Pre-Colonial Political System in Ebira-land

Abstract

This paper attempts a reconstruction of the Ebira Political Administration before the arrival of the colonialist into the political scene of the Ebira people. The Ebira political system, before the advent of colonialism practice a decentralized system of administration characterized by a nuclei clan and age grade system thereby resenting any form of unified central authority that is capable of wielding general control over the clans and age-grade. The Ebira people, unlike what is Eminent today, have a different political and administrative setting during the pre-colonial era. Before the colonial construct and manipulations of Ebira political system, the Ebira practiced a purely indigenous system of local self-rule anchored on the clan and age-grade system that has become a well-entrenched and popularly accepted pattern of governing the people in their different settlement patterns. The head of the clan was the oldest male member, though his political power was remarkably nominal, having authority mainly over his immediate family. The clan head represented the economic interest properties in trust for the clan. This paper, also, seek to examine the rationale behind the forced change in the political arrangements of the Ebira people against the existing status-quo observed then, its economic and social implication on the people of Ebira land. The central objectives of this paper are to unravel the real intentions of the colonialist sudden meddling and impedance of the Ebira polity and the after-math of this foray.