Ikwerreboy:



Lier. My ikwerre brothers dont claim igbo identity whether in Nigeria or outside nigeria. We have Ogbakor ikwerre if you dont know. Ogbakor ikwerre U.s, ogbakor ikwerre south african e.t.c, And also in our home country.ogbakor ikwerre here in nigeria.

When and were did Julius Agwu,Tonto dike and Monalisa chinda claim to be igbo? or accept the igbo identity?.
After all
1. Tonto dike ones said he cant get married to an igbo man.
2. Gov. Rotimi amaechi an ikwerre man.(Currently the governor of Rivers state) told President goodluck Jonathan that we i.e the ikwerre/rivers state are not biafra.
3. Awuse an ikwerre man who one's contested for governor in rivers state, was accused of planing to chase all the igbos in rivers state/ikwerre land if he eventually becomes the governor of rivers state.
4. When th igbos in rivers state did there prayer for peace in rivers state and nigeria did we the ikwerres join you igbo? the ans is capital NO.
5. Ikwerres even asked the igbos to pay fine for organizing such a prayer without the concept of the Ikwerres who are in the owner of the land the igbo leave and derived there daily income.I.e Port Harcourt.


Look be very carefull. You know your igbo brothers have invested alot in our land. dont let us chase you people out from port harcourt as fashola did to you pple.
And Note abandon property must still occur again in port harcourt. TELL YOUR IGBO BROTHERS TO LEAVE PORT HARCOURT FOR WE THE IKWERRES AND OUR HUMBLE BROTHER THE YORUBA,IJAW,OGONI, EVEN NORTHERNERS SELF.

you ain't ikwerre person. Tell me the last village on ikwerre side and the last village on Ohaji side if you are truely Ikwerre. I hear, your Yoruba brothers. This is what inferiority complex can cause and yours is not only the most pathetic case of it but notoriously cyclical. Any indigenous community in or outside Igboland can charge stranger elements once it has constitutional backing. Stop talking like a fool unless you are a confirmed fool!

YORUBOID SPEAKING BENIN PEOPLE ESTABLISHED IKWERRE, OGBA AND ETC PROBABLY BY CITING ARMY DIVISIONS ON THE LANDS, THEN OVER THE CENTURIES, THEY ADOPTED THE CULTURE OF THE SURROUNDING IGBOID PEOPLE AND ARE NOW AN IGBOID PEOPLE, THEY NO LONGER SPEAK A YORUBOID TONGUE. YET THEY ARE CULTURALLY DISTINCT FROM NRI IGBO. THIS APPLIES TO ONITSHA, ASABA, AROCHUKWU AS WELL.


IKWERRE NOW ARE MORE IGBO THAN IGALAS ARE YORUBA. IGALA ARE A YORUBOID PEOPLE WHO SPEAK A YORUBA DIALECT BUT HOLD THEMSELVES DISTINCT FROM THE MAINSTREAM YORUBA. THEY SPEAK THEIR DIALECT WHICH A YORUBA MAY UNDERSTAND WITH GREAT DIFFICULTY AND NOT YORUBA. HOWEVER, THAT DIALECT IS NOT NECESSARILY MORE DIVERGED FROM OYO OR IJESA DIALECT THAN OKUN YORUBA DIALECT IN KOGI. BOTH WILL LOSE AN OYO OR IJESA PERSON WHEN BEEN SPOLEN. IF THEY HAD BEEN MERGED WITH WEST, THEY WILL BE SEEN AS PURE YORUBA AND WILL SPEAK THE LANGUAGE TODAY. THEY CALL YORUBA IYAJI BUT YORUBA DONT EVEN KNOW THEM AS SUCH. WE KNOW EBIRA, NUPE, BARIBA WHO ARE NOT YORUBOID BUT THEY KNOW YORUBA AS IYAJI AND THEY HAVE AN OLD IFE ON THEIR LAND. IN THE CASE OF IKWERRE, THEY ALL SPEAK IGBO NOWADAYS.


TO OUTSIDERS, IKWERRE ARE IGBOS, IF ONITSHA IS IGBO, WHY NOT IKWERRE? NO DIFFERENCE. ONLY DIFFERENCE IS THAT PH WAS COSMOPOLITAN WITH MANY NON IKWERRE IGBOS WHOM THE IKWERRES SAW AS TRYING TO VIOLATE THEIR 'SOVEREIGNTY'. THATS JUST THE ISSUE. IF AN IKWERRE MAN IS NOT IGBO, THE OBI OF ONITSHA, OBA OF OGBA LAND, EZE ARO AND ETC TOO ARE NOT. SO, LET IGBOS RECOGNISE SUB NATIONS AS SEMI INDEPENDENT AT LEAST. THEY OWN THEIR LANDS. NO ONE WANTS TO BE DRIVEN OFF THEIR OWN LAND.

