RESEARCH REVIEW (NS) VOL.8, NOS.

1 & 2, 1992

ORAL TRADITION AND ETHNICITY IN THE

CREATION OF NEW STATES SN NIGERIA:
THE CASE OF AKWA IBOH

F.E.K. Amoah

INTRODUCTION

One of the major values of contemporary African nationalism is equal rights of the
individuals and minorities in a country. The feeling of helplessness in the established
socio-political set up often motivates such minorities to try and achieve their goals through
their own efforts. In the 1950s the advent of internal self-government in Nigeria brought
with it the struggle of minority ethnic groups seeking a measure of autonomy. The idea
was resisted by the dominant ethnic groups for as long as possible on the pretext of
preserving the unity ofNigeria. This was to a large extent the remote cause of the Nigerian
Civil War from 1967 to 1970. Some analysts have ironically labelled it as the 'Nigerian
War of Unity' in the sense that it represented the tacit acceptance that true unity could come
to Nigeria only when most of its constituent ethnic units genuinely felt that they had a
voice in its administration and a stake in its continued existence.
Furthermore development planning in the form of sectoral planning on a national
basis is not understood by the majority of Nigerians. As Mabogunje (1972, p. 5) rightly
pointed out "until the spatial profiles of the sectoral allocations are clearly indicated
through closely formulated Regional or Local Government Plans, no development
programmes can be expected to win the enthusiastic support of Nigerians."
It was naturally the desire of the Ibibio, the fourth largest ethnic group in Nigeria to
follow the example of the Hausa-Fulani, Yorubaand Ibo, among others, in asking for their
own separate state or states in order to develop their own language, culture and economy.
Within the former Cross River State the Ibibio agitated during the early 1980s for the
development of their own dialect which was allegedly being neglected in favour of the
dialect of the Efik minority which was being taught in the Schools and was adopted
generally in public circles. It is interesting that a common over-arching language was not
enough to bind together the Ibibio and Efik. There were also, of course, accusations of
political domination and nepotism in educational, business, employment and other
opportunities against the urban-based Efik living mainly in the Calabar Metropolitan area.
Socially, the Efik, allegedly had always regarded the Ibibio (who live maialy in small rural
communities) as stupid and uncivilized 'bushmen'. Besides the share of the proceeds of
oil (petroleum) from the wells of Eket Local Government Area by the Federal Government
system of weighting was a major bone of contention and a source of conflict among the
ethnic sub-groups.
In short the Ibibio majority refused to be dominated by an 'arrogant minority* ethnic
group, the Efik who controlled power in the former Cross River State. Several theories of
the 'Ibo origin' of the Efik and the 'external connections* of the Efik minorities of the
Calabar District came to dominate the politics of the former Cross River State in the 1980s.
One eminent educationist, Aye (n.d), of this area put the matter more succinctly, and this

76
may well apply to other parts of Nigeria and presumably elsewhere in Africa:

In the Cross River State today everything is married to ethnic politics: whether in
employment, promotions in service, awardof contractsorscholarships, admissions
into places of learning, distribution of projects and amenities and what not

It is not intended to add more fuel to a political situation that had generated more heat
than light in the past, and caused the break up of the former state. Rather this represents
the documented outsider's viewpoint of the ethnic relations in this part of Nigeria by a
writer after living and working among the people for almost a decade.
The basis of the divisiveness among the Ibibio and Efik appears to have been oral
traditions which tended to distort the facts ofhistory. Some of the communities in an effort
to establish their separate identities in the area through the agency of some unscrupulous
chroniclers dared to rewrite the political-cultural history of the land, claiming origin from
all kinds of bizarre and unauthenticated locations including Ghana (presumably ancient
Ghana) Ethiopia, Egypt, Zululand and so on. Weren't these propositions too romantic and
far too tenuous to have been taken seriously? To what extent did local traditions and
ethnicity play a role in the creation of Akwa Ibom State which was officially proclaimed
in September, 1987?

