Aro roots of Ikwerre, Igbo Identity crisis by Chidi Osuagwu

on August 28, 2013 / in Special Report 6:00 pm / Comments

Prof Chidi Osuagwu of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Imo State, at this year’s Ezumezu Lecture, a colloquium organized by the Obowu Development Association (Federated), on the 16th of August, in Obowo, discuses identity crisis with its debilitating effects in Africa and Nigeria.

In his paper entitled Obowu Identity Recovery and Rectification in Post-invasion Africa presented before scholars, political leaders, various cultural and professional groups, traditional rulers and government leaders Osuagwu delves into the age long Ikwerre-Igbo identity conflict and the Aro roots of this crisis.

He also explains why Port Harcourt and Anioma States were not created in 1991 by the General Ibrahim Babangida regime despite all expectations, as well as why the leader of the Port Harcourt State creation Committee, Senator Obi Wali, was murdered.

And, for the first time, disruptive effects of the famous Aba Women Riot in the Igbo heart is also brought to light in this paper. Excerpts:

Obowu Identity Recovery and Rectification in Post-invasion Africa

Imperialism is Identity-stripper!

Egypt and the Arab Spring
The invasion of Africa, in the last more than one thousand years; first by Arabs, then Europeans has meant the gradual reduction of Africans to corpses; living dead. The identity-stripped and personality-warped is a living dead. Unless one understands this, he would not understand what is wrong with Africa; wrong with us. If we now have bad governance in Africa, not based on the Oma n’achi (the knowledgeable leads) principle, it is because ‘ozu’ are ruling Africa. The post-invasion (after slavery and colonialism) chief problem of Africa is the crisis of identity. Some short stories will illustrate this point.

Sometime in 2009, I went for a conference in Morocco. They gave participants a cocktail party at which two bands entertained. One band was Arab, the other Amazigh (Berber).

It was clear the Arab band was playing non-African, while Berber band played African music. The Arab band had only men (sharia-compliant!), while the Berber band had males and females, like Africans would. The lead female dancer moved across to where I, the darkest man in the audience of mainly white people, sat and asked me to dance. We danced.

Later I got to understand that the Berbers, 52% of the population, whose culture the Arabs suppress in the name of Islam are intensely nationalistic; pan-Africanist. They would rather identify with black Africa and have an identity than identify with Arabs in the name of Islam and lose their identity. Unless we understand this identity crisis in North Africa, we cannot understand why the so called Arab spring has run into a desert storm.

igbo-people

The Moslem Brotherhood in Egypt, for instance, are salafists; like Boko Haram in Nigeria, who are Arab cultural purists; identity-strippers! They ran into trouble because they are trying to strip others, like Coptic Christians, of their identity. The Egyptian Army intervened to avert a civil war, like President Anwar Sadat did in 1982 and got shot for it.

Aro roots of Ikwere identity crises

In 1991, Babangida regime created new states without creating Igweocha or Port-Harcourt as requested by Igbo people of Rivers State, led by Senators Obi Wali and Francis Ellah. A short while later, I accompanied Mazi Philip Nkwocha, a friend of Obi Wali’s, to visit him at his home in Umuigbo. As Senator Wali saw us enter his house, he shouted at his friend “Phil, what happened?” His friend retorted, in surprise, “Obi about what?” “How come you people asked for Igbo States without including Port-Harcourt?” Wali further asked his perplexed friend. At this point I had to speak up to minimize the confusion. I knew something they both didn’t know.

In 1991 Emeka Omeruah, from Imo State (later Abia), was Military Governor of Enugu State, while Anthony Ogugua, from Anambra (later Enugu) was in Imo State. As the agitation for states heated, these two Governors, quietly, set up a committee to harmonious Igbo demand for States. I was a committee member.

Four states were identified; Abia, Anioma, Enugu and Port-Harcourt. Outreach groups were constituted to reach out to the Igbo in the different states. But events were moving so rapidly that the group decided to go with only demands that would not elicit identity confusion. Port-Harcourt was dropped, for this reason, for the Igbo there to do the best they could under the circumstance.

Hearing this Senator Wali sat still for a long while, then said “Phil, our gamble about identity has failed! You will buy me three traditional Igbo dresses.

