Chapter 36
In June 1853, the Jihadi armies marched on the Aro confederacy. Before moving on to accounts of that campaign, it is important to know the history of the area, its people and culture. It is interesting to note that in an age of colonialism, Europeans weren't the only people partaking in the same. The Aro history is a perfect example of native colonialism.
The area encompassing the Aro confederacy was once inhabited only by a semi-Bantu group called the Ibibio who had arrived there in 7000BC from Cameroon. Isolated from all its neighbours due to its rainforest geography and isolated from the world because of its location in the 'Dark continent', this civilization hardly changed for thousands of years living in scattered hunter-gatherer and farming village communities and governed by various tribes and clans. Traditionally Ibibio society consisted of communities that are made up of large families with blood affinity each ruled by their constitutional and religious head known as the 'Obong-Ikpaisong'(literally means 'Head of household'). The orders of this Ikpaisong were enforced by the Ekpo, a secret society and policing unit which had virtually unlimited power and authority by both cultural and religious laws.
A mask of the Ekpo(policing society) of the Ibibo people. These masks were intentionally made ugly to scare criminals and evil spirits. The Ekpo monopolized internal policing and due to their masks, it was impossible to identify a perpetrator of police brutality making their authority absolute.
The Ekpo were also empowered by the Ibibo religious structure. Ibibo religion consisted of three 'Abasi'(god), the god of heaven(Abasi Enyong), the god of Earth(Abasi Isong) and the supreme being(Abasi Ibom) and a number of other secondary gods. One of these spirits was the Akai(forest) which was considered to be sacred. There was always a clear border between where a village ended and the Akai started. Nobody was permitted to hunt animals, cultivate crops or linger in the Akai after dusk. However the Ekpo were allowed to do the same and they also developed secret cult meeting places and strongholds inside these forests which slowly increased their power even more.
Then in the 17th century this serenity of Ibibo isolation was violently broken. To the near north of traditional Ibibo lands were a people called the 'Igbo'. During the 17th century certain geographical factors led to mass migrations of Igbo into Ibibo lands. These Igbo were led by a blacksmith and head of tribe called 'Eze Agwu'. Naturally tensions developed between his group and the Ibibo Obong whch then led to war. Initially defeated, Agwu then allied himself with the chief's younger brother and won the war the second time. Shortly after, he ascended the throne and the Igbo entrenched themselves into Ibibo society.
A Igbo object which was probably mounted on top of a ceremonial staff
Generally the Igbo migration did not change society much. It remained highly autonomous and the Ibibo and their Ekpos remained in place. The new Igbos did construct a large town called Arochukwu('Chukwu' was the supreme god of the invading Igbo people who unlike the Ibibo had a much smaller pantheon of gods) which would go on to become the capital of the Aro confederacy and the seat of the powerful Ibini Ukpabi oracle. The 'Aro people' are basically Igbos living in Arochukwu. For a long time, the Igbos reigned as chiefs in a land populated by Igbo and Ibibo peoples in a highly autonomous condition. Then, during the mid and late 18th century, palm oil and slave trade with the pale looking foreigners boosted the treasuries of several leading Igbo families. As a result, the chiefs of Arochukwu, or the 'Aro' united with several other villages and tribes to form the Aro confederacy.
A
maiden spirit mask symbolizing beauty and peacefulness. While the Ekpo wore dark ugly masks, lighter masks were usually wore by respected females. This particular specimen belonged to an Igbo person which shows that in many ways, the Igbo had assimilated well within the pre-existing Ibibo society.
Life in the new 'confederacy' again changed nothing much except for the nomination of an Eze(the Igbo word for 'King') as the sovereign. Autonomous villages and tribes continued to exist and the largest settlement still had only 5000 persons at most. Members of the group shared a common market and meeting place, a tutelary deity, and ancestral cults that supported a tradition of descent from a common ancestor or group of ancestors. Authority in the village group was vested in a council of lineage heads and influential and wealthy men.
