I just read this highly educative article written by Chinwendu Carlos addressing one miss Nkechi Bianze. The article apart from addressing Miss Nkechi, clear a lot of Miss-concepts people have about "TRIBE" and "ETHNIC GROUP" as it concerns the Igbo people. It's a long read, I hope a lot of Nairalanders see this and get educated too...


“THE ILLITERATE OF THE 21ST CENTURY ARE NOT THOSE WHO CANNOT READ AND WRITE, BUT THOSE WHO ARE UNWILLING TO UNLEARN, LEARN AND RELEARN.” – ALVIN TOFFLER.

“EDUCATION IS THE PROGRESSIVE DISCOVERY OF OUR IGNORANCE.” – WILL DURANT.

I came upon a post yesterday on the internet allegedly made by Miss Nkechi Bianze where she claims not to be Igbo by tribe, but Ika. I have no idea if anyone wants Nkechi to stop being Ika by tribe and switch to being of a tribe called Igbo. Nkechi Bianze is Ika and I have known her for sometimes now enough to conclude within myself that she is a strong, controversial or say non-conformist young lady. I respect her boldness and resilience at championing the course of gender-equality in the face of too many oppositions. I have always stood with her against male-chauvinist internet bullies and will continue to stand with her. I have same respect to every human being that doesn’t abide by a questionable status-quo just because everyone else abides. Education as rightly quoted above, should naturally come with free-thinking that subconsciously unhooks one from that mental-stagnating syndrome known as beliefs. The progressive discovery of one’s ignorance automatically drags one into that bracket of rebellion, doubt and controversy, and voluntarily pushing us to unlearn, learn and relearn. One who is progressively learning will not likely share same beliefs with those who are not. You’ll find yourself only accepting things rationally, based on logic and reason.

In one of Nkechi’s post that I read, Miss Nkechi did an introduction of herself. She wrote:

“I AM NKECHI CHERRY BIANZE OF AKUMAZI UMUOCHA OF IKA NORTH EAST LGA OF DELTA STATE. I SPEAK IKA LANGUAGE, MY TRIBE IS IKA.”

Indeed, the introduction is crystal clear, straight to the point and right. I repeat: Nkechi Cherry Bianze is Ika. Although I cannot imagine anyone telling Nkechi she is not Ika or that she does not speak Ika, if however, there is anyone who did, that person surely needs some education and maybe to apologize to Nkechi.

Miss Nkechi’s post raised so many concerns also. Nkechi says that you will be lynched in Agbor if you call the people Igbo. This is not so true. I have spent long times in Agbor and most of the Agbor people I knew are not worried of being called Igbo. They are likely to introduce themselves like most of us as Delta-Igbo or Ika-Igbo. Before we continue with this essay, let me make it clear that this essay is not all about Nkechi and her misconceptions of ‘Igbo’, it is rather on the Ika tribe and the Igbo ethnic nationalism. What you heard from Nkechi is popular among Ika people. My only concern is why Nkechi, a non-conformist will quickly throw her weight behind popular opinion, ignoring logic and reason in the process. It appears Nkechi’s distancing of herself from ‘Igbo’ is mostly based on ‘popular opinion’. And in this case, I am already wondering why a lady that originally do not conform to popular opinions decided to use same popular opinion instead of logic. By popular opinion in Agbor and Umuocha, the male gender is superior to the female gender and witches fly at night. Do Nkechi also believe in such weird claims because it was a popular opinion? Is she telling us that popular opinion is equal to truth and reality? I doubt this. Moreover, her canopy went too wide in her pointers. I have lived in Agbor enough to know that her insinuations on the good people of Agbor is incorrect. Agbor people, like most of us, willingly call themselves either Ika-Igbo or Delta Igbo when asked. Nkechi rather spread her canopy too wide by citing MOST DELTANS. For the sake of readers who are not Deltans, let me tell you about Delta state and why Nkechi’s use of MOST DELTANS as a yardstick is outrightly misleading. Note, the emphasis is on MOST Deltans. Delta state is one of the numerous state boundaries hurriedly put up by mostly Nigerian military governments who in their bid to create entities they believed will solidify the existence of their ATM-nation, intermixed people of different ethnicity into states and regions. Delta state happens to be included in that geographical anomaly, South South. We currently have three senatorial districts and out of the three, only one is Igbo-speaking, the other three are not. Already, Nkechi’s wide canopy have covered these two and would probably cite them as an example of Igbo denial. Delta South and Delta central do not have any tribe that is Igboid speaking. No tribe in Delta South and Delta central was grouped in any ethnological map as Igboid. None and this is why you don’t have people and communities with Igbo names in those places. Naturally, they are not Igbos.

