When the European explorers made in-roads to Nigeria and other countries in the Gulf of Guinea, they came through the seas as road networks and air links were non-existence in this region then. This resulted in those towns and settlements located along the coast becoming meeting points for these foreigners and aborigines for trading. Oron, an ethnic nationality located in the Southeastern flank of Nigeria, migrated down to where she is today from Cameroon area and founded numerous settlements scattered within the Atlantics and Akwa Ibom State. Oron town by its very position became the toast to these explorers and missionaries. Considering its strategic location and peaceful nature of waters in Atlantic, maritime activities sprang up between the people of Oron, Cameroon, Fernando Po and the Spaniards and Portuguese. These contacts attracted big trading outfits like GBO, PZ, UAC, MacIver, Elder Dempster, etc to Oron and Calabar areas. It is on record that one of these earliest European explorers on sighting Oron and its estuarine rivers spiraling along the extreme Gulf of Guinea described it as the Liverpool of Nigeria. Although Oron economy was originally based on fishing, the area quickly developed into major trading centers. Incoming European goods were traded for Palm Produce and other items. Oron elites collected trading tax called comey from docking ships and boats until the British replaced it with ‘comey subsidies’. This created middlemen between the white traders on the coasts and the inland people who were mostly from Oron. Christian missions at this time were at work among the Oron people. Beginning from the middle of the 19th century many native Oron people were exposed to Western education and this helped to elevate them higher than their neighbors. A powerful bond of union among the Orons and the very one that gives them considerable influence over other ethnic stocks is embedded in their language and their Inam society as well as Nsibidi, which is an ancient African Writing. Oron indeed were the first to embrace Western Education in present day Akwa Ibom with the establishment of Methodist Boys High School, Oron in 1905. Before then Reverend Christie had started a school in Ibaka area even before 1900. The treaties signed by the chiefs of Oron in 1884 placed them under British protection as documented in CAP 23 of Laws of Eastern Region captioned ‘Comey subsidies law.’ But it is unfortunate that the government of Nigeria when she gained independence did not make Oron even with her natural harbor a Ship Building Town like Liverpool. One R.N.O. Marshall a European District Commissioner at the time on arrival at Oron while beholding its well shaped promontories and glittering waters of Ubo-Akpa and Okposo Rivers immediately described the location as the Galilee of Eastern Region. With all these beautiful remarks and acceptance as the gate-way into South-Eastern part of Nigeria, Oron has continued to suffer neglect to its very disadvantage. This has posed series of questions as to what Oron or its people have done to deserve such neglect and marginalization. Oron people by reason of their early intercourse with the white overlords had the benefit of having people like Lawyer Ebito practicing law in the USA when Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe was a student in the university studying Journalism there. The first Ahta Oro late Chief Oyokunyi Okon Isong and the rest were in different parts of Europe and America making their marks there even in the early twenties. It is well written on the footprints of time that many Oron indigenes had serious interaction with the Spaniards and the Portuguese who had taught them arithmetic and reading to help them in the art of counting and communication. This was at the time of Oil Rivers Protectorates and it was even before the arrival of the Presbyterian Missionaries led by Hope Masterton Waddell and the Primitive Methodist Mission. Oron is a nation blessed with enormous human and material resources. There have been very successful men like late Lawrence Etim who owned plethora of business concerns like Imarsel Groups of Company, Imarsel Chemical Company that produce ICI, Lawrence & Co, LANDCO, Etc, in the early twenties. This man was so influential that even the late business mogul Chief Abiola had work as an accountant in one of his companies. Late Senator Victor Akan had his tutelage with him and regrettably the man Lawrence Etim died in his prime. The Seven stories building located adjacent to Oron Museum is reputed as the first house in the Eastern Region of Nigeria to have reached that height. It was built by one Etim Edet though unlearned, had many business propositions that took him severally to Spain and Portugal even before amalgamation of Northern and Southern Protectorate that ushered in Nigeria as a country. There are many of such success stories about Oron people before and at the embryonic stage of this nation. Oron people are very lively and the bond of oneness is so strong among them to the envy of others. This bond is so strong that an Oron person who stumbles on another Oron person in a strange land has only to speak their language and the needed relationship has started. If anybody comes in contact with them, each will not waste time in describing one another as brother or sister. Could be, it is this natural bond that has so “chastised” them to their neighbors to the extent of doing everything to annihilate them or even poison this bond as is the case today. Oron nation being one of the three geo-political groupings carved out from Cross River State during the regime of Ibrahim Babangida to constitute what is known today as Akwa Ibom State, with that pronouncement made on September 23rd 1987 became an important factor in the emergence of Akwa Ibom as a State. IBB, who pronounced the creation, betrayed some emotions in his voice when he paused before saying, “and …Oron”. The truth of the matter is that some of those who felt aggrieved on hearing that pronouncement are today vindicated by what has been