Abakaliki: From dust
of the nation to salt of the nation
By TOPE ADEBOBOYE
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Before Abakaliki was born, there were the Izzis. Living in
scattered settlements right in the heart of Igboland, they
were a formidable tribe of farmers, strong men who tilled
the land and were rewarded with hefty, healthy yams. Then,
from their homes in Arochukwu, the Izzis relocated. Moving
through Abriba and Afikpo, they migrated northwards to the
area where Abakaliki is presently located.
In those days, the area was inhabited by non-Igbos. Discovering
that the land was fertile for their crops, the travelling
tribe halted and dislodged the initial dwellers. They established
settlements and continued their farming.
Initially, Abakaliki wasn’t a town. It comprised two
separate villages – Aba and Nkaleki. Reverend Father
Anthony Echiegu is a popular Catholic priest in Abakaliki.
Besides his pastoral responsibilities, Dr. Echiegu is also
a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the
Ebonyi State University located in the town. The egghead who
is also the director of the institution’s Work and Study
programme is described by many as a revered authority on Abakaliki,
its history and culture. When discovered by The Sun, Dr Echiegu
does not disappoint.
“When the white man came, those who interpreted for
him told him the name was Aba-Nkalike, but I guess that was
too difficult for the white man to pronounce, so he abbreviated
it to Abakaliki,” he tells the writer. “That was
how Abakaliki came into being.”
“There are areas that are called Aba even till today,”
he continues. “In fact, there are many Abas. An Aba
is usually a place where people settled, a younger community
than the main village. So, quite a number of villages have
Aba areas within them.”
Abakaliki isn’t an old contraption. The town actually
came into being in the early 20th century with the advent
of the colonialists.
“They came over from the Cross River area,” the
preacher cum teacher avouches. “With the coming of the
military, a barracks was sited in the Nkalike area and the
indigenes called the place bareke. When the white people came,
they first settled in a place called Amagu and Abia. It was
from there that they sighted this hill and that’s what
attracted them. You know Europeans love hilly areas. Where
they settled was Mile 50. That was where the bishop is living
and where the government house is.”
The Izzis aren’t the only ones that now populate Abakaliki.
There were also the Ezzas, the Ikwos and the Ohaukwus.
No famished faces
Abakaliki, claim its proud natives, isn’t a town where
famished folks dwell. Ask any of the inhabitants, and you’ll
be truthfully told that Abakaliki isn’t nicknamed southern
Nigeria’s food basket for nothing. The town, many willingly
swear, is a big, booming barn from where assorted foodstuffs
are painstakingly nurtured and served raw to a grateful world.
Every town has its own challenges, true. But in Abakaliki,
hunger isn’t part of such. Across the town, starving,
scrawny faces are scarcely an everyday find. Right from the
foundation of the town, Abakaliki has been an agrarian community,
with yams and rice as its major gifts to the Nigerian society.
Welcome
A giant billboard welcomes you to this capital of Ebonyi State.
To your right, on the way from Enugu stands the mammoth structure.
Lying at a shouting distance from the gate of the Ebonyi State
University, it showcases a bottle of Star, a glass full of
the lager and a red-capped vivacious gentleman in a traditional
outfit. But long before the car glides towards the welcoming
board, you are already hailed into the town by several large
farmlands of rice, yams, cassava and other foodstuff.
“If Eko is for show, then Abakaliki is for food security,”
quips the Secretary to the Ebonyi State Government, Chief
Fidelis Mbam. Mbam, an Abakaliki elder, has just sighted the
screaming headline of an old copy of the Sunday Sun, a Great
Cities story on Lagos written by the reporter and entitled
Eko for Show. “If you are celebrating Lagos as Eko for
show, you should also celebrate Abakaliki for its food. Because,
it is a fact that with our yams and our rice, Abakaliki can
feed Nigeria.”
Chief Mbam recalls that in the days of the colonialists, Abakaliki
actually supplied food items to the rest of the country. Blessed
with a rich, arable soil, farmers grew yams, rice, cocoyam,
bed seeds and vegetables. “What it meant was that the
whole of eastern Nigeria got their food supplies from Abakaliki.”
Indeed, ever before you venture into town, you cannot miss
the ubiquitous plantations spread out on both sides of the
highway. And there are several local mills where rice is processed.
Each town, each great city in Nigeria has its peculiar attributes.
Osogbo gained its fame through the Osun River, Enugu through
its coal, and Sapele, its potent local gin. Badagry is known
for the slave trade, its beaches and coconuts. For Jos, it’s
tin, its plateau and clement climate. In Abakaliki, the town’s
claim to global fame is rice. For decades in Nigeria and all
over Africa’s West Coast, rice has been Abakaliki’s
most celebrated export.
