Emeka Esogbue

  Revisiting the Anioma Traditional Rulers Rejection of their Relocation to the East Central Region: History as a Repetition -        Emeka Esogbue Not many know that in history, the present Niger State, one of the nation’s 36 states in the North Central part of the country was originally intended for the Anioma people of Nigeria. In 1975, there was an agitation for the creation of more states in the country and a group started a rigorous campaign in which they sought to relocate the Anioma people from their Midwestern Region to the East Central to share a geographical space with other Igbo-speaking people but the Anioma traditional rulers rejected their relocation as well as a share of state with people who are not Anioma of the present Delta State. It was a firm decision taken by Anioma traditional rulers which eventually dissuaded the then Head of State, His Excellency Gen Yakubu Gowon from uniting the Anioma people with the Igbos of today’s S...

Obomkpa-Ugboba Crisis: Historic Claims, Counter-claims and Government Recognition of Ugboba as an Anioma Autonomous Community in Delta State By Emeka Esogbue INTRODUCTION The above topic, an investigation of this author who is a fervent and wholehearted writer on the people of Anioma, geographically located in the Northern part of Delta State of Nigeria into the shared legal, historical, and colonial claims; offensive and defensive assertion of the people's communal right and geography, makes scholarly interest for several reasons, part of which is captured in the conclusion of this piece. One of the reasons is that the controversy bedeviling Obomkpa and Ugboba, two sisterly communities with common boundaries and a common claim of homestead source of migration, is nearly a hundred years old, and even with various interventions by the local organs of both communities with strong affirmation and the intercession by the nation's highest court with final appellate jurisdict...