By Terhemba Wuam
Book Title: The Jukun of Abinsi: A Socio-Political History
Author: Joshua Antinyi Asemanya
Publisher: Aboki Publishers, Makurdi
Year: 2018
Pages: 264
The history of several colonial towns in Nigeria resonate with the question of what might have been, has history not taken a different course or direction in the lives of such cities. Calabar, Lokoja, Jebba, Zungeru and within the Benue Valley, Abinsi and Sai, represent cities that were colonial capital cities or initial major commercial or missionary centres and whose careers, hopes and aspiration as future great cities were cut short due to administrative reorganization and relocation to other areas.
Calabar, Lokoja, Jebba and Zungeru were at various points capitals of regional and national prominence, while Abinsi was Benue’s provincial and divisional capital. Two of these cities, Calabar and Lokoja, were rescued by becoming capitals of their states; and Jebba and Zungeru have taken on the role of local government and educational centres hosting major institutions of learning and companies. Abinsi, has, however, not fared quite so well since its cessation as headquarters of Tiv division and the old Benue province.
“The Jukun of Abinsi: A Socio-Political History” is not just the history of Abinsi town, though it is also much about it. It is rather principally the history of the Awanu-Jukun, who have continuously occupied the town over the course of the past four centuries. What the author, Joshua Antinyi Asemanya has done in this book is to illuminate the history of this illustrious and proud group who by accident of history and geography are like an island in the sea of the Tiv ethnic nationality.
I must admit my admiration for Joshua A. Asemanya’s publication of this book. It is a major work on the subject matter and one which enriches the history not only of the Jukun, which he identifies as a cluster of dialects numbering over thirty (30), for whom the Awanu-Jukun are a subset, but also aspects of the history of the people of Benue state and central Nigeria. Asemanya identifies three major Jukunoid groups as Awanu (Abinsi), Wapan (Wukari) and Denyi (Donga), and that despite the dialectical variations which he portrayed in the table on page 50, the three groups are mutually intelligible to one another.
In reading this book, you are coming to terms and gaining knowledge about the web of inter-relationship that ropes the various people of the Lower Benue Valley into a common chain of a past heritage they all share long before the British dreamt of stepping foot in the Benue Valley.
The Jukun of Abinsi shows the level of integratedness and commonality of descent of the groups in the area who were part of the Kwararafa confederacy and the Apa homeland i.e. the Jukun, Idoma, Igala, Ebira, and Alago among others; and also about how the Tiv came into the picture in the area more rigourously from the eighteenth century and how eventually, “… Abinsi district like the Adi-Etulo, had since formed an enclave of the Jukun speaking people in the centre of Tivland. Though the people somehow remained intact culturally, traditionally and linguistically the same with their kith and kins domiciled in the Wukari division” (43).
This is a well-researched and written book, despite its inherent editorial limitations, principally with reference to spellings and capitalization of proper nouns. The Jukun of Abinsi is a book of four parts, with each part containing two chapters. There is also a conclusion, a glossary and an appendix section among others. In addition, Asemanya’s choice of Dr. Sam Tabe to write the foreword is an inspired one, as Dr. Tabe himself is the author of A Brief History of the Etulo: An Introduction to Divine Kingshihp c. 1596-2006 (Aboki Publishers, 2007), a similar epochal work focusing on the Etulo, which like The Jukun of Abinsi deserves to be celebrated.
A number of questions are of interest to a reader of this book. These questions are: who are the Awanu-Jukun of Abinsi – their economy, culture, politics and ecology; what was the extent of the influence of the Kwararafa confederacy in the Lower Benue Valley and Confluence areas, what factors accounted for the rise of Abinsi and its eventual decline; and the relationship of the Awanu-Jukun with Makurdi, which eventually came to supersede Abinsi.
These questions are the ones and much more that Asemanya’s The Jukun of Abinsi have grappled with, and done so quite successfully. In part one, made up of chapters one and two, the author offers a general background and description of the Jukun, paying particular attention to the Awanu-Jukun of Abinsi and a detailed account of their origin, migration and settlement. Asemanya points out that: “The Awanu-Jukun today are predominantly fishermen, while their counterparts, the Wapan-Jukun of Wukari are mostly farmers. The Awanu-Jukun are widely spread, residing along the River Benue, beginning from Makurdi in Benue State to as far as Lau in Taraba State. Their population, however, is concentrated in modern Abinsi clan, Makurdi, Afanu, Chinkai and Ibi districts just to mention but a few places” (6).
