The National Association of Jukun Wanu (NAJUWA) has reacted to a statement credited to the President General, Mzough U Tiv, Chief Iorbee Ihagh, over some distortion of facts. Here, NAJUWA, puts the records straight:
THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF JUKUN WANU (NAJUWA) RESPOND TO THE PRESIDENT GENERAL OF MZOUGH U TIV ON HIS FALSE AND MISGUIDED CLAIMS IN OTHER TO DIVERT ATTENTION AWAY FROM THE MAIN ISSUES AT STAKE
The attention of NAJUWA is drawn to Leadership Newspaper published on Wednesday August 20, 2025, on page 23 where Chief Iorbee Ihagh, the President General, Mzough U Tiv Worldwide responded to NAJUWA’s Press Release wherein we opposed the planned motion sponsored by one Terzungwe Dugeri, a member representing Kwande West Constituency of the Benue state House of Assembly toward renaming some communities in Benue and Nassarawa states.
In his response, the President General, as customary with the Tiv, stated that our position was a ‘mischief and fallacy’ and offered no evidence but averred that the Tiv people are the early settlers in Gongola now Taraba state. The most astounding aspect of his response was where he tactically deflected from the main issue, to an irrelevant subject of population of the Tiv. This was done deliberately to muddle up issues; and argued on a straw man fallacy, in other to confuse and mislead members of the public while he technically avoided the matter at hand.
In his chess game, he declared “even in Nasarawa state the Tiv people constitute 49 percent of the population in over five local government areas: Awe, Obi, Doma, Lafia, and Keana…the 1946 census indicated that the Tiv people had 46 percent while the Jukun had only 12 percent in the Gongola, now Taraba state” Within the same token, he accused that Jukun have renamed Tiv communities such as Dan Anacha to Kwararafa, Ayu to Kashimbila and others“ which he stated was purposely done to erase the identities of Tiv people in those communities.
We will put both his rebuttal and allegations to perspective. First, our world Press Conference has already answered the repeated empty claims of Tiv being the first occupants of the Gongola basin; thus, repeating those empty claims, does not change anything, but rather rendered the Tiv, who usually arrogantly claimed to be the most educated in the region as rather embarrassing lots, and proves them as a people as rabble- rousers, a laughing stock who are still trapped in their uncivilized past; who are incapable of understanding the basic tool of knowledge that every claim without proof is foolishness. This is because, in this 21st century, knowledge is acclaimed to be akin to a speed of light movement such that whatever you assert, you are immediately fast-checked even before your speech ends. Therefore, it is horrible and a thing of pity that the Tiv are still living in their past comics, and playing the ostrich of the old card game, spewing lies, and think miserably that they should to be taken seriously as a people.
As a responsible body, NAJUWA did not make empty claims as the Tiv would do. In the World Press Conference, we put out evidence for every claims we made and we can be fast checked; as a matter of fact, the evidence in our possessions are so enormous and overwhelming that we feel oblige only to exhibit but those few saving the best when the need for them arises. We therefore urge Chief Ihagh to go wrestle with the few evidence before him, including the ones from Akiga Sai and Tesemchi Makar, in addition to the story recounted by Tiv ancestors themselves, who at the time of inquisition rendered them copiously anf faithfully to colonial masters, owing to the obligations of the Tor Agbande scheme which they solemnly swore at Wukari to uphold; same which they disclosed dispassionately to colonial masters, because they acknowledged the magnanimity rendered to them by their Jukun host who saved them in their time of calamity and crisis.
The British Colonial masters, the greatest of Tiv benefactors, whom the present crops of Tiv now bashed, are not stupid. They investigated, and experienced firsthand the conditions of the Tiv and literally put greater pressure for all surrounding tribes to accept them within their various communities, so that they will be like other normal human beings. Yet today in their fullness of time, the Tiv no nothing other than manipulation and are bent at attacking same people that saved them, both the Jukun and the British, distorting, re-dating, and magnifying their history of immigration to Kwararafa land with a view to gain legitimacy and to dominate. And insisting on those empty claims is your choice but it’s a choice that we advise that you pick the fight with your ancestors, like Kparev, Ukum, Hiarev, Kunav, Shangev, Nongov, etc and leave the Jukun out your predicaments.