So I will narrow it down to the Igbo-speaking part of Delta state which is DELTA NORTH SENATORIAL DISTRICT now known as ANIOMA. Anioma itself is not an ethnic group (you may have heard some ignorant folks tell you it was, it wasn’t and still not), Anioma was an acronym and represents the three initial LGA’s of Delta north or as earlier termed, western Igbos. It stands thus:

A = Aniocha.
N = Ndokwa,
I = Ika
O = Oshimili.
Although the LGAs are four, the tribes or subgroups it represented are Ika for Ika, Aniocha and Oshimili for Enuani and Ndokwa is for Ukwuani people. The coinage was was originally devised when the traditional rulers from Oshimili, Ika, Ndokwa and Aniocha petitioned the colonial government twice for including the areas in same district with Edo-speaking people. The petition was originally granted with the creation of ASABA DISTRICT which ran from Agbor to through Asaba to Awka in present day Anambra State. And had its headquarters at Asaba and Ogwashi-Uku at different time.

Let us once again, broaden the scope of this essay. We have concluded that Nkechi is an Ika lady and speaks Ika. But because this essay is not about Nkechi, but her confusion of ethnic group with tribe, we may henceforth be treating the case as between the term Igbo and Ika. Igbo, as I said earlier, is not a tribe. It is however, an ethnic nation of tribes. I have extensively discussed the Igbo question in my yet to be published book, LOOK HOMEWARDS NDI-IGBO and in an essay titled NDI IGBO, WHO ARE THEY? This would sound simple among non-Igbo speakers who are likely to fall into that erroneous assumption that Igbo is a tribe and maybe, are the people of South Eastern Nigeria. However, Igbo, as I said, is not a tribe, but an ethnic nation. In the old days, many explorers have lost their way in Igbo Lands trying to find the place known as Igbo. Although, there are towns with Igbo as prefix and suffix, no one even within these towns originally identified themselves as Igbo. Igbo, have always meant ‘the next tribe or clan’ that is not one’s own. There was a popular Nri saying that ‘ofor ka ayi ji eli ndi Igbo’. This means ‘ofo is what we use to chop from Igbo people’. Nri is an Igbo tribe located in the heart of Anambra state and many Igbo settlements and tribes from the east and west of the Niger traced their origin to it. But here is an Nri saying telling us that the ofo is what they used to chop from Igbo people. Furthermore, there was a name among some Igbo tribes called Onwuzuluigbo. The interpretation may speculatively mean ‘death had reached every people’. And one will be safe to insinuate that the philosophy behind such name is based on a traveler who have witnessed death in another clan and had agreed that death is even found among the Igbos and not limited to his own tribe alone.
Igbo as a general term for a group of tribes do not exist say six hundred years ago. So how did it come to be a group identity? Ethnology we all know, is the study of ethnic groups: the scientific comparison of different cultures. Ethnologists are the authority on ethnic groups the same way biologists are the authority on living things and physicists are the authority on optics. In their study of ethnic groups, ethnologists make use of what is known as ethnomethodology: studying how people interact in ways that maintain the social structure of the situations in which they find themselves. The characterization of an ethnic group is known as ethnography. It is under ethnography that ethnographers characterize an ethnic group. Meanwhile, all these have to initiate with the word ‘ethnic’ which is, relating to a group of people in society with distinct cultural and linguistic traits. Further step brings us to ethno linguistic, because culture and language palpably work together. One mistake people often make – which Nkechi is also repeating here – while debating the Igbo question is to think of Igbo as a tribe. The Igbo are not a tribe, an ethnic nation of many tribes. It is important at this juncture for us to grasp the meaning of the word nation. A nation is people of same ethnicity: a community of people who share a common ethnic origin, culture, historical tradition and frequently, language. Here, it seems language is the key identifier of an ethnic group. So we can now agree that the primary identifier of the Igbo people are language and culture. What then is Igbo language and what culture is within the bracket of Igbo cultures?

