Interrogating the origin and identity of the Anioma of the Western Niger Delta of Nigeria

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper is a historical and ethnological review about the Anioma people of Nigeria. The popular narrative regards the Anioma land as Benin kingdom territory, and generally describes the people as Benin immigrants or refugees in their present locale. This brand of thought has been amplified to the extent that their past is distorted, and they are now experiencing crisis of identity and with time, they will be as little informed about their past. The paper deploys the critical historical analysis method to interrogate the origin of the Anioma clans. It depends on primary source materials which consist of archival and oral testimonies obtained from the field and supplemented with available secondary materials. The paper argues that any workable hypothesis on Anioma identity in the present time must begin with a plausible explanation of the original groups. It shows that the current identity crisis among Anioma people has much to do with the event of the Nigerian civil war. It concludes that although there were external stimuli into Anioma area, such had been absorbed linguistically over time, the innovations they came with reinterpreted completely in the climate of the aboriginal Igbo culture.