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WHO ACTUALLY ARE THE IGBO? BY DONS EZE
The election of Senator Azuka-Mbata, an Ikwerre man from Rivers State, as the President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo and the controversy it generates, has made us to reproduce a little bit from our recently published book titled “The Igbo, People, History and Worldview”, with regard to Igbo identity.
The Igbo, also called Ndigbo (local parlance), Ibos (anglicized), and Eboes (Diaspora Igbo), refer to one of the most resourceful and largest ethnic groups in Africa whose homeland is in south-central and south-eastern Nigeria, but who equally maintain strong presence in other parts of Nigeria, in addition to virtually every corner of the globe. In Jamaica, the Igbo occupy Montego Bay, Maroon Village and St. Anne’s Bay. They are in Haiti, and in.Virginia, the United States of America. These are part of Igbo Diaspora.
The Igbo are well-travelled people and they constitute the second largest community in every Nigerian city behind the indigenous population.
The main characteristic feature of the Igbo is that majority of them speak the Igbo language, which is divided into numerous regional dialects that are somewhat mutually intelligible within the larger “Igboid” cluster. When we say Igboid, we mean “similar or resemble, having the likeness of, or expressing the basic characteristics of.” Igboid means exhibiting what we know as “typical ‘Igbo'” features. In laymen’s terms, it means “basically sounds ‘Igbo'”, or that it is “recognizable as a type of ‘Igbo'”.
It we may ask, is Ikwerre language “recognizable” as a type of the Igbo language? Your guess is as good as mine.
The Igbo are resourceful people, hardworking, friendly, hospitable and accommodating. They do not discriminate. They are forward-looking, ingenious, creative, resilient, brave, strong-willed, and willing to take risks.
A 19th century former Igbo slave boy, Olaudah Equiano, in his memoir, described the Igbo people of his days as “happy clean people, without unemployment, without prostitution, without drunkards, and without beggars”, while G.T. Basden an Anglican prelate, in his book, “Niger Ibos”, said the “Igbo are very cheery, intelligent, virile, and loveable people with a wonderfully patient persistence to attain any desired goal, a natural astuteness born of necessity together with a loyalty which, though often begotten by fear redirected along the right lines, go far to make them a great nation”.
Similarly, pioneer Catholic cleric and evangelist, Bishop Joseph Shanahan, noted that “the Ibo has a child’s winsomeness. He loves fun and banter. If you show him the good side of your character, he will show you the best side of his. The people know a good man when they see one. Their own souls aspire to goodness, and they have not stifled the aspiration. It is my firm conviction that we shall meet great numbers of our Ibos, pagans, and practically all our Catholics, in heaven”.
As an ethnic group, the Igbo generally encompass several people of different backgrounds who are united mostly by language, Nri, Aro and slave trade. Language, because majority of the people speak the Igbo language; Nri, because the Nri kingship system was the first in Nigeria; Aro, because the Aro people were the harbingers of the ugly spectacle of European slave trade that took heavy tolls on many Igbo communities.
In 1591, the Igbo region of present-day Nigeria was depicted on the Portuguese world map as being inhabited by “some vigorous people whose deep culture celebrated energy, accomplishment, and wisdom”.
Before the coming of the Europeans, the Igbo lived in clusters of individual family units that constituted kindreds (umunna). Several of these kindreds formed an Igbo village or town. Every member of an Igbo village was related to each other one way or another, thus constituting a network of beings, such that what affected one equally affected the other.
Majority of the Igbo practised a common political system centred on decentralisation of power and delegation of authority exercised by heads of family units and other title holders. Decisions were taken by way of consensus after a free debate, to which the young, the elderly, and the titled men each contributed individually. Every man could and did have his say on all matters under discussion. Nobody had any special privilege due to accident of birth.
The Igbo were egalitarian and they had no kings. Ebeku Mmmaduaburochukwu posited that “the original Igbo culture is egalitarian, and that the word ‘eze’ does not mean ‘king’ in the literal sense of the word, but ‘priest’.
“The idea of kings, queens, princes, and princesses was recently adopted, during Ụga Azị (slave trade) period. The word ‘eze’ most likely originated from the Nri priesthood culture…,” he asserted.
The reason the Igbo do not bow down is because Igbo culture did not originate from kingship, but from egalitarianism.
He further posited that there were five original ancestors of the Igbo namely, Agbaja, Isu, Oru, Nri and Idu. While Agbaja people were into agriculture and arts; Isu people were into iron smithery; Oru people knew all about water; Nri people were known for priesthood and arts; and Idu people known for military science”. This was why the Igbo always say: “Ise-e” after praying
This does not mean “Amen”.
On account of these, we further ask whether Ikwerre can fit into any of these descriptions? Let’s answer it individually.
Nobody is begging anybody to be Igbo, but you cannot stand reality upside down. In 2022, a former Haitian Presidential Candidate, Senator Moise Jean-Charles, led a 10-man “home-coming mission” to Enugu, the historic capital of the Igbo, to perform some conventional Igbo rituals, having traced their roots to Igboland.
Before the Nigeria-Biafra war, the Igbo were the dominant, if not the most preferred ethnic group in the former Eastern Region, including the Niger Delta area, in most parts of the Mid-West Region, and in some areas in the Middle Belt zone. Many individuals and groups in these regions sought to identify with the Igbo through inter-marriages, the names they gave their children, and speaking the Igbo language itself.
But after the war, many of these groups began to retrace their steps and to distance themselves from the mainstream Igbo, perhaps, out of fear or plain treachery. To them, the Igbo were the main group the Nigerian government was targeting for extermination. Therefore, it was better to disown or abandon the Igbo and join the victorious Nigerian forces.
As a result, many of these groups began to assert their separate identities and to change the Igbo sounding names of their names, towns and villages, to look different or distinct from the Igbo. Towns like Umuokoro were changed to Rumuokoro, Umuola to Rumuola, Obigbo to Oyigbo, Igbuzo to Ibusa, Igbo Akiri to Igbanke, while Nwike became Wike, Nwigwe became Wigwe, etc.
With regard to the origin of the Ikwerre, known by the natives as “Iwhuruọha”, where the new President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Senator Azuka-Mbata, comes from, scholars agree that they are predominantly Igbo. Olalekan Oduntan, for instance, wrote that the Ikwerre are Igbo subgroup, stressing that the first people to come to the area were the Aro, followed by the Ngwa and the Ika Igbo.
However, following the Nigeria-Biafra war, some Ikwerre people began to rewrite their history, to claim that they came from elsewhere. A United Nations report informed that when Port Harcourt was conquered by Nigerian soldiers and the Igbo people fled the area, Ikwerre people decided to claim that they were non-Igbo, for convenience.
But some prominent Ikwerre sons refused to join the bandwagon, such as the late Senator Obi Wali, Frank Eke, and of course, the new President General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Senator Azuka Mbata. Professor Elechi Amadi, a renowned Ikwerre-born writer, lamented that before these repudiations a community called Chiolu had a king known as “Eze Diala”, and another community with a king called “Eze Okehi”
