BENUE GUBER 2023: WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? Making a case for Gwer People

By Samuel Allen Zenke

Makurdi, Benue State. 

Where Do We Go From Here? is an open letter to the Tiv People on "Social Conditions and Administrative Re-organisations" written by Wantaregh Paul Iorpuur Unongo 51 years ago (1969).

I have read this "open letter" over and over, infact, more than a dozen times. Every chapter has a solution to our present situation in Tivland.

One of the major issues Wantaregh discussed in the open letter was the Tiv "autonomous divisions - intermediate areas". In the past, the Tiv People were divided into five "intermediate areas - Kwande (Kwande & Ushongo), Jechira (Vandeikya & Konshisha), Ukum-Shitile (Katsina Ala, Ukum & Logo) Jemgbar (Gboko, Buruku & Tarka) and Ichongo (Makurdi, Guma, Gwer East & Gwer West)" respectively. This arrangement created a lot of confusion, division, petty and clannish nationalism.

According to Unongo, "these funny arbitrary creations, which were introduced for purely administrative convenience became gradually interpreted by unprogressive Tiv Youths, who were afraid of open competition and who wanted to blackmail more clever Tiv political opponents of theirs, as genealogy demographs, cutting of "our real brothers and sisters" from "foreigners" - all of whom incidentally, were the children of the man Tiv, who had, according to the traditional history of our ancestry, only two sons - Ichongo and Ipusu."

Unongo, accordingly, expressed that "strangely enough, these clever confusionists never pointed out to the less educated Tivs, whom they were exploiting that included in some of the various so-called cleanly segregated blood relationship - kith and kin intermediate areas, were children of both Ichongo and Ipusu".

He cited the fact that the people of Turan, Ikyurav-Ya, Ikyurav-Tiev, Turan (Logo) and Ugondo (Logo) of Kwande and Ukum-Shitire were brothers of Sherev, Yonov, Injiriv, Tyoshin, Nongov, Utyondu, Ngyohov and Ugondo people from the Ichongo Intermediate Area. The old arrangement meant, the Ipusu had more political opportunities when zoning and rotating political positions in Tar Tiv. It was on this background that the present day intermediaries of Kwande, Sankera, Jemgbar, Jechira, Gwer and Lobi were birthed (created) to eliminate the old arrangement that was creating confusion and promoting selfishness, unpatriotic, and clannish nationalism  in Tar Tiv.

To eliminate the above mentioned, the Tiv administrative unit underwent reforms in the early 70s to correct these abnormalies and came back with a more inclusive robust structured administrative divisions with two pure Ichongo Intermediate Areas (Lobi and Gwer), two pure Ipusu Intermediate Areas (Jemgbar and Jechira) and two Mixed-Intermediate Areas (Sankera and Kwande) respectively, to create balance and promote peace, unity and harmony amongst the children Tiv. 

I have spoken with a few progenitors of the Gwer Equity Movement in my capacity as a Tiv son, an activist, a minority right crusader, and a contemporary social and political affairs  commentator, and I have told them that Gwer has a CASE but they might be making their CASE TOO LATE. However, they are right to agitate for EQUITY just as I have been telling my Zone C friends to do same. 

BENUE SINCE 1979:

Kwande - Aku (2 terms) 

Jechira - Adasu (1 term)

Jemgbar - Akume (2 terms)

Sankera - Suswam (2 terms)

Lobi - Ortom (2 terms)

Gwer -??? 

My fellow Tivs, I seek nothing more but the to bring to your notice the certainties sorrounding the "year 2023." The tension is dosing up everyday which leaves me with the question: "Where Do We Go From Here?"

Permit me to borrow Baba Unongo's words from his 1969's Where Do We Go From Here?:

"To you my fellow Tivs, I wish to confess my sincerity. That I have to speak forthright and blunt with you, and to you, is not meant to an act of arrogance nor disrespect. I feel for you all because of the social and political ills which befell you, but above all, because of the utter backwardness of most of our people who live in blissful ignorance."

"Throughout my intellectual maturity, I have come to reject that men exist for institutions. I feel, and believe firmly that institutions are created to make it easier for men to attain some of their common objectives."

"The former institutional arrangements in our land failed us woefully. Through inherent deficiencies within these institutions, our social mobility was stultified and hence we remain poor, uninformed and backward, posing no comparable standards of living with the enlightened communities of modern Nigeria."

Thank you all!

Comr. Samuel Allen Zenke is an Activist of Tiv Origin, and a Contemporary Social and Political Affairs Analyst.

Coming soon:

BENUE GUBER 2023: MAKING A CASE FOR JECHIRA.