Note: I used cultures not culture, reason being that there is no such thing as single Igbo culture just like there is no such thing as single Igbo language. And the grouping of tribes as Igbo was done by ethnologist ethnomethodology. In the context of the Igbos, the ethnomethodology was based on language similarities cultural similarities and not actually on migration stories which are often more fictional than real. Here are the primary characteristics of an Igbo tribe: First are two deities: ala/ani/ali/eli. The name of this very God alone is yet another pointer to the Linguistic similarities. The deity is called ala in some places, ani, ali and eli in others and they mean same thing – earth deity. G. Ugo Nwokeji included Chi personal god, and reverence for two crops/foods, yam ( ji ) and kolanut ( ọjị ) as primary components of the Igbos. Ever Igbo group equally had certain cultures and traditions that is unique to them and may not be found among other Igbo groups. This do not indicate that the people are no longer Igbo. If anyone intends to use a unique culture among a particular Igbo group to de-Igbonize them, then we may wound up not having any group to call Igbo since every Igbo group had one or two ‘tribal cultures’. On the other hand, Igbo groups on the borderlines often borrow some cultures from a neighboring non Igbo tribe. The borrowing is not only in cultures, but in languages. Tellingly, the Ukwuani will surely borrow certain words and cultures from the neighboring Urhobo/Isoko. The Ika is expected to borrow words and cultures from the Edo neighbors, the Aro are expected to borrow words and cultures from the Ibibio, the Ikwerre are expected to borrow words and cultures from the Okirika and the Ogoni, the Ogba are expected to borrow words from the Ijaw and the Isoko, the Nri and Nsukka are expected to borrow words and cultures from the Igala and the Waawa are expected to borrow words from the Idoma and Igala also. Cultural borrowing however, is a two way business. The neighboring tribes will in turn, borrow Igboid words and cultures from them. After the ethnomethodology, these tribes in Nigeria were finally classified as Igboid tribes:

Aro, Edda, Ekpeye, Etche, Ezaa, Ika, Ikwerre, Ikwo, Ishielu, Isu, Izzi, Mbaise, Mgbo, Ngwa. Nkalu, Nri/Anaedo, Ogba, Ohafia, Ohuhu, Omuma, Onitsha, Oratta, Ukwuani, Waawa, Owerre, NsukkaEnuani, Mbano.

There is one question here begging for answer while we continue to see ourselves differently from whom we were scientifically grouped to be: what particular academically-inclined identity have we successfully rejected? While we wait for an answer, let me tell us a story.

In my secondary school days at Okotie-Eboh Grammar School, Sapele, there was a Jehovah’s Witness boy who walked out of our class then because evolution was being thought. He vehemently rejected the reality that humans are animals and maintained that we were specially made by God in his image. Our teacher promptly reminded him that was a popular belief and in his social study class, it was recognized as a myth and not reality because evolution is the scientifically considered one. You see, we may not stop categorizing human beings as animals because a boy in our class would be hurt by the reality neither do we write during our tests or exams that humans are not animals. That would be seen in a sensible way as ignorant. Another question: will you now say Ika people already grouped as Igboid by the authorities in Ethnology is not Igbo just because one or two persons are not aware or are following popular beliefs?

The above listed Igbo tribes are likewise Ika, registered under Nigerian ethnological database as tribes under Igoids and each tribe have one or two languages that they speak and which others may comprehend but will not be able to speak. The same case is obtainable in Yoruba, Ijaw and many Kwa language groups. We often here Ijebu people popping up to say they are not Yoruba and Kalabari people popping up to say they are not Ijaw. Let me put my non-Igbo speakers in this very picture;

Cynthia Nkechi Kanu is from Umunze Imemba, Isiala Ngwa LGA Abia state, she is NGWA by TRIBE and speaks the NGWA LANGUAGE.
Joseph Igariewey Chima is from Obilo, Onicha, Ezaa South LGA, Ebonyi state, he is EZAA by TRIBE and speaks EZAA LANGUAGE.
Obi Michael Anyanwu is from Uratta Orji, Owerri West LGA of Imo state. He is OWERE by TRIBE and speaks the OWERE LANGUAGE.
Nkechi Cherry Bianze is from Akumazi Umuocha of Ika north East LGA Delta state, she is IKA by TRIBE and speaks the IKA LANGUAGE.
Ikwutosim Vivian Amadi is from Rumuodara-Diobu, Obiakpor LGA of Rivers state, she is IKWERE by TRIBE and speaks the IKWERE LANGUAGE.
Precious Ishioma Okolo is from Umuama, Okuzu, Ndokwa east LGA she is UKWUANI by TRIBE, she speaks the UKWUANI LANGUAGE.