“That is why Abakaliki is still the town with the highest
concentration of rice mills in Nigeria,” says the chief.
“If you go to Abakaliki Rice Mill Complex here, it has
over three thousand milling machines churning out hundreds
of thousands of tonnes of rice daily. There is no other such
market in Nigeria. If you go to Abakaliki Rice Mill, behind
that place you will see mountains of heaps of waste, heaps
of rice husk. It is this administration that now wants to
make use of that waste. The programme is under the From Waste
to Wealth policy of the administration.”
But it’s not always been like that. In fact, until a
few decades ago, rice wasn’t a major part of Abakaliki.
Then, yam held that enviable spot. For the Izzi, the dominant
race that owns the land making up today’s Abakaliki,
yam farming has been a lifelong passion.
Abakaliki today
Abakaliki is the capital city of the present-day Ebonyi State
in southeastern Nigeria. Before it earned that title following
the creation of Ebonyi State in 1996, Abakaliki had served
as headquarters of the old Abakaliki zone in the old Anambra
and Enugu s tates. Traditionally made up of three clans namely
Ezza Ezekuna, Izzi and Ikwo, Abakaliki, according to the 2006
census, has an estimated population of 141,438.
There are two local governments within the town and a number
of autonomous communities headed by traditional rulers.
Abakaliki isn’t a town in a hurry. Unlike Lagos, Enugu,
Port Harcourt and some other state capitals in the country,
life in the Ebonyi capital flows at a serene, sedate pace.
Until the creation of Ebonyi State, Abakaliki was just a rustic,
dusty, transit town. The town has since shed a lot of its
rustic garb, but it is still a dependable bridge from the
eastern part of Nigeria to several other places in the North.
From the days of the colonialists, Abakaliki has been a reliable
route to places like Benue, Ogoja, Calabar and even Cameroun.
You can also connect cities like Onitsha and Enugu as well
as Afikpo and Umuahia.
Ebonyi State is hailed by its citizens as the salt of the
nation. But its capital was for several years derided by many
as the dust of the nation. Those who coined the abusive phrase
had their reasons. For many decades, thick dust was a major
part of Abakaliki. Before you got into the town, you would
have seen plumes of dust drifting threateningly in the sky.
Blessed with a lot of limestone, Abakaliki hosts many quarries
operated by private firms. Scattered around the town, the
quarries emitted high volumes of dust. The dust from the quarries
mingled with those from the unpaved roads, forcing a coat
of brown on many buildings in the Ebonyi State capital.
All that is past now. The government has relocated the quarries
to Umuezeoka on the outskirts of town. Many roads in the town
have also been reconstructed and tarred, and Abakaliki now
wears a more refined look.
“We are blessed,” Chief Mbam submits while reacting
to the number of quarries in Abakaliki. “We are lying
on a bed of limestone and other precious solid minerals deposits.
So that is where we are also blessed. Here in the capital,
you can even see the limestone. Abakaliki is also the only
place you go to and discover the greatest number of quarry
operations. We are breaking the lumps of this precious stone
into chippings that are first class for building, for construction
of roads and bridges.
You need to go there and see for yourself. And this administration,
because of the need to ensure environmental sustainability
of the state capital, decided that we concentrate quarry operators
at some place. We have that concentration at Umuezeoka, just
up a few kilometres away. So this is to make sure that in
line with the United Nations demand that we sustain the environment,
we ensure a clean city, a clean environment. If you go there,
you will see that it is another area where this city should
be given credit nationally. Our chippings and stones are first
class in the country.”
He isn’t happy though that the chippings and stones
are reportedly being shipped across the sea to other climes
by unknown individuals. “
In Abakaliki today, several banks and hotels smile at both
the resident and the weary wayfarer, unlike what obtained
in the past. Virtually every bank in Nigeria has a branch
or two in the town, and there are many hotels. Some of the
hotels include the Ebonyi Hotels, Adig Suites, Grace Court,
Salt Lake, Salt Spring, Eagle Royal, Pron Concept, Metro View
and many more.
Though there are several non-Igbo speakers living in Abakaliki
today, Dr. Echegu recalls that the number was higher before
the Nigerian civil war. “Then the most beautiful house
in Abakaliki was owned by an Edo man,” he says. “And
I hope that house will be preserved as a heritage. There were
many Yorubas in Abakaliki and the Hausas had quite a large
area here. We still have many non-Igbos, but not as we had
before the war.”
