Problems/challenges Being Faced By The Tiv People In Taraba State

The biggest challenges, the Tiv people are being face in their day-to-day activities in Taraba State are calamitous and cataclysmic. I think there is no simple solution to this devastating and grievous situation. For whatever opinion one express here will be fiercely and vehemently criticized by Tiv neighbours. But let me try to be as objective as I can.

Nobody chooses where to be born, who bear them or the tribe to be born. You may adopt a new family, parents, new location or new citizenship, but that initial facts are unchangeable. The indigenous Tiv people of Taraba State are confronted with many challenges, hurdles, intimidation and suppression.

The Tiv people have been accused of many things. They say, the people are non-indigenes, arrogant, land-grabbers, love to fight, never love their neighbours, etcetera. Base on this allegations, the Tiv people in Taraba State have been relegated, subjugated and marginalized, yet they want them to thank and subject themselves to those marginalizing them. They attack them and turn around to say they are playing the victim card.

Despite the challenges, the Tiv people have no regret or apology to rendered to anyone or tribes over their identity. When a Tiv man from Taraba State wins award or got an appointment at the national level or abroad, they report the individual as our 'beloved son' or 'son of the soil'. But when a crime is committed, they report or tag such individual as immigrant, settler or stranger, sometimes without proper verification or investigation. For the compromised Nigeria media it becomes Tiv only when crime is involved. This is not to say that all Tiv people are saints or angels. They have weaknesses and strengths like any other ethnic groups.

More than 80 per cent of other ethnic nationalities in Taraba State born and brought up in the state have been brainwashed and set them against their Tiv neighbours. Today, the Tiv peoples who live in Taraba State have been emasculated as their basic inalienable rights to life and ownership of property have been taken away. Seeds of discord and confusion were planted earlier to create mistrust and bad blood among them, thus preventing them from strategizing a common ground to meet the challenges they have been facing as a victimized group.

The truth is that, Taraba State belongs as much to the Tiv people as to other tribes like; Kuteb, Jukun, Chamba, Hausa, Fulani, Ichen and so on who live in it, pay tax, identify with it, and settle in it. That compact was made since the advent of Nigeria as a colonial entity and now as an "independent" entity. One of the most recurrent phenomena in Taraba State situation is the mistrust with which other tribes view the Tiv people with regards to faith in or patriotism to the state.

There seem to be this unfounded, universal fear that the Tiv people with their dominant population, if given the opportunity, would take over their lands. This is ridiculous for some obvious reasons that I will not expantiate on here for lack of space. The only time our unity with our neighbors work is when we allow them stay at the driving seat or when our alliance directly benefits them and not us. The moment we decide to stay at the driving seat, cries of settlers and squatters rents the air.

From the scenario painted above stem all the challenges of being Tiv people in Taraba State - unexplained and often intense rancour, hate, malice, envy, the pull him down syndrome among others. It is as if there is an unwritten agreement that no effort, resource or time should be spared in containing the Tiv people in all ramifications.

Yet, ironically enough, the Tiv people do not grab people's lands, they do not dislodge other people from their ancestral lands like others instead, they do engage in their farming and other businesses, pay taxes and contribute to the socio-economic development of Taraba state, their ancestral homes.

I rest my pen for now!
Citizen John Akevi,
Bauchi State,
Nigeria.
Tel:07037017010, 08110175216