IGBERE THE GREAT COMMUNITY!

                               History of Igbere

Igbere stands at the threshold of history. And it is a two way brink, oscillating between the past and the future. That past ought to elicit pride from indigenes who owe their town to very brave forebears that brooked no injustice and evil deeds.
Stubbornly perched atop a tree on the way to Ibinaukwu, one of the thirteen communities amalgamating into Igbere, is a weather beaten flag, which evidently had survived strong wind and rain, yet wrestled free from the intimidating leaves to pronounce Biafra, the defunct republic which caved in 30 months after its proponents fought with bare hands to keep it alive. Perhaps that indestructible flag is unwittingly symbolic of Igbere, a town in today’s Bende local council of Abia State with a never-say –die spirit and history. We shall return to that proud past shortly.

New London

But there is yet a visible stride into a historic future, one that threatens to thrust the town as, perhaps, the fastest developing space within the state. The people are not resting on their oars, basking in past glory. They have strived to keep pace with time. From the window of Wisdom Orientation Guest House at the eastern end of Igbere, a visitor behoves lush green scenery, stretching into the undulating topography of a place dotted with architectural masterpieces plastered with sparkling paints that smile at you. Whether the elegant buildings are at the hilly streets of Okafia and Umusi or the relative flat lands of Amaukwu and Eziama villages, Igbere has rightly earned the sobriquet of ‘New London’. It has displaced Abiriba, immediate neighbour to the east which had, over the years, prided itself as ‘Small London”.
If you visit both towns today, you will be in no doubt about which holds the mantle. The seeming sad fact is that both have lost the virginity of typical African villages and have been consumed with rampaging modernity such as turn foot paths of yore into beautiful streets adorned with smooth asphalt surfacing, bushes into mansions, trees into electric poles and telecommunication masts. Igbere is no longer a village. It is evolving into a city. That is the irony of development. Something must give. New and good things always sprout from the ashes of old ones.
As a visitor enters Bende local Government Area from Umuahia end, makes a right turn at Uzuakoli, does a few kilometres, hits Isiegbu in Ozuitem, turns left, at the T junction, a final journey into the ancient town begins.

The beginning

A town founded ‘not later than 1267’ cannot but be ancient. No less a personality than 80-year-old Elder E.E. Ukaegbu, a legal practitioner and very prominent indigene of the town makes the assertion after his painstaking research gave birth to a booklet captioned The History of Igbere, published in 1974 and revised in 2008. Ukaegbu , an Aba based lawyer, and possibly the first parliamentarian to win election as an independent candidate in old Eastern Nigeria, also typifies the stoicism and strong spirit of the Igbere man. He spoke to Sunday Sun in his country home in Amaofufe generally pronounced ‘Ámaufufu’, another of the 13 villages.

“The average Igbere man knows that a man called Ebiri Okomoko was the founder of Igbere. He was a great warrior. Farmer and hunter whose place of origin has been traced to Andoni, very close to the Atlantic Ocean . He was said to have sojourned in several places including Okomoko now in Etche Local council of Rivers State,” said Elder Ukaegbu.

The story, as this newspaper found out, was that Ebiri did not head for Igbere at inception. He had moved from Etche to a few places before making a fairly long stop over at Ajata Ibeku, near Umuahia. There he met Uduma-Eze and Onyerubi, both of whom later founded Ohafia and Abam. He also sojourned at Oroni forest where he met Egbebu who later founded Edda.
They parted ways, for reasons researchers have not yet revealed ,and Okomoko, adventurous as ever, hit Eke forest and finally settled there. Even today, with its rampaging modernity and rapid development, no one has dared destroy Eke-Igbere which still inspires awe and reverence from the average Igbere man. If a disputing duo went to Eke forest and any swore falsely, the erring person is said to be inviting sudden and untimely death. If an Igbere man is wounded in a fight or even an accident, such as exposes his blood, it only takes liquid from leaves of any tree from the forest for the gushing blood to cease. Such is the real or perceived power of the Eke forest, named after the market day of Okomoko’s arrival. He arrived on an Eke market day, one of the four days that make a typical Igbo calendar week.
But the story of Igbere’s origin has just begun. Okomoko’s settlement was not the end of the matter. It is the end of the early phase. He passed away shortly after arrival. He did not live to see and take part in the battle royale that culminated into the naming of Igbere.
There is, therefore, a slight but negligible historical controversy over the true founder of the town. The question is this; was Igbere founded by Okomoko who led the first settlers or was it founded by his son Ebiri, who led the battle to crush a great wave of intrepid warriors who ravaged the land? Had they subdued the people there would have been no Igbere, at least by the name it is now known. Historians and later day researchers may find a mouthful to chew there.

But the name Igbere is rooted in a war of survival.

In those days there lived a certain man named Ota Obom. War was his life. And he had fought and conquered every community within the vicinity in pursuit of slaves. He had active support of Arochukwu(Aro Oke Igbo) known for pervasive slave trading. But Ota Obom met his waterloo in Igbere. The story of his beheading and the inability of the slave traders to enter the town make it one of the few in Igboland which effectively repelled slave traders and earned the name Igbo Eru or Igbo Ere.

“This is one of the few towns where you cannot find Aro settlements’’ says Elder Ukaegbu, smiling proudly. “Our forbears never allowed slave traders to get into Igbere’’

At the killing of Ota Obom by the gallant Igbere warriors who, going by what Eze Job Ukandu of Amaukwu told Sunday Sun, were aided by great seers at Eke forest, Ota Obom’s warriors dispersed in confusion and the Aro slave traders became frustrated. It must have been with clenched teeth of annoyance and the sight of an impregnable town that they pronounced it Igbo Eru meaning ‘the place which Aro Oke Igbos could not reach and capture’ or Igbo Ere [the place where Igbo could not sell]. Both expressions gave birth to Igbere. Somehow, the average Igbere man has retained the fierce quest for freedom and the independence carried from his forbears. It is believed that Ebiri never lost any battle. That hitherto invincible Ota Obom, leader of rampaging slave traders met his end in the town, marking the effective halt of slave trading in that area, remains a source of pride to every Igbere indigene. The victory did not come cheap. It came with a price, one which also endows indigenes with patience. The details may be cumbersome but the drowning of Ochi, a beautiful damsel whose father, Awalu, led one of the villages at the forefront of the battle, was a grievous price. In fact the Ebele river where she drowned was made to dry up. Today it is a market place.

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