IF YOU WANT TO UNDERSTAND HOW IKWERRE AND OGBA WERE ESTABLISHED, CONSIDER UGBODUMILA IN DELTA STATE BESIDE ASABA. UGBODUMILA IS THE BIGGEST OF MANY YORUBA TOWNS IN THAT AREA. IT IS MR TONY ELUMELU'S PLACE. THOSE PEOPLE TODAY ARE YORUBAS WHO SPEAK IGBO AS SECOND LANGUAGE. WHAT THEY SPEAK TODAY IS OWO LANGUAGE, THE LANGUAGE OF THE BENIN EMPIRE. THEY SPEAK IGBO TOO AND BEAR IGBO NAMES. WHAT IS MORE? THEY ARE DISCONNECTED FROM OTHER YORUBAS! THAT IS THE STORY OF IKWERRE AND OGBA, EVEN ONITSHA BUT THOSE ONES HAVE BEEN ASSIMILATED MORE. IN ENUGU, YOU FIND SUCH GROUPS AS WELL. I WOULD SAY THE IGBOS SURVIVED MAJOR EPIDEMICS THAT RAVAGED THE YORUBA AND REDUCED THEIR POPULATION.

AMONG YORUBA, THERE IS SUB NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY. YOU MIX IFE WITH IJESA THEN YOU WILL LIKELY HAVE PROBLEMS. THERE MUST BE RESPECT FOR BOUNDARIES.

Please I have a very fundamental question to ask all my Yoruba observers and my Ikwere brothers who deny their Igbo ethnicity. Please, can any of you tell me where the famous main ancestral shrine of the Igbo God of thunder Kalụ Kamalụ or Amadiọha is
In present day Rivers state, am I right

You see, if we chose to keep messing around with the concepts of tribe and ethnicity, we'll keep making hollow noise like empty barrels till we all die. That said, a tribe is a part among the rest in an ethnicity, hence there's the Ijebu man in the Yoruba circle. Likewise, there's the Ikwere, Ngwà, Izii, Ikwo, Ekpeye, Ụkwụanị, Ezaa-mgbo, Arọ people that join to compete the rest of the Igbo circle (some tribes not mentioned for time sake).

When we hear some Igbos claim ancestory to Benin, please learned people knwo that it doesn't in any way means they are from the Bini tribe. It means that they migrated from the lands that presently has the Bini people in it even as the Bini evidently moved east from Eko (present day Lagos). It is fact that before Benin rose to prominence many centuries ago, Nri Kingdom wielded much power even to present day Benin (please do your research before trying to refute this), but as her power declined (because of her refusal to join the slave business), the Bini rose to prominence in the slave trade era and Nri's influence over the area declined, including her might to defend the Igbos in the area. Conflicts made the Igbos in that area begin migration, hense the Onitsha people being in Anambra for example. Now, are the Onitsha people no longer Igbo simply because they migrated from present day Benin area? Hell, no.

The case of the Ikwere are different. There is yet to be presented any anthropological evidence which points or proves Ikwere ancestry to present day Benin. And even if that is the case that they indeed migrated from the said area, does that make them Bini and no longer Igbo like the Ika or Onitsha (part of Ika)? Mbanụ, no. But then, there abound anthropological evidence to prove that today's Ikwere people are remnants of Aros who migrated from the Awka, Ọlu, Arọchukwu area. Arọs are found all over Igboland in different states (Ajallị in Anambra, Ndike in Anambra, Arọndizuọgụ in Imo, etc are all Arọ people). Even Ikwere elders present or dead (Chukwu Okike bless them), have attested to this fact through their writings and oral attestation.

When you hear a certain Dunkan Mighty (an Ikwere himself) sing "Aha m efuna, ike m efuna," you can't help but feel pity at how some among a people who were Igbo before the Biafra/Nigeria war, today decide to distance themselves from their Igbo root, thus trying to allow their name in the Igbo fold to be lost. Mind you, I said some; some who allow the likes of some Yoruba all knowing historians, people who write their history and those of others, to tell them who they are. I won't be surprised if tomorrow, Ikwere's would have migrated from present day Lagos. I mean, anything is possible with these wannabe Nairaland historians, who keep relying on the archaic devide and rule tactic to dish out lies about a people so as to keep dividing them.

