In The Eze Uzu’s Enclave

By Chuks OLUIGBO

Whichever part of the country you are coming from, it is accessible by road from the Asaba or Enugu airport. You can either use the Enugu-Onitsha Expressway or take the inland routes. It doesn’t matter. Awka, the capital of Anambra State and homeland of the great smiths, is ever ready to welcome you with open arms.

Strategically located mid-way between the two big cities of Onitsha and Enugu, Awka has grown from just a little town renowned only for its smithing activities to a name to be reckoned with in the business of hospitality in Nigeria.

Though it was an administrative centre for the colonial authorities, Awka’s rise to its present prominence began in 1991 when the old Anambra State, comprising the present-day Anambra, Enugu, and parts of Ebonyi State, with its capital at Enugu, was split into Anambra and Enugu States. Anambra itself was originally part of the old East Central State, consisting of the five states of what is now known as South-Eastern Nigeria. In 1976, the old East Central State was split into Imo and Anambra States, and both existed side by side until 1991 when the military administration of Ibrahim Babangida created additional states in Nigeria, taking away Enugu from old Anambra.

With this development, Enugu city automatically became the capital of the newly created Enugu State, while Awka became the capital of the new Anambra State. This new status greatly buoyed the emergence of Awka as a city. In less than no time, individuals, businesses, and corporate organisations began to cluster there. With this too, Awka instantly became an ancillary town to the commercial cities of Onitsha, Nnewi, and even Enugu.

Development attracts further development. So it was that with the congregation of individual and corporate businesses, civil servants, as well as financial institutions in Awka, the hospitality industry too began to boom. As workers and other individuals within Awka and its immediate environs, plus numerous other people who had one or two businesses to transact, needed places to relax, or just to pass the night in the case of travellers, the emerging hospitality industry in Awka came handy to provide these needs.

So, from just a few manageable guest houses in 1991, Awka has grown in leaps and bounds. Today, virtually every corner of the city is dotted with gigantic structures as hotels, guest houses and suites, most of which boast of state-of-the-art facilities like tastefully-furnished rooms, swimming pools and exquisite pool sides, other recreation facilities like lawn tennis pitch, gym and aerobics equipment, amusement park for kids, table tennis and volleyball pitch, among others. Many of them also have nite-clubbing facilities for night crawlers.

The town currently has over fifteen 3-star hotels, among which are Barnhill Resort, Choice Hotel, Cosmila Suites and Hotel, Finotel Classic Hotel, Golphins Suites and Hotels, Marble Arch Hotels, De Olde English Hotel, Parktonian Hotel, Queen’s Suites Hotel, Suncity Exclusive Hotel, and Tourist Gardens Hotel.

Other hotels in the city include Mano Hotel, De Exchequers Hotel, King David Garden and Suites, Hyton Hotels, Mercy-En Hotels, De Limit Hotels and Suites, Irish Garden Suites, White View Hotel, Palos Verdes Hotel, Brownsville Hotel and Suites, Numac Hotels Limited, Swiss Cottage Holiday Inn, Century Guest House, Lake View Rendezvous, Grand Riviera Hotel, Malikwu Suites and Spa, Desires and Leisure Hotels Limited, J.Jumac Hotels and Towers, Basino Hotels and Tourist Village, among others.

There are also a good number of fast food joints and exquisite kitchens that serve a variety of mouth-watering African, continental and Oriental dishes; numerous local delicacies like Nkwobi, Isiewu, Ugba, Abacha, and so on; as well as assorted drinks, including unadulterated nkwu enu (fresh palm wine). These include Phronesia African Kitchen, Crunchies Fried Chicken, Next Level Restaurant and Bar, MacDons Fast Foods, Bejoy Centre Point, Gelly’s Garden, Mr Biggs, Doris Kitchen, Bamboo Garden, etc. These joints also provide excellent gardens and relaxation spots.

Several new businesses have equally erected fascinating new buildings that have largely changed the face of Awka city. And there is no doubt that the recent recognition of Anambra as an oil producing state by the Federal Government will provide an added impetus.

Awka also enjoys some level of serenity, without the regular do-or-die hustle and bustle of many a Nigerian city. For this reason, it serves as a buffer zone for businessmen, corporate individuals and others resident in the rather noisome commercial and industrial cities of Onitsha, Nnewi and Enugu, other states of the South-East, as well as other parts of Nigeria.

Furthermore, the city’s central location makes it a stopover for tourists who want to visit such popular attractions as the ancient town of Nri (the cradle of Nri Civilisation and the famed spiritual homeland of the Igbos), the Ogbunike Cave, the Agulu Lake, the Igboukwu archaeological site, and many others, as well as the Nanka, Oko and Ekwulobia erosion sites.

Awka (a corruption of the Igbo Ọka), is one of the earliest settlements in the densely populated Igbo heartland. The Nri-Awka axis is one of the areas in Igboland described as “the Igbo centre or core”, that is, one of the earliest Igbo settlements from where waves of secondary migrations took off to other Igbo areas.

Awka traditional society was famous for metal working and its blacksmiths were prized throughout Igboland and beyond for making farming implements, guns and household tools. Adiele Afigbo, the late ‘doyen of Igbo history’, in his Ropes of Sand: Studies in Igbo History and Culture, described the Awka as smiths and oracular agents.

Awka is currently divided into two local government areas – Awka North and Awka South. But even though it has adapted to the republican system, the city still preserves traditional systems of governance. Its paramount cultural ruler, the Eze Uzu, is elected by all Ozo titled men by rotation amongst different villages. The current Eze Uzu (since 1999) is Obi Gibson Nwosu, one of the first recruits for the Nigerian Air Force and a former head of Air Traffic Operations for the Biafra Air Force, the Lusaka International Airport and the Zambian Air Service Training Institute (ZASTI).

The city has a large student community as it hosts two universities – Nnamdi Azikiwe University and Paul University. Its largest market is Eke Awka.

Awka’s major cultural attraction is the Imo-Oka Festival, a weeklong festival of masquerades and dances usually held in May (at the beginning of the farming season). The festival honours a female deity who, it is hoped, would make the land fertile and produce bountiful yields. The festival showcases a variety of masquerades (mmanwu) believed to represent the spirits of Awka ancestors who emerge from the land of the dead.

Awka is also the hometown of the late Kenneth Onwuka Dike, renowned professor of History and first Nigerian vice-chancellor of the University of Ibadan, who, alongside S. O. Biobaku, pioneered and popularised the use of oral traditions as an authentic source in the reconstruction of the African past, thereby debunking the claims of people like Hugh Trevor-Roper that Africa has no history except the history of European activities in Africa.