The Conceptual Framework and Methodology

Every country in the world seems to possess some lores or legends which are
transmitted to the younger generation about the origins of their forebears, the foundations
of their towns and cities, and the sagas of their people. Such story-telling often supplies
mythical explanations for the past and hopes for the future. Even well-meaning historians
of the ancient city of Rome usually begin their accounts with the fable of Remus and
Romulus and then brush it aside before proceeding to the documented and authentic data
of the place on a more serious note. In the Cross River State the fables of Obio Offiong
(1957) A first step to Ibibio History represent this category of information, and Amaku's
(1949) Edikot Nwed Mbuk (A Book of Stories) Volume II, falls perhaps into the category
of traditions.
Conceptually, it is important to distinguish between the roles of fables and
traditions in understanding the African past. Fables, like family stories, speak of what
was, or is believed to have been accomplished by the ancestors and the peoples with whom
they were in contact. The characters involved may not be as mystical as those in myths
that are presented mainly for entertainment of the reader. By contrast, traditions have the
closest resemblance to history because they recall events and phenomena that occurred in
the not-too-distant past in a familiar environment or social setting and therefore assert
beliefs, customs and so on.
Yet there are many scholars who challenge the credibility of oral traditions because
oftheirtendency to twist the facts to further particular interests. Malinowski (1922) shared
this view. Murdock (1968) also flatly rejected oral traditions in his cultural history of
African peoples, but made the Polenesians of the Far East an exception because of the care
with which their traditions are supposed to be transmitted. Indeed, the Polenesians are
reputed to have a well-organised body of traditions although they are essentially a non-
literate farming society. Again after carefully examining some traditions of southern
Ghana, Wilks (1957) concluded that traditions reflect diplomacy, not history. By

77
implication history or historical research in general may illuminate tradition but it can
hardly be the other way round.
An unfortunate instance of how not to record traditions is provided by Meyerowitz
(1952) in the Akait traditions of origin where the author made notes only of the things
which interested her and even these were sometimes used out of context. Appropriate use
of Ibibio, Ibo and Efik traditions must perforce involve a comparison of various versions
of the issues and these must, if possible, be cross-checked with the traditions of
neighboring peoples. An effort is therefore made here to correlate such traditions with
documentary and other evidence.
Ethnographic characteristics provide other useful sources of information about the
origin and migrations of people including their settlements. Thus any study of the Ibibio,
Ibo or Efik which ignores the accounts of the early European, and possibly Arabic writers
on the area cannot be complete because most of these writers were eye witnesses of events
and happenings of the recent if not the remote past. Although some of their observations
may have been faulty or erroneous from the African point of view, these may be regarded
as being fairly representative of what obtained in the land at the time of their writing, or
what they borrowed from written cross-references.
Linguistic studies have also been useful guides to the understanding of ethnic
relations; but these have serious drawbacks. The study of comparative linguistics has not
advanced to a stage where there is a general agreement on its interpretation. Indeed, the
lack of an accepted genetic classification of African languages has been a handicap to
African historico-linguistic research. The classification of African languages by Greenberg,
(1966), for instance, is accepted without demur on the continent of Europe, but it is
generally rejected by British linguists.
More importantly language is not always a sure clue to ethnic origin and association.
The Onitsha people of Eastern Nigeria have a strong tradition of origin which relates to
the Edo of Benin west of the Niger River but they speak a dialect of Ibo in the east.
Similarly the Efut of the Calabar area who appear to have lost their original language and
independent cultural traits, actually speak their own language as well as Efik when
necessary. So do the Efiitu west of the Accra Capital District of Ghana who speak a Guan
language (Efutu) in addition to their acquired but preferred language of Fante spoken by
the people with whom they currently have much interaction.
Significantly, the tacit acceptance of the close relationship between history and
geography provides an opportunity to exploit their apparent complementarity in the
search for patterns of migration and settlement morphologies. Ntukidem (1976) in a
typical social science fashion, attempted to construct models that idealized the origin of
clans and migrations of the Ibibio as a fist step towards elucidating the processes and
directions of their mobility in the past. Such models are, of course, easier to propose than
to support by factual evidence so that the findings have remained somewhat inconclusive.
One important methodological message of this paper is that in conceptualizing such
an historical situation (i.e. theorizing first and looking for evidence to support it by
deduction in the tradition of the sciences), one tends to ignore, often deliberately and
consciously, much of the supplementary evidence which would ultimately contradict
one's own theory. On the other hand, generalizing by induction (on the basis of available
evidence from unwritten and other traditional sources alone) can be misleading. There is
thus a dialectical relationship between deduction and induction in historical research and
both processes must be recognised as complementary.

