ANIOMA STATE CREATION: MATTERS ARISING

Basil Okoh

MaTaZ ArIsInG
Dallas, Texas

The anticlimactic closure of the Senate public hearing on creation of states in Ikot Ekpene, Akwa Ibom state presages the turmoil ahead in the journey for the creation of Anioma state. From now onwards, all bets are off and the gloves are off too as the fight for Anioma state will be fought bare knuckles so that all truths will be revealed and we don’t arrive at our new state bearing old grudges.

Ned Nwoko is not doing any good to his political career or to the prospective Anioma state by making out as if the creation of the State is tied to his return for a second senatorial term and his progression in politics. He has been over promising but nobody is holding him responsible for the creation of Anioma State as a condition for his re-election. Anioma State creation is a community matter, not entirely dependent on Ned Nwoko despite his assurances of success and so no matter how much he invests his finances or how much influence he wields, he cannot alone create Anioma State as he cannot bypass the referendum for its creation, neither can he alone win the votes to create the state. He, along with the various communities of Anioma need to build a working partnership on the state creation matter. As matters stand now, Ned as the financier of the Anioma project cannot assure victory in a plebiscite on Anioma if conducted today.

The people want Anioma State but he has made the advocacy for its creation too personal that it raises the suspicion of a personal agenda different from his public expressions to the Anioma people. His public career must not be made to be dependent on the delivery of Anioma as all of us are in on the new state. And the fate of the Anioma people must not be tied to the political fortunes of Ned Nwoko. Otherwise all of us will be alienated from our kin in the rest of Delta state and make us look like outsiders in our own Delta state.

The people of Anioma need be integrated into the fight for the creation of the state and the movement must be community based in pursuance of the collective goal. The people must embrace and own the movement for the creation of their own state but right now, it appears as if there is an unelected but hegemonic presence working on behalf of the entire people of nine local governments. That hegemonic presence is situated within the two Aniocha local governments, directing the affairs of the movement with little information percolating to the outlier communities as does a metropolitan power base directing the affairs of its provinces. Aniocha has never been a power base of Delta North and cannot be one now. The demographics and political history of our people refutes any claim to that fallacy.

Again, Ned set himself up for suspicion of his intent by yoking Anioma to the Southeast without the consensus and agreement of Anioma people, a people who have no historical or political association with the Southeastern people. This has followed the age long tradition of Igbo people making claims to communities in Anioma without the historical evidence. We do understands the herculean constitutional provisions for the creation of states which may be why Ned is chasing Southeastern affiliation. Anioma state is wanted by its people but nobody is chasing us out of Delta state, so there cannot be desperation for the creation of Anioma state to force us into affiliation with strange and unwanted bedfellows.

The prepared speech of Barrister Tony Oganah of Onicha Ugbo and supported by the Obi of Idumuje Unor before the Senate committee during the public hearing was both eye opening and shocking as it presented the demand for the creation of Anioma state as a pleading for Anioma to be allowed to complete the number of states due to the Southeast. This plea for affiliation with the Igbo and the South Eastern states has raised deep fears of an agenda by the Nwoko group unknown to the people and different from his stated positions on the issues before the people of Anioma. The people of Anioma have stated emphatically that most of the territories of Anioma have never had any historical or political affiliation with the people of Igboland or the South-East and so do not want any political affiliation with the Igbo. They have stated also that Anioma cannot be used to atone for the injustice done the Igbo people through state creation.

That public speech before the Senate committee has led everyone to ask the question: “Whose interest is the movement for the creation of Anioma State serving? Ohaneze Ndi Igbo or the Anioma people? Our dilemma was further compounded by the presence of a man who was asked to speak on behalf of Igbanke.

The man Alika Innocent Peter spoke of Igbanke as a lost Igbo tribe in Edo state and never once mentioned that Igbanke was historically part of Agbor kingdom with a deep historical, language and cultural affiliation with Agbor people, going back to the beginning of the old Agbor Kingdom. Igbanke was part of Agbor for thousands of years until 1920 when conflict was caused by a matrimonial problem in the Agbor Palace which started during the reign of Obi Gbenoba and extended to years after his reign, snowballing into a rebellion.

