Ibi

Ibi is a historic river port on the south bank of the Benue River in Taraba State, opposite the mouth of the Shemankar River. It was founded in the 1850s as a post for slave traders operating out of the Fulani emirate of Muri to the northeast. The town's fortunes shifted with the arrival of British colonial trade: the Royal Niger Company established a trading station there in 1899, and in 1900 the British made Ibi the administrative headquarters of western Muri Province, with telegraph service linking it to Lokoja by 1901. Ibi's Hausa traders were also indirectly responsible for one of Nigeria's major mineral discoveries — British merchants who saw them marketing tin products in Ibi went on to locate the large tin deposits of the Jos Plateau in 1904.

Cotton growing and ginning were significant to the local economy in the colonial era, and Ibi remains a collecting point for crops including sesame seed and soybeans. Its long river-port history and role in the 19th- and early 20th-century Benue trade make it one of the more historically layered towns in the state.