Prof Okon Uya on Ibibio

Prof Okon Uya on Ibibio
By Professor S. I. Udoidem

On January 20, 2012 I read an article titled “Prof. Okon Uya: Standing Ibibio on its Head which was posted on the internet from Global Concord. The article quoted a statement credited to Professor Okon Edet Uya on account of which the article was a response. The quoted statement read: 
“Until comparatively recently the Oron people did not intermarry with Ibbi (Ibibio) for fear of contamination: first with the uncircumcised and second with the descendants of slaves.” -- Prof. Okon Edet Uya
The said comment accredited to Okon Edet Uya about Ibibio people is not only despicable but offensive to a serious academic mind. A true academic that I had always thought Okon Edet Uya to be is supposed to have a sense of intellectual decency. To justify my reservations I had to consult the text to confirm that Prof. Okon Edet Uya really said what was quoted. The text read:
Indeed among the Oron people, to be called “Ibibi” tantamount to being called “a slave” This explains why “until comparatively recently, the Oron did not intermarry with the Ibibi for fear of contamination first with the uncircumcised and second with the descendants of slaves,” according to one informant (Okon Edet Uya, The History of Oron People, p. 8 line 8)
This assertion is indeed a calculated attempt to defame, malign and insult the Ibibio nation. The assertion is too defamatory to be attributed to just a faceless informant. Okon Edet Uya should have had the courage to mention his informant. It is very likely that no body informed him rather he made it up himself to present himself to the public as the protector of Oron heritage. To degenerate to such puerile and infantile mind-set that allows him to fabricate and concoct derogatory information that flies in the face of ancient history documented by non-partisan missionaries and explorers long before Okon Uya was even born is a great disservice to the academic community in Nigeria. Is he trying to sow seeds of discord between Oron and Ibibio? What really is Okon Uyo trying to achieve? Even if what he said were to be considered just for the sake of academic discourse, what evidence has he adduced for his claims? The word “uncircumcised” is a biblical idiom which had a special meaning for the Jews but the “learned” professor has appropriated it and used it inappropriately to refer to the Ibibio. In the Hebrew sense, all non-Jews were referred to as uncircumcised. Does it mean that all non-Oron people are referred to as uncircumcised? In which case, since the Ibibio are not Oron therefore they are uncircumcised. Or does circumcision here refer to male circumcision or female circumcision (clitoridectomy)? Since the context of his assertion is about marriage one might want to ask: Was it the case that circumcised Oron female did not want to get married to “uncircumcised” Ibibio male? Or was it the case of a circumcised Oron male who did not want to get married to an “uncircumcised” Ibibio female? What does it mean for Okon Uya to refer to the Ibibio as “uncircumcised”? What does he mean by referring to Ibibio as “Descendants of slaves”? One would want to ask Okon Uya to explain the logic of his thought. Were the Ibibio uncircumcised because they were the “descendants of slaves” or were they “descendants of slaves” because they were “uncircumcised”? Or were they “uncircumcised” and at the same time “descendants of slaves”? He should have told us who the Ibibio were slaves to. The use of the expression “for fear of contamination” does not only reflect a poor understanding of the English language, semantic configuration and syntax but shows a sickness of the mind. Not being circumcised is not a transferable disease, it is not infectious how then would our “professor” conceive of contamination in this context. A historian of his standing does not know that if one is advancing some information that one considers novel or attempting to refute an existing knowledge claim that one is supposed to provide documented evidence for his or her new claims. Even where he wanted to base his research from informant would it not have been more academic to have more that just one informant. Two or three more sources of the same information would have given at least some probable credence to the authenticity of the information. To attribute new information of this nature to just a faceless and nameless informant cannot be tolerated from a first year history student not to mention a retired Professor of History. Okon Uya has not shown any evidence in this instance of being a seasoned academic. Rather he is celebrating bigotry. 
If we look at it from the standpoint of the Biblical history no one that was created by God was a slave. And, if we look at it from the perspective of the evolutionary theory, none of the animals including humans that evolved through evolution was a slave. The concept of slavery is a human creation for the purpose of subjugating another human being. It is a political concept to engineer a superiority mentality. Perhaps this is where Okon Uya is coming from. Being the most celebrated Oron educated person he now feels that the time has come for him to develop a new grammar of identity and personality for Oron people. But must he tell lies or cast mud on the Ibibio to be able to establish a personality for Oron people? I would not want to engage Okon Edet Uya at the level of his puerile mind rather I would want to help him to learn to look at things with a more dynamic and positive orientation. As a historian and a humane science artist that he is, he owes the society some level of responsibility. He should learn to develop the historiography of slavery with the aim of offering redemption to the politically skewed concept instead of politicizing it and seeking to perpetuate human subjugation. 
Is the professor of history not aware that history has turned out to show that to be called a slave is a promise of becoming a more than ordinary? If we look at the Biblical history, Haggar is said to have been a slave girl yet she was the first to be blessed with the fruit of the womb in Abraham’s household. According to the Biblical history, the son of Hagar Ishmael is the father of the Arab world. Does this history make the Arabs inferior to any other race in the world? Mohammed who is revered by Moslems all over the World was an Arab and can trace his ancestry to Ishmael. Joseph, the son of Jacob was not born a slave rather it was his brothers who sold him into slavery, but God blessed him and made him a governor in Egypt . Through him his family (Jews) came to Egypt and saved themselves from starvation from famine. When there was a Pharaoh who did not know Joseph, the Jews became slaves in Egypt for more than three generations. When eventually they left Egypt it was from this ex-slaves’ generations later that Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the World was born. Did his ancestry history make him a slave? Are the Jews not one of the most powerful and technologically advanced nations of the world today? Does anyone remember the notion of Jews having been slaves in Egypt ? Today Okon Uya and his people struggle to go on pilgrimage to Israel to visit the ancient sites and landmarks of Jewish history without minding the fact that Jews were once slaves in Egypt . What this means is that for Okon Uya to politically aim at denigrating a people by describing them as slaves even when they are not as in the case of the Ibibio is to invoke God’s blessing on them.
The big question is, “What really was Okon Uya trying to achieve by invoking such derogatory comments about Ibibio people?” This is a very serious matter. If it had come from a tout from the motor park undocumented I would ask Ibibio people to ignore it but coming from a Professor and an Oron opinion leader, and having it documented for posterity, I think it should be taken seriously. I expect that by now informed Oron people should have disassociated themselves from such racial prejudice. If there is no formal repudiation and disassociation it would be taken that he is speaking the mind of all Oron people. And this would be most unfortunate.
I share the opinion of those who say that Ibibio historians should get together and go to work for the production of an informed and documented compendium of Ibibio history. Such a document would be better than wasting energy and resources dignifying indignity by trying to respond to Uya’s intellectual indecency and falsehood. And I also share the opinion of those who say that Ibibio politicians should pay particular attention to this new development so that Usung akan asine ke udung abet asen.
Professor S. I. Udoidem
University of Port Harcourt