Now, I understand that many are also relying on the logic that if I bear McConnell and speak English, it doesn't make me an English if I'm not ethnically one. Fine I agree, but then can someone for fact sake point out what the ancestral language of the Ikwere is while remembering that language is part of culture and culture being the people's way of life. What then are the Ikwere if not Igbo? I ask, who from Anambra, Imo, Enugu or Abia doesn't understand Ikwere more than the dialects of the Izii-Ikwo-Ezaamgbo cluster of Ebọnyị if said person has not lived among iether of them for the first time but one day gets to hear them speak Again on answering of name, how can the Ikwere be said to be so disassociated from the Igbo circle, yet from time immemorial stick to Igbo names and surnames on a massive scale which didn't happen out of propagated dominance like the European powers did in Africa and the Muslim hoards of Uthman Dan fodio did to the Hausa/Northern Nigeria down to parts of Yorubaland?
Why is the main shrine of one of the greatest and most revered deities in Igboland in the person of Ofufe, Kamalụ or Amadiọha located in present day Rivers State?

As if that is not enough, anyone who uses mannerism to slice out the Ikwere out of the Igbo fold is but ignorant of the fact that among three brothers in a family, their mannerisms can never be the same. That said, the tribes that makeup Igboland all act in different ways, just as the Yorubas all don't act the same. There must be pockets of differences only to be united by a common ethnicity. An Igbo living near the border with an Igala, or one with an Efik/ibibi, or one with an Ijaw can never act the same.

If the Ikwere's are no longer Igbo because they're in a Niger-Delta which has now become the linguistic norm for any trying to disassociate from the Igbo fold, what then are for example the Yorubas in Benin-Republic and Togo, or the Ibibio of Bakasi now left in Cameroon to their fate? Absolutely, they're not Yorubas, or Ibibios any longer sinse they're carved out of the Nigerian borders just like the South-South is carved off the South-Eastern borders.

My people, the truth is there for any to see.
Whether you are Nri, Aniọma, Arọ, Etche, Ikwere, or even one of us from Bonny, Edo, Cross River, Ákwá-Ibom, Benue, etc, we are all Igbos. We tell our history better than anyone can tell about us.

Jaja of Opobo was Igbo from the Ọlụ area. With him, thousands of Igbos lived in Bonny, with Jaja becoming its first king.

Let an Amaechi Chibuike, a Nyesom Wike, a Wene Okechukwu, an Abụchi Ogbonda, an Obi Walị please step forward to tell us how they came by those names.

And please, read Elechi Amadi's (an Ikwere who fought for Nigeria during the last war) "The Concubine" and "The great ponds." After that, lie to yourself once more that the Ikwere are not Igbo.

Ka Chukwu Okike mezie okwu!
Iseeeee.

OlaedoEkene:
Please I have a very fundamental question to ask all my Yoruba observers and my Ikwere brothers who deny their Igbo ethnicity. Please, can any of you tell me where the famous main ancestral shrine of the Igbo God of thunder Kalụ Kamalụ or Amadiọha is
In present day Rivers state, am I right

You see, if we chose to keep messing around with the concepts of tribe and ethnicity, we'll keep making hollow noise like empty barrels till we all die. That said, a tribe is a part among the rest in an ethnicity, hence there's the Ijebu man in the Yoruba circle. Likewise, there's the Ikwere, Ngwà, Izii, Ikwo, Ekpeye, Ụkwụanị, Ezaa-mgbo, Arọ people that join to compete the rest of the Igbo circle (some tribes not mentioned for time sake).

When we hear some Igbos claim ancestory to Benin, please learned people knwo that it doesn't in any way means they are from the Bini tribe. It means that they migrated from the lands that presently has the Bini people in it even as the Bini evidently moved east from Eko (present day Lagos). It is fact that before Benin rose to prominence many centuries ago, Nri Kingdom wielded much power even to present day Benin (please do your research before trying to refute this), but as her power declined (because of her refusal to join the slave business), the Bini rose to prominence in the slave trade era and Nri's influence over the area declined, including her might to defend the Igbos in the area. Conflicts made the Igbos in that area begin migration, hense the Onitsha people being in Anambra for example. Now, are the Onitsha people no longer Igbo simply because they migrated from present day Benin area? Hell, no.

The case of the Ikwere are different. There is yet to be presented any anthropological evidence which points or proves Ikwere ancestry to present day Benin. And even if that is the case that they indeed migrated from the said area, does that make them Bini and no longer Igbo like the Ika or Onitsha (part of Ika)? Mbanụ, no. But then, there abound anthropological evidence to prove that today's Ikwere people are remnants of Aros who migrated from the Awka, Ọlu, Arọchukwu area. Arọs are found all over Igboland in different states (Ajallị in Anambra, Ndike in Anambra, Arọndizuọgụ in Imo, etc are all Arọ people). Even Ikwere elders present or dead (Chukwu Okike bless them), have attested to this fact through their writings and oral attestation.