Secondly, Ihagh actually proved our point on the motive behind renaming some communities in Benue state. In his allegation against the Jukun in Taraba state, he stated that the reason behind Jukun renaming Ayu to Kashimbila was because Jukun wanted to erase the identity of Tiv in Taraba state; which confirmed and justified our position on the planned renaming of communities in Benue and Nasarawa states.
The question that would then arouse from his allegation against the Jukun in Taraba state was that is the allegation true? We will respond appropriately here. Thirdly, in our World Press Congress and recent Press release, did NAJUWA ever mention anything about the size of population between the Tiv and Jukun in all our submission? The answer is a big NO. Why then do the Tiv sneaked in the issue of population when the main issue is all about immigration of Tiv to our land, their settler status, our nativity, our customary rights, and so on.
The Tiv are obsessed with population issue because that is the only glimmer of hope they have to hold on because population was the only factor relied upon by colonial rule to impose them on our ancestral land, that is why when any issues of this nature comes up, they quickly try to limit every discussion to population, even when it is clearly irrelevant to the matter at hand, but all what resonate in the mind of the Tiv is that everything and any subject must be limited to a sort of zero sum game that they practiced in their own brand of politics.
We have dealt with issue of Tiv’s acclaimed population in the past. No one is in doubt about the fact that Tiv is the most populous single ethnic group in the Middle Belt; but compared to the Kwararafa citizens, they are in the minority, coupled with the fact that Colonial masters manipulated the population of Tiv to suit their agenda which saw them imposed on our land; and we challenge the Tiv to enter into debate with us as regard to population fraud which colonial masters perpetrated to justify their imposition on our land. This was why, in the whole of Nigeria’s colonial history, it is only the Tiv tribe that were not subjected to head count by the British as they did to other Nigerians; the population census the Tiv now brag about was based on estimation and not on head count as done to other tribes such as the Jukun.
Therefore, for Ihagh to divert the matter to population was deliberate, which he hopes to defray attention from the issues at stake; and more so that the era of colonial manipulations is far gone; and Tiv should be reminded that the impunity of the colonial rule is not sacrosanct; whatever fraud or impunity that was perpetrated in the past can be revisited because they are justiciable, as long as such actions breached the rule and or the generally acceptable standard practice.
Consequently, we cannot be dissuaded away from the main subject, which is far bigger and greater than the parochial lens of population size. The size of tribal Population certainly matters for Political expedience, but it has nothing to do with our nativity, citizenship and our customary rights, and with process of time, the Tiv will soon realize this fact, and they will learn that might is not always right and fraud and impunities always leave behind a signature.
Thus, all the responses advanced by the President General to our opposition to renaming our communities will be answered, but in the meantime, we invite the President of Nzou U Tiv to respond to our challenges, since he has come out to rebut our claims, without an evidence, and veily stated that our claims are a ‘mischief and fallacy’.
We have always come forward with evidence to defend our claims and as usual, we will do so in this press release, but in doing so, we publicly challenge the President General of Nzough U Tiv or any Tiv for that matter to respond to our claim to customary rights on the 14 LGAs in Benue state. If this challenges are not met by him and other Tiv fellow, it should be officially documented that the claims by Tiv being earliest settlers in Kwararafa land will be permanently laid to rest forever, by this challenge, because this will remain a reference material.
Secondly, if the challenges are not responded to as outlined, this will serve as evidence to establish that Tiv have no ancestral land in the 14 LGAs in Benue state let alone in Taraba and Nasarawa states, and same will suffice as an evidence of proof against any such claims now or in the future against the Tiv. In view of this, we list hereunder the following 13 challenges to the President Nzou U Tiv and any other Tiv who hold same claims to respond to, and they are as follows:
- Any historical records or articles and books prior to the 19th century that support the claims by the President General of Nzou U Tiv and other Tiv who hold same claim that Tiv arrived bodily to Kwararafa land from the 15th, 16th, 17th or 18th centuries.
2. Any of same claims from Tiv ancestors in the 19th century and in colonial records where Tiv ancestors claimed and disclosed to colonial master that they entered Kwararafa Land or particularly the 14 LGAs in Benue state prior to the early 19th century.
