The Ibibio people are Kwa speaking people Benue-Congo group of Niger-Congo language, occupying the palm belt in the southeast Nigeria`s Akwa Ibom state and are regarded as the most ancient of all the ethnic groups in Nigeria.They are related to the Anaang and the Efik peoples. During colonial period in Nigeria, the Ibibio Union asked for recognition by the British as a sovereign nation (Noah, 1988). The Annang, Efik, Ekid, Oron and Ibeno share personal names, culture, and traditions with the Ibibio, and speak closely related varieties of Ibibio-Efik. Prior to present-day Nigeria they were regarded as Ibibio tribes speaking dialects of Ibibio.


Dr. Monday Noah in his work "Ibibio Pioneers in Modern Nigerian History" writes: “The Ibibio occupy mostly the mainland parts of the Cross River State and constitute the fourth largest ethnic group in Nigeria. The major Ibibio sub-groups include the Oron, Eket, Ibuno, and Annang and there are also some Ibibio communities in most of the fishing settlements along the estuary of the Cross River. The Efik people of Calabar are descendants of Ibibio people.” However, Annang, Efik and other related people see themselves as different people as described by Dr Monday Noah and other historians.

"Ibio-ibio" means short or brief and doesn't have anything to do with height of the Ibibios...! The name was given due the Ibibios brief way of doing things.
The nearest neighbours of the Ibibio are the Ibo (Igbo) to the northwest, Ijaw to the southwest and Efik to the southeast, with the Qua, Efut and Ekoi further away in the northeast. Among these perhaps the Efik are their greatest adversaries. The Ibibio come into conflict with Efik as they do business and interact with the latter in Metropolitan Calabar, the seat of government and administration in the Cross River State.


Geography and Location of Ibibio Land
The Ibibio people are found predominately in Akwa Ibom state and is made up of the related Anaang community, the Ibibio community and the Eket and Oron Communities, although other groups usually understand the Ibibio language. Because of the larger population of the Ibibio people, they hold political control over Akwa-Ibom State, but government is shared with the Anaangs, Eket and Oron. The political system follows the traditional method of consensus. Even though elections are held, practically, the political leaders are pre-discussed in a manner that is benefiting to all.

The Ibibio people are located in Southeastern Nigeria also known as Coastal Southeastern Nigeria. Prior to the existence of Nigeria as a Nation, the Ibibio people were self-governed. The Ibibio people became a part of the Eastern Nigeria of Nigeria under British colonial rule. During the Nigerian Civil War, the Eastern region was split into three states. Southeastern State of Nigeria was where the Ibibios were located, one of the original twelve states of Nigeria) after Nigerian independence. The Efik, Anaang, Oron, Eket and their brothers and sisters of the Ogoja District, were also in the Southeastern State. The state (Southeastern State) was later renamed Cross Rivers State. Again in the year 1987, by a Military Decree No.24 promulgated that same year, Akwa Ibom State was carved out of the then Cross Rivers State as a separate State on her own on the 23rd September, 1987.Cross Rivers State remains as one of neighboring States.



Southwestern Cameroon was a part of present Cross River State and Akwa Ibom State of Nigeria. During the then Eastern Region of Nigeria it got partitioned into Cameroon in a 1961 plebiscite. This resulted in the Ibibio, Efik, and Annang being divided between Nigeria and Cameroon. However, the leadership of the Northern Region of Nigeria was able to keep "Northwestern section" during the plebiscite that is now today's Nigerian Adamawa and Taraba states.

Language
The Ibibio tribe is the 4th largest ethnic set in Nigeria, and barely outnumbered by the Igbo their neighbor. Apart from the Igbos, the other two ethnic groups that outnumbers Ibibio are the Hausa and Yoruba. About five million people in Nigeria speak Ibibio as their mother tongue and inhabit much of the South- eastern part of the country. Among the four million speakers are small groups speaking small 'languages" identified as Ito, Itu Mbon Uso, Iwere, Nkari and Ukwa (cf. Essien 1987:34)

Ibibio Creation Mythology
The creator, Abassi, created two humans and then decided to not allow them to live on earth. His wife, Atai, persuaded him to let them, the people, live on earth.
In order to control the humans, Abassi insisted that they eat all their meals with him, thereby keeping them from growing or hunting food.
He also forbade them to have children. Soon, though, the woman began growing food in the earth, and they stopped showing up to eat with Abassi.
Then the man joined his wife in the fields, and before long there were children also.
Abassi blamed his wife for the way things had turned out, but she told him she would handle it.
She sent to earth, death and discord to keep the people in their place, and their numbers down.

