It is difficult to say if Igbo and Yoruba are friends or enemies or merely tolerating each other. On the surface, they seem to be friends, because you rarely hear of any clashes or killings between the two in over 100 years. People from the two ethnic groups work together, live together, laugh together, worship together, and play together. Everything seems all right. Nobody wants to be seen as publicly making any comment seen as tribalistic or intolerant.

But if you look deeper, there seems to be something you cannot truly place a finger on. It’s like a volcano waiting for the least provocation to erupt. It only needs an excerpt from Chinua Achebe’s There Was a Country to be made public, or for Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos to “deport” some Igbo to Onitsha for hell to be let loose. Commentators immediately line up behind their ethnic groups, releasing venom against the other side. Luckily, such altercations usually end in words and not in violent acts.

But on Nigerian online sites like the punchng.com and others, where commentators can use anonymous names, such fights are a daily affair, and they always get embarrassingly nasty. At such times, combatants throw caution to the wind and rake up gut-wrenching jibes dripping of hate and bordering on insanity. You wonder if the purveyors of such vitriol would feel at ease afterwards interacting with someone from the ethnic group they have maligned so viciously. Some see it as fun, but many don’t. They see it as a war that must be won at all costs.

Regrettably, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, whose direct and indirect action and inaction sowed the seed of hate and distrust between the Igbo and the Yoruba, have died without uprooting that dangerous plant or even denying it water and nutrients. Therefore, till this day, the Igbo and Yoruba still enjoy shooting at each other with accusations of betrayal, expansionism, hate, ingratitude, greed, as well as trying to prove that each ethnic group is superior to the other.

And it seems the contest for superiority is at the root of that frosty relationship. The Igbo and Yoruba are unarguably the most competitive in Nigeria. They are the ethnic groups that easily and forcefully ask for the removal of quota system in all national life. They believe that if things are done on merit, they will excel. The Igbo think that the Yoruba are the major competitors they have in Nigeria, while the Yoruba think that the Igbo are the key competitors they have in Nigeria.

This shows in almost all spheres of life. The Yoruba had a head-start in western education because the British colonialists and missionaries arrived on their land first. The Igbo, who resisted and rejected the British initially, eventually accepted them and thereby began a sprint to catch up with the Yoruba. And they succeeded.

Whatever the Igbo achieve, the Yoruba have an answer to it, and whatever the Yoruba achieve the Igbo have a response. So, if you have a Wole Soyinka from the South-West winning the first Nobel Prize for Literature in Africa, you have a Chinua Achebe from the South-East holding the record of the most popular and most-selling literary writer in Africa. If you have a Rangers International Football Club of Enugu shaking the Nigerian football scene in the 1970s and early 80s, you have the Shooting Stars Football Club of Ibadan shining brightly at the same period. If Rashidi Yekini is noted for scoring Nigeria’s first World Cup goal and being Nigeria’s all-time highest goal scorer, then Nwankwo Kanu boasts of being Nigeria’s most decorated footballer, while Austin Jay-Jay Okocha flaunts his status as Nigeria’s most glamorous and mesmerising footballer. If Genevieve Nnaji boasts of being named by Oprah Winfrey in 2009 among the most popular people in the world, Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde will show off her name in TIME magazine’s most influential people of 2013. If P-Square and Flavour think they rock the music scene, D’Banj and Davido smash the charts.

So, in all areas of life, the Igbo and the Yoruba are competing, and in the process boosting the nation’s economy and bringing glory to the nation. Yet, some inferiority-complex-afflicted people who feel threatened within each of the ethnic groups look for every excuse to spread hate among the two peoples.

My close study of the Igbo and the Yoruba makes me see them as the Germans and the French of Nigeria respectively. Even the Igbo language is like the German language in many respects. In German and Igbo, there are no silent words. Excluding a few words in Germans which are sounded differently from the way the English sound theirs (like “j” which is pronounced like “y,” “w” which is pronounced as “v,” etc), whatever you say in both languages is what you write. For example, the “g” is always pronounced /g/ in Igbo and German and never as “j.” “Danke” and “obante” are pronounced as written.

But in French and Yoruba, what you say may be different from how you write it. Some letters are either silent or semi-silent. For example, the Yoruba and the French would pronounce “san” as if it were “saw,” or “son,” but the Igbo and Germans would pronounce it /san/: exactly the way it is spelt. Also, the “h” is usually silent or glossed over in French and Yoruba: Hospital or Kehinde.