I will attend this year’s Ahiajoku Lecture, and seek to deliver that of next year”. He never made it! He was assassinated a short while later, his friends believed, for his continued Port-Harcourt State creation agitation. When I read later that Dr Wali’s son, Ihunwo, was one of the leaders of the Congress for the Liberation of Ikwerre People, COLIP; an ‘Ikwerre-back-to-Igbo-fold’ youth movement, whose mission is to wean Ikwerre off Biafra-war propaganda, I knew where he was coming from.

Identify-confusion is a horrible disease. Barack Obama’s greatest political strength is his very early decision to be African-American and nothing else. He knew where his father came from; and where his mother came from. Those who pretend in America that they are, socially, half-white and half-black, for example, end up as friends of psychiatrists.

“Our gamble about identity has failed!” That statement, by a man who, a short while later, was murdered; for his just state-creation aspiration, still haunts one to this day. And no one can understand the current crisis in Rivers State without understanding the identity crises there. For instance what it means to be Ijaw, but not Izon or ‘core-Ijaw’. And, to be Igbo-speaking, but not Igbo? Or, in fact, all of the above. Not to talk of Ogoni ‘war-of-all-against-all’.

igbo1

When I observed to Senator Wali that his person epitomized the Ikwerre identity dilemma; his very village is Umuigbo (Igbo-children/Igbo descendants/Igbo people), but he too claimed not to be Igbo, his response pointed to the great depth of our identity crises. He told us that his problem was not Igbo identity, as such, but Aro-Ikwerre domination. He informed us that he used to attend the Council meeting of the Village deity priesthood with his father. Even as a child, who carried his father’s stool, it struck him that of the seven stools of the Council, the small Aro population in Umuigbo controlled four. That information struck me.

Famous writer, Elechi Amadi, had given me a variant of this Aro-Ikwerre problematic tale in 1985. We had served together on an interview panel at the then Rivers State College of Education, Port-Harcourt. He told me he had no problem with Igbo identity, but had problem when the Aro-Ikwerre, during the Nigeria-Biafra War, plotted to kill him. Now, it seems the Ikwerre suffer from a significantly misdirected anger.

They are, in this case; holding their Isuama-Igbo (Ikwerre, traditionally, distinguished between ‘Ikwerre and Isuama’; not ‘Ikwerre and Igbo’) kinsmen, who are ethically more related to them than to the Aro, accountable for Aro domination.The Early British, before oil became a factor of ethnic classification in the Lower Niger, had a cultural sub-group of the Igbo they called Orratta-Ikwerre (that is Owerri-Ikwerre, in current usage), who, both call the heartland Igbo as Isuama. Ekwensu wu amaghi ihe! The Devil is Ignorance! The solution to our identity crises, then, is ‘Know self, know other!’

Now to consider the Aro a purely Igbo people; and hold Igbo responsible for Aro mischief is the height of identity confusion. One day, the Cross-river Ejegham, who own the Ibini-Ukpabi soul of the Aro system, the Ibibio who control the social organizational Ekpe and the Akpa that supplied some fighters will turn around and blame the Igbo, from among whom a few medicine men were coopted, for inventing Ibini-Ukpabi and Aro slavery. That would be a most uncharitable treatment of truth, but the world is a clever place.

That the Aro and Arochukwu have been in the process of Igbonisation, as Dike and Ekejiuba called it, because of the sheer weight of Igbo population and Culture in the neighbourhood, does not alter their fundamental archeology and history as a synthetic people who exist beyond Igboland. Aro exist, physically and culturally, at the very Igbo border (that is why they are called Aro-okeigbo; Igbo-boundary-Aro).

An informed internet site gives the following information on the Aro Confederacy: Created: 1690; Capital: Arochukwu; Official languages: Igbo, Ibibio, Ijaw …etc; …; Dissolved: 1902 (http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Aro_Confederacy). Where, then is the pure ‘Igbo Aro’? Aro sins cannot be visited on the Igbo or Ibibio, who were the chief victims; leaving off the coastal Ijaw and Efiks; who were the ultimate slave-traders, in direct contact with European slavers.

Closer home, and happier; Okenze BG Okonkwo, Obowu Development Association President-General, visited the Abuja branch recently. He was surprised to have some attendant introduce himself as Obowu man from Amachara, Umuopara, in Abia State.

Luckily my brother, High-chief BC Osuagwu, whose wife is, logically, High-lolo was present to explain. A branch of our Umuabazu-Umunachi people migrated to Amachara. They, of course, retain the name Umuabazu as the branch of our Umuikwe kindred retains the name Umuikwe at Ogbodi, Umuopara.

