ABUJA: There is no doubt that the recent spate and shape of insecurity, with its attendant rampant killings, kidnappings and rape in Ika land is alien to Ika people. This growing ugly development which has taken a very worrisome dimension, needs to be checked by all well meaning ikas, agencies and organs of government.
Time was in Ika land, when people can go to bed and sleep with their two eyes closed, but not anymore. The invaders of Ika land, that go by all kinds of names, have indeed murdered sleep in our land.
They have come to kill, maim and take over our land through systematic dispossession of the land and means of livelihood of our people; businesses of all sorts are closing down daily, for fear of being killed or kidnapped. There is indeed palpable fear in the air and in the hearts of the people of Ika land.
It is noteworthy to understand that the major means of survival of an average Ika man is agriculture. Farming, which used to be a major source of income and employment for our people have now become a death or suicide venture. Countless Ika men and women have been murdered in Abavo, Mbiri, Ute Okpu, Owa, Umunede to mention but a few. Need we mention the incessant raping of our women and girls by these same mindless assailants? So many are officially reported while others go unannounced due to fear of being killed or fear of another attack.
It all began at about 2014 when Ika land started witnessing the influx of strangers with their cattles, with their usual business-like posture and proposals. Ordinarily, the strangers are very loving peaceful people especially those of Nigerian extraction.
This confusion understandably, stems from the fact that both dress alike and share same religion and then share a common general language in most cases. Commerce has ever remained, a big catalyst to development of every people, region and tribe when there is no crime.
In almost all villages, towns and cities in Ika land, Commercial Motor Bike “Okada Riding” is a major means of transportation and employment for the youths. Today, most if not virtually all Okada riders in Ika land are strangers. These our Youths are able bodied young men who really want to make ends meet. But the strangers come in their droves, in trailers, taking over the land. This, again is not a bad development, when in actual fact, crime is not involved. All over the world, people migrate, but there are always checks and balances, dos and don’ts.
Other trades, which used to be very lucrative for Ika people, such as shoe making have been taken over by foreigners in Ika land. I know of a very great Ika man who through shoe making, trained all his children to University level, out which some are captains of Industries today.
The Ika people are communal peace loving people who are given to hospitality, almost loving strangers even more than their own. This cultural nature, seems to be working against security in Ika land. Before now, once you have one well off Ika man in a family, such will take over children from his or her siblings, live with and train them in one trade or the other and sometimes in school up to the University level. Today, in Ika land, what do we have? Hausa houseboy or Hausa housegirl from the North, Iron condemn from Niger Republic without any accurate data and base.
Growing up in Ika land and due to our communal nature, a young Ika boy will have group of farming friends ranging from two to sometimes fifty. Through a rotational system called “iye ohu” the fifty or whatever number will go to one youth father’s farm today, to another tomorrow, until the circle is completed. In the farm, while working, networking is made, healthy academic and otherwise competition followed, age grouping is established and this was a very enjoyable venture as it helped builded our youths then, strengthening and giving them direction in life.
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These noble and healthy lifestyle have now given way to yahoo yahoo and all sorts of rituals thus heightening insecurity in our Ika land. Need we blame it on the foreigners in our land? No. Our Youths and Parents of Ika land who believe in making money without hardwork and handiwork have the chunk of the blame.
Again, take a tour of our towns and Villages in Ika land, you will see strangers gather in clusters with all sorts of farming tools and implements waiting to be hired and taken to work or farm for pay. Legitimately looking for a means of livelihood is very good and tolerable if only it does not lead to crime.
Most worrisome is that most of these strangers hardly have a known place of abode, no rented houses, no addresses, they are just let loose moving from one place to another.
These strangers in our land are very strategic, subtle and somewhat submissive with a sole target and aim of dispossessing unsuspecting indigenous people of their lands and other natural heritage. Until, that is achieved, they will remain loyal, no matter how long it takes.
One of the other mistakes of our Ika people is in their God given ability, which is that of commerce. A lot of the nobles of Ika land due to their love for business, started to cojoin with the strangers trading in Cattles and even going to the extent of owning cattles and other businesses. L
et us not forget the fact that before these people invaded our land, Ika people had their own kind of Bull or Cow popularly called “efi” which was more meaty and fatty. Ika people were noted for rearing goats domestically, thus not having any need whatsoever for the present day cattle.
Certainly, cattle is a very good source of meat and rearing of cattle is a very lucrative and legitimate good business but there must be a divide, a well defined and coordinated definition and boundary between the cattle rearers and the farmers, so as to avoid a situation of a yam farmer storing his harvest in a goat house.
The farmers must have their farm secured while the cattles must be tamed and trained to feed on grasses not yams and cassava and tomatoes ready and due for harvest.
It is a well know fact that land is a highly priced and valued asset that people bequeath to their generations hence, you will agree with me that it becomes a very last resort for an average Ika man to sell his land. Today, what do we have, our Ika lands are being sold these days to strangers to build and occupy without any proper investigation and documentation to the extent of the strangers having a known and established quarter or area carved out for them.
Our forefathers who made us to live amongst ourselves did so for the mere purposes of communism and love established through living with and knowing one another.
This is a system, that the Banks call KYC and the government of Nigeria always advise us on “See something, say something” Before now, it was very easy to see something to be able to say something simply because people of different tribes and nation even religion co-existed by living amongst themselves.