From the above exposition, who will you say is Igbo and who is not? And what will be your reason be deigbonizing a tribe ethnographically bracketed as Igbo? The popular UNION Igbo language people like Nkechi now mistake as a tribal language was actually formed by the CMS after the missionaries encountered difficulties penetrating the Igbo people for evangelism because of too many language differences. But no matter how the Church Mission Society tried, they wound up facing a newer challenge on the Igbo language dialects. In all, one must appreciate the efforts of men like Archdeacon Dennis. It was not an easy work recreating a new language out of groups of dialect clusters.

Dennis thought it wise to infuse the Onitsha and Owerri dialects as a standard form of the Igbo language because, his group, the Church Mission Society, on arrival at Onitsha, decided to use the Onitsha dialect in writing Igbo language only to discover that to the east, Onitsha dialect does not extend beyond five towns and to the West, it was same. But the infusion of words from the Owerri, Onitsha, Bonny Arochukwu Dialect in 1905 ensured that wider reach to the east and west was achieved to some extent. But contrary to these, many towns that are even closer to the Owerri dialects find it difficult understanding the new Union Igbo. Even in Agbor, the teachers hired from Asaba by the missionaries who themselves have learned the Union Igbo, find it difficult with the Ika speakers who like others, saw it as an imposition of a new dialect on them without knowing that it was created by the White people and for a purpose.

Of course the reason why the new Union Igbo ran into trouble was that the P.R on it was very poor. People were not notified of the new language and the reason for its formation so in some areas, the people found it as a deliberate attempt to impose a new dialect on them.

Even among the Missionaries, the Union Igbo was poorly accepted by the RCC simply out of jealousy. They must have thought it intimidating to borrow a thing from their arch rival, the protestant church and hence, they stuck to their Onitsha dialect as a medium of reaching every Igbo.

Other authors who noticed the complicacies relating to the too many dialects of the Igbo language like Professor Westermann argued that Igbo language is a very difficult language because you could learn the dialect of one region only to find yourself in a new region where you realize that you have to start same thing all over again. He said:

“Ibo is one of the most difficult West African languages on account of its dialectal variations, its richness in prefixes and suffixes and its intonation.”

Those who wish to know more about IGBO people should visit www.wikipedia.com/listofIgbopeople or www.Nigeriaethnologue.com/Igbopeople

I do not wish to denigrate Nkechi or to present her as either gullible or not widely travelled as she stated. The truth is that there are so many things we do not know individually and if travel is part of education, the people you meet and the places you went to would be the real educators. I have not actually travelled extensively around the world myself but from my house in Lagos, I have via the internet, read books on different topics. We do not actually need to travel around the world to know certain things. A visit to the library at UNIBEN, DELSU, or UNN can catapult us from one level of enlightenment to the other. I have based on my quest for this knowledge, read many books, anthropological reports and online journals on this very topic and beyond – including the history of Europe and the Invasion of America by Europeans and yet I didn’t know what virgin Atlantic or Ethiopian airlines looks like. My travels have been around the areas in my case studies and it have been around southern Nigeria. And by the way, during one of these travels, I forgot my eight hundred and fifty naira change with a bus conductor in Lagos while hurrying to catch a bus to the east in search of these knowledge. Last month actually marked the third anniversary of that incidence!

This is not odd. You can know so many things about your tribe via research and we all believe that knowledge should shape our stance. Nkechi can also read more on Ika history. Chief A.E Iduwe, the odin of Agbor in his book, HISTORY OF GREATER AGBOR had called Agbor ‘a one-time cradle of Igbo civilization.’ So dear Nkechi, you are Ika by tribe and Igbo by ethnicity just like every other Igbo. If your fight is about your Ika tribe, my sister that is not an issue anywhere: you are Ika and Ika is Igbo. You still have the right to say otherwise, just as the rest people have the right to call you Igbo – the same way you call others Igbo! Let us primarily agree that its part of Democracy and freedom of speech..

http://www.aekwe.com/2017/03/dear-nkechi-bianze-no-one-is-forcing-you-into-an-igbo-tribe-you-cant-be-forced-into-the-non-existing/