killayut:

Hello itself is one of many ways of greeting some one. Hello, Hi, what is going on , How are you, and so on, Just as it is in Kalabari, Hello I think is actually ALUA or ALUWA in Kalabari.

Andre Uweh:

God bless Kalabari people.

maki:

read through this thread and i must say i really enjoyed every bit of it,

both the arugments and all , anyway i believe we are part of the izon ethnic group, shekina,

Johndoe100:

I agree with the part in bold. Tobra?

maki:

ibim, inde mieye simibara?

maki:

a lagosi bio emi 

Johndoe100:

A mu i website dekeem, ani picture o iyeri?

Kapa me ibim.

Niflheim:

You call the Ijaw people slaves and yet even a Yoruba,Hausa man will rather support us for president than you guys knowing fully well that in the 1966 coup,you killed leaders from all other tribes and spared your own.

Niflheim:

Why would an Igbo say that the Ijaws were treacherous during the war,Ojukwu approached my uncle Ambassador Iyalla for kalabari support and after the meeting, Ojukwu had a seperate meeting with his Igbo caucus and said that when Biafra is formed ,he will make all the Kalabaris slaves and take all our oil but my uncle had a double agent in Ojukwu's inner caucus on his payroll and the mole leaked the information to my uncle ,so during the next meeting,my uncle said that he will not support Biafra and Ojukwu labelled him a traitor.Udezue if you were in my uncle's shoes and some one wanted to enslave your people and he needed your support ,will you support him.This is so irritating.So we are now the traitors abi?

Niflheim:

I am from Bakana and my mother told me everything that happened there and udezue believes that he knows more than my mother.She told me about mass killings and one of her uncles was even forced to dig his own grave in her front after which he was shot in the back of the head.Even Kalabari witch doctors had to summon the water goddess whom managed to wreck some of their boats and some Biafrans drowned in the process yet udezue is saying that they came for our good.
[/quot

Drunkard fisherman, you are a no brainer at all. I pity you for listening to what your illiterate mother told you rather what people who have researched about the war and those who were at the war front.
You are the most unintelligent Kalabari that post here. Monkey, why must all your post be what one f00l in your village or canoe house said and bla bla bla. Are you retarded or you just have brains of the size of a toddler. Probably, your mum fed you from her rectum instead of breastmilk. Your post makes all to think so.

kiwi992:

Hi Everyone,


Just to state a few facts here.

1. There's absolutely no need to insult someone, let alone, the one's mum, simply because you do not agree with the one's point of view.

If you don't agree with the one, then, by all means, put forward your own counter-argument in a civilized manner, without the typical Nigerian trademark (as so often exhibited in Nairaland), of pouring insults at each other. It's like saying - I've not got the mental capacity to argue with you, so I'd rather insult you or try and shout you down!

2. There's no need to express tribal sentiments in a discussion here or elsewhere

People are people - be they Hausas, Yorubas, Ibos, Edos, Efiks or whatever, and MUST be respected. It doesn't matter as to which tribe the one belongs to. If you've ever faced any form of racial discrimination in your life, you'd know how much it hurts to the core, knowing fully well that you are hated simply because of the colour of your skin. Cut out the bloody tribalism, grow up and bloody well accept each other as one.

3. Talk is cheap - we mustn't make a laughing stock of ourselves

I've noticed far too many postings on this thread that often make me wonder as to where people are getting their facts about Kalabari history! Wikipedia or what? Kalabari history and language are NOT things to be messed with or distorted. We have a proud history that's been handed down to us by the elders, most of whom have departed. We must try and preserve our history and not write down whatever that comes into our heads.

People must research their facts, verify such facts with the chiefs (or elders) in Kalabari Kingdom, before posting them in Forums, for the whole world to read. We tend to forget that our postings here and elsewhere would be heavily scrutinised, taken apart bit by bit, and torn to shreds, in trying to get to the real facts behind what they say. It really saddens me, when it's clear in the postings that such facts have not been properly researched and verified. Surely, we can't post whatever we like about our own history or can we?

Why write, just for the sake of writing? Why? What's the itch to write? Why not pay great attention to the factual accuracy of what we write down here and elsewhere, as well as how we write it? Why do we make such careless statements, only to be taken up on it by some bystander, to ridicule us?

Most of all, why let others correct us on our own history and make a laughing stock of us, as regards the inaccuracies in our postings? How does that portray us? Isn't it about time that we seriously re-examined ourselves in terms of what we post on this thread, more so, when non-Kalabaris begin to doubt our origins as being Kalabari. Isn't about time? Why the lackadaisical attitude? In short, why make a spectacle of ourselves? Why?

I dare anybody to go to a Kalabari chief (the Englishman - Chief Dr Hutton of Buguma included - if he's still alive) and for the one to confirm that family compounds in Kalabari Kingdom are founded on mere canoe houses! What bloody canoe houses? Who says that? Some crummy book written by someone who proclaims to know something about the Kalabaris? Oh yeah, some colonialist? Maybe Wikipedia? Bollocks as ever, is all I can say to it - absolute effing crap.