78
 In summary the methodology adopted In this study is holistic or multi-disciplinary.
Such a methodology for the reconstruction of the centres of origin and patterns of
migration of peoples is however more than a mere collection of methods. Rather it
provides a synthesis of the individual methods in an effort to determine the relationship
between different classes of information, or data which involve weighting a set of
evidence against others in the same class, or different ones which appear to support one
another, while others may contradict themselves (McCall, 1969).

Background to the Land and Peoples of the Lower Cross River Area

Among the earliest known descriptions of the land and peoples of south-eastern
Nigeria, of which the Rivers State, Cross River State, and Akwa Ibom State now constitute
a part is that provided by Dapper (1686) a Dutch trader and traveller in Africa during the
last quarter of the seventeenth century. His 'description' was followed about four decades
or so later by that of Barbot (1732) Agent General of the French Africa Company who
wrote about the Guinea Coast in the early eighteenth century. Much of the information
from these writers was obtained from second hand sources provided by local Africans
because the Europeans confined their activities to the coastal settlements and rarely visited
the inland places.
The distribution of ethnic groups and languages spoken by the peoples of the Lower
Cross River basin was recorded much later with reasonable accuracy by Waddell (1863)
and Goldie, (1874) the two Christian missionaries who lived among the Efik people of the
Calabar area for several years during the second half of the nineteenth century. During the
early part of the present century also the British Colonial Administrative Officer and
Government Anthropologist, Talbot (1926) among others, (Forde and Jones, 1950)
vividly described various aspects of the peoples of Southern Nigeria.
The Ibibio have been the dominant ethnic group of the 'Mainland' area of the former
Cross River State. Today their highly dense population is based mainly in Akwa Ibom
State. According to the Nigerian Handbook (1980) the Ibibio people constituted the
fourth largest ethnic group inNigeriaafterthe Hausa-Fulani, the Yorubaandthe Ibo (Igbo)
in that order. The Ibibio sub-groups include the Annang, Efik, Oron, Eket and some
minority communities living in fishing settlements along the estuary of the Cross River,
what the early Portuguese explorers called Rio Del Rey.
The present-day ethnic distinction leading to the recognition of the Annang, Efikand
Oron as separate ethnic entities (as opposed to Ibibio proper) seems to be quite recent.
Neither in the works ofTalbot (1926) nor in the last Colonial Population Census ofNigeria
(1953) were these recognised as ethnic groups distinct from the Ibibio.
It was in the first National Population Census of Modern Nigeria (1963) carried out
three years after the attainment of ftill political independence that segments of the Ibibio
were first accorded distinct ethnic status as indicated in Table 1.

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 Table 1

Selected Major Ethnic Groups in Nigeria, 1963

Name Population

Hausa, Fulani, Kanun 18,546,202

Yoruba 11,320,509
Ibo 9,246,388
•Ibibio 2,005,489
Tiv 1,393,649
Edo 954,970
*Annang 675,004
Ekoi 344,514
•Efik 166,297

Source: National Population Census of Nigeria,

•Of Greater Ibibio (Ibibio Union).

It is not unreasonable to suppose that political agitation in the period prior to foil
independence had given rise to political, and perhaps cultural individuality and a sense of
belonging at the national as well as local levels. Indeed, an editorial comment in the
Cultural Magazine of the Ibibio Students Association (1959) University College of
Ibadan, remarked that "time was when Ibibio people were one; and when ignorance was
rife they distinguished themselves as people with progressive ideas". Furthermore,
during the presidential address on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Ibibio
Students Association of the University College in that same year Ekpenyong (1959) its
president, was constrained to make the following observation:

The definition and extent oflbibioland is a matter of our serious concern. When the
present Ibibio State Union at home was formed in 1928 it was called 'Ibibio
Mainland Union', but eventually its limits were reconsidered and the name was
changed to Ibibio State Union so that it might accommodate all the member clans
of Ibibio land - whether on the mainland or on the seaboard. But it is very
unfortunate that the cohesion has not been maintained to our satisfaction. Today
the people talk of Efik, Annang, Own and Ibibio as if they could force on all the
component parts the status of a tribe. Such an attempted division is neither historical
nor actual and is only a canker that is tending to undo our national strength.

