Ipole Owukpa: Caught in Between a Glorious Past and Frustrating Times

As one leaves the affluence of Abuja through the suburbs of the Federal Capital Territory, leading to Benue State en-route Nasarawa state, the living conditions of the people that inhabit settlements by the highways along these states contrast sharply with the basic social amenities that abound for residents of Abuja. As one approached Owukpa, an […]

As one leaves the affluence of Abuja through the suburbs of the Federal Capital Territory, leading to Benue State en-route Nasarawa state, the living conditions of the people that inhabit settlements by the highways along these states contrast sharply with the basic social amenities that abound for residents of Abuja.

As one approached Owukpa, an Idoma community, through the rough and un-tarred roads from Otukpa, the headquarters of Ogbadibo local government area, pockets of people can be seen coming out of what can be qualified as a forest of trees.

The houses are almost ‘buried’ under the ubiquitous trees that covered the mountainous Owukpa community, and by 1:35pm, it was like nightfall at Owukpa. Apparently, the villagers are outnumbered by palm, mango and cashew trees.

“Here, the trees protect us from the sun until we move out of here to either the stream or our farms,” said Mama Ene, a mother of seven. The fruits of the palm trees, which is processed into palm oil and transported to different parts of the country, have enhanced the economy of the people.

Also, the sweetness and refreshing taste of palm wine that is in abundance in the area has energised farming activities, earning the region the name; ‘the food basket of the Nation.’

“Mangoes, cashews, oranges, white apple and kolanuts have not only prevented diseases and malnutrition from creeping into the village but have satisfied the dietary demands of the people.” The trees are the greatest treasure we have here,” said Emmanuel Odeh, a trained banker and associate member of the London School of Bankers, who is resident in the village.

According to Odeh, who is in his late 60s, Owukpa is blessed with so much wealth both on the surface and underground. “Coal is called fossil fuel because it was formed from the remains of vegetations hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years ago.”

Owukpa has been both a place of hope and a place of despair. The ray of hope is the trees that bear fruits for them to survive. The despair is in the disappearance of the working class, with the workers and their families unhappy that the coal mines that once provided employment for them and made their community stand tall from other less endowed areas, has now become a ghost. “Our livelihood is threatened by abject poverty,” said Odeh.

“The managers of the coalfield left the area without any explanations,” said another community leader who gave his name as Gabriel Unwaba Obe. Though, according to this man, the mining activities brought no development to the village, instead it left huge and long craters in the ground, which has merged with gully erosions.”

One can hardly make a distinction between the impact of gully erosion and the exploited underground mining fields which threaten the road that links the community to their farms and threaten to disconnect them from the East.

According to Odeh, though they regretted how the mining stopped, but if it had continued, the beautiful scenery as depicted in this report will be lost completely. “The trees that cover the village will be cut down and the river will be polluted, which would have created create sanitary problems and diseases.”

The people and their community…     

Many accounts have suggested that the Idoma people have lived in this region for at least four to five thousand years. They inhabit the lower and western areas of Benue State with kindred groups found in Kogi and Nasarawa States. The Idomas probably moved into the area from the far north along with the forbearers of the Yoruba, Bini, and Igbo peoples.

All of these people are said to belong to the Kwa family of languages, and linguists have been able to estimate separation times based on the differences in their individual languages as they began developing their own culture in relative isolation from their parent group.

The Idomas are known to be good warriors and hunters in the past and fishing has remained very important. However, they have redirected most of that prowess to farming; their staple crops are cassava, yams and taro, known locally as cocoa yams.

Suffice it to say here that Ipole Owukpa is a homogenous community, whose founding father is Amuche Onomo. He was a hunter who migrated from Ankpa in Kogi state around 1450, said Odeh, as we stood by a place believed to be the ancestors house.

Amuche is said to have had six children whose descendents formed the six clans of Owukpa community.

Women are seen carrying large fire woods and farm produce from the farms to the village on their heads. According to many of the women that spoke to our reporter, the men of Owukpa clear farmlands and engage more in farming activities while women work mainly to transport harvest either back home or to the markets.