The Igbo and the German are bullish and technology-minded. They have fought and lost wars but staged successful comebacks in a short time. Conversely, the Yoruba and the French are subtle and supercilious, with good administrative skills, regaling in their years of history and culture.

A country that has such two success-driven ethnic groups should be at a great advantage. The Yoruba have been great hosts to the Igbo; and the Igbo have reciprocated by contributing immensely to the building of Yoruba land, especially Lagos State, including buying swamps at a high price and turning such places to residential or commercial estates. The sleepiness of Lagos during the Christmas-New Year period, when the Igbo usually travel home en masse, bears testimony to their contribution to making Lagos lively.

Just like the French always wish they could cut the Germans to size, so do the Yoruba to the Igbo, but it will never work. And just as the Germans always try to flaunt their success at the French, so do the Igbo do to the Yoruba, but it is completely pointless. The Yoruba can never be like the Igbo, and the Igbo can never be like the Yoruba. There is nothing the Yoruba can do to suppress the Igbo, neither is there anything the Igbo can do to suppress the Yoruba. Both of them can actually succeed without the other, but working closely together will be very beneficial to each of them as well as the nation.

The younger generations are forging greater ties, despite the baggage of enmity the older generations handed over to them. Working together, attending church together and living together seem to have increased the rate of marriage between the two people. Most Sundays when I look at the church bulletin, I see increasing higher number of banns of marriage between Yoruba and Igbo people. These days, it is common to see women whose names are Temilade Amadi or Ngozi Adesanya because of marriage. The ethnic barriers are being broken, even though ethnic jingoists continue to spread hate. Such hate speech and thoughts need to be stopped, for ethnic bloodshed or xenophobia does not burst out in one day.

Since the older generations are passing away without bringing these two great ethnic groups together, the onus is on those born after the Civil War to consciously take steps to bring the two ethnic groups together for their own good and for the good of the nation. It is high time this Tom and Jerry relationship between the two ethnic groups ended, for the good of both and the nation at large.
http://www.punchng.com/opinion/tom-and-jerry-relationship-between-igbo-and-yoruba/

Fellow Yorubas and Igbos please unite, both of you are awesome
lalasticlala (Though old but really useful in this period)

.

In essence let's just chill and keep bl3ping ... Coz I have never seen a Yoruba man reject igbo punni neither will igbo man reject them Yoruba fat ass ;Ds



The issues of who is better is born out of illiteracy and callousness in the part of Nigerian and PEOPLE WHO JUST WANT TO FIND TROUBLE AND ENJOY INTERNET FIGHTS.



It is worrisome that it's spread and growing on NL like a cancer..





I'm neither igbo nor Yoruba so I might not understand fully.. but I know nobody is born to hate another in nature, it is learned and nurtured...

The Yorubas and ibos dey misbehave the Hausas dey laff dem after na dem go call Hausas mumu, but seriuxly ibos na mumu dem lack sense na dem dey course d trble

if there wasn't close relationship they wouldn't be marry each other

.

elijah2u:
if there wasn't close relationship they wouldn't be marry each other

I agree. But it could be better. Imagine a really united Yoruba and Igbos? Nigeria would've improved a lot in every way.

See ehn, igbos and yorubas are getting along fine in the real world, it's usually here on nairaland people rant rubbish

missKiffy:
See ehn, igbos and yorubas are getting along fine in the real world, it's usually here on nairaland people rant rubbish

Nice to know .

U

kkk... biafra

Dollyak:
It is difficult to say if Igbo and Yoruba are friends or enemies or merely tolerating each other. On the surface, they seem to be friends, because you rarely hear of any clashes or killings between the two in over 100 years. People from the two ethnic groups work together, live together, laugh together, worship together, and play together. Everything seems all right. Nobody wants to be seen as publicly making any comment seen as tribalistic or intolerant.

But if you look deeper, there seems to be something you cannot truly place a finger on. It’s like a volcano waiting for the least provocation to erupt. It only needs an excerpt from Chinua Achebe’s There Was a Country to be made public, or for Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos to “deport” some Igbo to Onitsha for hell to be let loose. Commentators immediately line up behind their ethnic groups, releasing venom against the other side. Luckily, such altercations usually end in words and not in violent acts.

But on Nigerian online sites like the punchng.com and others, where commentators can use anonymous names, such fights are a daily affair, and they always get embarrassingly nasty. At such times, combatants throw caution to the wind and rake up gut-wrenching jibes dripping of hate and bordering on insanity. You wonder if the purveyors of such vitriol would feel at ease afterwards interacting with someone from the ethnic group they have maligned so viciously. Some see it as fun, but many don’t. They see it as a war that must be won at all costs.

