CHAPTER ONE
THE NIGER DELTA: ITS PEOPLE, CULTURE AND VALUE
The Niger Delta area was a foremost part of the later region to be called Nigeria and incorporated into the Atlantic world economy from the 66th century. However, there existed a long history of the peoples of Niger Delta of the Cross River valley and the Eastern Niger Delta.
The Cross River valley of the Benue Cross may have been a cultural watershed in the history of Nigeria. The languages spoken by the people of the valley have been classified in the Benue-Congo, a sub-family of the large Niger-Congo, family of African language.1 This languages of the Benin-Cross valley lie clearly between the great size of Sudanic languages on the West African coast and the extensive Bantu language spoken from the Cameroons through Central, Eastern and Southern Africa. Therefore, the languages form a bridge between the language of the Guinea Coast and the Bantu to the east and this confirms with the grouping of the Guinea coast and the Congo basin as forming a single culture area. The largest linguistic group in the area, the Ibibio, also seems to have been the longest established in the geographical area. However, there is yet no archaeological work to show any clear dates, the Ibibio occupation of the area could well date to the era of Proto-Bantu migration postulated by Greenberg and to the first of four stages of Bantu expansion according to Olivr.3 However, the Efik, Ibibio and Cross River peoples are closest linguistically to groups to the north of them in the Central Benue valley. Such groups are those of the Jos Plateau, the Jukun, Tiv belong in the same Benue-Congo sub-valley with the Efik, Ibibio and the majority of Cross River languages. The linguistic affinities suggest that the peoples inhabiting the region watered by the Cross and Qua-Iboe Rivers formed a cultural continuum with the peoples of the Central Benue valley.4
The origin of Ibibio people, the largest group in the Cross River basin have remain in cloud probably due to the absence of a unitary political authority over them in the past. Some early scholars work on the Ibibio believed that the absence of traditions of origin meant that the Ibibio were a people of hear antiquity who could no longer remember an earlier home.5 Among the smaller Ekoi groups to the north and north-east of the Ibibio, Talbot express a general view that they had come from homes further north, for the site of each new torn is to the south of the former one.6 This view agrees clearly with the linguistic relation to groups in the Benue value and the suggestion that south-eastward movements from that area many have led to the spread of the Bantu languages into central and southern Africa. A scholar of local extraction has supported the view that most of the peoples of the Cross River valley relate how they migrated from somewhere north of the Cross River as a result of force from the Ankpa and that the Efik-Ibibio, Aro’s Ejagham, Jakur much have come from an area somewhere in the valley of the Benue.7 However, in recent times local historians have tended to trace the origins of peoples of the Cross River basin to the orient.8 This form is manifested in an official publication of the government of the former South-Eastern State of Nigeria, which derived all the people of the state from “Central and East Africa”.9
The origin of Efik have been mostly recorded for the group that had developed central state forms of political control. Their traditions of origin also give a north to south direction of migration. The first location show is Ibom, a town in Arochukwu in Imo State.10 Another beliefs recorded from Arochukwu state that one of their rulers that is Aro had obtained Akpa mercenaries to drive away from Ibom, people known as Ibibio. The group driven away could have been the Efik. However, their traditions do not detail the circumstances in which they left Ibom and other source said they were driven from Uran because they refused to worship the Ibibio god; Alakpa Uran.11 It was however, when they settled at Creek town that the Efik seems to have developed their distinctive institutions and identity. Efik tradition and the sharing of cultural items like Ekpe, Nsibidi and others also show close historical contacts with Igbo group to the West of the Cross River. By the 18th century, Efik expansion had clearly reached the Cross River estuary and the people had begun to remould cultural elements like Ekpe, Nsibidi and many others brought from their wandering contacts with hinterland neighbours, into viable institutions capable of containing the whole area by the European impact.
The Ijo language has not yet been definitely classified by linguists. This is because it is not close enough to its biggest neighbours which is the Ibo, Edo and Yoruba to be seen with them in the kwa family group, nor close to the Efik-Ibibio or Bantu to be group as Benue-Congo. On the other hand, it would seem that Ijo has existed as a separate language from Igbo, Edo or Yoruba for at least five thousand years. This evidence show that theories deriving the Ijo from any of these major groups as a result of migrations into the Delta in comparatively recent times cannot be accepted. The point is that the Ijo have existed as a separate group and in the Niger environment is to support the earlier view. Finally, the Ijo oral traditions show no clear place of origin outside the Delta, but rather describe migrations and expansion over the breadth and length of the Niger Delta. The Ijo of the eastern Delta lived in villages ranging from two hundred to about a thousand inhabitants. Their villages were divided into a number of wards or houses each representing a patrilineage. The head of the village was the Amanyanabo, title to which was usually vested in one particular lineage, though in some villages the Amanyanabo was elected by the ward heads. The Amanyanabo’s functions were largely ritual, though he did preside over the village assembly, which consisted of all adult males. The ward heads were usually chosen on the grounds of age, but ward members of exceptional political or economic ability could aspire to the office over someone of greater age, cutting across allegiance to the house were such ties as membership of age-sects and dancing societies and relationship with kin outside the patrilineage. The Ijo traded with the people of the hinterland, who were mainly Igbo and Ibibio.