Industries
Abakaliki can hardly merit the phrase, industrialized town.
There are several rice mills and quarries here and there in
the town, no doubt, but those can scarcely be referred to
as hallmarks of a town bubbling with industries. Today, with
no major company to absorb them after leaving school, many
an Abakaliki youth has resorted to seeking his fortunes in
climes far away from his native land.
In the past, though, many residents of Abakaliki and its environs
never really had much worry about where to work. Then, Nigercem,
a cement manufacturing plant located in Nkalagu, a community
near Abakaliki, was at its full swing. Owned by the then Eastern
states and the Federal Government, Nigercem was a flourishing
plant employing thousands of people. With the creation of
more states in the region, Nigercem’s fortunes nosedived.
Today, the multi-billion naira edifice has virtually packed
up. The Federal Government’s response to Nigercem was
to give the firm to a core investor. Many people in the town
are not comfortable with the development though, accusing
the firm of cannibalizing the plant.
Chooks Okoh edits the state owned newspaper, National Patriot.
A brilliant journalist, Okoh is not an Abakaliki indigene,
but he’s lived and worked in the capital for almost
a decade. He informs that the state government, under the
leadership of Governor Martin Elechi, has been fighting tooth
and nail for the state government to take over Nigercem, inject
funds into it and return the company to its good, old days.
The state government, he recalls, recently inaugurated a commission
of enquiry to determine what had been happening to the company.
“The current fate of that company has impacted negatively
on the economy of the state,” Okoh tells the writer.
“You can imagine a company that used to employ between
three and five thousand people in one state now going under.
That should give you an idea of what the situation is.”
The SSG, Chief Mbam, is equally saddened at the fate that
has befallen Nigercem. He informs the writer that the quality
limestone in Ebonyi attracted the company to the area even
as he regrets that the company has now been killed. “Virtually
everywhere in Ebonyi State, you have quality limestone,”
he says. “That was why the premier cement industry in
this country, Nigercem was brought here to Isiegbu at Nkalagu.
It’s the civil war that tampered with that cement industry.
Since then, it has never been itself. And the worst was the
attempt by the Federal Government to privatise the place which
led to giving it to a company called Eastern Board Cement.
Seven or eight years after the deal was supposed to have been
completed, nothing has been done. The place was left to be
looted. If you go there now, the place is a sorry sight. You
will pity the place.”
A town and its rice
Chief Mbam assures that the government will not rest on its
oars until the rice produced in
Abakaliki becomes an accepted national brand. That also explains
why the administration has decided to give pre-eminence to
the agricultural potentialities in the state. According to
him, government has installed three sophisticated and most
modern rice milling machines in three locations across the
state to ensure that Abakaliki rice competes favourably with
other types of rice from across the globe. “And I want
to tell you that this year’s NEPAD trade fair coming
soon in Abuja, we are taking the rice grown here, milled here,
polished here, for sale there. What we want to do is to inform
Nigerians that they can forget about importation of rice.
We are ready and capable. We are committed to solving this
issue of food security for this nation and we are ready to
make sure that we, rather than import, export rice. After
all, we were doing so before the civil war. We were doing
so to African countries before the civil war,” he notes.
Disadvantaged
Ebonyi is still listed among the educationally disadvantaged
states. And among the communities in the state where going
to school has not been a major pastime of the indigenes, Abakaliki
is chief.
Dr Echiegu explains that Abakaliki still lags behind in the
comity of education-loving towns in Igboland because, decades
ago, the people were very reluctant to accept western education.
Since they were great farmers who produced more than enough
food to eat and sell, Abakaliki people had little cause to
embrace western education.
His words: “Because they are rich farmers accounted
for their reluctance to accept western education. Others accepted
western education much faster, but the Izzis were slower because
they had enough food and every child had to go to the farm
and each farmer had many wives. So there was really no reason
for them to go for western education. I mean, that was what
they thought.”
Chief Mbam agrees with the Rev Father. He asserts that the
disadvantage suffered by the people of Abakaliki in terms
of education could be traced to their passion for farming.
“As I was trying to inform you, this place has had rich
soil and people are good farmers. It had a tremendous effect
on our education system. Our people now paid more attention
to farming than education, especially as education did not
carry with it the means of improving on the farm techniques
of our people. Because education was meant for only white
collar jobs, our people did not participate fully in the education
programme of those days and that’s why we have been
lagging behind.”
