Where is Tiv’s Ezeulu ?
By Iorliam Shija
One of the important songs composed during the burial of the third Tor Tiv, His Royal Majesty, Orchivirigh Dr James Akperan Orshi , was by the legendary Obadiah Orkoh.
Obadiah sang in praise of Orshi , his efforts and challenges, he also made conjectures about his succession. In talking about who to succeed Orshi, he invited the Tiv people to their ancestral wisdom.
He sang that , in those good days even when someone was so ugly that women refused to marry him, his peers and age mates who were better off , would come together and get a wife for him. He also called on Tiv sections that had more numbers and strong men , not to marginalise those with small numbers or not so strong men!
In trying to get a section where the next Tor Tiv would come from, Obadiah pleaded with the Tiv to base it on fairness and Justice.
What a timeless song. I recommend that song by Obadiah tittled , Ku u Tor Tiv, to every Tiv man, especially the younger generation that might not have listened to it before .
Obadiah’s advice was not only timely, but it was made to attack an evil that the composer saw creeping in Tivland; the evil philosophy of Or Atav nan zôr that negates the Ubuntu spirit of Tiv men of yore where decision making was made basically by needs of the community and not by the strengths or one section or a man !
The true response of the Tiv tribe has been “Kase”, not Kane, or ka mo ,but Or Tav nan zôr, would disrupt this and with it came , saa mailumo, which Obadiah preached against!
Even though Obadiah being an Ukum man is from the Ipusu extraction of Tiv, just like the Tor Tiv that had died, yet Obadiah expressly told his Ipusu brothers especially , the then Deputy Governor of Benue State , Chief Ason Bur who was going to have a major say in the selection of the next Tor Tiv that , they should remember the kwav Tor carefully that, the first Tor Tiv was Ipusu, the second was Ichongo and now that the third Tor Tiv which was Ipusu had died , it was unarguably and quite natural that the next would be Ichongo…
The still voice of Obadiah talked to the tribe clearly at that time ! The Tribe heard ! But that was then .
When the Umuaro people began to encounter the spreading European colonialists, most realized that the colonialists were not like their other enemies and that they could not be defeated in the same way. So, even those most fiercely opposed to the colonial presence at first eventually conformed to its power, Chinua Achebe wrote in his novel, The Arrow of God.
The first contact that the Umuaro villagers had with the colonialists in the novel came as the result of a war stemming from a land dispute with a neighboring village, Okperi. The hero of the book , Ezeulu’s actions in this conflict would shape the future relationship between himself and colonial Captain Winterbottom, called Wintabota by the villagers.
What did Ezeulu do? The people of Umuaro and Okperi went to war over a piece of land and Winterbottom came in as an arbiter . Every elder from Umuaro said the land in dispute belonged to Umuaro and every elder from Okperi said it belonged to Okperi!
Only one man testified against his village and that was Ezeulu. He told the white man that of the truth, the disputed land belonged to Okperi . Winterbottom based his judgement on that still voice.
Now that Or Atav nan zôr and saa mailumo are here , the Tiv people need more men like Obadiah and Ezeulu. Men and women whose eyes will always be on truth , fairness and JUSTICE! The people who emphasise KASE ! That should be our survival strategy now – that has always been the magic of the success of Tiv men of yore.