Regrettably, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, whose direct and indirect action and inaction sowed the seed of hate and distrust between the Igbo and the Yoruba, have died without uprooting that dangerous plant or even denying it water and nutrients. Therefore, till this day, the Igbo and Yoruba still enjoy shooting at each other with accusations of betrayal, expansionism, hate, ingratitude, greed, as well as trying to prove that each ethnic group is superior to the other.

And it seems the contest for superiority is at the root of that frosty relationship. The Igbo and Yoruba are unarguably the most competitive in Nigeria. They are the ethnic groups that easily and forcefully ask for the removal of quota system in all national life. They believe that if things are done on merit, they will excel. The Igbo think that the Yoruba are the major competitors they have in Nigeria, while the Yoruba think that the Igbo are the key competitors they have in Nigeria.

This shows in almost all spheres of life. The Yoruba had a head-start in western education because the British colonialists and missionaries arrived on their land first. The Igbo, who resisted and rejected the British initially, eventually accepted them and thereby began a sprint to catch up with the Yoruba. And they succeeded.

Whatever the Igbo achieve, the Yoruba have an answer to it, and whatever the Yoruba achieve the Igbo have a response. So, if you have a Wole Soyinka from the South-West winning the first Nobel Prize for Literature in Africa, you have a Chinua Achebe from the South-East holding the record of the most popular and most-selling literary writer in Africa. If you have a Rangers International Football Club of Enugu shaking the Nigerian football scene in the 1970s and early 80s, you have the Shooting Stars Football Club of Ibadan shining brightly at the same period. If Rashidi Yekini is noted for scoring Nigeria’s first World Cup goal and being Nigeria’s all-time highest goal scorer, then Nwankwo Kanu boasts of being Nigeria’s most decorated footballer, while Austin Jay-Jay Okocha flaunts his status as Nigeria’s most glamorous and mesmerising footballer. If Genevieve Nnaji boasts of being named by Oprah Winfrey in 2009 among the most popular people in the world, Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde will show off her name in TIME magazine’s most influential people of 2013. If P-Square and Flavour think they rock the music scene, D’Banj and Davido smash the charts.

So, in all areas of life, the Igbo and the Yoruba are competing, and in the process boosting the nation’s economy and bringing glory to the nation. Yet, some inferiority-complex-afflicted people who feel threatened within each of the ethnic groups look for every excuse to spread hate among the two peoples.

My close study of the Igbo and the Yoruba makes me see them as the Germans and the French of Nigeria respectively. Even the Igbo language is like the German language in many respects. In German and Igbo, there are no silent words. Excluding a few words in Germans which are sounded differently from the way the English sound theirs (like “j” which is pronounced like “y,” “w” which is pronounced as “v,” etc), whatever you say in both languages is what you write. For example, the “g” is always pronounced /g/ in Igbo and German and never as “j.” “Danke” and “obante” are pronounced as written.

But in French and Yoruba, what you say may be different from how you write it. Some letters are either silent or semi-silent. For example, the Yoruba and the French would pronounce “san” as if it were “saw,” or “son,” but the Igbo and Germans would pronounce it /san/: exactly the way it is spelt. Also, the “h” is usually silent or glossed over in French and Yoruba: Hospital or Kehinde.

The Igbo and the German are bullish and technology-minded. They have fought and lost wars but staged successful comebacks in a short time. Conversely, the Yoruba and the French are subtle and supercilious, with good administrative skills, regaling in their years of history and culture.

A country that has such two success-driven ethnic groups should be at a great advantage. The Yoruba have been great hosts to the Igbo; and the Igbo have reciprocated by contributing immensely to the building of Yoruba land, especially Lagos State, including buying swamps at a high price and turning such places to residential or commercial estates. The sleepiness of Lagos during the Christmas-New Year period, when the Igbo usually travel home en masse, bears testimony to their contribution to making Lagos lively.

Just like the French always wish they could cut the Germans to size, so do the Yoruba to the Igbo, but it will never work. And just as the Germans always try to flaunt their success at the French, so do the Igbo do to the Yoruba, but it is completely pointless. The Yoruba can never be like the Igbo, and the Igbo can never be like the Yoruba. There is nothing the Yoruba can do to suppress the Igbo, neither is there anything the Igbo can do to suppress the Yoruba. Both of them can actually succeed without the other, but working closely together will be very beneficial to each of them as well as the nation.

