Ibeku are a clan of the
Igbo
people of
Nigeria.
Ibeku is contained in the Umuahia North Local Govt, political division, of Abia
state in the eastern part of Nigeria.There are other communities that are
around Ibeku. To the south are the clans of Olokoro, Old-Umuahia, Amakama,
Ubakala. To the East is Oboro. West are the clans of Umuokpara and Ohuhu. Then
North are Uzuakoli and Abiriba. These areas were one time a part of what was
called the Bende region in now Abia State.
Ibeku people are a good portion of the igbo [Ibo] speaking people of
Nigeria in Igbo
language.The associated dialects and origins are explained with this link. Igbo
is spoken throughout West Africa in various forms.
Ibeku people have custodians of these traditional values in each seven clans
called Egwu Asaa that make up Ibeku Nation. These seven Clans are Osaa,
Amaforo, Ndume, Afaraukwu, Emede, Isieke, Afarata. Each has an Eze that is
titled accordingly with a name to reflect that clan. Ibeku clan has a Royal
Highness with the title Ogurube Ibeku. The Present Ogurube is His Royal
Highness.Eze Samuel Iheonu Onuaha. The Ogurube IV of Ibeku. His cabinet is made
up of all the Eze from the seven egwu asaas. These individual egwus are
autonomous in terms of organization in localities headed by their own Eze.
History
The history of Ibeku can be traced through present-day culture, tradition
(omenala) and heritage, archives, archeology and various methods used in
organization of its people. The lack and in places paucity of data has tended
to encourage unrestrained speculation which in fact largely accounts for some
insupportable hypotheses being put forward by many early or pioneer
archaeologists, concerning the nature of culture change in Ibeku,
Umuahia-Ibeku,eastern Nigeria. One of such flawed hypotheses was that the
peopling of the forest region (southern Nigeria and indeed, all of the Guinea
zone of West Africa) was a much later development than that of the northern
open savanna area. Recent archaeological research has shown that people were
already living in south-western Nigeria (specifically Iwo-Eleru) as early as
9000 BC and perhaps earlier at Ugwuelle-Uturu (Okigwe) in south-eastern Nigeria
(Shaw and Daniels 1984: 7-100). This is the area of Ibeku clan.
Lack of adequate funding and dating facilities has also caused a lag in
archaeological research in ibeku area of Nigeria and indeed, all of West
Africa. Many sites threatened by construction work such as bridges, roads,
houses and dams are not normally rescued because there are no sources of
funding. The governments both state and federal have not been supportive enough
of archaeological work, partly because both the leaders and the peoples do not
recognize the role a sound knowledge of the past can play in nation-building.
There is up to now, no well-equipped dating laboratory either to process
charcoal samples or potsherds. The only laboratory in West Africa is in Senegal
and it is far from being well equipped. Consequently, it is restricted mostly
to processing charcoal samples collected from sites in Senegal. Given this
problem, samples collected from archaeological excavations have to be sent
abroad for processing. This delays the rate at which archaeological information
is put into its proper time perspective.
It seems also that a great deal more time and attention are paid to the
later phases of human settlement history than the earlier. Consequently, much
more is known of Iron Age and historic settlements in Ibeku as a whole. Some
considerable amount of work has been done for these phases in Benin City in
Nigeria, Niani in Niger Republic and Jenne-Jeno in Mali, among other places in
West Africa. One reason for this interest in the later phase seems to rest in
the fact that there is a meeting point between historic settlement archaeology
and oral traditions in the region generally and the fact that people can
identify much more easily with this phase because it is more recent and by this
fact closer to our times.
It is pertinent to note that there is no settlement archaeology tradition(s)
in ibeku [umuahia ibeku] Nigeria up to the early 1980s. Even at places like
Ife, Old-Oyo, Benin and Zaria where some relatively limited archaeological work
has been carried out, efforts were mainly concentrated on walls (Soper 1981:
61-81; Darling 1984: 498-504; Leggett 1969: 27). In Southern Nigeria, where
Ibeku is located, proto-historic settlements were generally composed of mud or
sun-dried brick
houses. Most if not all these house structures and defensive and/or demarcatory
walls have either been destroyed or obliterated by erosion. The tradition(s) of
constructing houses with stones in the pre colonial past was well reflected in
many parts of Northern Nigeria. In fact, many hill-top settlements in this area
of Nigeria were composed of stone houses - a direct response among other
things, to opportunities offered by the immediate environment (Netting 1968:
18-28; Denyer 1978: 41-47). Despite the nature of the soil chemistry (acidic
soil) stone buildings are still better preserved than mud houses.
Relics of ancient settlements are much fewer in the south, including ibeku,
than in the north, because of the different building materials as well as
techniques of construction which are partly determined by diverse historical
experiences among other things. Hill-tops and slopes offer abundant boulders
which could be dressed for construction, while in the plains, it is much easier
to obtain mud for building houses. For example, the dispersed mode of
settlement of the present-day Tiv as opposed to the nucleated rural settlements
on the hill-tops and slopes in ancient times, coupled with their shifting
agricultural system, as well as the factor of refarming and/or resettlement of
former sites by some daughter groups which hived off, from the original stock,
make most ancient settlements and recently abandoned sites (made up of
sun-dried brick houses) difficult to discover at least in a fairly well
preserved state (Sokpo and Mbakighir 1990, Personal Communication).
This preservation problem among others further make the task of establishing
stratigraphic sequences a little bit difficult. Nigeria is divisible into zones
on the basis of techniques of construction as follows: [1.] Mud construction
techniques which are very common in most parts of southern Nigeria and in
Ibeku. [2.] Stone construction techniques which are very common in most parts
of Northern Nigeria; and [3. ]Combination of mud and stone construction
techniques. This development is common in Tivland, where the ancient houses and
protective walls on hill-tops were constructed of stones, while present-day
houses in the plains are usually constructed of mud.
Given our experiences in Ibeku [umuahia ibeku] Nigeria, the third category
of construction is very useful for generating models. These are models
derivable from oral traditional data and ethnographic resources. Such models,
if carefully applied to archaeological situations, can greatly fill the gaps in
our knowledge of the past of the Ibeku peoples