Decades later, Governor Samuel Ogbemudia whose mother was Igbanke and father Bini, was to exploit this schism to cede the entire Igbanke to Bini and now Edo state. Now, the people of Igbanke have rebelled against the imposition of Bini traditional rule of the Enogie by the Oba of Benin and are agitating to join their kin in Agbor, which is the reason for their application to be included in the agitation for Anioma state.

The Anioma State movement having no sense of the underlying history of the Agbor people, are setting Igbanke up as the lost tribe of Igboland without reference to the Agbor people. Igbanke has never had historical ties with Igboland as the Igbo never built any organized political structure beyond their village levels. Igbanke people speak Agbor to their very last word, so who really is the Anioma State movement working for: Igboland or Agbor?

Barrister Tony Oganah in his official presentation to the senate committee at Ikot Ekpene expressly and openly demanded that Anioma be joined to the South-East to complete six states for the Igbo. He went further to say that Ohaneze Ndigbo is providing supports for the creation of Anioma to make up the six states due to Igboland. This raises the question of sincerety in the communicated information to the Anioma people. So Ned Nwoko unwittingly opens himself to blackmail by political opponents as to his true intentions in his quest for the creation of Anioma and questions are now arising as to who may be funding his mission to win Anioma for Igboland. Ned Nwoko, as it appears, is more in discussions with the Ohaneze Ndi Igbo than he is with the communities of Anioma. This must be part of the reasons he sent a delegation to the Enugu public hearing as he did to Ikot Ekpene.

And then, every group has been writing the history of the Anioma movement as it suits their interests and future intentions, but the truth is that Asaba was never in consideration to be the future capital of Anioma State and its people were never seriously involved in the agitation for Anioma state. But the new historians are making Asaba into champions of the Anioma movement, which they are not. Dennis Osadebe, early politician and later governor of the Midwest who hailed from Asaba, had his political roots and mainstay in Agbor. Alidinma community in Ika South and encompassing Ndemili, Isumpe, Ejeme Aniogor and leading up to Obianyimah, part of Abavo was marked out to be the capital of Anioma. This area included land in the present Ika South, Aniocha South, Ndokwa West and Ukwuani Local Government Areas, thereby engirdling every subgroup in Anioma as the capital of the proposed state. The champions of the Anioma movement were Senator Nosike Ikpo as the Senator of Bendel East and Dr. George Orewa leading the charge to the inner core of the federal government, being Nigeria’s leading expert on Local Government.

These latter day historians and new apostles of Anioma have twisted the focus of the movement to suit new interests and unknown purposes. When Onitsha was proposed to join Anioma State in the nineties being kinsmen to the Anioma people, all hell broke lose in the entire Igboland with the fear that Anioma wants to take part of Igboland. But the historical core of Onitsha migrated from Agbor and the “Offor” in the Palace of the Obi of Onitsha has its origins in the Palace of Agbor. The inner recesses of Onitsha palace still bears the name Dein and their major celebration remains “ofara”.

So as the bill for the creation of Anioma State enters its third and final reading, Ned must take the time to restructure the movement to be self governing at community levels and cease his questionable affiliation with Igbo without the permission of the people of Anioma. The movements governing body must establish channels to embrace, inform and include every community of the proposed state. Nwoko must pay heed to demography and diversity in governing the movement. People of the outlier districts are mostly excluded from principal offices of the organization. In Agbor, Aboh, Ogume, Abbi and Ezionum, communities that were visited, people hardly know what the Anioma State agitation is all about. The older ones only remember the agitations of more than thirty years ago.

THE LAST WORD:
The people of the South-South were shunted to Ikot Ekpene because Godswill Akpabio, the Senate president, was pursuing personal glory and making Akwa Ibom’s Uyo town the capital of the South-South and no longer Port Harcourt. The event was moved to Ikot Ekpene, Akpabio’s hometown, because as he said, the venue he envisaged in Uyo was encumbered. So everyone was moved to Ikot Ekpene to pay obeisance to Godswill Akpabio who took time to recruit many women groups in their fancy uniforms to take up more than half the space of the venue at Sheraton, Ikot Ekpene. It was supposed to be a venue for serious political activity but it turned out to be a place of dance and theatre, all in praise of Godswill Akpabio.

However, it must not be that the Anioma people are been played on the matter of state creation.

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