Tor Tiv’s verdict on Akume
It is on record that the Tiv people were the last major ethnic group to be subdued by the British in their bid to colonize the countryside which they later renamed Nigeria. The stubborn resistance to foreign rule led Lord Lugard to launch frequent military expeditions against the Tiv. The most devastating one was staged […]
It is on record that the Tiv people were the last major ethnic group to be subdued by the British in their bid to colonize the countryside which they later renamed Nigeria. The stubborn resistance to foreign rule led Lord Lugard to launch frequent military expeditions against the Tiv. The most devastating one was staged in 1903 following a serious unrest at Abintse, a trading post on the outskirts of present day Makurdi, the Benue State Capital. He assembled a military force with armaments that had never been put together in British administered Africa.
The Tiv race – armed with spears, arrows and sticks – would have been wiped out by the sheer superior force of Lugards military juggernaut. Fortunately, an Islamic cleric of revolutionary disposition, by the name Attahiru, started a revolt against the British in Sokoto. Lord Lugard suspended the Tiv expedition and moved his troops to Sokoto. When he later sought parliamentary approval for funds needed to wipe out the Tiv people, the British Parliament invited Lugard to London and subjected him to a long session of questioning. At the end of it all, his request was thrown out. My History teacher at Ibadan University, Professor Obaro Ikime, has a well documented report of the foiled 1903 massacre.
Stiff resistance to foreign conquest was one thing; the absence of an all powerful traditional ruler – in the tradition of Emirs – by this northern tribe was another thing that perplexed the British about the Tiv people. At a time when the colonialists who were short of funds and decided to use traditional rulers in the ‘indirect rule’ formula to save costs, nothing could be more disturbing. A combination of these two factors led the British colonialists and their not too bright intellectuals to conclude that the Tiv people are by nature nihilists. The solution was for the British to create a central leader, the Tor Tiv in 1946. Today, there couldn’t have been a better way of questioning the wisdom of the British colonial administrators who took that decision than in the conduct of Tor Tiv, Akawe Torkula in his ongoing political quarrel with Senator George Akume, a former Governor of Benue State.
The Tor Tiv first issued a press statement on the 19th March saying that Sen. George Akume led an invasion of his palace by Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN party stalwarts while he was away in London for medical treatment. According to him, the invading party rained abuses on him when palace guards told them he was not in. He demanded an apology from the ‘invader’ in chief.
On 25th March, he convened Jir Tamen – the Supreme Court of the Tiv nation – and summoned George Akume to come and tender an apology to him. I have read a verbatim report of his thundering speech against Akume at the Jir Tamen and it is the greatest evidence that the Tor Tiv is an institution of doubtful relevance in Tiv culture today.
I have never seen any traditional ruler hold court in the manner the Tor Tiv did on 25th March. There was no evidence to show that he invited Akume to defend himself before he issued a press statement virtually convicting him. And when he invited him to the Jir Tamen, it was not for Akume to defend himself against accusations; it was for him to tender an apology. By Tiv tradition and Nigerian law, an accused person is innocent until he has been proven guilty. Akume was pronounced guilty even before he was put on trial!
Worse still, Tor Tiv’s rambling speech at that Jir Tamen was unbecoming from a ruler of his class. It contained an inelegant and even vulgar phrase. I have met many Emirs in the north under extreme provocation; but I have always admired their composure – their regal bearing and genial disposition.
Tor Tiv’s speech on that day also contained some factual errors. He swore the swem juju which the Tiv people buried in his palace will deal with Akume and his party, the ACN; that they will never win elections in Tiv land. One of his reasons is that Akume led non Tiv people to see the sacred Tiv juju. The irony of this curse is that majority of Tiv people are Christians and have thrown away their juju since Christianity came to Tiv land in 1911 – 100 years ago.
The curse has become a sick joke to most Tiv people. To those who believe in swem juju, the argument goes that the Tor Tiv has rendered the one in his house impotent by virtue of being married to a non Tiv woman who lives in the palace and is well exposed to it than Akume and his fellow invaders.
The problem now is: what if Akume, and his ACN party, wins the elections? Will the Tor Tiv commit hara-kiri, go into exile or curse his swem juju?
Yawe is former Managing Director of Adamawa Press Ltd [email protected]