Briga News Nigeria
History is not written only in palaces, royal courts, and imperial chronicles; it is equally inscribed upon rivers, creeks, ancestral settlements, and the enduring cadence of ancient languages. The history of the Ijaw (Izon) people in what is today Edo State belongs to this older archive. It predates colonial cartography, survives political boundary adjustments, and, according to Ijaw oral traditions supported by significant historical, linguistic, and colonial evidence, extends back to a period before the consolidation of the Benin Kingdom. Like the river that remembers its source, history ultimately returns to the truth, however long it may be obscured.
The first historical fact that deserves acknowledgment is that Edo State is not the exclusive inheritance of one ethnic nationality. Created from the old Bendel State in 1991, Edo State merely brought together indigenous peoples who had occupied their ancestral territories for centuries. The Bini, Esan, Etsako, Owan, Akoko-Edo and Ijaw nations were not imported to populate the new state; they were already established with their own kingdoms, traditional institutions, genealogies, cultures, and territorial identities long before colonial administrators drew the boundaries of modern Nigeria. Political boundaries may change, but indigenous identities are not manufactured by government gazettes.
The persistent attempt to describe the Ijaw of Edo State as “tenants” rests more on political rhetoric than on historical evidence. Tenancy presupposes that one people arrived later with permission to occupy another’s land. Yet available historical materials, oral traditions, linguistic studies, and colonial records present a far more complex reality. What they reveal is not a relationship of landlord and tenant but one of neighbouring indigenous societies whose histories intersected through commerce, diplomacy, coexistence, and, at times, political rivalry.
Even Benin’s own historical tradition points towards an earlier population. In A Short History of Benin, Chief Jacob U. Egharevba records that “tradition says that they met some people who were in the land before their arrival.” Although he did not specifically identify every group encountered, this important admission establishes that the territory later incorporated into the Benin Kingdom was not an empty landscape awaiting occupation. It was already inhabited by established communities, a historical observation that aligns with Ijaw traditions regarding the antiquity of riverine settlements.
Among those ancient settlements are the Ijaw kingdoms and communities of Egbema, Olodiama, Ukomu (Okomu), Furupagha, Gbaraun, Gelegele, Ikoro, Ajakurama, Gbelebu, Abere, Ofunama, Inikorogha, Siluko, Itagbene and others scattered across the waterways of southern Edo. These communities have preserved their Izon language, traditional political institutions, customary laws, religious practices, and cultural identity through generations, demonstrating a continuity that extends far beyond colonial administration and modern state creation.
The historical case is strengthened further by linguistic scholarship. Distinguished linguists, particularly Professor Kay Williamson, identify the Ijoid language family as one of the oldest branches within the Niger-Congo language phylum, suggesting an exceptional depth of antiquity in the Niger Delta. Complementing this, Professor E. J. Alagoa, one of Africa’s foremost authorities on Niger Delta history, documents the Ijaw as among the earliest inhabitants of the Delta, possessing sophisticated political systems, religious traditions, and maritime economies long before many inland states attained prominence. While language alone cannot establish exact settlement dates, it provides compelling evidence of the antiquity and continuity of Ijaw civilisation.
European records add another independent layer of evidence. From the earliest Portuguese navigators on the West African coast to nineteenth-century British observers such as Sir Richard Francis Burton, the Benin River and adjoining waterways were consistently described as being occupied by organised riverine populations engaged in fishing, navigation, canoe-building, and maritime trade. Although European writers frequently lacked precision in distinguishing every ethnic community, they clearly recognised that powerful indigenous societies inhabited the creeks and estuaries independently of the inland political structures centred in Benin.
British colonial administration later reinforced this distinction through intelligence reports and ethnographic surveys documenting communities such as Olodiama, Okomu, and Egbema as culturally distinct riverine societies with their own traditional rulers, customary institutions, languages, and social organisation. These records did not create Ijaw identity; they merely documented peoples whose existence long preceded colonial rule. In this respect, colonial archives corroborate rather than invent indigenous memory.
The expansion of the Benin Kingdom into surrounding territories remains one of Africa’s remarkable historical achievements. Yet imperial expansion should never be confused with original settlement. Throughout world history, great empires governed peoples who retained their own ancestral identity, institutions, and territorial claims. Roman rule did not erase Egyptian civilisation; British colonialism did not create the Yoruba; neither did Benin’s political influence extinguish the indigenous identity or sovereignty of the Ijaw communities inhabiting the riverine south.
Indeed, the civilisation of the Ijaw developed upon a different geographical foundation. While Benin flourished as a forest kingdom renowned for statecraft, bronze artistry, and centralised monarchy, Ijaw civilisation emerged from mastery of rivers, estuaries, and the Atlantic coast. The waterways served as highways, marketplaces, and defensive frontiers through which Ijaw communities built prosperous economies based on fishing, navigation, canoe construction, salt production, and international commerce centuries before modern road networks existed.
That historical relationship continues into the present. A substantial proportion of Edo State’s fisheries, maritime economy, river transportation, and hydrocarbon resources lies within territories historically occupied by Ijaw communities. These riverine areas contribute significantly to the economic viability of the state. Logic, therefore, rejects the notion that those whose ancestral lands sustain an important segment of the state’s economy should be regarded as strangers or tenants within their own homeland.
The creation of Edo State in 1991 did not create the Ijaw presence within its boundaries. Administrative restructuring merely placed already existing indigenous communities under a new constitutional arrangement. The people remained where history had always found them; only political maps changed. It is, therefore, historically untenable to transform indigenous inhabitants into settlers simply because colonial or post-colonial governments altered administrative boundaries.
Recognising the antiquity of the Ijaw presence in Edo State neither diminishes nor challenges the greatness of the Benin Kingdom. Historical maturity requires acknowledging that more than one civilisation contributed to the making of the region. Benin’s imperial legacy deserves honour, just as the enduring heritage of the Ijaw, Esan, Etsako, Owan, and Akoko-Edo peoples deserves equal recognition. Genuine unity grows from historical honesty, not from the denial of another people’s ancestral identity.
The story of Edo State is, therefore, not one of a single centre absorbing every surrounding people. It is the story of several ancient nations whose histories converged within one modern political entity. The Ijaw kingdoms of Egbema, Olodiama, Ukomu, Furupagha, and Gbaraun are not historical footnotes to Benin; they are enduring indigenous societies whose roots run deep into the rivers and creeks of southern Edo.
As the African proverb reminds us, “The river never forgets its source.” Neither should history. Before colonial boundaries were drawn, before administrative maps were coloured, and before modern politics sought to redefine identity, the rivers of southern Edo already carried the canoes of the Ijaw. Their language was spoken, their customs were observed, their kings governed, and their communities flourished. They are not strangers seeking belonging; they are one of the ancient peoples whose history is inseparably woven into the making of what is today known as Edo State.