But who are the Ibibio? Earlier, Jeffreys (1927) had played down the thesis that the
Ibibio had migrated from far-off-lands in Africa to their preseat homelands. He concluded:

There are no legends or traditions of origin among the Ibibio. They have been long
enough in the Forest belt to haveforgotten the stories of their origin. (Jeffreys, 192 7,
p. 28)

Although this idea is gradually gaining support, as we shall see later, stories of

80
 , .cient migrations to Ibibioland are by no means dead among the people themselves. This
>n fact has been the basis of much divisiveness and political unrest in the area

Ibibio Traditions of Origin and Ethnic Relations

Information about Ibibio origins is highly speculative and varied. Available

traditional sources suggest that the earliest stock of the Ibibio included the Afaha clan
whose ancestral home is believed to be Usak Edet in South-western Cameroon and that
there are strong cultural similarities between the Ibibio and the Bakoko of Southern
Cameroon (Noah, 1980a). It is suggested that the highland regions of this part of Africa
may have been a major centre of human evolution on the continent (Dike, 1956).

The Ibom Centre of Migration Hypothesis

It is further suggested that the Ibibio people migrated from these eastern parts of their
present homeland in two major directions. One group may have reached what is now the
Ibibio Mainland by an overland route and settled at Ibom in Arochukwu formerly an Ibibio
territory but now Ibo. Noah (1980b), on the authority of an earlier reference by Jeffreys
(1927) states that the Ibibio lived in Arochukwu (South-eastern border of Iboland)
probably between A.D. 1300 and 1400 and for a long time maintained a famous shrine
called Long Juju of Arochukwu at that place. But this latter suggestion is discounted by
Aye (n.d) on the grounds that the Ibibio have no such tradition nor practice of such a cult.
Many scholars however continue to press the viewpoint of a centre of Ibibio dispersion
from the village of Ibom in Arochukwu to other parts of the present Ibibioland, (Akwa
Ibom State). It is thought that the people of present-day Abak, Uyo and Ikot Ekpene who
are described as Eastern Ibibio or Ibibio proper might have migrated from that cradle,
although as we shall see later, the structural layout of their clans today hardly supports this
viewpoint.
There are other Ibibio who, according to another version of the migration story, seem
to have reached the Mainland by sea from the east, presumably Cameroon. Among these
would be the Oron, Eket, and Andoni people who upon arrival at the seaboard may have
advanced northward until they came up against the eastern Ibibio expanding southward.
Indeed the Rev. Groves (1930) of the Methodist Mission suggested that the Annang or
Western Ibibio migrated northward from a place near Opobo by the creeks of the Cross
River estuary. He based his contention on the observation that the general tendency in the
province had been one of northward pressure. But such a trend would have been too recent
to be considered as part of a general movement among the early Ibibio settlers.

Original Ibibio Homeland and Environs

Geographically, the presumed migration of the Ibibio from the south-western

highlands of Cameroon to the Lower Cross River Basin may have occurred through two
natural gaps - the Benue and Mamfe Troughs. The Niger-Benue area today is a region of
great cultural diversity and complexity; but the geological history of the south-eastern
lowlands shows that only the Oban Massifs and Adamawa Highlands stood above the sea
that invaded this part of Africa during the Eocene period. This suggests that the Lower
Cross River Basin might have remained under the sea for 'a long time' (Dessau and
Whiteman, 1972).

81
 Even in comparatively recent times the physical environment has presented many
obstacles to free movement of people. At the time of the early migrations ofthelbibio there
must have been a high forest which at its primeval stage would have been a very difficult
environment. There was also a trough through which the Enyong creek now flows. This
lowland with marshes and seasonal floods could not haveofferedahospitable environment
to the early settlers. Besides even though the people must have adjusted themselves to the
riverine environment, the Cross River and its numerous tributaries would almost certainly
have been formidable barriers rather than points of contact and interaction between the
Ibibio and the original people who may have earlier occupied the land. As all these
constraints lie to the south and south-west of the little village of Ibom where tradition has
it that the Ibibio first lived, it is difficult to reconstruct the path through which the Ibibio
'fled', as it were, from war with the local people to their present homeland in the south.
All that can be said is that they managed to avoid these obstacles.