The Ijo exported dried fish and salt which they panel in the salt water creeks to the peoples of the hinterland in exchange for vegetables and tools, particularly those made of iron. This pattern of relationship was radically altered by the advent of the slave trade.12
The slave trade had marked effects on the political structure of the Niger Delta and its hinterland, where a large proportion of the slaves exported from Nigeria were procured. The arrival of slave traders in the Delta led to the growth of a number of trading states, which were in effect expanded versions of small Ijo fishing villages that happened to occupy favourable positions on the creeks of the Nigeri-Delta.13 The most important among these were Bonny, Owome, Okrika and Brass which only became a major slave-trading state in the early 19th century, farther down the coast at the mouth of the Cross River, the Efik trading state of old Calabar was also organized to meet European demands for slaves. In the Western Delta the Itsekiri kingdom of Warri became another major source of supply for slaves.14 Thus the economic achievement rather than traditional status became the basic of political power in the region. The gradual opening-up of the interior to direct trading relations between African producer and European buyer and the consequent breakdown of the monopoly of coastal trade held by the Delta Middle men were to produce a crisis in Delta politics. From 1865 until the proclamation of the British Protectorate over the Niger Districts in 1885, British interests in Nigeria were concentrated in three separate areas with Delta region as one of them. The bitter competition for oil markets between the various states and European traders pushed further the local consul’s intervention. It was however, expanding trade in the hinterland of the Delta, with its superb river highway, the Niger, that eventually led Britain to proclaim a protectorate over the Niger Districts and thus lay the foundations of modern Nigeria. Thus, western economic forces have contributed to the unity f the arbitrary block that is modern Nigeria.15
However, the struggle for self determination of the region started with the formation and consolidation of the Nigeria colonial state from the 1940’s. This struggle became inevitable because the region is a dispersal of small ethnic groups. In the Eastern Delta, this struggle assumed the form of demand for an autonomous River State. The delay in granting the demand later led to an armed insurrection in 1966, culminating in the declaration of a Niger-Delta Republic which was crushed by the militaristic federal government within barely twelve days of its birth. Thus, the revolutionary tendency lay the foundation for a trend in the region.
The discovery of oil in commercial quantity in the Niger Delta in the mid 1950’s and the virtual exclusion of the area from benefiting from the oil further intensified the Niger Delta question. However, the 1990’s marked a watershed in the Niger Delta struggle with the outbreak of the Ogoni Revolution. The struggle spread to other parts of the region, but it was a sharp deviation from that of Ogoni Revolution, while the Ogoni Revolution was non-violent in its resistant form, the others were radical and highly rapacious. At this stage, the demand of the people were centred on the core issues like under-development, resource control, environmental protection and political marginalization. The region is the most volatile part of the Nigeria state. In his declaration of Niger Republic, Boro asserted thus “If Nigeria government refuses to do something to drastically improve the lot of the people, inevitably a point of no return will be reached; then evil is a foot.16 The Niger Delta crisis is essentially a minority problem since the major complaints centred on the marginalization of the region in the distribution of government services and institution and exploitation of the resources by the dominant or majority groups acting in concert with the multinational oil companies.17
The Niger Delta is the most environmentally fragile part of Nigeria and the presence of oil and gas in the region makes it the goose that lays the golden egg.18 The paradox between the enormous wealth and the level of material development of the Niger Delta was noted by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), thus “severe economic deprivation and social exclusion stood in sharp contrast to the enormous oil wealth of the area creating a paradox of poverty in the midst of plenty. As a result of the persistently low volume and abysmal quality of development investments by public and private entities, the areas have remained grossly underdeveloped relative to the rest of the country. This contradiction has accounted for the increased militarization of the region since 1966. This is no doubt that the crisis in the region is reflected in the increasing vibrancy and militancy of the people. At the root of the crisis the persistent degradation of the economic base of the people, who depend on the fertility of the soil and the salubrity of the water system, the intense pollution has destroyed the flora and fauna of the people, thus putting their means of livelihood in jeopardy. The agitation in the area is therefore a struggle for survival.19 In their capitalist orientation, the oil producing companies are more interested in profit making than environmental issues and the Nigeria state has been more concerned with the royalties that accrue to her. The Niger Delta case is typical to the biblical story of Naboth and his vineyard. The pitiable and pathetic story of the Niger Delta was further explained by the Environmental Right Actions, “The oil industry creates scarcity of productive land. The Federal government, without having to make any reference to community, can give away communal lands and forest to transnational oil companies for exploration of crude oil with oil companies only legally obliged to compensate communities for loss of crops at scandalous rates determined by the dynamics of external exploitation coupled with blatant disregard for the basic rights and needs of these resources rich communities. The long neglect of the area by government and oil companies in supporting human and infrastructural development including the provision of basic social services has aggravated the situation in the region.20
In so far, the region was an oasis of peace and tranquility, inhabited by a contented and law abiding people. However, the crisis can be traced to the forceful occupation of the region by the Europeans in the mid 19th century.21 Accordingly, “the region has been ruled by violence since the mid nineteenth century when Britain and other power, after plundering the coast and is hinterland of young Africans whom they shipped out to the new world as slaves, switched to the so-called legitimate trade in palm oil to power the northern hemisphere’s industrial revolution. Thus, it is clear that long after independence in Nigeria, the confine injustice has continued in the region.
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