Abam

Abam is an Igbo clan of Arochukwu local government area in Abia State, and the largest in that area by land and by population. Its progenitor is remembered as Onyerubi Atita, which is why its people are also called Abam Onyerubi.

Abam and Ohafia are brother clans: one ancestry, one dialect, one warrior tradition. The men were fighters by trade as much as farmers — Abam companies were hired for war and for police duties across Igboland and beyond, and it was Abam who first danced the ikpirikpi ogu, the war dance Ohafia and Abiriba later made their own.

The clan was one of the warrior powers of the Cross River country. With Ohafia, Abiriba, Edda, Alayi, Igbere and Ututu it formed the military bloc that the Aro drew on for their expeditions, and one reading of the history is that without those clans there would have been no Aro confederacy at all.

None of that is the whole of Abam. Its land is among the most fertile in Abia — oil palm, rubber, rice, cassava and cocoa — and its people farm it and trade it. Abam's sons and daughters have settled far from home, and the towns that trace descent from Abam are found across Ikwuano, Bende and beyond.