The Jukun are a riverine people within the armpit of the Rivers Benue and Katsina-Ala. And by Asemanya’s account River Benue is derived from the Jukun word Banu or Banue, “meaning people of the river” (41).
Asemanya also identifies the Jukun as claiming descent from Yemen and arriving Nigeria in the thirteenth century, subsequent upon which, they took part in the foundation of the ancient Kwararafa Kingdom and acted as its nucleus. However, the author’s later identification of the Jukun as Bantu contradicts the Yemen hypothesis. Due to his extensive discussion of the Bantu origins, we may conclude that the former lacks merit and that Jukun origins may be within Central Africa and closer home (26). For the Awanu-Jukun coming from the Kwararafa epicenter they proceeded further to Idah before returning to settle in the Abinsi area, the cradle of the Awanu-Jukun, a region that incorporated Makurdi from the period c. 1625-1775.
In the first two chapters, and particularly in the second, the role of Apa within Central Nigeria as the putative homeland of many ethnic nationalities such as the Jukun, Agatu, Alago, Idoma, Ebira, Etulo and Igala is meticulously interrogated and revealed in the similarities seen in the traditions, myths and cultures of these groups. That “due to centuries of habitation of this region” the groups “developed common characteristics, politically, socially, culturally and economically” (22, 36-7).
In chapter three specifically, the author is able to show how unlike their Tiv neighbours and to a lesser extent the Idoma, the Jukun of Abinsi had a well-developed chieftaincy institution based on lineages and title holders. He shows the connection between chiefly and religious functions, by which the Wasendo as lineage head also performed religious functions of making sacrifices, and how the Wasendo combined legislative, judicial, executive and religious duties. Doing so with the able support of a council of elders and subordinate chiefs.
Broadly, Asemanya provides a detailed guide on the divine kingship institution of the people, their system of government and the role of the council of elders – the Watsa – in the traditional governance of the Awanu-Jukun. The focus of analysis also extends from the Jukun political system to the religion and culture of the people and incorporates worship, marriage and festivals.
Regarding Abinsi chiefdom, Asemanya posits that the town had the institution of the Abiseku, “who is the traditional chief of the Awanu-Jukun of Abinsi and head of the Abinsi chiefdom” whose selection was from the three royal houses of Wa-Kpoko, Adamma (Waga) and Ndo-Alo (69). The Abiseku or Asebe “was and is the father of all community members either alive or dead hence, he was said to communicate with his ancestors as well as the living” (70). Equally important was the fact that before colonial rule, the “Abisekus – Akus of Abinsi received their appointment, confirmation and coronation from the Aku-Uka of Wukari who, was and [is] still regarded as the highest spiritual head of the entire Jukun kingdom” (72).
Asemanya in buttressing the ancient heritage of the Abiseku presents a list of seventeen Asebes beginning from Anu or Onu who reigned from 1600-1630 and concludes with Asuku Abayilo whose reign was from 1986-2008. The longest reigning monarch on the list was Adaba whose 40 years rule was from 1785-1825 (74).
A Jukun chief of great relevance to the modern era was Abiseku Agabi Doko whose reign of 36 years between 1870-1906, occurred during a period of great changes in the Benue Valley. Agabi Doko, “could be said to be the main architect to the rise to prominence of Abinsi and he was instrumental to the emergence and subsequent development of what has now come to be known today as Makurdi, the Benue State Capital City” (75). The role of his son, who succeeded him, Ajidoku Agabi (1906-1928) was however even more crucial to the rise to prominence of Abinsi as under his tenure Abinsi became the headquarters of Benue Province.
The Jukun are an ancient people and their religion and culture is also of ancient provenance and encompassed their whole society. Some of the festivals the people celebrated included Agashi, Ahwena and Anariko, Ashuku and Ashama, and Anangbo and Agbo festivals among others. These festivals celebrated the seasons, ancestors, and ancestral spirits.