When you hear a certain Dunkan Mighty (an Ikwere himself) sing "Aha m efuna, ike m efuna," you can't help but feel pity at how some among a people who were Igbo before the Biafra/Nigeria war, today decide to distance themselves from their Igbo root, thus trying to allow their name in the Igbo fold to be lost. Mind you, I said some; some who allow the likes of some Yoruba all knowing historians, people who write their history and those of others, to tell them who they are. I won't be surprised if tomorrow, Ikwere's would have migrated from present day Lagos. I mean, anything is possible with these wannabe Nairaland historians, who keep relying on the archaic devide and rule tactic to dish out lies about a people so as to keep dividing them.

Now, I understand that many are also relying on the logic that if I bear McConnell and speak English, it doesn't make me an English if I'm not ethnically one. Fine I agree, but then can someone for fact sake point out what the ancestral language of the Ikwere is while remembering that language is part of culture and culture being the people's way of life. What then are the Ikwere if not Igbo? I ask, who from Anambra, Imo, Enugu or Abia doesn't understand Ikwere more than the dialects of the Izii-Ikwo-Ezaamgbo cluster of Ebọnyị if said person has not lived among iether of them for the first time but one day gets to hear them speak Again on answering of name, how can the Ikwere be said to be so disassociated from the Igbo circle, yet from time immemorial stick to Igbo names and surnames on a massive scale which didn't happen out of propagated dominance like the European powers did in Africa and the Muslim hoards of Uthman Dan fodio did to the Hausa/Northern Nigeria down to parts of Yorubaland?
Why is the main shrine of one of the greatest and most revered deities in Igboland in the person of Ofufe, Kamalụ or Amadiọha located in present day Rivers State?

As if that is not enough, anyone who uses mannerism to slice out the Ikwere out of the Igbo fold is but ignorant of the fact that among three brothers in a family, their mannerisms can never be the same. That said, the tribes that makeup Igboland all act in different ways, just as the Yorubas all don't act the same. There must be pockets of differences only to be united by a common ethnicity. An Igbo living near the border with an Igala, or one with an Efik/ibibi, or one with an Ijaw can never act the same.

If the Ikwere's are no longer Igbo because they're in a Niger-Delta which has now become the linguistic norm for any trying to disassociate from the Igbo fold, what then are for example the Yorubas in Benin-Republic and Togo, or the Ibibio of Bakasi now left in Cameroon to their fate? Absolutely, they're not Yorubas, or Ibibios any longer sinse they're carved out of the Nigerian borders just like the South-South is carved off the South-Eastern borders.

My people, the truth is there for any to see.
Whether you are Nri, Aniọma, Arọ, Etche, Ikwere, or even one of us from Bonny, Edo, Cross River, Ákwá-Ibom, Benue, etc, we are all Igbos. We tell our history better than anyone can tell about us.

Jaja of Opobo was Igbo from the Ọlụ area. With him, thousands of Igbos lived in Bonny, with Jaja becoming its first king.

Let an Amaechi Chibuike, a Nyesom Wike, a Wene Okechukwu, an Abụchi Ogbonda, an Obi Walị please step forward to tell us how they came by those names.

And please, read Elechi Amadi's (an Ikwere who fought for Nigeria during the last war) "The Concubine" and "The great ponds." After that, lie to yourself once more that the Ikwere are not Igbo.

Ka Chukwu Okike mezie okwu!
Iseeeee.

Its in their DNA, all they need do is contact 23&me and run a test. mouth can lie but blood cannot

SUNNYsparkle:

you ain't ikwerre person. Tell me the last village on ikwerre side and the last village on Ohaji side if you are truely Ikwerre. I hear, your Yoruba brothers. This is what inferiority complex can cause and yours is not only the most pathetic case of it but notoriously cyclical. Any indigenous community in or outside Igboland can charge stranger elements once it has constitutional backing. Stop talking like a fool unless you are a confirmed fool!

LOL. He sounds typically like a proper Yoruba. The way he claims Ikwere would make you think he knows that much about the people he claims to be a part of. But a closer look helps you to see that accent which makes you exclame, "Ahaaa!!! Another Yoruba Nairaland historian," who would claim being a Zulu as long as the the deal is to say trash against the Igbo.

I think I'm crying. It's that classic.