The clash of civilizations…

Owukpa can be said to be divided into two when it comes to holding on to the values and traditions at the very heart of its existence. The younger generation are inclined to Christianity while the elders are still holding on to their ancestral beliefs, either openly or secretly. “In most cases they hide the rituals from us because we preach against it always,” said Dr. Benson Ogile, who works with an International donor agency.

 However, in the village, there is a shrine, which, according to Chief Godwin Agbo, “is very dear to the community.” A large tree called Egbe, stands tall at the Aje Owukpa shrine. Under the Egbe are heaps of calabashes and other items used for ritual purposes. Worshippers go there, seat on a gout-like chair and make incantations to the ancestors.

Also in each house there use to be a shrine. Today, “you only have it in few houses,” said Chief Agbo because the practice is gradually fading. “But it is sad,” he stated.

According to Odeh, the Aje Owukpa shrine is a replica of the Ten Commandments and people that have violated any of the laws are subjected to certain rituals. The Aje in each household is also significant to the family members. People sacrifice the first yam harvested every season to the gods in the shrine to start a prosperous season.

Interestingly, the house of Amuche, the founder of Owukpa, is another important spot in the village that is still revered by traditionalists. The road leading to Amuche’s house is divided into two in a V shape. One road for males, the other for females, No man dares to pass the road earmarked women and vice versa.

The lawbreakers are fined to appease the spirit of the ancestors. Though, currently, nobody lives there to arrest and prosecute the offenders, the old women and men in the village adhere strictly to the primordial traffic rules that preside over the road. 

Interestingly, however, a teenager, Ogbole Emmanuel, meaning the home keeper, a name given to persons born shortly after their father’s death, said he passed the road without paying attention to the rules. “I don’t believe in the gods. I am a good Christian,” he said.

The elders would consider Ogbole insane. They ascribe nonchalant attitude to the reasons the trouble that has befallen the present generation in the village “where disease, poverty and water scarcity are threatening the daily survival in the village with no cure to the problems in sight,” said one of the elders.

“If a man or woman had sexual relations that day or the night before he or she cannot follow the road or go to the house of Amuche, and even if there is no one living there now I still respect the rules for my own good,” said a woman in her late 50s.

A chief in the village, Gabriel Ukpuju, said he was not happy with the manner the youths, especially the educated ones, “have abandoned their rich traditional values.” According to him, the drying up of the Yari, the only stream in Owukpa, the major source of water, and the abject poverty and neglect by government “are as a result of our lack of respect for the wishes of our ancestors,” he said.

The neglect…   

During a round-table discussion with the community leaders in the village, the elders recounted their experiences during the civil war. They said their village located at the boundary with Enugu, was very strategic for the Nigerian Army during the civil war. “We still have nightmares of the war till date.”

Emmanuel Aba Ehje said he could recall when, from Ukallegu, a satellite community close to his village, Obolleke, a town in the Biafran territory was attacked and Major Chukwuma Nzeogu, the 1966 coup planner, was killed. In fact, it was from Uwukpa and environs that Nsukka and the rest of the Igboland came under heavy attack during the war.

Their village shares common boundary with Enugu and Ebonyi States, making it very strategic for Nigerian troops during the Biafran civil war in the late 60s. However, the war did not set the Idoma community with the rebellious neighbouring Igbo communities, as inter-marriages between the two ethnic groups have continued.

“We feel that, going by the importance of our town in securing the unity of Nigeria, and the potentials for agriculture and coal mines, our village deserves more,” said Odeh, adding that as at present “Owukpa is left to its fate, “Government has forgotten us, we dont have a functional health centre, the primary school has bad infrastructure with no instructional materials. No water and access road in our entire community,” Odeh stressed.

Owukpa, according to the community leaders, is derived from the phrase, Ayi-Okpa, meaning descendents of the water side. Their ancestors settled here because of the water but today the famous Yari and other surrounding streams is almost dried up, and they are not attributing the scarcity to climate change.

“The streams are drying up because people disrespect the laws of the streams, you will see women taking their bath, washing their under pants by the streams and surely, the gods will not be happy,” said Chief Agbo

Ene, Owoicho, a 10-year-old primary 4 pupil said one thing she hates is to go to Yari, which is over three kilometres from her house. “I do that almost every morning and I get so tired if I am in the class,” said the little girl.

