socio-political unit was based on localized patri-lineage.In all Ibeno villages and clans, governing was in the hands of the elders, thus conforming to the gerontocratic emphasis found among other Nigerian and African groups.The people had some degree of government above the village level that was either based on the village group level or a clan.

Chieftaincy coronation in Akwa Ibom State, picture courtesy of Ibomleak

The kinship idiom permeated all institutions, including the administrative, judicial and executive. The kinship idiom of association was dominant because people with kinship ties were more trustworthy and sincere to each other. Indeed, so fundamental was kinship that any person who could not trace his or her ancestry was regarded as an outsider and denied some important benefits of society. An intelligence report on the Ibibio kinship system infers thatall issues relating to property, marriage, inheritance, religion and tribal government were inseparably linked with the kinship system.¹³

In practice, during the pre-colonial era, there were six observable hierarchically arranged political and administrative units in Ibeno.There were the Idip Eso, which literally means the father’s womb, but which means in context, a man, his sons, his brothers and his half-brothers. This coincided with the family unit of the Western world, except that it was polygamous. In the Idip Eso division, the father and husband was the political boss. He, together with his senior wife (atai awan), his eldest son, his senior half-brothers and a few other intelligent members of his hamlet, formed an irregular council (irregular in the sense that it was always ad hoc). They tried all cases which occurred among members of the family (Idip); they apportioned blame to the guilty and praise to the deserving.Any recalcitrant member was liable to be ignored by the other members of the family. For example, if a refractory member of the family got into trouble with a member of another family, he was sold into slavery, an act which served as a deterrent to other members of the family.

The second was the Ufok, which literally means a house but also a collection of families (Idip Eso) which traced their origin to one father. The increase in population of one particular family or Idip gave rise to the formation of an Ufok. In terms of political organization, the oldest man among the members was the head and his title was Obong Ufok(the head of the house).  He, together with other senior members of the unit, formed the council (Esop Ufok) which met, as the occasion arose, in the compound of the head of the house.Their judicial functions were mainly settlement of disputes between members of the family and hearing from members of different families that make up the Ufok.¹⁴

There was also the Ekpuk (literally meaning lineage), which comprised a collection of Ufok tracing their origin to one father, Idip.¹⁵Ekpuk was the highest political administrative unit of each lineage (extended family) and lower in rank only to village, village group and clan councils, in political, as in social, economic and religious matters, the oldest man in each Ekpuk was the head. His title was MbongEkpuk (lineage head). The lineage head, together with the head of the family (IdipEso) that made up the lineage, met irregularly and for specific purposes in the lineage head’s compound. The economic functions of the lineage council included among other things, the annual sharing of farmlands to adult males belonging to the lineage.

The fourth administrative unit comprised what is called the Idung (literally meaning village). This is a collection of lineages(Ekpuk) which varied in number from village to village, and one of which was the parent and therefore, senior to the rest.Every lineage was represented at the village council which was usually presided over by the village head. The village head had no autocratic powers but only served as a primus inter pares, and therefore, the mouthpiece of the village council as well as the father of the village. The village head was assisted by a deputy village head and other chiefs incharge of various aspects of the people’s culture and pursuits, since in the people’s ethos, “Obong isibongo ikpong,” “a chief does not rule all by himself.”¹⁶ Violators of village orders attracted Etuang– a traditional sanction which banned the culprits from participating in all village activities. It was a “confined ostracism” of some sort. By and large, it was the village that regulated all aspects of the people’s life.

The fifth political unit was the Uduk, which means village group or sub-clan.¹⁷ The sub-clan was made up of related village groups which generally claimed a common ancestral father. The sub-clan was usually headed by the village head of the oldest village in the sub-grouping. The sub-clan council organized and watched closely the performance of social activities as well as the various secret societies within the group.

The IkpaIsong (literally meaning clan), which was a collection of village groups or sub-clans which traced their origins to one village in the clan formed the sixth and final administrative unit of the Ibeno pre-colonial political society.Pre-colonial Ibeno had totems, peculiar symbols and deities as well as organized a common defense and acknowledged a common political, social, economic and religious code of ethics. Within a clan, the consciousness of oneness is said to exist in perpetuity. Thus, a pyramidal hierarchy of structurewas operated in the Ibeno society.[2]

            As stated earlier, the basic political configuration in Ibeno community was predicated on gerontocracy. This practice was in keeping with the traditional dictum that “aboiyo iso ase ammono enyen idim,” “the front-liner clearly appreciates the colour of the stream.”¹⁸ In the traditional Ibeno society, therefore, old age was synonymous with wisdom, knowledge of tradition as well as close affinity with the ancestors and the gods. Power and authority by the elders was accordingly, pervasive in all spheres of the people’s daily life and meetings.

Judicial Instruments

It is very important to examine the administration of justice in pre-colonial Ibeno community because justice was central to the exercise of political power. In doing so, attention will be paid to the role of some traditional institutions in the enforcement of law and order. Most of these social institutions used in carrying out judicial problems were secret in nature. These societies were not secret in the sense of crime syndicate or under-world organizations.They were secret in the sense that they had certain rites, rituals and ceremonies which were exclusively limited to and practised only by their members or initiates.

