EFFECT OF REPLACING PALM PRODUCTS WITH PETROLEUM IN AKA-NSUKKA, NIGERIA.

Can you read the writing on the front walls of this house?(Nnewi Youth League Hall Nsukka Branch).This is the first zinc house in Ibagwa Aka, Nigeria. Many people I spoke with can't remember the year it was built. Many said it was circa 1940s-1950s. The old hall is now being used as a bakery. My investigation is centred on the massacre of civilians here by the Nigerian Army on 10 July 1967 but I have uncovered several economic history subtitles that may take me to Nnewi and Arochukwu.

Aro and later Nnewi merchants dominated the trade in palm products here. Palm nuts and oil was so surplus around here that people used them as fuel for fire to cook. During the cold harmattan and rainy months in the old days, local people burn palm kernel to keep warm.

Nobody understand why people from faraway who spoke a weird dialect should come looking for palm kernel. This same products that they threw away. They called them Ndi Awuru Aki, a derogatory term for migrants who traded on this largely local waste product.
Well, in less than a decade,the migrant traders have taken over Nkwo Ibagwa market and the entire town. Traders like Umeano set up palm kernel processing centres and grew extremely wealthy from trade in palm kernels.Beach Junction at Obukpa got its name from here because it is where Umeano stacked "beaches"(a long silk sack) of palm kernel for procession.

By the time the locals understand the economic value of their palm kernel resources, outsiders had taken over the entire distribution and supply. They became extremely wealthy too. It took several decades for the trend to reverse. Palm products have been replaced by petroleum. The Aro, Nnewi merchants left Nnewi League Hall pictured here went from being the most impressive building in this town to becoming a local bakery.

WRITTEN BY; MBE NWANIGA