3. Any Colonial documents which proved that Tiv were in Gongola Basin in the 15th up to the 18th century as claimed by the Tiv.
4. Provide verifiable evidence of any military feat and or any history of war ever fought by the Tiv in their lifetime within the corresponding years prior to their entrance to Kwararafa Land in mid-19th century.
5. Provide irrefutable evidence showing presence of Tiv in Kwararafa Land and in particular the 14 LGAs in Benue state for the 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries’s Maps indicating Tiv presence in Kwararafa land and in particular, the 14 LGAs in Benue state, except from the one drawn up by WB Baikie in 1854; as we have same to prove for Kwararafa/Jukun in the same corresponding period stated above.
6. We also challenge the Tiv to show any single Tiv village or town which was founded by the Tiv in Kwararafa Land prior to the mid- 20th century, precisely before 1926 when all Tor Agbande settlements were converted into Districts.
7. Tiv are also challenged to explain, why throughout colonial administration no names of town or villages were mentioned in Tiv settlements as done in other Districts, regions, Provinces in Nigeria. Why was colonial administration in Tiv settlements (known as Compounds) based on clans instead of towns and villages as is the case with other Nigerians? Doesn’t this not prove that Tiv were mere Settlers in our land? If there were villages and town in Tiv settlements, why were these villages not mentioned?
8. Also closely related is that Tiv should explain why was their settlements not named? Is it that the settlements were not qualified at th standard of hamlet? The fact is that they loosed family squatter settlements that were customized based on the Tor Agbande scheme and was never owned by the Tiv. We invite the Tiv to the contrary if they claim that the areas belong to the Tiv, why did the British became a beggary, pleading with other tribes to accept the Tiv to cohabit with them in various communities, and also inducing them to settle in these present areas they are now claiming to be their ancestral land; the fact and evidence we will quote hereunder.
9. Provide any shred of evidence of a single Tiv Chiefdom or empire, or any form of Kingship ever existed for the whole Tiv tribe prior to 1947, when Tor Tiv stool was created by colonial fiat, and hosted on a town established for the Tiv by colonial rulers, a town named after a mountain called Gboko, amongst mountains named by the Jukun.
10. Explain the original meaning of Toh or ‘Tor’ and why till today it stand as a toga or symbol of Jukun ascendancy and ownership of land and why the conspiracy to change the title from TOR to CHIEF in 1933 was disallowed by James Lethem, the then Acting Commissioner, Northern Nigeria.
11. Provide explanation why James Lethem proclaimed the 1933 Ordinance, which directed the Tiv to retain the title of ‘Tor and Elders’ instead of the CHIEF that was planned to be gradually removed from some 11 District Heads of the Tiv.
12. Explain why Tiv District Heads which colonial masters created in 1926 for 34 Tiv Districts and appointed 5th Class Chiefs were not Gazetted until 1934?
13. Finally, explain why, if the Tiv truly had ancestral lands in Kwararafa territories as they now claim, the colonial masters had to make such desperate efforts to forcibly infuse them among already-existing indigenous communities rather than recognizing their supposed land and identity.
THE CLAIM THAT DAN ANACHA WAS CHANGED TO KWARARAFA BY THE JUKUN.
The Kwararafa town also called Kororofa already existed long before Tiv immigrated into Kwararafa land. As a matter of fact, it used to be the headquarters of Kwararafa, and it was part of the reasons why indigenous Kwararafans were so identified with that name. Dan Anacha on the other hand, is a name of a specie of yam which most of us consumed even till date, and is generally farmed around the area and the Tiv who migrated to Kwararafa to cultivate the yam in the 80s and 90s actually popularized that specie of yam because of its delicacy.
Thus, people began associate the town to Dan Anacha but the Tiv who are known for name changing began to call Kwararafa with that name because they want that Kwararafa name supplanted by all means as Tiv hate anything associated with Kwararafa. Crucially, Dan Anacha is not Tiv name and has no meaning in Tiv language rendering any claim of Tiv ownership suspicious, fraudulent, untenable and misrepresentation of historical facts. What an irony? In Benue state, you claim that Daudu, Yelwata, Wadata, Kwatan Sule, etc are names that did not reflect Tiv language and culture, yet in Taraba state you are insisting on a name that is non Tiv and has nothing linguistically with the Tiv. Does this make any sense?