Before the emergence of the colonial administration, the laws of Ibeno were formulated, passed and enforced in the name and by the authority of the Ekpo (ghost) society. This institution was adopted as a social mechanism for the administration of justice.During this period, membership was compulsory for all male adults. Its members often had a sign or language, which served as a mark of identification of members. The Ekpo society checked crimes such as stealing, adultery,and murder, protection of individual property, entertainment and the recovery of debt.Before the advent of Christianity, and even up till now, everybody in Ibeno believed in the potency of the Ekpo. In fact, because of this superstitious belief, no member dared to divulge its secrets to women and children.¹⁹

Moreover, fear was the controlling force in keeping these societies secret. The Ekpo masqueraders usually dressed in terrifying costumes, so that the mere sight of them frightened non-members, women and children. It was not uncommon to see, as the paramount ruler of Ibeno confirmed, the new initiates who were cowards, run alongside women and children, at the sight of a very fiercely dressedEkpo, who generally swung a machete about while running after non-members.²⁰ This sort of demonstration created psychological fear among non-members and scared them away from the Ekpo.[3]

            Another important instrument for the enforcement of judicial decisions was the Ekpe(leopard) society. The Ekpe was usedin preventing depredation of farm crops by goats. Unlike the Ekpo, which was an open society for all adult males, irrespective of their social standing, the Ekpe society had an element of exclusiveness. Only free-born men were eligible for membership. Slaves or children of slaves, and, of course, women were excluded from membership. Like the Ekposecret cult, the Ekpe society was responsible for the execution of law and order of the village council and of the crown chiefs. The breach of Ekpe law and order was punishable by the the seizure of an offender’s property. The property seized was then used to recover the amount of money required.²¹Even though the British colonial government, as well as Christianity, curbed some of the powers of the Ekpo, those of the Ekpe continues till today.

            Besides the Ekpo and the Ekpe societies, other important Ibeno traditional judicial instruments were the juju(Mbiam), age grade (Nka) and women government (Ebre and IbanIsong). The Mbiam (juju), on which the people of Ibeno swore in pre-colonial times, was one of the most important judicial instruments. The success of the Ibeno indigenous judicial system depended, to a large extent, on belief in the potency of the juju. Miscarriage of justice was very rare because, besides asking the accused to declare himself innocent of the crime of which he was accused, the members of the family were asked, in cases of doubt, to swear in such a way that the penalty inflicted by Mbiam might extend to the whole family, if they swore falsely. In most cases, the entire family preferred declaring the accused guilty and paying the fine or fines, as the situation permits, for fear that the juju (Mbiam) would kill them too.²²

Equally important in maintaining the ethos of pre-colonial Ibeno society, as well as executing development projects in the villages were the age-grades which existed in every Ibeno village. For purposes of orderly performance of duties in the village, age grading was devised. It was an institutional device established to ensure social cohesiveness and each age-grade was often given a special assignment. People were graded for various purposes.For example, some were involved in policing the town, building and sweeping the roads, clearing the sources of water supply, and cleaning market places. Judicial functions attributed to the age grade included punishment of those who failed to carry out duties assigned to their group and instant expulsion of members who stole from other members. This served as a deterrent to other refractory children in the village.

The political administration of the village was also facilitated through the allocation of levies. M. D. W. Jeffreys observes that when personal tax was first imposed in Ibibioland in 1928, the people employed the age-grade to collect such taxes.²³In effect, the age grade system was very ubiquitous in the performance of various and veritable socio-economic activities in pre-colonial Ibeno because it provided an essential link in the chain of government, and without its existence, the village administration would have been paralyzed.

Women did exercise enormous political, social and economic influence in pre-colonial Ibeno community. A woman organization known as Iban Isong constituted the most important female organization in matters concerning winning political and social rights. Literally known as “daughters of the land,” when they were on the march, they were practically owners of the land. No man of whatever standing in the society would dare cross paths with the Iban Isong. They were also known as “Iban Isong Esit,” meaning “strong-willed women,”and the reason for this title was not far to seek: this group of women were stern in their judicial proceedings and they left no stone unturned until they had brought an offender to complete humiliation and sometimes to death.²⁴ Any man who insulted a woman by talking about her sexual anatomy was deemed to have committed a grave crime against the Iban Isong. The aggrieved woman usually took the case privately to the Iban Isong, who fixed a day on which they would try the culprit. Unfaithful and obstreperous wives were also punished by this society of strong-willed women.

The Ebre was another judicial instrument employed by the people of pre-colonial Ibeno. The Ebre society derived its name from the fact that their meetings usually started with the harvest of a yam variety (water yam), known traditionally as Ebre. Otherwise, the Ebre society was a society for morally upright and industrious women. Only women who were married as virgins were eligible for admission into the Ebre society. Thus, membership into this particular society could not be bought, rather, it was moral uprightness that determined who was admitted. Madam Uyai, a former member of the Ibeno Ebre society, now aged, disclosed to the author that in order to confirm the virginity of a girl intending to get married, the demoiselle had to go through the “fattening process.”²⁵

During the fattening process, the legs of the young lass were often spread for “close inspection” of the hymen. Madam Uyai mentioned earlier, explains that the leader of the Ebresociety would briefly peer at the lass’ exposed genitalia, often using her fingers to part the labia in the process. According to an informant, since the leader of the Ebre society was often an experienced middle-aged woman, she would find it very easy to detect if the lass was a virgin or not. The fattening process used to also involve the act of female circumcision (clitoridectomy),²⁶ seclusion (where the young lady was isolated in preparation for initiation into the rank of the married), as well as training (where the girl was groomed in domestic affairs, child birth, child care as well as the right conduct with her husband, co-wives and in-laws). Thieves and women of easy virtue were exposed, disgraced and expelled from the club. In this way, the Ebre group served mainly as a control on the morals of women in the society.

-To be continued

Susan I. Iseyen is of the Department of History and Strategic Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos State, Nigeria

*picture credits: Pinterest & hometown.ng