Almost unseen in the milieu of things in Finima and Bonny as a whole, Christian Adango Tobin is everywhere in actuality. Stakeholder in Bonny Youth Federation (BYF), member of Bonny Environment Consultants Committee (BECC), community liaison officer to different companies where over the years he has demonstrated exceptional excellence in community representation. Key player in Finima Youth Congress (FYC). Resourceful and effervescent value vendor in his home Tobin (Konibo-ye-Awanta) Chieftaincy House. The list goes on. At the backend of several successful initiatives across Bonny Island, his name resonates value addition, role modelling, team player and many more.

In this interview with Kristina Reports Publisher, Godswill Jumbo, Tobin, whose elder brother is currently the Interim Chairman of the Tobin House, spoke on the essence of preserving Ibani ethos and institutions; raised alarm on the danger of undermining the Ibani institutions or language and its ominous effects on oncoming generations. Enjoy the excerpts…

Kristina Reports: Good evening, Sir, let’s meet you…

Christian Adango Tobin: Yeah, my name is Christian Adango Tobin and I’m from Finima, Tobin House, precisely.

When you say Finima, Finima has been in the news for a lot of dramatic events in recent times; which side do you belong? I hear your House is the Pere of Finima and then there is another House claiming the Amadabo of Finima so which one are you, where do we place you?

Of course, I am with Tobin House, and my house is the Pere of Finima, yes, very important, yes.

So, why is your house not claiming the Amadabo of Finima?

It’s because there is nothing like Amadabo. Since, I was coming up, I have not heard anything about Amadabo. It’s just a recent development that as greed has set in and everybody is trying to claim who owns and who don’t own. But over years, what we know is one king in the kingdom and nothing like Amadabo in the kingdom. So, I don’t think it’s even okay to answer, anybody going to claim Amadabo is on his own.

Some people are saying that the whole idea of Amadabo is to put things right and in relation to that, just a few days ago, the Ogbobiri Asawo of Bonny Kingdom was inaugurated, what’s your reaction to that?

It’s a good development. For me, I think it’s an institution that is supposed to be in place before now. Thank God that Bonny Kingdom has deemed it necessary and fit to happen. For me, Bonny Kingdom is taking the right step; if they have decided to bring that kind of body to make sure that all Ogbobiri Asawo are gathering, I think it’s a good this thing. After now, Asawo will come up with their own, at least, to put their selves together so that the town has its own.

You mentioned Ogbobiri, you also mentioned Asawo, can you throw some more light on that? Who are the Asawo and who are the Ogbobiri Asawo?

Okay, in the system, we have different categories of youth. Generally, they are all youths or generally we call them Asawo in Bonny language but at the point of differentiation, you have to differentiate correctly. From the age of one to 18 years, it is called Awomapu, that’s children in English translation. Then from 18 to 39 years of age, it’s called Asawo; from 40 to 69 years of age it’s called Ogbobiri Asawo or 65 as some people keep it, it’s called the Ogbobiri Asawo. From 70 or from 66 above is called Seniapu. But recently, it is a challenge. I saw on Facebook some people were saying that the election and inauguration they did recently in the Palace is not right; that they don’t know their language. I want to say categorically that what they have done is right, that the word ‘Ogbobiri’ is derived from ‘Ogboku’ which is middle. ‘Ogbo’ is club, somebody was saying that club and, was trying to differentiate it but that is by the way we’ll come to that, we’ll come to that, ‘Ogbokubiri’ means middle section, and middle section is not from 18 to 29, middle section is from 40 to 60 or 65 to 69 there about depending on who is doing the assessment. When you say Ogbokubiri, Ogbokubiri means middle, Ogbokubiriapo means middle age grade. So, when I began to make my findings, I started consulting, I realised that people were trying to mislead the rest of Bonny Kingdom and public in general. We now said, okay, let us use traditions and these traditions are everything. In our traditions, we have steps and the way they go; use the gig that we use to paddle, the Asawo occupy the front side, Ogbobiri Asawo the middle, and at the end you see the Seniapu, which is the Ituruma.

