The True Origin of Aberiba/Ebijakara: Migrants, Blacksmiths, and Customary Tenants
PART TWO
The name “Abiriba” (or “Aberiba”) in regional history applied exclusively to the blacksmithing and warrior clan located in the Bende cultural division of present-day Abia State. Fleeing inter-tribal warfare under their war leader, Nkanu Ebi Esu (from whom they derived their militant banner Ebi Esu and their juju Nkanu Eberiba), these refugees crossed the Cross River seeking sanctuary.
Ebom admitted them strictly on humanitarian grounds and on account of their blacksmithing trade, as our farmers required the regular fabrication and repair of agricultural implements like hoes, axes, and cutlasses. Because Bahumono customary law abhorred leaving strangers without structural oversight, Ebom accommodated them as an internal compound unit known as Aberiba Ebom.
To administer them, Ebom appointed Chief Iwara Amuvan, a fellow Bahumono man and indigene of Abe Anani Ediba (who had married an Ebom woman from Egbezum and settled among the blacksmiths), as a compound head/foreman over the settlers. This Chief Iwara Amuvan was the father of Chief Edward Iwara (plaintiff in the 1964 suit), grandfather of Okon Ifere and Chief Ben Urom Iwara, and great-grandfather of Dr Charles Iwara. Under this arrangement, Aberiba paid regular annual tributes and customary land rent to the chiefs and people of Ebom until 1916.
ARCHIVAL CONFIRMATIONS, CHIEF IWARA’S WRITTEN ADMISSION, AND HISTORICAL COURT JURISPRUDENCE
The status of Aberiba/Ebijakara as customary grantees, tenants, and late-arriving migrants is firmly enshrined in unassailable colonial archival records and early court jurisprudence:
A. The Smoking Gun: Chief Iwara’s Own Written Admission of Customary Grant (1932)
If any lingering doubt remained as to whether Aberiba/Ebijakara were settlers and customary grantees of Ebom, it has been decisively laid to rest by their own foremost patriarch and chief litigant, Chief Iwara of Aberiba, in a certified petition from the National Archives (Appendix 2, dated 2nd June 1932).
Writing to The Honourable, The Resident, Ogoja Province (Through the District Officer, Obubra Division, Obubra Hill) on 2nd June 1932, following the landmark Supreme Court decision in Suit No. 1/1927 (Okpata of Ebom v. Chief Iwara of Aberiba), Chief Iwara made the following profound admission under his own hand:
“…That before the advent of the British Government, when natives were addicted to inter-tribal wars, my fathers obtained a portion of land adjoining the Ebom land by CONQUEST from the Eboms.”
By Chief Iwara’s own recorded confession to the colonial provincial administration:
1. His ancestors obtained the land directly from the Eboms.
2. Their intention was occupation by conquest.
3. Ebijakara’s modern claim to being “landlords” to Ebom is therefore completely fraudulent, refuted not only by Ebom’s oral and archival history, but by the direct written testimony of Ebijakara’s own foundational ruler.
In that same petition, Chief Iwara confirmed that back in 1911, Chief Okpata of Ebom sued Ebariba (Aberiba) “for recovery of his land” before the Ediba Native Council (presided over by Mr J. L. Corvallis, with Chiefs Obei Akaban, Igoni Igiri, Anikon, and Inah sitting as assessors). This confirms that Ebom was already asserting radical reversionary rights to reclaim its ancestral soil when the settlers overstepped their customary grant. Chief Iwara further chronicled the 1913 proceedings before Mr Justice A. F. C. Webber at the Supreme Court in Afikpo, which ordered the initial boundary pillars (later pegged by Administrative Officer Falk).