But that is being gradually reversed. Abakaliki hosts the
Ebonyi State University, and there is a federal polytechnic
in Afikpo. Besides, the state government now encourages the
training of youths, not just of Abakaliki but throughout the
state, in skill acquisition. That explains the presence of
several vocational and skill acquisition centres in the town.
And to ensure that the minds of the youths in Abakaliki and
other towns in the state are perpetually kept busy, the state
government sent out many youngsters to the Benin Republic-based
Songhai Farm to learn various skills in agriculture. When
they came back, the government provided the sum of N170million
as revolving loan to the youths.
“I know some of these guys who are now supplying chicken
to households, supplying snails and so on. So the youths are
actively engaged and government is always looking for ways
of bettering their standard of living,” Okoh tells the
newspaper.
Abakaliki woman
Abakaliki, The Sun was severally told, has little patience
for the lazy and the laggard. “It’s not impossible
that you will find people living all kinds of lives even in
Abakaliki,” says James Chukwuka who runs a chemist shop
in the town. “I don’t know about those who are
not from Ebonyi. But the average Ebonyi man and woman is very
hard-working. The women are very industrious. It will be difficult
to find an Ebonyi person either as a youth or an adult who
is just there looking for funny ways to earn a living. While
I’m not saying Abakaliki is full of saints, but you
will hardly find girls roaming the streets like in Lagos or
other places.”
The women also help their husbands on the farm. “The
farming is gender-shared,” Father Echiegu tells the
writer. “There are farming works that are the men’s
and there are those that belong to the women. The men make
the heaps and the women do the weeding and other things.”
He describes the Abakaliki woman as a very loyal woman in
the area of family relationship. She is also very submissive
to the husband, he says.
“In Abakaliki, the man is still the lord of the house.
The Abakaliki woman is also very industrious. When she becomes
a widow, she looks after the family. I think the Abakaliki
woman is very resilient in the sense that she is able to endure
whatever suffering that may come her way. And she is beautiful.”
The man of God, a proud ‘son of the soil,’ informs
that his organisation, the Association for Cultural Revival,
will organise a cultural carnival next year to showcase the
beauty of the Abakaliki woman and the beauty of the Abakaliki
man.”
In times past, the Abakaliki man was known to be a lover of
many women. It wasn’t an uncommon phenomenon for a man
to marry as many as 70 wives. Father Echiegu explains why.
“They are known for yam farming and yam farming demands
quite a lot of hands. So you needed many hands on the farm,
and also having many wives boosted the prestige of the man.
If you had just one wife, you must be a poor man with few
relations. But if you had many wives, it’s a prestige
and then you would have many hands in the field. Some had
up to 20, 40, 60, 70 wives. Even today, there are people with
six wives. But the church is coming in and changing that now.”
Hospitable
But if any community deserves laurels on account of its hospitality,
Abakaliki should naturally wear the crown. Wherever you go
in this town, there are people waiting in line, ready to offer
help. That, says Father Echiegu, didn’t even start today.
“The most noticeable characteristic of the Abakaliki
man is that he is accommodating to strangers,” he points
out. “And that is why it was quite easy for people from
other places to come and stay here. They could offer just
some kola heads or some wine and they would get a piece of
land. That was how the entire land was gradually acquired
before the whole thing became monetized. So the people of
Abakaliki are generous and accommodating to strangers. That
is why you find people from other places living here.”
Kelechi Mbam, a journalist and youth activist in the town,
concurs. “It is true that we are very hospitable in
Abakaliki,” KC, as he’s fondly called, tells the
writer. “It is our nature, it is part of us. We cannot
help being nice and accommodating to strangers here.”
The writer is himself a recipient of the town’s famed
hospitality. As soon as he arrives in Abakaliki and introduces
himself and his mission, everyone begins to offer their help.
The trip becomes a pleasant voyage as soon as the writer encounters
KC and Chooks Okoh. KC, a nice, jolly gentleman, promptly
offers his unconditional assistance. And for the next three
days, he acts as the perfect guide, taking the writer around
to different places and helping him to meet different people
in the Ebonyi State capital.
KC, just as Okoh, is also a firm believer in the administration
of Governor Elechi. “The government is doing a lot to
change the people’s psyche and orientation positively,”
he informs.
Machete
“Don’t mess with an Abakaliki man, or you risk
the wrath of the machete.” That was a candid piece of
brotherly advice offered by a friend weeks before the writer’s
trip to Abakaliki. According to him, when provoked, the Abakaliki
man wastes no time using his dagger or machete on the object
of his anger.
Well, the writer gets no machete marks, as he messes with
neither man, woman nor machine in the Ebonyi capital.