It is also important to quote Asemanya to underscore the centrality of religion among them: “Religion in the society was a corporate phenomenon both in its practice and its influence on the members of the lineage in terms of normative functions. Thus, individual life was guided, regulated and in fact controlled by the family’s religious inclination, mores and practices. Those religious undertakings were in the form of cults or shrines conducted by the chief priest, who was also head of the particular lineage” (96).
The chapters in part three center on economic and inter-group relations and the colonial heritage of Abinsi. Joshua A. Asemanya as a public historian has performed this role creditably well. And it is important here to reiterate that history is the account of changes that occur within a society. In telling the story of these changes, Asemanya generally succeeds, but where he excels is in his account of the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. A period that covers the dawn of colonialism and the decades following the attainment of national independence. This phase has the benefit of more sources than the preceding eras and the author handles these sources – traveler accounts, colonial reports, and oral sources – well in his role as a public historian of the area.
Asemanya major limitations in tackling changes, is however, in his persistence to still perceive the Jukun as traditional fishermen even as a lot has changed in this regard. The Jukun have moved into the modern world and it is such changes that he may wish to tackle if he intends to research another book i.e. the story of the modern well-educated and multi-talented Awanu-Jukun. The new Jukun society built upon foundations laid as the colonialists were setting shop in Abinsi.
This is even as he asserts that the Jukun did not make the most of their early contact with the Europeans because, “…the pre-occupation of the Awanu-Jukun on fishing and fish trade made them to neglect western education. Because, no form of traditional education was evolved. Till now, the Jukun are so occupied with fishing and fish trade as against other occupations i.e. farming that their children are often left without basic education not to talk of sound and qualitative education” (156).
Yet, while emphasizing this point, the author himself epitomizes what has changed in the occupation and economic livelihoods of his people over the past century.
The chapter on economic activities and inter-group relations cover a period of over three centuries. During this period the main occupations of the Awanu-Jukun has been farming, hunting and fishing. The Jukun according to Asemanya “dominated most trading on the Benue River” (138). Culturally, the Jukun had retained their traditional religion until the twentieth century, when Islam and Christianity began to make in-road and gain adherents among them. For most of the time that the Jukun had existed within the Benue Valley, they consistently maintained vigorous relations with the various groups of the region.
On the colonial phase, the changes that occurred were of different grades since the W.B. Baikie’s expedition up the River Benue from the coast in 1851. The arrival of the United National Africa Company (UNAC), which became the National African Company (NAC) and chartered by the British government as the Royal Niger Company (RNC) was of significant impact from the late nineteenth century for the Jukun of Abinsi. The RNC was instrumental in the colonization of Nigeria and had fundamental impact on the Jukun settlements on the Benue River. These Jukun settlements – Arufu, Akwana, Anyeshi and Abinsi – before the coming of the British and the colonial urbanization process of the twentieth century in the Benue area were the acknowledged proto-urban centres.
The strength of chapter six and the book is to remind readers how modern Benue came to be and the key role that Abinsi and the Awanu-Jukun played in its emergence. This was until events later turned against them with the ascendancy of their more numerous neighbours, the Tiv, whom, the colonialists after their initial romance with the Jukun had to turn to if the colonial enterprise in the Benue valley was to succeed. Asemanya rightly chronicles Abinsi’s role as European and colonial administrative centre as beginning from 1886 with the consolidation of the UNAC/RNC’s station, following disturbances at Arufu, which by them had been the most prominent European station (158). So Arufu’s loss was Abinsi’s gain, as Abinsi’s loss became Makurdi’s and Gboko’s gain by the third and fourth decades of the twentieth century.
While good fortune smiled on Abinsi as the RNC established its’ station in the town, it attracted diverse ethnicities such as the Hausa, the Nupe and Kakanda and the neghbouring Tiv among others. Important for Abinsi again was that with the amalgamation of Nigeria in 1914, two Tiv divisions were created, one, known as Abinsi division had Abinsi as the headquarters, with Katsina-Ala being the other headquarter. In 1927, however, the headquarters of Abinsi division was transferred to Makurdi. The year 1927 also marked the end of Abinsi’s status as the headquarters of Benue province.
