SUMMARY
The issue of political control of certain towns, districts, or states is volatile in the Nigerian society. The political system in Nigeria is young and is still not fully developed in terms of judiciary capacities. This has had a profound impact on issues of land ownership and subsequent taxations matters. The pattern is in some aspects related to the question of which group was the original inhabitants of the area. This has however been hard to verify, and in some cases the period under British rule drastically altered the power-relationships between different ethnicities. It is hence an infected matter without any clear solution. This situation has led to several recorded conflicts regarding taxation and access to local markets.
The other dyads that belong to the same Political/Land taxation cluster of non-state conflicts are; Hausa – Yoruba, Efik – Ibibio, Ife – Modakeke, Ijaw – Urhobo, Okrika – Ogoni and Urhobo – Bini.
The non-state conflict between Izzi (Igbo) and Ukele was based, mainly, on land rivalries, with Ukele spokespeople claiming that people from the Izzi (Igbo) community had settled on traditional Ukele land in the Cross River State. In the Ukele view, members of the Izzi (Igbo) people had forcibly taken control over land that they had only been granted to us as tenants. Izzi (Igbo) spokespeople however claimed that the Ukele had gone back on promises to grant land to them, even after payment had been made.
Analysts also attributed the clashes to mutual suspicion between the two groups, with the Ukele fearing that the much larger Izzi (Igbo) community was trying to impose political dominance over the, in the context, tiny Ukele community. The two groups had no previous record of violent animosities; at least not in modern times. Fighting between the two groups has mainly taken the form of clashes in the bush, coupled with attacks on villages and farmsteads that included looting and the burning of houses. Many people were also displaced by the fighting.
The fighting lasted for two weeks in April and was suppressed when the government intervened with security forces. An attempt to delineate the border between the Ebonyi and Cross River states was also made.
The Izzi (Igbo) - Ukele conflict must also be viewed in the broader spectrum of the ethnic and religious non-state conflicts that have ravaged Nigeria in the past and intensified with the end of military rule, from 1999 and onwards. The conflicts throughout Nigeria have ethnic, political, economic, and religious components, which have become inextricably linked over time, pitting various groups and alliances of groups against each other along different dividing lines.
The non-state conflict between Izzi (Igbo) and Ukele is first included in UCDP data in 2005. In mid-April of that year clashes between the two groups caused at least 100 battle-related deaths.