“Abakaliki people used to be very violent when provoked,”
Father Echiegu admits. “They are very nice and generous,
but when you provoke the Abakaliki man, when you push him
to the wall, he will fight back. And his weapon was the machete.
They were good at using the machete because they are great
farmers. They used to fight with cutlasses, daggers, and so
on. But that is only when you push him to the wall.”
Chooks Okoh reveals, however, that the days of the machete
in Abakaliki had long expired. “That was in the past,”
he tells the writer. “The people are enlightened now.
Nobody attacks anyone with the machete again.”
Okada rules
Unless you drive your own car, getting by in Abakaliki could
pose some problems. Unlike many other Nigerian cities, the
commercial motorbike, otherwise known as okada, isn’t
so common. The motorbikes may operate in the streets of Abakaliki,
but the dualized roads in the state capital are a taboo for
the okada. The state government has banned commercial motorcycles
from plying all major roads in the town. But the decision
was not without a good reason, according to Dr. Onyekachi
Eni, the chief press secretary to Governor Martins Elechi.
“It was a difficult decision, but there were a number
of incidents that gave rise to the move,” says Dr. Eni.
“The major one was the spate of robberies especially
within the banks. People were being trailed on okada and robbed
in their homes. There were so many of such cases. So the state
now decided to have a compromise situation between the economic
consideration of okada operation and the security needs of
the people, and that’s why we decided to ban okada operation
only in those major areas where the banks and major financial
institutions operate, and those are the dualized roads. Most
of the banks are clustered within these areas. But okada operators
are not banned from other non-dualized roads in Abakaliki.”
To solve the problem, Eni discloses that the government has
encouraged private sector operators to buy taxis and buses.
The government is also encouraging the Ebonyi State Transport
Corporation to introduce some buses in the town, he says.
Food, drinks and more
Yams and rice are the most popular foods in Abakaliki. Those
who appreciate good food can hardly do without a bowl of yam
foofoo, accompanied by a steaming plate of groundnut soup
mixed with a little ogbono.
“And we have our traditional festival soup called bed
seeds soup, known locally as esisa,” confesses Father
Echiegu. “It’s a soup usually cooked when we have
festivals like the new yam festival or other festivals. And
if I’m travelling to Europe, I will carry with me some
bed seeds, some groundnuts and maybe dried okra.”
There are a number of restaurants in Abakaliki where you can
have a taste of the culinary skills of the Abakaliki woman.
One of the most popular does not even parade a signboard,
yet assorted cars lined up in the street adjacent to this
famous eatery where several ladies and young men are busy
all day serving their large clientele. Simply known as Canopy,
you can get whatever food you desire in the restaurant, including
garri, akpu, yam foofoo, rice, corn-meal and more. Other eateries
in the town include Feed Well, Mr. Biggs, Crunchies, Citi
Exotic, Citi Chef, and Vcee Food, among others.
There are not too many night clubs in Abakaliki. But those
seeking some fun usually head to Phinis, a club located within
the Salt Lake Hotel.
And for those who desire more than just a meal, several of
such places exist in Abakaliki. At Diamond Point, for instance,
you can have a taste of fresh fish pepper soup and roasted
chicken alongside some cold drinks. There are also Flavours,
Green Guest House, and many other such spots.
“Abakaliki does not have a night life; the town goes
to sleep quite early,” a female journalist tells the
newspaper soon after the writer arrives from Enugu. “In
fact, you should get something to eat now. Once it’s
seven pm, you can hardly get anything to eat in the town.”
But, according to KC, nothing can be farther from the truth.
“How can anyone say Abakaliki doesn’t have a night
life,” he queries. “There are places in this town
where you can get food, maybe some fast food, up till even
12 midnight. One of such places is the Spera en Doe junction
along Abakaliki-Ogoja Highway and Abakaliki-Afikpo park ,along
Afikpo Road. There you can get some fast food like noodles
till very late in the night.”
New dawn
Abakaliki is changing for the better now, according to many
of its residents. KC, who was born and bred in the town, says
a lot of transformation has been taking place since Governor
Elechi assumed office. The street glows in the night with
street lights. One major project that is the talk of the town
is the Ochudo City project. It is a brand new modern city
being constructed by the government within the town. “Within
the next two years, Abakaliki will rank among the best towns
in Nigeria,” says Eni, the governor’s spokesman.
He says the state government has also sought the consent of
the Federal Government to enable the state dualize a section
of the road leading to Abakaliki from Enugu.
“In August this year, the governor personally took the
letter to the Federal Minister of Works and Housing in Abuja.
The contract will soon be awarded,” he avers.
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