happening since 1999 when Victor Attah became the governor. The gazette of creation had described Oron as one leg of the tripod that makes up the state, but it is very disappointing she is not so reckoned today in all political equations and distribution of essential offices in Akwa Ibom state. When the state was being administered by Military Governors or Administrators the ratio of 5:3:2 was sacrosanct in fixing political appointments and offices in the state. This arrangement spilled over to the short period when Obong Akpan Isemin of blessed memory held sway as the governor. In that regime which surfaced after many years of military interregnum, the governor Obong Akpan Isemin was from Ibibio in Uyo Senatorial District and his deputy was from Oron in Eket Senatorial District; whereas the speaker of the state assembly was from Annang in Ikot Ekpene Senatorial District. The zoning principle was seriously respected in that the position of governor, deputy and speaker were spread out to reflect the three geo-political groupings in the state. The beauty of it was where the position of party chairmanship was zoned together with that of speaker so as to create the needed balance. The era of tinkering with this arrangement started when Obong Victor Attah jettisoned this beautiful formula to short-change the percentage of Oron nation by giving just two slots of commissionership in his executive council constituted of twenty-one persons. This resulted in Oron Union, Uyo Branch writing to him to redress such anomaly, failure of which was that Dr. Effiong Edunam and Mrs. Arit Okpo were to resign their positions in the State Executive Council. The Union in that letter also mentioned that the governor was not welcome in any part of Oron, since he considered her people as not being relevant in his government. As a result of that inglorious decision not to consider Oron nation as introduced by Obong Attah, the fortune of Oron has continued to nosedive till the present time where the three principal positions have been carted away leaving Oron nation without headship of the three principal organs that make up the government or not even the positions of deputies. This is worrisome and unacceptable to the very geographical location where greater percentage of the State’s wealth comes from. The English adage says when a handshake passes an elbow it should be regarded as an arrest. Such marginalization has called for questions about the issues of our coexistence. Should we consider such to be an omission in serious issue like forming a government on a social contract that affects different groupings of persons in a democratic setting? As at the end of October 2012, what can Oron count as her own gain in this PDP controlled state? The last time an Oron man went to Senate was 1983. It therefore means that Akwa Ibom state as of today is standing on two of its legs as against the tripod put forward by IBB regime as the framework of the state. Since from its creation Akwa Ibom State has continued to be immersed in twin struggles bordering on political victimization, nepotism, and outright marginalization as against working towards ensuring integrated and unified state to create a sense of belonging in order to justify the composition of the three strata making up the state. At each point of our struggle in appointing leaders, the state is always lost to the primordial groups that compose it due to ethnic identity and politics of bitterness, which have overtaken the center space in our political history. For this reason Akwa Ibom people have been torn into different groupings of self-interest as against absolute loyalty to the state or its political interest. A house divided against itself cannot stand is a popular maxim. It is on this basis that Akwa Ibom State today cannot speak with one voice because of distrust amongst the ranks of her political gladiators, which have eroded what has been left as the fiber that held the composite parts together. It was for the purpose of reinforcing Human Rights in their social contracts that United Nations met as a body in December 10 1948 to speak collectively about those rights which individual nations have fought for and which many have lost their rights in such struggles. At the time it was proclaimed, not one single member state voted against it. With it the United Nation proclaimed a common standard of achievement for all people and all nations. Included in the declaration are not only inalienable rights but also many social and economic rights which are now universally accepted. Others were specific rights and petitions, and the rights of minorities. Many nations in Africa and beyond are seen embroiled in civil unrests orchestrated by suppression of minority rights. One of such nations is Sudan. In an attempt to discover the origins of Sudanese Civil War, it is therefore necessary to consider the roots of culturally and regionally imposed political marginalization and its economic effect which led to these grievances and instability. Marginalization is a reflection of racial discrimination and is in tandem with apartheid regime that worked against the growth of South Africa. Oron is not asking for a favor to occupy hilltop mansion come 2015 but this is her legitimate right in a State she has contributed economically more than any other ethnic group. Our two brothers have taken their shots and this is our chance. What is sauce for the goose they say is also sauce for the gander. Any attempt to sideline Oron again would be against the principle of fairness and equity. This has caused us to take our memories down to 1983 presidential rally at Calabar Stadium, where Alhaji Shehu Shagari castigated Cross River State for kicking against the candidature of Chief Donald Etiebet with flimsy excuse that a minority was looking for the position of a governor. He had queried, if that was right, why was minority aspiring to rule Nigeria? Goodluck Jonathan is from minority and in that format; an Oron man must be governor come 2015.
Posted on: Tue, 03 Sep 2013 21:14:56 +0000