Jibu People : Not A New Discovery

I had the privilege of working with what might be the last batch of foreign Christian missionaries in east Nigeria. Very brave and courageous missionaries scouring the regions of Benue, Taraba and Donga rivers for people. Scattered among the mountains and the valleys from Mayo-Belwa through Jadda, Zing, Gembu (Mambila), down to Karim-Lamido, are many peoples, possible citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. Those Irish fishers of men knew this very well.
There are tribes of Bachama, Fula, Vere, Koma, Jen-jon, Lau, Mumuye, Jukun ( comprising at least 5 lingo-tribal groups), Mambila, Kutep, Chamba, Tiv and many others. Although the people live in the wild in this expanse, they are a lot less wild than their environment. Facts are they have been discovered earlier, and they know of modernity more than the urbanized cameramen from the city know of them. These peoples are generally hospitable. Aggressively savage only when provoked.
Recencently, I was straining to figure out which Jibu were discovered as reported in some newsbooks. I found out: they are the same old ones, a subgroup of Jukunawa.

Some Facts
*In some remote villages, it was usually very difficult to communicate definitely with the people for there was no common language. But in other villages, folks speak Hausa just as city people do.
*There is a tourist site in Gumti.
*Some of the rivers in these areas are still bridged with old-fashion bridges. The types built of steel frames, wooden boards, and baked mud, by past colonial administrations.
*Their local hunting and farming instruments are not entirely backward. They have guns and they use fertilizer. They also practice a sort of crop rotation.

In 1996 or 1997, one group of these peoples greeted a visiting military governor with the chorus: "Taki! Taki!!" (Fertilizer! We want fertilizer!). That was because the one ordered for them that year by a reverend missionary stationed at Wukari was not delivered. The extremely corrupt importation system in Nigeria embezzled it.
*City folks might not be less superstitious than them. Some of them, people from cities, do go in search of uncorrupted mediums among the villagers.

*Although, unconventionally dressed and housed, they are yet unafflicted by many of the social plagues devastating their city counterparts. While there are thieves, they usually scuttle away at the appraoch of the householder, unlike in the city where skilled barbarians kill off whole families to get the money they want. Polygamy is common but rape and incest are virtually unknown. Homosexuality (homosexualism) is unknown. Adultery is rare, unlike in the cities where adultery is commoner than marriage.
True, the people are poor; some of them, especially of the older generation, are completely lacking in knowledge and application of modern things. But poverty is ubiquitous both in the cities and in the villages in this zone. While the poor in the city may be well clothed but hungry and homeless, the villager often only lacks adequate clothing, sanitation and efficient means of telecommunication.
The biggest poverty, poverty in ethos, is with government.When leaders are consistently dishonest, it's extremely risky to base any plan on what they say. Governmental agencies seem more interested in keeping these folks in the backyard than in bringing some modern amenites to them.

*When the Koma people were highlighted in the 1980's, Nigerian government functionaries quickly drafted and awarded contracts for the provision of electricity, tap water, roads, schools, hospitals, et cetera...The funds were provided. Today, more than 25 years after, virtually none of these basic things has been provided. The only things that reached the people were clothes, provided by the lawyer-military administrator of Gongola state then, Mr. Yohann Madaki. He personally superintended the distribution of these things. He had observed those who entertained him when he visited them. They danced clothe-less.

An old teacher, discussing with me about kabiloli achikin kauyuka (tribes in the pristine villages), once queried: "Who're primitive:the unschooled people or the government officials who make it their fundamental duty to embezzle resources?"

Just as sighting the smaller version of humanbeings found in some remote parts of Cameroun and other central African countries is no longer new discoveries, so is sighting the Jibu and their neighbours (at festival) in the mountainous expanses of Gashaka, Gumti, Serti...in east Naija-Area no longer new discoveries.