As Opara Asonye (father of Dr. Michael I Okpara) said in an interview, in 1977 “Umuhu and Okaiuga are Ohuhu. My grandfather Onyemobi said we came from Obowu. We all came from Obowu because the names of the villages on both sides are the same.” Former Provost of AICE, Owerri, from Umunwanwa Umuopara, Prof SN Nwosu, had also asserted in a television Interview some years ago, that Umuopara people migrated from Obowu, which explains the presence of my people at Amachara and Ogbodi. Also, my mother’s Ehume Obowu people migrated to form Ehume Umuopara. When the last Eho (totem tree of Eho-ume; Ehume) died, in the early 1950s, I saw them come for the funeral, in long lines, with their celebration guns firing in Uwuwuru-egbe.

If we recall; when the British colonial soldiers thought they had defeated Obowu, in 1911, our Mbaloha (Ohuhu and Umuopara) kinsmen started shelling them from across the Imo River to their discomfiture, forcing Britain to negotiate with Obowu. Would their ill-informed descendants come to Obowu’s support today, in similar circumstane? Can we now appreciate the cost of loss of identity-consciousness between us and our Ohuhu/Umuopara kinsmen?

It was not of-course a one way flow of solidarity. Support flowed from Obowu to our Mbaloha kinsmen, too. As Isichei’s Igbo Worlds informs “When we were children, Abam people came to Aguebi-Umuagu … two villages appeared at once with their guns, attacked and finished Abam people. Abam people never escaped each time they strayed into Ohuhu because we are Abam in our own way.

In those days, before our people went to war they were prepared by medicinemen … Some of the medicine men came from Mgbowo or Obowo and Ugwueke. The most famous came from Obowo … captains were chosen by the medicine men through a test.” Solidarity of Obowu kinsmen kept Ohuhu free from slave raiders. And later solidarity of Ohuhu helped sustain Obowu dignity in encounter with British colonialism. Identity is everything! No identity, no dignified existence!!

With independence from Britain struggle, Obowu recovered her old socio-political rhythm; producing from her roots some of the best leaders; heroes and heroines Eastern Nigeria has had in modern times.

Obowu, and her Etiti confederates, in recovery, have also earned the admiration of others such that former Biafran leader, General Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu could say, in 2002, “They tell me the best things in Igboland come from Etiti (the collective name for Obowo and Uboma now divided into two local govts); I, also, am from Etiti”. This paper is part of a movement for Obowu identity recovery and rectification, which hopes to set the pace for other peoples of Igboland and Africa. We should expand the discourse in an organic fashion. We should talk next with our Uboma (including Nsu) confederates, then our Ohuhu and Umuopara (Mbaloha) kinsmen, followed by Ezumoha-Isuama, all-Igbo and, then, all Africa (including African Diaspora).NDU M IKENGA NDU M IHITTE


By Chidi G Osuagwu, PhD Department of Biomedical Technology Federal University of Technology, Owerri

(2013 Ezumezu-Wiyi Lecture, Otoko Obowu, 16 August 2013)
- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/08/aro-roots-of-ikwerreigbo-identity-crisis-by-chidi-osuagwu/#sthash.x362yAWc.dpuf

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/08/aro-roots-of-ikwerreigbo-identity-crisis-by-chidi-osuagwu/

THE IGBO NATION IS GREAT

Great nation with sophisticated minds..The very best

Chief Obi Wali is fron Rumuigbo in Port Harcourt, the writer should do a proper research next time.

otokx: Chief Obi Wali is fron Rumuigbo in Port Harcourt, the writer should do a proper research next time.

I guess you are the only person who does not know Umuigbo and Rumuigbo are the same.

DerideGull:

I guess you are the only person who does not know Umuigbo and Rumuigbo are the same.

I tell ya

Ikwerre wahala again? Anyway it was an informative write up, time will reveal all hidden truth, that's for sure.

otokx: Chief Obi Wali is fron Rumuigbo in Port Harcourt, the writer should do a proper research next time.

Why are you people always acting like a punk to the Igbos. Are you people so scared of them that you can't speak up.

What is your contribution to the topic, are the Ikweres Igbos or not instead of just showing up and running away and writing one word comments.