The Alternative Ikono Centre of Dispersion Hypothesis

A more plausible and acceptable hypothesis ofthelbibio migration is that proposed

by Jones (1963) who suggests that the cradle ofthe Ibibio people lies somewhere between
Abak and Uyo government stations of Akwa Ibom State. In the words of Jones.

A study ofthe present distribution ofthe Ibibio tribes suggests an early scatter of
the Ibibio over an area extendingfrom Arochukwu in the north, Ika on the west and
Own in the south. This was followed by a massive dispersal north and south from
a centre somewhere between the present Abak and Oyo government stations and a
differentiation into Annang (Western) and Ibibio (Eastern). (Jones, 1963, p. 31).

Unfortunately Jones did not proceed any further to highlight this point beyond these
few verbal statements. Ntukidem (1977) tookup the issue some years later to examine the
validity of Jones* assertion with the aid of structural hypotheses which rested on the
assumptions of constrained vis-a-vis unconstrained expansion ofthe Ibibio clans and
settlements from a common centre.
Granting that the bond of common ancestry, langi&oe, customs and culture may
preserve ephemeral unity of primary communities in therace of expansion, in the first
instance of constrained expansion in a conflict situation one should expect a restricted
movement in one and the same direction. The resultant spread would resemble a fan or
beam from a torchlight as in the case ofthe Ibom Origin hypothesis. In the second instance
of unconstrained expansion one may expect a circular growth of clans and settlements
resembling a diffusion pattern in ripples made by a stone dropped into apond or the spokes
of a wheel as in the case of Ikono centre hypothesis.
Distortions, of course may modify these ideal patterns especially where physical
obstacles restrict or obstruct the free movement of people, for example, where the
population of different segments of the community is confronted with unfriendly
neighbours and frequent wars.
Thus if the two hypothesized centres of dispersion at Ibom in Arochukwu and Ikono
between Abak and Uyo government stations have any meaning at all, the impact ofthe
movement of people would have been vividly recorded in the structure ofthe boundaries
and orientation ofthe different segments ofthe clans to the source region ofthe migration.

82
On the basis of this assumption the Ibom centre hypothesis has to be rejected on the ground
that the wedge or fan-shape layout of clans expected is not represented in the landscape
today. On the other hand the Ikono centre theory, the findings of which actually show at
least sixteen maj or clans believed to have derived their origin from a common centre, must
be accepted as a basis for further investigation.

The Evidence from Territorial Occupation by Ibibio Clans

Of the many Ibibio clans, Ikono presents a curious shape and significantly there are
portions of this sub-clan among the western, eastern, northern and southern Ibibio. It runs
in a north-west direction through the greatest length of Ibibioland. Its sub-clans are found
in Abak, Itu, Uyo, Etinan and Opobo local government areas. Directly north of the
assumed centre is Ibiono clan whose shape conforms to what should be expected under
the presumed centrifugal growth (sectors) from a common centre. The clan is wedge-like
in shape with its sharpest edge lying near the assumed origin. From here it stretches for
nearly 70 kilometres towards the Enyong Creek.
Outside Ibiono clan towards the north and north-east are Itam and Uruan clans which
also spread out in a fan or wedge-shape. Between these are smaller splinter clans of Etoi,
Oku and Efut. In the south-'easteni section two clans, Nsit and Iman stretch nearly the
same distances from the centre. Ibesikpo clan's southward projection is however arrested
by twos small intervening clans of Iwawa and Ndikpo. The south western section is made
up of Abak Ukanafim and Ndot among the most extensive clans and their arrest in the west
is suggestive of the high population and struggle for land. In the northwest, the layout
consists of severally broken up clans such as Abak, Ukanafun Afaha, Abako and Obong,
Annang which depict an outward growth from the presumed centre.
This visual evidence in support of the Ikono centre hypothesis gives credence to the
suggestion that the Ibibio had lived in their present homeland for a "very long time" and
casts doubts about the presupposition that the people began their migration from Ibom
further north of this point. Indeed, the observed pattern of clan distribution in Ibibioland
especially the long stretches of Ikono, Abak, Ibiono, Itam, Nsit, Iman and others from a
common centre could hardly have been achieved in only three hundred years as proposed
byTalbot(1926).