The younger generations are forging greater ties, despite the baggage of enmity the older generations handed over to them. Working together, attending church together and living together seem to have increased the rate of marriage between the two people. Most Sundays when I look at the church bulletin, I see increasing higher number of banns of marriage between Yoruba and Igbo people. These days, it is common to see women whose names are Temilade Amadi or Ngozi Adesanya because of marriage. The ethnic barriers are being broken, even though ethnic jingoists continue to spread hate. Such hate speech and thoughts need to be stopped, for ethnic bloodshed or xenophobia does not burst out in one day.

Since the older generations are passing away without bringing these two great ethnic groups together, the onus is on those born after the Civil War to consciously take steps to bring the two ethnic groups together for their own good and for the good of the nation. It is high time this Tom and Jerry relationship between the two ethnic groups ended, for the good of both and the nation at large.
http://www.punchng.com/opinion/tom-and-jerry-relationship-between-igbo-and-yoruba/

Fellow Yorubas and Igbos please unite, both of you are awesome
lalasticlala (Though old but really useful in this period)

nonsense yoruba are not my friends their children of hate.....

Chukwugekwu:
nonsense yoruba are not my friends their children of hate.....

Based on your response, I think you need to reevaluate yourself because you sound like the one filled with hate. Pot calling kettle black. No disrespect intended tho.

Whatz my business.

I am yoruba...but one thing i love about the igbos....whenever they learn english....they learn it completely and throw away the igbo accent.

Most igbos speak without their accent...in fact.. Many of them in Lagos forget their language totally. So it is very easy for them to claim Lagos and you will believe it.

But i trust my yoruba pipu..ehnnn...ki nu? We kan neva forget awa assenti o...layelaye ni ko possible keh.

No mata the focabulari we learn in d unifasiti...the typical ibadan man will still sow you the situason of his moda tongue o

sorry but we don't want unity....with kidnappers.....murderers.....baby factory people.... ...gala and fake spare parts sellers.....and a people who hold agbari ojukwu the coward as a hero...after killing millions of his own people.... ...a man who abandoned and denied his first child....just like his father too had him outside...... ....even worse his wife was banging ffks dick...before ojukwu himself entered..... ...please give them Biafra..

soe:
I am yoruba...but one thing i love about the igbos....whenever they learn english....they learn it completely and throw away the igbo accent.

Most igbos speak without their accent...in fact.. Many of them in Lagos forget their language totally. So it is very easy for them to claim Lagos and you will believe it.

But i trust my yoruba pipu..ehnnn...ki nu? We kan neva forget awa assenti o...layelaye ni ko possible keh.

No mata the focabulari we learn in d unifasiti...the typical ibadan man will still sow you the situason of his moda tongue o

that is becus we have real history unlike.....Igbos with no background........until d white man came....nobody knew about animals living in those hamlets.... .....Yorubas culture is historically closer to Hausa culture than yiboe.......we both have kings.......we dress alike.........we have strong history.........strong culture..........diverse with xtians and Muslims.......and Yorubas and Hausa always tend to keep their traditional names unlike Igbos who like to borrow English names that they wear with pride.....look at genevieve versus Omolola for example....we have nothing in common with Igbos and we reject dem totally.... ........back to sender...

There is nothing called Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Fulani, Bini, Urhobo, Ibibio, Hutsi, Tutsi, Twa, Swahili etc. When the light of God goes away from a people, they sieze to become a nation and they split into tribes and sub-tribes bringing darkness upon themselves. I am all the tribe of all Black people on this planet.

When the light of God shows mercy on a people, they go from being a tribe to form a nation. Proof? Goths, Welsh, Vikings, Slavics, Normandy, Scots, etc. After the dark ages, they became a nation.

I can proof to you all that none of us, you and I is not Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, Zulu etc. It is just plain ignorance.

Dollyak:

I agree. But it could be better. Imagine a really united Yoruba and Igbos? Nigeria would've improved a lot in every way.

am an hausa ibo are looking at region,thinking yoruba will play with them, refuse to understand 1) sango mother is nupe in oyo state 2)religious 70pc of sw are muslim 3)check the dresin 4)tribal mark 5) way of life i.e respect 6) they reside as indigen in many state i.e oyo and nupe ,kogi,kwara, benue

This is a good article. Promotes national unity.. deserves frontpage.