B. Colonial Administrative Findings (1920 & 1932)
When early friction over land erupted, British colonial district officers repeatedly investigated the dispute, recorded and affirmed Ebom’s prior settlement and custodial occupation:
● The 1920 Obubra District Officer’s Report: In 1911, a corruptly procured judgment of the Native Court at Ediba had banished Ebom from their land. This judgement was enforced in 1917 via a Removal Order. In a reaction to these developments, an official dispatched report to the Resident Provincial Officer of Ogoja Province dated 7th July 1920, the District Officer of Obubra District recorded:
“…the more I consider this matter the more I feel that the judgment [referring to the 1911 Ediba Native Court case and 1917 Removal Order] was very hard on Ebom people who were unquestionably on their old town site long before Aberiba came to settle with them.”
● The 1932 Administrative Memorandum: In a formal memorandum dated 23rd September 1932, British colonial administrator W. B. Macpherson recorded:
“…it is unquestionable that Ebom settled on that portion of land first before the Aberiba came and settled alongside them.”
● The 1932 Administrative Memorandum: In a formal memorandum dated 21st December 1932, The Resident Officer, Ogoja Province recorded:
“…The Petitioner is out of time for lodging an appeal from the decision of Mr. Justice Carey to the Full Court, more that six months having elapsed since the judgment was given. In this connection Dawodu v Dawodu, 5 Nigerian Law reports page 37. In these circumstances there is no legal way of setting aside the judgment of which complaint is made”.
“… The people of Ebariba must bow to the inevitable”.
The memorandum of 21 December 1932 records that Aberiba petitioned against the decision of Mr Justice Carey, that they were out of time to appeal it, that there was no legal way of setting the judgment aside, and that they must ‘bow to the inevitable.’
The judgment of Mr Justice Carey was therefore against Aberiba, and it stood.
C. Independent Sworn Testimonies in Historical Lawsuits
● Sworn Testimony of Customary Tribute (Suits E69/59 and E10/60): Before a court of competent jurisdiction, late Elder Assenyi Ibe testified under oath that:
“Aberiba paid tribute and land loyalty to Ebom from the year they were received by the Ebom to dwell in their land up to 1916.”
● Testimony of Chief Enyi Awara of Lower Igonigoni (Bazohure) in Suit No. 4/1925: In Chief Ewara of Aberiba v. Chief Enyi Awara of Lower Igonigoni, heard at the Provincial Court in Ediba before W. B. Macpherson, Chief Enyi Awara testified:
“Aberiba people are not my tribe, they are people from Aberiba over (the river) in Bende District, across the Cross River… The plaintiff himself is from Ediba and so he is an Ekumuru man like myself… Ekumuru people decided that they should live at a place called Opeh. The Aberibas of Bende district are known as blacksmiths, and you will find blacksmiths in Aberiba plaintiffs’ town today.”
In this testimony, Chief Enyi Awara recognised that Chief Ewara (Iwara Amuvan) was an Ediba man who is leading Aberiba by reason of his having dwelt amongst them from the time of their being received by Ebom and being so appointed earlier.
It is necessary to note that “Ekumuru” as used here represents a variant of how the Ibos of Ebonyi State refer to Bahumonos then. In fact, sometimes they refer to us as “Ikhumono”.
● Testimony of Chief Nku of Ozizza (Afikpo): An independent trans-river testimony from Chief Nku of Ozizza confirmed that his ancestors witnessed Ebom, under the great commander Enyi Ofem, wage the historic war driving the Ndibe back into the Ebonyi hinterland, after which Ebom permanently consolidated its riverine territory generations before Aberiba blacksmiths arrived seeking refuge. This further reinforces the fact of Ebom’s long presence on their land by the river side.
● The Ediba Native Court Suit No. 18/1913: Chief Okpata of Ebom testified on record that in an earlier 1905 native court suit, Aberiba demanded more land as a matter of right. The court firmly dismissed Aberiba’s suit, holding that:
“…plaintiffs were wrong in demanding as of right what they should ask for as favour, and that plaintiffs’ conduct implied a setting up by them of an adverse claim to the land which was sufficient in native custom for us to turn them out even from the portion they were in occupation of.”
Continuing…
