History of Ebra People

HISTORY OF EBIRA

Record have it that the early history of the Ebira dated back to the sixteenth century (Circa 1500) when the defunct Kwararafa Kingdom which migrated from Egypt and the Sudan
Region. Was a flourishing empire that engaged in fierce wars of ethnic conquest with the Fulani Jihadists of the Usman
Danfodio fame and the war moguls of the El-Kanemi Kingdom of the Borno empire. The Ebira Tao People were also involved in this war of conquest with Benis. It is on record that the Ebira Tao People under their then war commander, Ataru Omadivi, victoriously repelled the Fulanis and the Benis for details, see the unpublished M. A. thesis of Y. A. Ibrahim (1968 and 1993 essay ) and the account given by A.H. Groom (1904). This three-prolonged war late proved to be decisive in shaping the present identities and destinies of what the colonial administrators referred to as the minority pagan tribes that constituted the Jukun, Idoma, Tiv, Angas, Ebira, Igala and Igarra sub-ethnic stocks. Together, they made up the then Kwararafa Kingdom. These minority ethnic groups were said to be largely pagans before their large-scale conversion by the Muslim and Christian missionaries. They  were said to be pagans because by the tradition of the ancestors, they neither embraced Islam nor Christianity. Essentially, according to available accounts, they worshipped the deities and consulted the oracles as their original religion before the advent of Islam and Christianity. It is of interest to mention that this war of attrition among the natives of these dominant kingdoms was the order of the day before the advent of the British colonialists. The Fulani’s, the Kanuri’s and the Benis constituted the major spearhead of the invading warriors.

Resenting the central administrative authority of the Jukuns in the Wukari area of the Kwararafa Kingdom, the Ebiras like the other disparate ethnic groups, migrated again under their leader whose actual personal name has remained contentious up to date, though one account had it that he was called Ebira. Under the anglicized version, he was called and spelt Igbirra. The name had in the seventies assumed its proper dialectical meaning and spelling, Ebira. This is the name or the form that will be used throughout this book, except where it is being referred to in a quotation extracted from records. The change was officially made and gazette under the public notice issued by the then Military Governor, Brigadier George Innih in the then Kwara State. The Ebiras migrated frequently and at different times from one unsuitable spot to another as an expression of their resentment against tyrannical rule, among other reasons. In the case of the former reason, they did so in order to free themselves from the resented bondage and clutches of the Jukuns. They headed southward before the end of the sixteenth century. See Paula Brown (1955), Y. A. Ibrahim (1968) and E.D. Ahmadu (1974). In the course of this “ethnic war of independence” within and amongst the constituent natives of the Kwararafa Kingdom, the six ethnic groups and their fellow travelers moved extensively in deferent directions south of the Sahara. The six Ebira ethnic groups, according to oral history, are given as follows:

1.     The Ebira Tao, or Ebira Ehi of Kogi and Kwara States,

2.     The Ebira Igu or the Ebira Koto, of Kogi State,

3.     The Ebira Agatu of Benue State,

4.     The Ebira Etuno of Edo State,

5.     The Ebira Panda or Ebira Umasha. Of Nasarawa State,

6.     The Ebira Oje or Ebira Toto of Plateau State.

In the course of this migration in search of local self-rule and independence, as well as suitable farmland, the Ebiras shared common experience and agonies with their Igala, Tiv, Umasha, Idoma, Ebira Panda, Angas and Igarra (the Ebira Etuno) brothers and sisters of the Kwararafa stock who were fleeing for new found land north and south of the River Benue and Niger. Like war-afflicted refugees, they collectively fled in droves towards the fertile banks of Rivers Benue and Niger, and the wet Savannah lands where pasture and aquatic life were rich, and the topography identical to that which they were leaving behind in their original Sudan Region and Kwararafa Kingdom respectively. In this way, some of the migrants settled at deferent spots, first among the Tivs and Idomas and later the Igalas in Idah of the present Kogi State; then among the Angas and Nasarawa people of Nasarawa State. This early group of migrants was left behind by the Ebira-Koto and the Ebira Tao people of Kogs State. Nowhere in these transit settlements did the Ebiras accept the authority of their hosts. They resented them and moved away from their territories. Neither were they ever conquered by their hosts wherever they migrated to look for new settlements. At Idah, they had their own ancestral father and political leader called Ebira.

            In the Edo State, the Igarras were the Ebira extractions who fled the Kwararafe Kingdom, and after crossing the River Niger together, left behind their kith and kin who were the Ebira Tao in Okene, Adavi, Ajaokuta and Okehi LGAs of Kogi State. It is of interest to ote the similarity in name between kwararafa Kingdom and the defunct Kwara Local Government, later named Kogi State. Bothe terms were derived from the Hausa name for a ‘river’ called ‘Kogin kwara’ (See Report of the Ahman Pategi Committee on Administrative Reforms, 1968 in the Kwara State of Nigeria).

            In all the places they traversed, the Ebiras left behind their erstwhile Jukuns brothers and sisters with whom they had hitherto lived together and shared a common language. Each of the six Ebira sub-ethnic groups derives its language from a corruption of the same Ebira mother tongue, with slight variations in accents, diction and etymology. Those of them not contented with the geography and traditional occupation of the new settlements, migrated further south to Ebira Pete and later to Okene/Okengwe in present-day kogi State and Igarra in Edo State. The route followed by the different Ebira migrant groups probably commenced in the Sudan and Egyptian regions; thence from Wukari, Ibi and Kunga in Gongola State and then proceeded southward into the Savannah plains of Plateau, particularly through Lafia to Nasarawa and Toto. It looks off again from Nasarawa and Toto and proceeded to the banks of River Niger at Lokoja, Koton Karfe, Idah, Itobe and Ajaokuta from where it branched off at Ebira Pete before it terminated first at Ebira Pete in Eganyi and later at Okengwe for the Ebira-Okene (Tao) dialectical groups, while it finally terminated at Igarra in Edo State for the Igarra-speaking group whose mother tongue is a corruption of the original Ebira-Kwararafa race.

            These distinctive settlement patters are found among and traceable first to the Sudan and Egypt regions; then among the Jukuns of Gongola State, the Ebira Totos of Nasarawa and Toto town in Nasarawa and Plateau States, the Ebria Pandas among the Idomas of Benue State, the Ebira Koto of Koton Karfe and Lokoja, as well as the Ebira Tao in Okene, Adavi, Ajaokuta and Okehi Local Government Areas of Kogi State, and then the Ebira-Igarra of Edo State.

            Encompassing the different territories through which the routes of migration passed and ended, these Ebira sub-groups collectively represent what today may be called the Ebira Race or the Ebira Linguistic Group (ELG) of Nigeria. One of Nigeria’s foremost statesmen and original thinkers, the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, made a strong case for the regrouping of the six Ebira Linguistic Group (ELG) as thus defined, as a single homogeneous state in the formula he postulated in the relevant chapter of his book entitled The People Republic of Nigeria (1968, Pp 211-2530