One issue ethnic nationalists will never get tired of debating...

otokx: Chief Obi Wali is fron Rumuigbo in Port Harcourt, the writer should do a proper research next time.

Rumuigbo=Umuigbo=Igbo people (children)

The ''r'' is an after-1960 (Biafra war) artefact

peckhamboi:

Why are you people always acting like a punk to the Igbos. Are you people so scared of them that you can't speak up.

What is your contribution to the topic, are the Ikweres Igbos or not instead of just showing up and running away and writing one word comments.

SMH!!

I don't have time for all this B.S. politics.

Some people have too much time on their hands.

i believe the igbos made a good decision in excluding those areas during the agitation for state creation. they should be left to determine their identity same way the yorubas have left the people of kwara to decide who they are (fulani/nupe or yoruba).

Adejoro74:

Rumuigbo=Umuigbo=Igbo people (children)

The ''r'' is an after-1960 (Biafra war) artefact

A common misconception. Ikwerres do not speak a single unified dialect, but several dialects. And 'children' in Ikwerre tongue can be rendered as 'Umu', 'Omu' or 'Rumu' depending on the Ikwerre dialect. So 'Rumu' was not manufactured during the civil war as is often claimed. But it does appear that 'Umu' was the prevalent form in the Port Harcourt area before the war though.

And I doubt if Umuigbo/Rumuigbo meand 'Igbo people'. The 'Igbo' is kind of accentuated differently.

Radoillo: And I doubt if Umuigbo/Rumuigbo meand 'Igbo people'. The 'Igbo' is kind of accentuated differently.

Then what does it mean?

Afam4eva:
Then what does it mean?

I cannot claim to know what it means. I'm not Ikwerre. I lived in Port Harcourt for a year, and while there, I observed that the people accentuated the 'Igbo' in Rumuigbo quite differently from the way 'Igbo' as an ethnic group is accentuated. I only made an observation.


Perhaps, I should also add that its quite anachronistic to think that the 'Igbo' in such place-names as 'Amaigbo', 'Igbo-Ukwu', 'Rumuigbo', 'Igbouzor' (Ibusa), 'Igbontor', etc, refer to a single ethnically-conscious people-group. All these are pre-colonial towns, and a pan-Igbo ethnic consciousness was absent in the precolonial era. I suspect the 'Igbo' in all these place-names refers to something quite different. But that's for linguists and ethnologists to determine.

Radoillo:

I cannot claim to know what it means. I'm not Ikwerre. I lived in Port Harcourt for a year, and while there, I observed that the people accentuated the 'Igbo' in Rumuigbo quite differently from the way 'Igbo' as an ethnic group is accentuated. I only made an observation.


Perhaps, I should also add that its quite anachronistic to think that the 'Igbo' in such place-names as 'Amaigbo', 'Igbo-Ukwu', 'Rumuigbo', 'Igbouzor' (Ibusa), 'Igbontor', etc, refer to a single ethnically-conscious people-group. All these are pre-colonial towns, and a pan-Igbo ethnic consciousness was absent in the precolonial era. I suspect the 'Igbo' in all these place-names refer to something quite different. But that's for linguists and ethnologists to determine.

If you're referring to the meaning then you may be right butlet's not forget that any town with Igbo as part of it's name in the South East does not inply that it means Igbo(the ethnic group). It has never been about the ethnic group but is about being part of the ethnic group because it's from that word that the Igbo ethnic group derived it's name. Imagine a town in Edo named "Yoruba" and they speak Yoruba and they now tell you that they have absolutely nothing to do with being Yoruba. That's laughable.

Afam4eva:
If you're referring to the meaning then you may be right butlet's not forget that any town with Igbo as part of it's name in the South East does not inply that it means Igbo(the ethnic group). It has never been about the ethnic group but is about being part of the ethnic group because it's from that word that the Igbo ethnic group derived it's name. Imagine a town in Edo named "Yoruba" and they speak Yoruba and they now tell you that they have absolutely nothing to do with being Yoruba. That's laughable.

Such 'coincidences' in names do occur within language groups. There's a Yoruba-speaking group in Togo called 'Ife'. Now a casual observer will be forgiven if he concludes that this simply means they are kin with the Ife in Nigeria. Such conclusion makes some sense.

1) They re both Yoruba-speaking, so anywhere you encounter 'Ife' in Yorubaland, it must refer to the same thing.
2) The Ife of Nigeria is the ancestral homeland of all Yorubas (according to popular myth) so naturally the Ife of Togo and the Ife of Nigeria are the same.