The Ibibio and their Neighbours

The nearest neighbours of the Ibibio are the Ibo (Igbo) to the northwest, Ijaw to the
southwest and Eflk to the southeast, with the Qua, Efut and Ekoi further away in the
northeast. Among these perhaps the Efik are their greatest adversaries. The Ibibio come
into conflict with Efik as they do business and interact with the latter in Metropolitan
Calabar, the seat of government and administration in the Cross River State.
The problem of Efik origin and descent is intimately linked with that of the Ibibio
pioneers. Weddell (1863), Goldie (1874), Talbot (1926) and more recently Forde and
Jones (1950) all concluded that the Efik are an Ibibio stock. The main evidence in support
of this view was that the Efik spoke a dialect of Ibibio. A cursory examination of the lexical
comparison of Ibibio dialects by the present writer seems to confirm this conclusion.

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 Table 2

Lexical Comparison of Words in Ibibio Dialects

Eagiish Ibibio Efik Oron Eket

God Abasi Abasi Abasi Abasi

man eden eren Onwieni Aniniewe
woman anwowan nwan Utangayo Mbaba
me ami ami omi amei
you afo afo ofu afe
one kied kiet ki kiang
two iba iba iba iba
three ita ita ita ita
four inang inang iniang iniang

Source: Author's Field Study, (June, 1986).

A study of other aspects of the dialect would have been appropriate and even more
illuminating. As we have noted earlier, however, language is not always a conclusive
evidence of descent since it can be easily adopted by neighbouring peoples. For example
the place of the Oron and Eket sub-groups in particular is not clear with respect to the
language criterion as the comparisons above indicate, for these latter sub-groups of the
Ibibio speak dialects that are somewhat distinct. Could distance from the parent stock have
been a factor in the differences?
The most comprehensive and fairly recent account of Efik origin and descent is
probably that contained in a Report by the Commission set up by the Government of the
erstwhile Eastern Nigeria to investigate the Obongship (traditional kingship of Calabar)
dispute. In the Report submitted by the sole Commissioner, Hart (1964) at least five
different accounts were provided by different interest groups.
It would be superfluous in a single paper such as this to narrate all the various
accounts. In reconciling them, however, three points clearly emerge. Firstly, all but one
mention Ibom in Arochukwu and Uruan in Eastern Ibibio as major centres of dispersion
of the Efik. The people seem to have run into trouble first in Arochukwu.

The Aros wanted the Efik immigrants to worship their Longjuju called Ibritam
Chuku but the Efik refused and said they were worshippers of Abasi Ibom (i.e. Ibom
god). The Aros asked them to get away from their town if they were not prepared
to worship Ibritam and so a religious dispute arose (Hart, 1964, p. 59)

Secondly, the last major ethnic group among whom the Efik lived in fairly recent
times were the Ibibio (possibly at Uruan) from whom they may have acquired the name
Efik meaning "oppressors" or "Those that oppress others" (Noah, 1980a, p. 6, 10).
Thirdly the majority of the Efik once lived in Creek Town (Okurotunko) by the creeks of
the great bend of the Calabar river estuary, from where they finally settled in the city states
of Old Calabar namely, Old Town (Obutung), Duke Town (Atakpa) and Henshaw Town
(Nsidung).