Talking about the Kalabari language, every Kalabari knows that it is ONLY in Bakana that the most grammatically correct Kalabari language is spoken - on par with speaking Queen's English (aka Oxford English), as opposed to speaking colloquial English. I should know this because the first ever book, written entirely in the Kalabari language and entitled 'Kalabari Na Tari Go Diri', was by my late dad (Dr C. I. Berepik), in conjunction with Chief Dr Hutton of Buguma. The book teaches the Kalabari language.

Coming here to post all sorts of things, purporting to be correct expressions in the Kalabari language, just makes me sick to the pits of my stomach. Unless the one was born in Bakana, went to school there and learnt how to speak the language properly, as well as write it, the one can never, ever, proclaim to know the true Kalabari language, let alone, speak it properly. Saying that the Kalabari language is a 'dialect', shows the shortcomings in what we proclaim to know.

4. It amazes me, when people don't know that:

a) Kalabaris are NOT Ijaws.

Jene jene, gboru Kalabari be furo tu bo so, be bia mine, mbo Ijaw na bo. Omine te ama ogono bu anga ari be apu ma, mie me onimi gbe wurari.

There's no true Kalabari out there that would ever say that he or she is an Ijaw. NEVER!! You go to Buguma, Abonnema, Bakana, Tombia, Degema, Obuama, Bile, Ke, Kula, Old Bakana, Bukuma, and so on, and people would tell you that Kalabaris are most definitely NOT Ijaws. We only got bundled together with the Ijaws as belonging to the same tribe, by the clue-less European colonialists.

What's with this Ijaw agenda? Our neighbours - the Okirikas, Ikwerres and Ibos, even know that Kalabaris are not Ijaws, so how come some of us don't even know it, and instead, keep banging on about Kalabaris being Ijaws? Who bloody cares about the Ijaws anyway? I don't. When Adaka Boro was fighting his wars, was he fighting for the Kalabaris? Nope - he bloody was not! When Diete Spiff was dishing out the Rivers State Government scholarships, how many Kalabaris did he award scholarships to, as compared with the Ijaws? Minute, if you ask me.

b) Odum Polo is Iyalla's compound.

c) Odum Ama is another name for Bakana (the letter 'd' in Odum is not underlined, unlike 'odum' (boar constrictor) in which the 'd' has a dash underneath it

d) Obo Ama is yet another name for Bakana (I'm NOT referring to Obu Ama - Harry's Town)

e) Inai Polo is Iyalla's compound

f) The Iyallas and Braides are related. Anyone who doesn't know this should bloody well go and find out for themselves. I can't, for my life, see as to why they are fighting and killing each other, over who founded Bakana.

g) Kengema Kalabari is simply Kalabari

h) Oduro-Ogu is aptly named because it was where one of the wars broke-out (out of many), between the ancient Kalabaris and Okrikas.

i) If someone happens to write a book about Kalabari history or indeed, about anything for that matter, it's up to us to use our own discretion in accepting or rejecting what's written in the book. The least that we could do, is to verify the facts with the chiefs and elders, before coming here to post them.

You know what? I really don't understand as to why I have to be stating such obvious facts as these, when they are supposed to have been taught to pupils in primary school. Glad that I still know my history, despite donkey years away from home.



kiwi992.

kiwi992:

4.  It amazes me, when people don't know that:

a) Kalabaris are NOT Ijaws.

Jene jene, gboru Kalabari be furo tu bo so, be bia mine, mbo Ijaw na bo.  Omine te ama ogono bu anga ari be apu ma, mie me onimi gbe wurari. 

There's no true Kalabari out there that would ever say that he or she is an Ijaw.  NEVER!!  You go to Buguma, Abonnema, Bakana, Tombia, Degema, Obuama, Bile, Ke, Kula, Old Bakana, Bukuma, and so on, and people would tell you that Kalabaris are most definitely NOT Ijaws.  We only got bundled together with the Ijaws as belonging to the same tribe, by the clue-less European colonialists.   

What's with this Ijaw agenda?  Our neighbours - the Okirikas, Ikwerres and Ibos, even know that Kalabaris are not Ijaws.

Andre Uweh: Good people of Kalabari land, greetings to you all. Am not Kalabari but your Eastern Nigerian neighbour. I admire everything about the Kalabaris and the Kalabari nation.
May the peace of our Lord be with you all.
http://amachree.com/_wsn/page2.html

ijaw citizen: Andrew Uweh, arch enemy of the Ijaw nation! pls go away, we don't need you here. I can't just understand why anything Ijaw attracts you. Now you have intruded by telling us how you admire us, I guess very soon you will start saying silly things like "ijaw betrayed igbo", "ijaws are MIXED with igbo", "Igbos founded Ijaw towns" etc. By the way, we are no longer ur "EASTERN NIGERIA NEIGHBOURS" anymore or are you still living in the 60's & 70's? We've got all the peace we need directly from God in Ijawland, so WE DON'T NEED UR IGBO PEACE. Now fcck off!