The National Association of Jukun Wanu (NAJUWA) has expressed concern over a motion sponsored by Terzungwe Dugeri, a member representing Kwande West Constituency in Benue State House of Assembly to rename several towns and communities in Benue and Nasarawa States.
NAJUWA said the motion seeks to reflect Tiv identity and cultural heritage.
In a statement by NAJUWA secretary- general, Comrade Sule Atase, for the National Executive Council (NEC), titled: “NAJUWA said the legislative move is not only historically unfounded and culturally insensitive, but also exposes a coordinated, long-standing agenda of ethnic expansion.”
The group alleged that the motion aims to dispossess indigenous nationalities such as the Jukun-Wanu, Alago, Agatu, and Gwandara of their ancestral lands and historical identities.
However, in a swift reaction, the president general of Mdzough U Tiv worldwide, who called for speedy legislative action, said the Tiv people, who were the early settlers in Gongula, now Taraba State, were more than the Jukuns.
He said that even in Nasarawa State, the Tiv People constitute 49 per cent of the population in over five local governments: Awe, Obi, Doma, Lafia, and Keana.
According to him, the 1946 census indicated that the Tiv people had 46 per cent while the Jukuns had only 12 per cent in the then Gongula, now Taraba State. He wonders if the Jukuns will wake up and change all the communities’ names after the Tiv people, including Daanatsha to Kwararafa, Ayu to Kashimbilla, and others, to erase the identities of the Tiv people in those communities.
Ihagh, the chairman of three socio-cultural groups in the state, described Atase’s claims as mischief and mere fallacy.
He urged the general public to disregard such baseless claims, adding that most of the names of Tiv communities in Nasarawa State, like Akange, have been changed to Akanga, Kerenkwu to Akeleku, among many others, to dislodge the Tiv people.
The president general described Atase’s statement as nonsense and lacking merit, saying it will not hold water, even as he commended Dugeri for sponsoring the bill with the call on the assembly not to hesitate to pass the bill into law.
But in a statement titled “NAJUWA strongly condemns Benue State House of Assembly Motion on renaming communities: A thinly-veiled land grabbing agenda in Kwararafa territories’ Atase said the pattern of appropriation is now further confirmed by the recent press release of the Alago Ikweyi Gbayi Development Union (AIGDU), which rightly challenged His Royal Highness, the Tor Tiv, Prof. James Ayatse’s claim during President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s condolence visit to Benue State on 18th June 2025.
The Association said the Tiv paramount ruler wrongly claimed that Yelwata and other territories in Keana, Obi, and Awe local government areas of Nasarawa State were Tiv ancestral land. AIGDU rightly responded, with documentary and historical clarity, that Yelwata is an Alago (Alagon Omere) village in Keana Local Government Area of Nasarawa State, and not Guma Local Government Area of Benue as falsely claimed.
“The Tor Tiv wrongly claimed that Yelwata and other territories in Keana, Obi, and Awe local government areas of Nasarawa State were Tiv ancestral lands.
“The AIGDU rightly responded, with documentary and historical clarity, that Yelwata is an Alago (Alagon Omere) village in Keana Local Government Area of Nasarawa State, not Guma Local Government Area of Benue.
AIGDU noted that the Tiv people, according to well-established colonial records and traditional oral accounts, arrived much later as migrants and artisanal workers, and were never ancestral landowners in these areas.
NAJUWA echoes the position of AIGDU, pointing out that historical truth must not be sacrificed on the altar of political ambition, ethnic superiority complex, or cultural revisionism.
It stated unequivocally that communities such as Daudu, Yelwata, Kastina-Ala, Wadata, Wurukum, and Kwatan Sule have their roots deeply entrenched in Jukun-Wanu, Alago, Agatu, and other non-Tiv ethnic civilisations.
“These territories existed centuries before the Tiv migration into these regions. To rename them under the guise of ‘Tiv cultural reclamation’ is historically false and a deliberate and aggressive move to overwrite existing identities, distort facts, and legitimise encroachment,” NAJUWA stressed.
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