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 It would seem that what has gained currency in the traditions of origin of the Efik
is part of their recent history in which a section of Greater Ibibio clans crossed what may
have been a great barrier, the Cross River, to the left bank where they came into contact
with the Qua, Efut, Ekoi and other ethnic groups which were culturally different from their
own. Up till this day the Efik still pay homage to the Qua people (Noah, 1980a).
It is significant that there is a deviant contribution to stories of Efik origin and
descent by Afigbo (1965) who following a suggestion by Amaku(1949) concluded that
the Efik are an Ibo stock, not Ibibio at all. Amaku's contention was that the Efik clans are
the result of an intermarriage between an Ibo man, Okorafo, and an Ibibio woman, Atong
Ama, both of whom lived in Eket in Ibibio land. The Ibibio traditionally named their
children after their mothers, not their fathers, perhaps due to the polygamous nature of the
society.
Presumably, the claims of Ibo ancestry of the Efik originated from the belief that
their Ibibio neighbours once occupied an area inhabited by Arochukwu Ibo. Alternatively
the claim may have been inspired by the fact that the Ibo were, and still are, a commercially
and politically important group in the southeastern part of Nigeria, and such a claim could
be regarded as a plea on the part of the Efik for acceptance by a group that controls the
wealth of the region. Of course the claim that the Efik originated in Egypt or Palestine
(Aye, 1967) is too romantic and far too tenuous to be taken seriously. This may equally
have been an attempt to link the people, particularly the yellow-skinned Efik, with some
caucasoid peoples of North Africa, Palestine and neighbouring regions.

Retrospect

This study has not resolved all the naughty issues of the origin and descent of the
Ibibio, Efik and related ethnic groups in South-eastern Nigeria. It has however thrown
more light on what would otherwise have been obscure about their traditions of origin
which were the basis of their divisiveness. From the evidence adduced, it cannot be said
with absolute certainty that Ibom in Arochukwu, now dominated by the Ibo was the
starting point of a major migration of the Ibibio or, for that matter, the Efik. But the Ikono
centre hypothesis of migration seems to have a stronger appeal as evidenced by the present
day structural layout of Ibibio clans. Not surprisingly, the New Akwa Ibom State was
named after the presumed cradle of Ibibio descent, Ibom. However Uyo the present-day
cultural, economic and political nerve centre of the Ibibio clans near Ikono, was also
chosen as the State Capital.
The decision seems to give credence to the view that history or historical research
may illuminate tradition, but it can hardly be the other way round. In Nigeria today there
is a strong correlation between the boundaries of the several new States and ethnic nations
of the pre-colonial era, the best examples being the Hausa-Fulani States of Kano, Bornu,
Sokoto and Kebbi the Yoruba states of Lagos, Ogun, and Oyo, the Ibo States of Imo,
Anambra and Abia. In the same vein Akwa Ibom State is coterminous with Ibiobio ethnic
group although the same cannot be said of the multi-ethnic state of the present-day Cross
River.

CONCLUSION

There are now thirty states within the Federal Republic of Nigeria and it is still too
premature to suggest that the present divisions into states are final. Certainly there are still

85
a few pockets of continued agitation from various ethnic groups, a situation which has
been resisted by the present military regime. Irrespective of the final outcome of the
agitations, one thing has become very clear. The creation of states on the basis of ethnicity
has become a critical element in the surge towards new focal points for regional and local
development in the country away from the old capital of Lagos and the new one at Abuja.
The numerous state capitals because of their newly acquired political importance
give new orientation to transportation, communication, economic and population flows
in the country, and thus reduce the blighted effects of urban primacy or the concentration
of a disproportionate amount of national development in a single national city which is
the political capital, the chief port as well as the industrial centre. In terms ofNigeria's total
development, the increasing spatial integration represented by the evolution of numerous
growth points or centres comprising the state capitals, and their interaction during the next
few decades must command attention. The extent to which the existing states in Nigeria
will remain viable depends to a large extent on the development of internal cohesion
within them. Past experiences indicate that internal cohesion in many states hinges on two
primary conditions:

1) The extent to which legislation and practices in any particular state reflect the
cultural aspirations of all parts.

2) The extent to which available resources in each state are distributed equally
among the various parts. (Adejuyigbe, 1983).

Indeed some of the present states in Nigeria comprise more than one ethnic group
so that the multi-cultural states wJKiave to pay attention to the needs of the different ethnic
groups which make up their population. In particular the largest and dominant ethnic
group will have to guard against the temptation of passing legislations which reflect only
their own practices and aspirations or adopting state symbols and other features that are
important to their own section of the state. These are essential safeguards against
disaffection within the state.
Moreover, the multi-cultural state should avoid the concentration of a disproportionate
amount of development in areas of one ethnic group. In this regard special attention must
be paid to the minorities in the state because all over the country, and indeed all over the
world, people wish to preserve their territorial integrity, social cohesion and cultural
values which are often traced to their ancestry.

86
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89