So, from the beginning of the boat to the end is segmented?

Yes, we have sections.

So, the older people are behind?

The older people, which is the Seniapu, the Ituruma are the people controlling the behind, helping the persons at the helm of affairs, then the Ogbobiri Asawo are in the middle, then the Asawo are also in the front. So, you can see that this thing goes sequentially like that. We also looked at the Owuogbo settings of our kingdom, same thing applies, we have different Mumbu or categories or levels, three to be specific: the Kala Mumbu, the Kala mumbu are populated by the Asawo, and is called Asawo mumbu; the Kuro Mumbu comprises the Ogbobiri Asawo, and then the Seniapu Mumbu. So, when we look at it we wonder at what point did we change it to having Ogbobiri or Kuro Mumbu to come before Asawo Mumbu?

Are you saying that the people who are supposed to be the Ogbobiri are supposed to be older in age than the Asawo?

Yes, in age ahead of the Asawo. At what point did we now change it that the younger ones should be called Ogbobiri and the older ones should be called Asawo? That is what we are trying to differentiate. Some persons were trying to explain that back in the olden days the younger ones were always moving in groups and that’s why they call them Ogbobiri. But it does not make any sense considering that this thing is our language. Every one of us speak it. This is a literal expression, like Tobin House use to call their own Opu Asawo, but it’s even better because we understand what is Opu, Opu in Ibani means big, Asawo means youth. You say these are bigger youths but when you change the narrative, trying to turn the thing up side down, you mislead the whole community. So, I want to say that that statement or their argument that what Bonny Kingdom has done by inaugurating the Ogbobiri Asawo is not right, is not correct and I want to say that they are the ones that are not right because if they follow their language the way it is, they will understand that these things literally go the same way in all our dealings.

So, does this appear to you that there is a need for the re- teaching, the re-instructing of the Ibani language to the people of Bonny, so that they will understand like now, you are not just explaining in English, you are also referring to the language to make clarifications?

That is the essence. The essence is that people should not stand up and create their own language because the language is not just Finima language, the language is Ibani language, and not only just Bonny, even the Opobo people also partake in this language. So, when you want to do something, there should be a sensitization in the system. Whatever you are doing here should tally with what the other man is doing. You cannot get up and change things and you expect it to stay that way. And you know, the bad thing is that children coming up in this system will tend to think that this is the right way and tomorrow they will mislead their own children because their elders are telling them that ‘what you are doing is right’, when they know that what they are doing is not right. It tends to be a system where people just stand up and bring changes that is not in tandem with the kingdom, the culture and the tradition of the people of Ibani land.

Aside Finima, did you like talk with maybe your kinsmen from other communities around Bonny to hear….

Of course, I did, I spoke with Ogbo Alabo of Allison Owuogbo, which is one of the Ogbo Koroma (aboriginal cultural groups) we have in Bonny Kingdom. I also spoke with Kenneth Bristol of Kuruma Owuogbo; I also spoke with the Captain of Ogolo Owuogbo in Opobo Kingdom, and all of them tend to be the same because I wanted a situation where we’ll go out of our vicinity and hear from other aspects of the Ibani nation. I see that there are so many misled, and these misled ones are telling us that the system that we know that Ogbobiri is middle age, is now the younger age while the younger people, the Asawo that is supposed to be the youth age is now the senior age. So, I had to just go out of my way try to make some little, little findings and by the time we see, every other section has to be together in this whole thing, the only people that are not together is the Brown House extension of Finima.