THE CLAIM THAT KASHIMBILA IS TIV LAND AND WAS ORIGINALLY CALLED AYU
To debunk this ill-motivated claims, we quote the District officer in an Intelligence report on Kashimbila, filed in 1914 at the period colonial masters began their plan to fraudulent imposed the Tiv on Jukun Land. In that report, the District officer himself confessed as follow “On a certain occasion, when a suggestion to the District Head of Turan (Munshi) that Kashimbila should be put under him he stated at once that it was not a Munshi country” (See Muri Province Report, 1914) Was the town called Ayu? Did the head of Turan said Kashimbila belonged to the Tiv?
THE CLAIM THAT NASARAWA STATES LAND IS TIV ANCESTRAL LAND
The overall imposition of Tiv on Kwararafa was comprehensive. The plan even extended to the present day Kaduna state. In present Nasarawa state, the act was spearheaded by H. Hale Middleton, the Acting Secretary Northern Province who began to appeal and begging other Kwararafa inhabitants to have imposed Tiv imposed in their land in the present Northern and parts of Southern areas of Nasarawa state, which Middleton himself disclosed as follow: “The Chiefs of Lafia, Keffi, Nassarawa and other regions must therefore be encouraged in every way to invite the Munshis into their countries, in communities which can have a certain measure of local self-government under munshi headmen” Clearly Colonial Masters want Tiv imposed in these areas, as they did with the Riverine Jukun in 1929 in the present 14 LGAs in Benue state.
THE IMPOSITION OF TIV IN IDOMA LAND, ALAGO LAND, AND GWANDARA LAND
As we earlier stated above as with the Kashimbila experience, colonial masters were practically inducing movements of Tiv from their compound Settlements of the Tor Agbande scheme to spread them across the regions which includes the lands of Idoma, Alago, and Gwandara areas amongst which are Rukubi, Yelwata, Daudu Obi, Keana, Doma, Awe, Adudu, Assakio part of which they want to erase today, and many others places which the Tiv are now claiming as their ancestral land. Captain G.G. Feasey, the Resident, in 1926 who led that imposition from that front, reported as follow: “There have been some emigration to Doma and Idoma from Harev East to Keana…Efforts have been made to induce those on the south bank of Benue to join their fellows on the North Bank …by a gradual Northward movements of the clans between there and the Benue” (See Annual Report NO. 4 for Abinsi Division by Captain G. G. Feasey, 1926)
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, while we wait for our challenges to be met, NAJUWA unequivocally and in strongest terms condemns and totally reject the reckless defense by Chief Iorbee Ihagh, the President General of Nzou U Tiv as his defense is baseless, arrogant, shallow, parochial, misleading, diversionary, and a deliberate distortion of historical reality which is done deliberately to confuse members of the public and justify illegality, while promote expansionist agenda of the Tiv.
Therefore, we still maintained our position that the motion to change names of some settlements in Benue state cannot stand, because it is aimed at erasing the identity of the Jukun and other Jukunoid tribes as the President General of Nzou U Tiv affirmed in his statement. The whole idea is nothing but a legislative attempt at land – grabbing, and it is condemned as a direct threat to peaceful co-existence and national stability.
We totally reject any move to alter the identity, heritage, or ownership of indigenous communities in Benue and Nassarawa states. NAJUWA will certainly explore and exhaust all legal, political, and civic options to ensure that no community’s ancestral rights are trampled upon under any guise.
We call on the Federal Government to note this provocative act which is capable of throwing the whole places into communal crisis, and we reiterate that the purveyor of this motion should be held responsible if he goes ahead to throw the region into another spate of conflict. We also call on all Jukun, Alago, Gwandara, Jengengeri, Awe, Keana, Obi, Agwatashi, Adudu, Giza, Kadarko, Tunga, Chinkai, Ashuku, and all the Hausa in Makurdi, etc to be vigilant and united against this forces of evil and darkness who knows nothing but to cause chaos and destabilization all over the place.
Moses Amankye
The President General
Comr. Sule, Musa Atase The Secretary General
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