But when u take a cold look at facts, it becomes clear that the 'Ife' in Togo and the 'Ife' in Nigeria have different etymological origins despite the fact that both peoples are linguistically related. The Ife in Togo derive their name from a river in the neighbouring Benin Republic (faraway from the Nigerian Ife) called the Ofe River.in fact, the Yoruba groups in Benin Republic and Togo are sometimes collectively called Ife, from this river.

The Ife in Nigeria, on the other hand, derive their name from a word that means spreading. So as far as name goes, Ife in Nigeria and Ife in Togo are completely distinct, despite the fact that they both belong to one dialect cluster.

The same may be the case with all the 'Igbo' placenames we encounter in the Igbo-speaking territories. We mustnt assume that because we find this word/name again and again within the 'Igbo language landspace' they must have the same meaning each time they are encountered, and must be taken as an indicator of ethnic affinity. That's the point I was trying to make with the Rumuigbo issue.

Radoillo: The same may be the case with all the 'Igbo' placenames we encounter in the Igbo-speaking territories. We mustnt assume that because we find this word/name again and again within the 'Igbo language landspace' they must have the same meaning each time they are encountered, and must be taken as an indicator of ethnic affinity. That's the point I was trying to make with the Rumuigbo issue.

Thank you.

As for the Rumuigbo placename; You're correct. It's got nothing to do with any kind of "Igbo" ethnic identifier. According to oral traditions, Rumuigbo (formerly Umuigbo, as per the actual community dialect) is supposedly named after its progenitor, recollected by name as Ekinigbo. What the name means, I cannot even begin to say. You know how those names of old are; very unfamiliar-looking to us in this generation.

Radoillo
Stop chatting nonsense here. Have you stayed in Rumuigbo or those communities with Igbo fixation to conclude they may not be Igbo. How can a group of people within Igboland call their town Igbo this and that yet you are not sure if its Igbo.
If you are an Igbo, am sure you will know that till today, people still bear Igbo as a surname.You will not know this because you are not Igbo, so stop discussing Igbo affairs so that you dont mislead readers who come here to learn. Please stop this nonsense.

oturugo: Radoillo
Stop chatting nonsense here. Have you stayed in Rumuigbo or those communities with Igbo fixation to conclude they may not be Igbo. How can a group of people within Igboland call their town Igbo this and that yet you are not sure if its Igbo.
If you are an Igbo, am sure you will know that till today, people still bear Igbo as a surname.You will not know this because you are not Igbo, so stop discussing Igbo affairs so that you dont mislead readers who come here
to learn. Please stop this nonsense.

Why the desperation to claim People that are not willing as your tribesmen? He made a valid point.

@topic
I don't see why the Igbos want to claim the Ikwerres so badly. It's not by force. That's all.

Van snickers:

Why the desperation to claim People that are not willing as your tribesmen? He made a valid point.

@topic
I don't see why the Igbos want to claim the Ikwerres so badly. It's not by force. That's all.

Please help me tell them. Same way they try to claim the ukwuani people(commonly called kwale people) in delta state are igbos.

Rumuigbo does not have same tone as "Umuigbo" . If we must write it by the tone then it should be "Rumuigboo".

The difference between the two Igbos is like the difference between isii (six) and isi (head).

Most of you posters were unable to comprehend Dr Osuagwu's write up. Osuagwu is from Isuama area of Igboland which I've always believed is the heart of Igbo. Ikwerre/Oratta people of old who today comprise Owerri, Etche, Ohaji and Ikwerre once saw themselves as distinct from the Isu who often migrated to their area to farm due to lack of land in the Isu area. As at then there was nothing like Igbo and each of these groups saw themselves as distinct.

Nobody knows how the Igbo identity came about but when it did, all the groups were known as Igbo but they still knew their differences. Until this day Ikwerre, Ohaji, Etche and Owerri people still call other Igbos "Isoma" people.