The power and size of this confederacy started rising after its founding largely due to a further increase in Igbo colonization of the land(leading to more fighting recruits) and due to a series of expansionist campaigns at the start of the 19th century led by one general Okoro Idozuka around the same time as the Fulani Jihads were raging to the north. This finally brought the highly autonomous yet regionally powerful Aro confederacy to the size it would remain until its eventual war with the Sokoto caliphate.
The war itself is hardly a story. The Sokotans encountered no major resistance to their might. However the main event of this war was the absence of Umaru Bin Ali. According to contemporary sources, a wound incurred in the battle for Benin had infected his entire left leg and he was forced to bitterly return home away from the frontlines. This meant that Tukur Zaki would now lead the Sokotan Jihad singlehandedly(he was given the command by the Sultan as mentioned in the previous chapter). He initially marched into the Aro kingdom and surrounded Arochukwu but refrained from trying to attack the Aro army there.
Sun Tzu writes in his 'Art of war' that it is always better to leave your enemy an opening to retreat lest he fight fanatically like a cornered tiger. It is doubtful if Tukur Zaki ever read Sun Tzu but he used the same tactic. Knowing that the several thousand strong Jihadi force would scare the Aro Eze(king), Zaki patiently waited for two months and left the Eze a path open to retreat and retreat he did after which Tukur Zaki entered the city triumphantly.
Following his entry he massacred the city under the pretext of freeing the Osu slaves. As mentioned earlier, Arochukwu was a major city and home of the Igbo Ibini Ukpabi oracle. The oracle was known for enslaving anyone who begged for immediate help in return for god's favor(thus making them an Osu). For example, if you are suffering from a deadly disease and wish to live then you beg the oracle for help. Theoretically you will be cured and then will become the oracle's slave in exchange. If you died despite begging the oracle then it was assumed that your prayers and begging for help wasn't sincere enough. The oracle however also abused its power. Agents of the oracle would sometimes pose as bandits and chase their victims into the shrine, hoping they would beg the intervention of the god and become osu, so the priests could then sell them off for profit.
Left-Entrance into the shrine of the oracle;Right-Interior of the oracle temple
A festival dance and ritual sacrifice for the oracle
Upon his entry into the city, Tukur Zaki stormed the shrine of the oracle and ordered it to step down from power(as the oracle was the second most powerful political structure in the land) and release all its slaves immediately or face the wrath of the Jihad. Upon the oracle's refusal, Zaki gave his soldiers the orders to raid and loot the city as they saw fit for 4 continuous days. The end result is easily guessable. By nightfall 4 days later, the whole city was one big wreck, destroyed, raped and burned in the name of Jihad. All of its surviving population dispersed into the surrounding rainforest. A few lucky ones managed to convert to Islam via the various Inams accompanying Zaki's army and then joined the looters in raiding their own people. The Ekpo continued to mount guerilla raids on the Jihadis through their secret jungle strongholds but unlike the natives, the Sokotans had no qualms with entering the sacred Akai(forest) and as soon as the rains subsided, Tukur Zaki sent a powerful force into the jungle with orders to burn areas with suspected Ekpo strongholds. Many of these fires spread to surrounding settlements and killed thousands more.
Finally in November 1853, a local chief gave the news to Tukur Zaki that the Eze had been killed in one of the attacks and thus the Aro confederacy ended.
The bloodthirsty massacres in Aro shocked the chivalrous Umaru Bin Ali but complains to his father, the Sultan fell on deaf ears as the Sultan himself was ill with fever and had delegated most of his authority to his grand vizier Usman Amadu, Tukur Zaki's father-in-law. In protest he privatized the naming ceremony of his newly born son 'Wasim Ali' and did not call a single noble or member of the Ulema to the same, not even the Sultan!
But another shocking event was about to take place in Sokoto soon!
