Eket: History
Eket people belong to the Ibibio ethnic group of Akwa Ibom State who are said to be "the stock natives from whom most of the small tribes in the Qua Iboe and Calabar have sprung". Prof M.D.W. Jeffreys thought that the Phoenicians and Hanno, a Carthaginian explorer, both of whom sailed past the West African coast about 600 BC and 450 BC, respectively, must have met the Ibibios on the coast. The Ekid, an Ibibio people, have lived on the Atlantic coast from time immemorial. Jeffreys' thesis takes on more significance given that reference to Hanno's sea voyage down the coast of West African in the 5th century is referenced under the entry "Hanno: Carthaginian explorer" in the World History Encyclopaedia which also mentions other notable ancient historians who have written about Hanno's sea journeys, e.g. the Ancient Roman historian Justin, the Greek historian Herodotus, the Roman, Pliny the Elder, etc. The account of Hanno's exploration of the coasts of West Africa also mentions encounters with short hairy people thought to have been pigmies who also feature eminently in Ekid oral history which refers to them as "Nnung Amama Isim". Hano also mentioned the sighting of scary fires on a high mountain which some scholars believe must have been volcanic eruptions on Mount Cameroons. When Portuguese explorers arrived on the coast of West Africa in the late 1400s and got to Calabar, Oron, Eket and other settlements on the Atlantic Coast with which they traded, Eket people were already well settled in their current location. The Portuguese named the major river in the area "Rio de Conde" i.e. the Count's River. Later the British traders and colonisers renamed the river Kwa Ibo River (also spelled Qua Iboe), a mispronunciation and misspelling of Akwa Obio, the old name of the community at the mouth of the river. Up till today, Eket people still remember the Portuguese whom they call "Akpotoki". Next came the Dutch, the British, the French, and the Germans. It is the British who finally colonized the area now known as Nigeria of which Eket is a Local Government Area.
Some ideas about the history of the Eket people before the colonial era can be gleaned from the oral histories of the different Ekid clans which have been documented by Prof. M.D.W. Jeffreys (a colonial administrator, anthropologist and an academic who served as Assistant District Officer, ADO, of Eket District from 1919) in his Report on the Clans and Tribes of Eket District 1925 (National Archives, Enugu). According to the 1956 Jones Report, Eket people acknowledged themselves as belonging to 11 clans. Although the report did not mention the names of these 11 clans, they are Afaha (the largest clan), Etebi, Abighe, Idua, Ibeye, Uda, Aniogh, Abikpi, Nnama, Assang and Akiki. Of these 11 clans only Afaha and Idua clans have been recognized as such by the Akwa Ibom State Government while the other 9 clans have been grouped into one recognized clan – Ekid Offiong. Thus we have three recognized Ekid clans, namely Ekid Afaha, Ekid Offiong and Idua clans. The fourth clan in the Eket Local Government Area is the Okon clan. These different clans of Eket people have oral histories explaining their origin and migration to their present locations. Common among the oral histories of migration of Eket Afaha and Ekid Offiong clans is the fact that they migrated from Usak Edet (Isangele) in the present-day Cameroon through various routes to their current locations. …