I’m using extension Finima because, of course, we are all Finima people, and, of course, they are not seeing us as different people outside. They are seeing us as Finima people. I think there is a mistake somewhere. People should go back to the drawing board, make findings, try to see because whatever we do today has been embedded into the constitution, it will lead or mislead the younger youths that do not know these things, and at the end of the day, tomorrow, that’s how we’ll begin to see different, different versions of Ibani culture and tradition. You’ll go here, they’ll tell you this is not our culture. But the truth is that there should be a standardisation. Whatever you think that is the right thing or whatever you think that is not the right thing, make findings, visit other people, ask questions, so that you can get the right thing done without trying to pass wrong information to your generation or your younger generation.

Before we let you go, do you see a danger in this kind of misinformation or misrepresentation of the language or the institution that make up Bonny kingdom?

Of course, there is misinformation and misrepresentation; the institutions that make up Bonny Kingdom, all of us know and let us go from the ground, let us not go from the top, let us go from the grassroots, from our houses, in the house system, we have Asawo, we have the Ogbobiri Asawo. We have Eremapu, we have Ogbobiri Ere. We have Seniapu, we have Wari-Seniapu. Seniapu does not mean Wari Seniapu, Seniapu is any man that is grown to the age of 70 years that is not a title holder, such is called Senibo, he may not be a Warisenibo but he is a Senibo of the community or of the house. We have Wariseniapu, we have Wariopuseniapu, and we have the Wari-Alabo of the house or the Se-Alabo, as the case may be, when you are presented to the Chiefs Council. When you come to the kingdom settings, same thing applies, we have, of course, everybody knows, Amaopusenibo, we have Amaopuseniapu, Amaopu-Orubo and Amaopu-Ereapu. But in the system, we have the chiefs and we have the king who is the number one man. So, that is the system, so whatever you do be conscious of these.

So, what danger do you see in this kind of situation where some people are trying to twist this arrangement you have explained now? What do you think everybody needs to be careful about?

Of course, there is need to be careful because we are one kingdom, and if we are one kingdom, then the kingdom is unique and if you begin to differ from what the kingdom is known for, at the end of the day, of course, the danger is you are misinforming the younger one that is coming up. Tomorrow, I may not be there, the people that wrote the constitution and embedded these things in the constitution will not be there. The children will begin to go out and begin to drag with other people and begin to misinform, they’ll begin to say ‘ah! No, my grandfather, my great grandfather used this like this’. So, now that the thing is not yet in the system where it will begin to misinform people, now that the people that did it are still alive, they should begin to revisit and begin to make the corrections so that we will not get into a situation where tomorrow, we are going this way and the kingdom is going this way thereby making us totally different.

I was talking to some people, we were chatting on Facebook, somebody was saying Finima is unique, not in this dispensation of Bonny Kingdom. As per tradition and culture, if you are unique, if you are saying okay, we are upgrading, we don’t want to call our own Ogbobiri Asawo (middle age youths), we want to call it Opu Asawo (bigger youths), Kuro Asawo (strong youths), we’ll understand, not turning it upside down that Kuro Asawo, Opu Asawo is now the Asawo and Asawo is now the other. Let it be that ‘okay, you changed, there’s name changing, you give it a better name and you tried to do little changes and said ‘okay, instead of calling it Ogbobiri Asawo, let us say Opu Asawo’, the way Tobin House did or we say Kuro Asawo. Of course, so when you do that, you say okay this is, like when I was trying to confirm the names of Ogbokoroma, some people said we have Kala mumbu, we have Kuro mumbu, not like Ogbobiri mumbu. They gave it their own name but it does not change the fact that this is Ogbobiri mumbu or this is Ogbobiri. So, when you twist it now and now say ‘okay, this is Kuro mumbu is the smaller one, you see where the problem is. You are therefore misleading the whole public and trying to make us look as if we are not part of the Ibani Kingdom. The Ibani, itself, is a kingdom where, not only we, if you go to, like I was trying to consult with my friend in Nembe because I know they have similar tradition with us. These are the ways and not the other way round where you will say ‘okay, Asawo is now more than Ogbobiri Asawo’. It is not the right direction and it can cause problems in the nearest future more than you can imagine.