Cc lalasticlala

gatiano:
There is nothing called Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Fulani, Bini, Urhobo, Ibibio, Hutsi, Tutsi, Twa, Swahili etc. When the light of God goes away from a people, they sieze to become a nation and they split into tribes and sub-tribes bringing darkness upon themselves. I am all the tribe of all Black people on this planet.

When the light of God shows mercy on a people, they go from being a tribe to form a nation. Proof? Goths, Welsh, Vikings, Slavics, Normandy, Scots, etc. After the dark ages, they became a nation.

I can proof to you all that none of us, you and I is not Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, Zulu etc. It is just plain ignorance.

True that. People need to leave the tribal mentality.

PedroJP:
Yorubas are betrayals. Someone said after the 2015 election that this is the second time Yorubas teamed up against Biafra and it's not short of the truth. Both tribes uphold the sacredness of life reason they don't kill just like that. To have Biafra will be the greatest thing for us and the highest punishment against yoruba. We are no friends to Yoruba, the only reason we attach with each other is that none spills blood. Hausas are far too friendly n sincere than Yorubas but their madness can start at anytime.

abeg coward ibo see we hate you more than the yoruba hate you, you treator

I don't think that the igbos are culturally prepared for the kind of dirty petty crude wars of attrition waged against the igbo by the yoruba since, awolowos AGs cross-carpeting to forestall Azikiwes emergence as the premier of the western region. Igbos see the yoruba as a very hatefilled group desperately willing to employ every diabolic measure to cow the igbo. And this rationalisation of events is not baseless.. In the last 5000 years, you are not going to find ANY igbo royal, who has made any sort of highly provocative and offensive statements against the yoruba as the oba of Lagos did. . Since the inception of history, in the face of both political and military conflicts, you will NEVER point to any recognisable igbo leader who will rationalise the use of starvation as a tool to subjugate the yoruba. How many igbo federal officers insulted the yoruba during jonathans regime as Adesanyas daughter did when she told igbos angling for jobs to go and face their "okirika retail trade"?

A vindictive obasanjo went to Amichi and told all igbos present that the normal practice is for those who lost the war to wait for 50 years before equal participation in government. The same Obasanjo went to Owerri where he was asked to make the imo airport an international airport and he flipped out, accussing igbos of not wanting to use other peoples airport and threatening to "send customs and immigration officials to imo airport since those are the symbols of an international airport". Do you remember when the Benue community visited him at Aso rock, and he went off the line with some horredeous civil war tales of massacers in igbo land? Remi Ojo had a hectic time trying to stop most of obasanjos outbursts in the east from being published by the media houses. Adeyinka Adebayor suggested that igbos coming to the west affter the war should apply for visas!. Abiola proclaimed that he didn't need igbos to be president. The South west cacaus repeatedly worked against igbo interest at the two recent constitutional conferences., yoruba media has turned the villification of igbo leaders into a national sport. The list is endless! They will point at Arthur eze and Arthur Nzeribe. Two creations of the Nigerian state post 1970 . It is sickening!

The French and the English kind of relationship

@ owobokiri I agree with the Oba of Lagos part. He dropped the ball, he should've been evicted. The rest is really subjective, depending on who you speak to.

So na who come be Tom
Ibos are uncivilized savages that is the koko

Nigeria can't work again, the best thing for us to do is to go our separate ways. Unity and trust can never be in South again which simply means, Hausas are the winners here as their divide and rule system must have worked, unless by a hidden force, will a Southerner emerge again. Now, instead of Hausas to rule us forever, it is better we go our ways in order not to be dragged back to 1800s with Hausas rule.



We harbour so much hatred for each other in this country yet some just feel to deny the truth is being matured and learned. There is no need to say there is nothing wrong, when actually everything is wrong. That's self deceit. U acknowledge the truth doesn't make u less who u are. We are so different in this country that if we were xplosives, we would have gone boom a long time, yet some self acclaimed non bigots keep deceiving themselves shouting "one Nigeria" " let's build Nigeria together" etc, when they know actually that Nigeria is not working. I wonder when they feel Nigeria will become what they dream when our past, present are same and equally moving in same direction. Let us all support the move for separation as it will benefit us all. There is nothing one about Nigeria



Let's stop deceiving ourselves and all rise against this nonsense giant of Africa.


I am for Biafra.

After the civil war, the leaders failed to integrate the people properly. That's when they would've eliminated the "state of origin" thing and implemented more serious integration policies within the states. Now it's very difficult except Justice and development is sincerely pursued. The leaders were not sincere, they placed limitations on their self-acclaimed efforts at unifying the country. Hope it gets better, people are angry and the country desperately needs solutions