Another aspect of note is that Igbo slaves from the heartland always reffered to themselves as Isuama people before the emergence of the term "Igbo".

http://www.afrocubaweb.com/ivormiller/IvorArticle.pdf

A great diversity of peoples brought to the Americas from the Niger Delta and
Cross River Basin were labeled by merchants as Carabalí, as Cuban historian Deschamps
discovered: “The carabalí. The tribes brought to Cuba under this denomination
are innumerable . . . part of those [“carabalí’] who founded cabildos responded
to the following denominations: Abalo, Acocuá, Agro, Apapá, Bibí, Bogre, Bogre Isuama, Abate Singlava, Brícamo, Ecunaso, Ibo Induri, Isuicuato, Isiegue Isuama,Isuama Aballa Ocuite, Isuama Ibi, Isuama Isiegue, Isueche (Rivers State), Oquella, Ososo, Ososo Eche (Rivers State), Ososo Omuma (Rivers State), Oxó, Ugri, Unigini, Aballa Otopa, Isuama Umofina (umuofia), Isuama Osulerisna, Orú, Elugo(Elugwu), Orate (Oratta), Bané, Yudusi.”13 Of this partial list of thirty-three
ethnic denominations, only five survived into the twentieth century as components
of the Abakuá society (Efí, Efó, Orú, Bibí, Suáma); today there are two main ethnic
lineages: Efí and Efó, with Orú as an important third lineage.

Having enlightened some of you who didn't know the politics of Isoma/Oratta/Ikwerre let me explain Osuagwu's write up further.

The summary of the whole post is that Ikwerres have a misguided anger against the wrong people. The Aros who comprise a heavy chunk of the people we know today as Ikwerre came and dominated the earlier settlers and have been in control of most of the area till this day. It is however not peculiar to the Ikwerre as the Isomas suffered more devastation in the hands of Aros. They established a slave trade network and were quick to control other forms of trade. The 2 oracles that dominated the Ikwerre,Uratta, Isu and Etche area were Aro oracles of Igwekala and Amadioha at Ozuzu in Etche and Umunoha in Isuama.

Ikwerre anger should be against the Aro and not Isoma. However Ikwerre today IMHO is Aro and Aro is Ikwerre. One cannot separate the two. There is Chukwu and Amadi who of course are Aros and original settlers everywhere.

no one is claiming any one here

Abagworo: Having enlightened some of you who didn't know the politics of Isoma/Oratta/Ikwerre let me explain Osuagwu's write up further.

The summary of the whole post is that Ikwerres have a misguided anger against the wrong people. The Aros who comprise a heavy chunk of the people we know today as Ikwerre came and dominated the earlier settlers and have been in control of most of the area till this day. It is however not peculiar to the Ikwerre as the Isomas suffered more devastation in the hands of Aros. They established a slave trade network and were quick to control other forms of trade. The 2 oracles that dominated the Ikwerre,Uratta, Isu and Etche area were Aro oracles of Igwekala and Amadioha at Ozuzu in Etche and Umunoha in Isuama.

Ikwerre anger should be against the Aro and not Isoma. However Ikwerre today IMHO is Aro and Aro is Ikwerre. One cannot separate the two. There is Chukwu and Amadi who of course are Aros and original settlers everywhere.

word

Van snickers:

Why the desperation to claim People that are not willing as your tribesmen? He made a valid point.

@topic
I don't see why the Igbos want to claim the Ikwerres so badly. It's not by force. That's all.

The above post is idiotic and irrelevant here.

.

oturugo: Radoillo
Stop chatting nonsense here. Have you stayed in Rumuigbo or those communities with Igbo fixation to conclude they may not be Igbo. How can a group of people within Igboland call their town Igbo this and that yet you are not sure if its Igbo.
If you are an Igbo, am sure you will know that till today, people still bear Igbo as a surname.You will not know this because you are not Igbo, so stop discussing Igbo affairs so that you dont mislead readers who come here to learn. Please stop this nonsense.

First of, I've been to Rumuigbo, and like Abagworo said, it is actually pronounced 'Rumuigboo', not Rumuigbo. So, yes, the 'Igbo' there may be different from the ethnic group.

Second, I don't know why/how u concluded I'm not Igbo. U assumed I'm not Igbo because I'm trying to take an objective look at this whole Igbo identity issue? Oga, I'm proudly igbo.

Third, I suggest you do more research on Igbo ethnogenesis, read books, do online research, talk with elders. Don't just say someone is talking nonsense because what he's saying sounds new to u.

It is a disposition that will never cease to annoy me. Igbo people here on NL have simply conditioned themselves to be incapable of holding simple, straight-forward, or otherwise objective discussions without attempting to deny one another of their respective Igboness.