History/Origin
Ibibios are regarded as the most ancient of all the ethnic groups in Nigeria,however, "There are no legends or traditions of origin among the Ibibio. They have been long enough in the Forest belt to have forgotten the stories of their origin. (Jeffreys, 192 7,p. 28). As a result there many stories about their origins. According to Robert McKeon, the Ibibio are probably the indigenous natives from whom most small tribes of Qua Ibom and Calabar are descended.

Ibibio people,Circa 1915

Ibibio Traditions of Origin and Ethnic Relations
Information about Ibibio origins is highly speculative and varied. Available traditional sources suggest that the earliest stock of the Ibibio included the Afaha clan whose ancestral home is believed to be Usak Edet (Isangele) in South-western Cameroon and that there are strong cultural similarities between the Ibibio and the Bakoko of Southern Cameroon (Noah, 1980a). It is suggested that the highland regions of this part of Africa may have been a major centre of human evolution on the continent (Dike,1956). According to Ford and Jones, the Ibibio settlement of Isangele now forms a small tribe in the Kumba Division of Cameroon.
Ibom centre historical hypothesis of origin of Ibibio
It is further suggested that the Ibibio people migrated from these eastern parts of their present homeland in two major directions. One group may have reached what is now the Ibibio Mainland by an overland route and settled at Ibom in Arochukwu formerly an Ibibio territory but now Ibo. Noah (1980b), on the authority of an earlier reference by Jeffreys (1927) states that the Ibibio lived in Arochukwu (South-eastern border of Iboland) probably between A.D. 1300 and 1400 and for a long time maintained a famous shrine called Long Juju of Arochukwu at that place. But this latter suggestion is discounted by Aye (n.d) on the grounds that the Ibibio have no such tradition nor practice of such a cult.
Many scholars however continue to press the viewpoint of a centre of Ibibio dispersion from the village of Ibom in Arochukwu to other parts of the present Ibibioland, (Akwa Ibom State). It is thought that the people of present-day Abak, Uyo and Ikot Ekpene who are described as Eastern Ibibio or Ibibio proper might have migrated from that cradle, although as we shall see later, the structural layout of their clans today hardly supports this viewpoint.
There are other Ibibio who, according to another version of the migration story, seem to have reached the Mainland by sea from the east, presumably Cameroon. Among these would be the Oron, Eket, and Andoni people who upon arrival at the seaboard may have advanced northward until they came up against the eastern Ibibio expanding southward. Indeed the Rev. Groves (1930) of the Methodist Mission suggested that the Annang or Western Ibibio migrated northward from a place near Opobo by the creeks of the Cross
River estuary. He based his contention on the observation that the general tendency in the province had been one of northward pressure. But such a trend would have been too recent to be considered as part of a general movement among the early Ibibio settlers.

Original Ibibio Homeland and Environs

Geographically, the presumed migration of the Ibibio from the south-western highlands of Cameroon to the Lower Cross River Basin may have occurred through two natural gaps - the Benue and Mamfe Troughs. The Niger-Benue area today is a region of great cultural diversity and complexity; but the geological history of the south-eastern lowlands shows that only the Oban Massifs and Adamawa Highlands stood above the sea that invaded this part of Africa during the Eocene period. This suggests that the Lower Cross River Basin might have remained under the sea for 'a long time' (Dessau and Whiteman, 1972).

Even in comparatively recent times the physical environment has presented many obstacles to free movement of people. At the time of the early migrations of the Ibibio there must have been a high forest which at its primeval stage would have been a very difficult environment. There was also a trough through which the Enyong creek now flows. This lowland with marshes and seasonal floods could not have offered a hospitable environment to the early settlers. Besides even though the people must have adjusted themselves to the riverine environment, the Cross River and its numerous tributaries would almost certainly have been formidable barriers rather than points of contact and interaction between the Ibibio and the original people who may have earlier occupied the land. As all these constraints lie to the south and south-west of the little village of Ibom where tradition has it that the Ibibio first lived, it is difficult to reconstruct the path through which the Ibibio 'fled', as it were, from war with the local people to their present homeland in the south. All that can be said is that they managed to avoid these obstacles.

