LOCATION AND GEOGRAPHY

 

LOCATION AND GEOGRAPHY.

Igarra (Etuno) originally Etônô is located in the Southwestern axis of Akoko Edo Local Government Area of Edo state. It lies on Latitude 7°.04N and Longitude 6°.12E. From Benin City the capital of Edo state, it is about 150km by road but 134.4km as the crow flies (on a bearing of 0260). It is the largest single community in Akoko Edo Local Government Area.

The 2006 census puts Akoko-Edo LGA population at a disputed figure of 262,100. Igarra's major neighboring towns are, Afuze in Owan East Local Government Area of Edo State, Auchi in Etsako West Local Government Area of Edo State, Okene in Kogi State, and Ikare in Ondo State. It is a town historically and traditionally organized into three geographical settlements or quarters, namely; Ubobo (Ugbogbo), Utua and Uffa. Ubobo is generally accepted as the oldest of them all and the cultural headquarters of the town owing to the well-established fact that it is the quarters in which the first set of arriving migrants settled and that it also received the first batch of natives to relocate from "Ifege" (the rocky hills and caves) to the plains below where they permanently settled beginning from 1911, and therefore serves as the nucleus of most cultural activities. The downward relocation was facilitated by the British colonial overlords in their quest for easy access to and control of the people. Uffa quarters received the second batch while Utua received the third and last. The whole exercise ended in 1917.

 

The average annual rainfall at Igarra is about 50 inches or 1,250 millimetres. The rainy season begins in late March, but maximum precipitation occurs towards the end of the rainy season and is followed almost immediately by drought conditions. The wettest months are June and September given a double rainfall maximum because of its proximity to the rain-forest.  Line squalls or tornadoes, which usually herald the coming and ending of the rainy season, are rather destructive of crops and houses. The dry season, which last from November to early March, is usually a period of high temperatures (about 88°F in the day) and intense the effect of reducing the relative humidity from over eighty per cent during the rainy season to sixty per cent. The harmattan hastens the drying of sorghum (guinea corn), cocoa seeds, pigeon peas, grass, streams and leaves.

 

The town is at an altitude of 335mm above sea level. Chief amongst the water bodies is river oyanmi (eyin upako in etuno language) a distributary of ojirami river. River Onyami empties it contents into River Osse which serves as a natural boundary demarcation between Edo and Ondo States in some sections along its length. Other water bodies in igarra are Anjozote, Ukufozushi, irivodo, Orosi Adaba, Ojozarivey, Onyiovabe,

Orosi Agava, Enyi Amune, Obetere, Envioshimofa, Okufa Ichakachiki, orosi idikor, Enyi Okaigo and Enyiobova which are all streams in the Ugbogho Quarters. Ivokoto is a very popular natural spring located at the foot of the rocky hill ridges. In Uffa there are Enyinanova, Orosi Okovido, Osue Aboro, Enyi Ireta and Upako; while in Utua there are Usege and Enyi Ifege. All these minor rivers are tributaries to River Onyami which itself flows in a progressively southwestward direction from its source through the swathes of land between Okpe and Otuo in Owan till it finally connects River Osse which carries its contents into Benin River and ultimately to the Atlantic Ocean.

There are numerous mineral deposits in Igarra. However the foremost two in terms of value to the Nigerian economy at present are limestone and marble. Others are kaolin, quartz, feldspar and granite. They rocky hills themselves are boulders of granite composition. They are outcrops which predate the arrival of settlers in the entire area by thousands of years according to geological data.

 

The vegetation of Igarra is a mosaic of the tropical rainforest and guinea savannah. Common wild lives are antelopes, monkeys, warthogs, squirrels, grass cutters, vipers, alligators, puffadders, lynxes and crocodiles. Lions, Tigers and hyenas used to form part of the fauna as reported by the hill dweller generation but have almost been wiped out of the area due to intense hunting activities in the last century. Common food and cash crops which make up the flora of Igarra are cassava, yams, plantain, cashew, mango, maize, tomatoe, millet, oil palm, banana, coconut, guava and citrus.

The soil is rocky and compact in the Northeastern axis but loose and loamy in the Southwestern end especially along Okpe Road axis.