The following according to the author accounted for the decline of Abinsi that: “…the year 1927 marked the end of the fame of Abinsi as the headquarters of old Benue province because, the colonial administration decided to move the headquarters to Makurdi as a result of the building of the first Benue bridge and reorganization of old Benue province. This had happened because by 1916, with the extension of the Enugu Railways line northwards which continued in 1922, reached Makurdi station in 1924, and by 1927, the rail construction had reached the Kaduna junction. The old bridge itself began in 1925 and with its completion in 1932, Makurdi town became very strategic and important especially, when the old ferry across the River Benue was being replaced by the bridge opened to traffic in 1932” (186).
In the final part of the book, what Asemanya, has tried to do, is to present a historical narrative of the emergence of Makurdi. The origins of the town, the role played by the Jukun in its formation as well as the conflicted relations and downgrading of Jukun heritage in Benue State, especially in Makurdi and Guma local government areas and the different categories of conflict that have sometimes bred discord between the Tiv and the Jukun over rights to ancestral homelands. We learn that in the heydays of Abinsi: “What is today Makurdi never existed because, the area was no more than a dense forest. The only villages inhabited around present Makurdi were and still are the old Igyaha (an Agatu settlement) about two kilometres south of Makurdi town.”
Abinsi, as postulated by Joshua A. Asemanya was rightly the first colonial administrative center within what is presently Benue state to commence the process of taking the people of the area under the colonial umbrella. The process of modernization and the imbibing of foreign ideas and institutions that eventually dominated Benue society in its entirety were in the first decades of the twentieth century diffused from Abinsi. It was initially the capital of the NAC and then the Royal Niger Company and after that the capital of Benue province, and Abinsi Division. It was the foundational town for the people of Benue State.
On the decline of Abinsi, from what we have learnt from Asemanya – although his book has hesitated to make this argument – it is right to conclude that it was not just a bridge that was twenty-five (25) kilometres away on the Benue River that led to the decline of the status of Abinsi. The topological path of the railway from Port Harcourt at the coast through Enugu and proceeding towards the farther reaches of the north certainly by-passed Abinsi; but it was the fact of the emergence of Gboko as the capital of Tiv Division and no longer Abinsi, and the colonial political re-organisations that actually subsumed the people of Abinsi under the canopy of the larger Tiv neigbhours whose encirclement of Abinsi was complete. This was even as the elders within Abinsi sought unification with Wukari Division in a Caprivi Strip-like alignment along the Benue River route. A proposal that gained no traction with colonial administrators. Though, through the proposal, the loyalties of the Awanu-Jukun to the Aku-Uka and their kin fellowship with Wukari were made evidently clear.
In conclusion, human diversity is what Asemanya has presented to us. The diversity of Kwararafa from the sixteenth century – the diversity of the Jukun, who themselves being not monolithic, were able to understand and accommodate others. With the Jukun and the Tiv, the mid-nineteenth century experience was one of embrace and intertwined fingers. A relationship that was very cooperative economically, socially and politically with its defining characteristic in the Tiv Tor-Agbande (drum chief) chieftaincy institution that tapped into the Aku Uka divine kingship aura to benefit the emergent and rising Tiv political elite of the nineteenth century.
The Abinsi past that was glorious began a little more than a century ago and ended not long after. The question now is; can the Awanu-Jukun afford to perpetually only look back at a past that was glorious, or can they construct a philosophy and worldview that will equip them to launch to new heights within the Benue Valley? Preferably, it is my opinion that the Jukun of Abinsi should take upon a Janus-like existence, looking back to a glorious past to inspire the people as they look forward to a new era. An era of working towards an even more glorious present and future of having the best town, the best-educated citizens, best tourism, best festivals, and best beaches within the Benue Valley region and Nigeria.
The story of Abinsi, a name, which still resonate among the historically conscious citizens of Benue State, conjures a past history, and possibly a future era renaissance that would now be dependent not on the actions of foreigners, but the concerted actions of the owners and inhabitants of the most ancients of Benue towns – the Jukun of Abinsi. What should be done here is for the Jukun of Abinsi to establish a dialogue and process to make this transformation happen.
Wuam is with the Department of History, Kaduna State University, Kaduna, Nigeria. He is co-editor of Challenges and Prospects of Development in Twenty-First Century Nigeria (Bahiti and Dalila Publishers, 2019).