Naturalization is permissible by the laws of Nigeria hence our people of Ika land must understand that you cannot after certain years begin to come up and call someone who paid you for your land a stranger.
What about our value and cultural system. Before now, our forefathers believed in polygamy so as to breed many children for farming purposes but due to its inherently associated problems, occasioned by the natural nature of women and jealousy and also civilization, the Ika people narrowed down to monogamy and also by implication reduced the number of children.
Gone are the days when one Ika man had twelve children. But this is not so with our strangers. They purely and truly believe in polygamy and have as many children as possible. There is no doubt that our religious and cultural differences often breed insecurity.
What do we do? Must we continue to lament and see our Ika people being murder daily? Must we take up arms and take laws into our hands? The answer is certainly no, as violence breeds no good.
Our Government, from Local to State must rise up to the occasion of securing her people. This is a primary role of government. Why will any serious government in power from Local to State fold her arms and watch the governed being slaughtered like chicken on daily basis. The primary role of the Police is to maintain law and order and peace.
The government should equip our police more, strengthen them and possibly add to their pay and personnel. Our local vigilante groups should be encouraged to put in more effort in helping to curb this growing menace since more than the police they are more knowledgeable of their terrain.
Ika Parents should go back to the basics and rudiments of proper upbringing of their children and begin a very conscious re-orientation of their children’s minds from make-money-quick syndrome, making their children to realize that crime does not pay.
No matter how we see the hands of strangers in the crimes and killings in Ika land, we must realize that no stranger solely successfully commits heinous crimes without due collaboration with indigenous people of the land.
Parents should be able to ask their children the source of their wealth and not just celebrate them and rejoice that their children are making it without questioning or knowing when sudden prosperity came to them.
The Youths of Ika land must shun crime and yahoo yahoo as there is no difference in crime, all crimes are related and interwoven and all lead to insecurity.
To the Kings and nobles of Ika land, a lot have been placed on you by both God and humanity hence our Ika kings must stop giving chieftaincy titles to them whose source of wealth is not clearly defined. This singular acts, sends dangerous signals to our up coming children and our Youths, making them believe that if you make it any how, you will be celebrated.
There should be a deliberate and conscious move to bring back our communal culture. Make strangers to live amongst us not amongst themselves. It is very dangerous to have a town in a town and two kings in one town. It is absurd and against Ika culture and nature. There is an old long saying in Ika land that two kings cannot be on a throne at the same time. And the English man will always say that two captains don’t paddle a ship.
On sale of lands, it is a well known fact that needs must arise and people must sell their lands. This is legitimate and normal but it must be done with caution and a very big caution at that. Time may come when our Youths who are now refusing to bend over and learn the rudiments of life, whom their fathers are selling their lands so as to send them abroad,
[I even hear some even sell houses and compounds where their ancestors were buried] will after making money, and making it big time, which we pray for, knowing the industrious nature of our Ika Youths, will come back and want to reclaim their already sold lands. It is already happening in some parts of Ika land.
This needs to be curbed as a way of fighting insecurity in the future by merely doing a land lease of maybe fifty to sixty five years. The new Asagba of Asaba has began implementing this already. State and Federal Government only leases land for ninety nine years, so why are our Ika people selling their lands to strangers outrightly. This should stop.
The need for the establishment of ranches cannot be over emphasized. No matter how we see it, cattles must eat grass and anything seemingly for as long as these class of animals have rumen. So any government or King that encourages free movement of cattle in our bushes and homes is indirectly encouraging herders/ farmers clashes as no herder will tolerate seeing his cattle being killed because it destroyed or ate up farm crops.
In the same vane, no farmer will sit down and watch cattle destroy and eat up his or her crops. If the government at the national, state and local level lacks the will power to implement this, wisdom demands that our Kings and Chiefs should be able to sit on a peace table to amicably agree on ranches.
There is need for the reintroduction of goat rearing in Ikaland. It used to be a huge investment and means of livelihood then until our Ika kings started banning the domestication of our poor goats. This will go a long way in reducing the fracas and monopoly in the meat market in Ikaland.
Proper census and documentation of each and every stranger must be taken before admitting them into our towns and Villages. This is not difficult to do in Ika land. Once any stranger comes to rent your house, do due diligence, report your findings to the King and then live in peace with them.
Till date, we have strangers in my town whose great grand father migrated to our place, lived well and till date no one sees or refers to them as strangers. It is only through their surnames you will know or suspect their origin. Well known strangers will hardly want to commit crime to as much as killings, to the magnitude we have it in Ika land today.
There is a rising surge and clamp down on the strangers who engage in iron condemn, Mai Boola and that line of business due to the inherent abuses that are now associated with it and their operators. Our Ika leaders should follow modern trend if not wholistically, modify it to suit our culture and people. Our elders have a saying that before the advent of clothing, our people did not use the banana leave for covering. Our indigenous sons and daughters can still ride Okada, there is no crime in it if that will give us the needed peace and security.
Conclusively, mention must be made here that this rising insecurity is not limited to Ika land but national. Let Ika people leverage on the experience and solutions of other towns and Villages to find solutions to the incessant killings in Ika land whether it is being perpetrated by strangers or ika sons and daughters. Crime remains crime just as criminals remain criminals.
Let us not always forget to pray and keep praying for our Ika land that peace, absolute peace will return to Ika land. O Lord, heal our peace loving Ika land.
Dr. Sunny Azuka Nkwor
Is A Concerned Ika Son