The Alternative Ikono Centre (Cradle of Ibibio people) of Dispersion Hypothesis
A more plausible and acceptable hypothesis of the lbibio migration is that proposed by Jones (1963) who suggests that the cradle of the Ibibio people lies somewhere between Abak and Uyo government stations of Akwa Ibom State. In the words of Jones:
"A study o fthe present distribution of the Ibibio tribes suggests an early scatter of
the Ibibio over an area extending from Arochukwu in the north, Ika on the west and
Own in the south. This was followed by a massive dispersal north and south from
a centre somewhere between the present Abak and Oyo government stations and a
differentiation into Annang (Western) and Ibibio (Eastern). (Jones, 1963, p. 31)."

Unfortunately Jones did not proceed any further to highlight this point beyond these few verbal statements. Ntukidem (1977) tookup the issue some years later to examine the validity of Jones* assertion with the aid of structural hypotheses which rested on the assumptions of constrained vis-a-vis unconstrained expansion of the Ibibio clans and settlements from a common centre.
Granting that the bond of common ancestry, customs and culture may preserve ephemeral unity of primary communities in the race of expansion, in the first instance of constrained expansion in a conflict situation one should expect a restricted movement in one and the same direction. The resultant spread would resemble a fan or beam from a torchlight as in the case of the Ibom Origin hypothesis. In the second instance of unconstrained expansion one may expect a circular growth of clans and settlements resembling a diffusion pattern in ripples made by a stone dropped into a pond or the spokes of a wheel as in the case of Ikono centre hypothesis.
Distortions, of course may modify these ideal patterns especially where physical obstacles restrict or obstruct the free movement of people, for example, where the population of different segments of the community is confronted with unfriendly neighbours and frequent wars. Thus if the two hypothesized centres of dispersion at Ibom in Arochukwu and Ikono between Abak and Uyo government stations have any meaning at all, the impact of the movement of people would have been vividly recorded in the structure of the boundaries
and orientation of the different segments of the clans to the source region of the migration.

On the basis of this assumption the Ibom centre hypothesis has to be rejected on the ground that the wedge or fan-shape layout of clans expected is not represented in the landscape today. On the other hand the Ikono centre theory, the findings of which actually show at least sixteen maj or clans believed to have derived their origin from a common centre, must be accepted as a basis for further investigation.

The Evidence from Territorial Occupation by Ibibio Clans
Of the many Ibibio clans, Ikono presents a curious shape and significantly there are portions of this sub-clan among the western, eastern, northern and southern Ibibio. It runs in a north-west direction through the greatest length of Ibibioland. Its sub-clans are found in Abak, Itu, Uyo, Etinan and Opobo local government areas. Directly north of the assumed centre is Ibiono clan whose shape conforms to what should be expected under the presumed centrifugal growth (sectors) from a common centre. The clan is wedge-like in shape with its sharpest edge lying near the assumed origin. From here it stretches for nearly 70 kilometres towards the Enyong Creek.
Outside Ibiono clan towards the north and north-east are Itam and Uruan clans which also spread out in a fan or wedge-shape. Between these are smaller splinter clans of Etoi, Oku and Efut. In the south-'eastern section two clans, Nsit and Iman stretch nearly the same distances from the centre. Ibesikpo clan's southward projection is however arrested by twos small intervening clans of Iwawa and Ndikpo. The south western section is made up of Abak Ukanafim and Ndot among the most extensive clans and their arrest in the west is suggestive of the high population and struggle for land. In the northwest, the layout consists of severally broken up clans such as Abak, Ukanafun Afaha, Abako and Obong, Annang which depict an outward growth from the presumed centre.

This visual evidence in support of the Ikono centre hypothesis gives credence to the suggestion that the Ibibio had lived in their present homeland for a "very long time" and casts doubts about the presupposition that the people began their migration from Ibom further north of this point. Indeed, the observed pattern of clan distribution in Ibibioland especially the long stretches of Ikono, Abak, Ibiono, Itam, Nsit, Iman and others from a common centre could hardly have been achieved in only three hundred years as proposed by Talbot (1926).