The potential…

Coal is primarily used worldwide as a solid fuel to produce electricity and heat through combustion. The world’s coal consumption was about 6,743,786,000 shorttons in 2006 and it is expected to increase by 48% to 9.98 billion short tons by 2030 according to statistics.

68.7% of China’s electricity comes from coal. The USA consumes about 14% of the world’s total, using 90% of it for generation of electricity. South Africa and several other countries depend on coal to generate electricity. In fact about 40% of the world’s electricity comes from coal.

Recently, Acting President Goodluck Jonathan expressed government’s resolve to tow the line of other countries that use coal to generate electricity and if his words are put to practice, Owukpa and several other coalmining communities, would, ones again, come under the spotlight.

“There will be employment, there will be infrastructural development, there will be social corporate responsibility projects by the companies involved to defray the problems associated with mining communities all over the world,” said Odeh.

Beyond coal, there is a lot of potential in the able men and women of the area. There are a lot of potentials in agriculture, which is made idle by the lack of incentives like loans to the people to develop themselves and the economy as a whole.

In 1909, coal was discovered in Enugu State, Nigeria. However, the exploration of coal proper in the country began in 1916 with over 22 coal mining fields spread across 13 states. The operations and several others later were merged into a new corporation called the Nigerian Coal Corporation (NCC). The NCC was tasked with exploiting coal resources within the country and held a monopoly on coal and coke mining, production, and sales until 1999 when the wind of privatization in the country began to gradually divest government’s control in state enterprises. The proven reserves of coal total about 639 metric tons with another 2,750 metric tons in the inferred category. There were four major fields, the Okpara and Onyeama underground mines in Enugu State, the Aba surface mine in Kogi State and the Owukpa underground mine in Benue State.  However until the late 1960s, Nigeria’s coal supported the energy requirement of the country’s industrial sector, which included the Nigerian Railways, the Electricity Corporation of Nigeria, which is now Power Holding Company of Nigeria and Nigeria Cement Company. Coal was also used for domestic cooking and other industrial applications. Apparently, proceeds from coal played a significant role in the Nigerian economy but began to decline with the discovery of oil in commercial quantities in the 1950s. Then the civil war that occurred between 1967/70, which further hastened the demise of the sector when the mining fields were abandoned by people for fear of falling to the bullets of estranged countrymen. However, government has in resuming interest to resume effective exploration of solid minerals in Nigeria and it has backed the renewed interest with appropriate legislation. “This is goodness to the people of Ipole Owukpa,” a coal mining community in Ogbadibo local government area in Benue state, at the boundary with Enugu and Ebonyi States.

Conclusion…

Every year the Ipole Owukpa development association meets in April to discuss the way forward for the community. It is a meeting where every son and daughter living within and outside the country gather in their homestead. This year the meeting raised over N400,000.

“It is through such communal efforts that we constructed the road that brought you to our village,” said Dr Ojile who disclosed that this year, they are looking at how to buy a transformer for the entire village. The electricity project that started in 2000 was abandoned by the contractor had an inscription; FMPS/ICRE/6584/S.8/6qA.

According to the elders of the village, “they are the only ones that care,” said Chief Gabriel Unwaba Obe, adding that he did not think government knows that they exist because the community that has a population of nearly 40,000 with more than this figure in the 53 clusters of villages around, does not have a functional hospital “it’s very sad.”

It was time to go back to Abuja after spending a couple of days in the village and this reporter began to hear load gunshots. “What is happening?” He asked and a voice answered calmingly, “it is not a crisis, today may be the 3rd, 7th  or 14th day prayers for one of our elders that died in Kaduna and was brought home for burial,” said Odeh.

Owukpa announces the death of their prominent sons with gunshots. To also herald the beginning of the funeral rites and they fire guns immediately, the person is buried. The number of gunshots indicates one’s ego or that of his family, because the gun, which is made locally from wood and mixed with sulphur, is expensive to many of the poor villagers.