Experts in ethnicity and race relations have told us that minority groups everywhere feel threatened, weak and fearful of domination even though the basis of that fear is not that evident. With less than a population of three million, it is understandable if the Idoma cultural group feel the need to gather and rethink their existential challenges. That conversation is now afoot in Otukpo, its most concentrated cultural and commercial centre in Benue State of Nigeria.
There is nothing problematic in that although the question of what and who defines the Idoma challenges would remain. It is unclear whether any ethno-cultural group can build for itself an oasis in Nigeria. Nigeria has been decomposing but also recomposing at the same time. In the fluidity of that process, the conference such as the Idoma nationality has called is a very positive development. How far it can go in addressing even some of the problems that are specific to that cultural space remains to be obvious. Yet, the conference cannot be a waste because meaning and reality can only come from conversations. Every conversation is, therefore, welcome, particularly if it brings together all the elements listed above.
And more so if the conference opens with any track from Joe Akatu, the lyricist. Akatu did not attend Oxford or Harvard or even any secondary school. But he has an unsurpassable repertoire of what one may call the Idoma world or the Idoma mind. Of course, there is the Idoma mind, not in a naturalistic sense of it but in the sense that, as an imagined community, they have shared values which have been transmitted over the years. Ben Andersen’s concept of the nation as an imagined community is very apt here: even children of Idoma parentage who have never been ‘home’ aspire to that imagination, notwithstanding the CNN-isation of the world. But this is not a justification for the kind of Idoma populism that is observable everywhere today and which the conference might be able to make a statement against. Populism is pure bad business for a minority ethnic cum cultural group in a multi-ethnic Nigeria.
Perhaps, it is not coincidence that this process is led by a literary/cultural philosopher – Prof Edward Abah and the cohort in the Idoma National Forum, (INF). It is hoped that with the literati in the cockpit, this journey to Okpamaju, (apologies to Bongos Ikwue) will be a guided journey!
Everyone knows that majority of Idoma worry about why nobody from that ethnic identity has been a governor of Benue State, military or civilian, elected or selected. Idomaland is also conscious of what is seen as a contradiction between solid presence of Idoma sons (and daughters too) at the federal level without what would, by popular acclamation, be considered an adequate Idoma share of the national cake. There is a fertile imagination that selecting a strategic individual as the next Och’Idoma of Idoma with the incumbent on a prolonged hunting expedition will give the ethnic group a competitive voice and visibility in Nigerian politics. None of these ideas can be dismissed on the face value. However, the expectation is that the conference will provide opportunity for engaging with them with greater clarity.
It would appear that the merit of the conference might be the key centres of power in Idomaland – the traditional authority, the religious leaders, the politicians, the professionals and the constituency of the retired military putting heads together on all and more of some of these issues that worry the people are concerned about.
According to Prof Edward Abah, the Chairman of the Conference Organising Committee, many of the Idoma elite will be at the conversation. It is automatically assumed that all those seeking governorship of Benue State from the ethnic group will attend the conference too. Physical presence at the conference may not be such a decisive factor but if time and space decides reality, then physical presence may mean more than tokenism now.
