NEARLY 50 years ago, it is said, that people in
Enugu, Nsukka, Ngwo, and Abakalike had little
clothes to cover themselves. In 1947, the District
Officer prohibited nude people coming to the
Ogbete Market in Enugu. Yet, in 20 short years, the
Igbos were the number one traders in textile. The Onitsha Market was brimming with it. People
came to buy from all over Nigeria. In Broad Street,
the only competitors in textile trade were those we
called Syrians – who were probably Lebanese. All
ethnic groups in Nigeria had some clans who were
suspected of cannibalism. I have no first hand knowledge of this. But Enugu, Ngwo, Abakaliki,
some parts of Abia near Umuahia, and near Obowu
in Imo State were similarly suspected. If it was so, it did not last long because the Criminal
Investigation Division (CID), and the District Officers
(DOS) and native administration soon put a stop to
it, as they did among some Ijaws, like the Okrikas,
who were similarly suspected. The British
Government had found that the “Indirect Rule” system did not work in the East, as it had done in
the North and the West, mainly because the latter
had Kingship institutions. Where these institutions existed, it was easy for the
British to rule through the District Officer (DO) who
passed on directives to the Obas, Chiefs, Bales,
Emirs, etc. The DOS were the unseen hand that
controlled the local administration. But because the
Igbos did not have Kingship or Chieftaincy that ruled over a larger area, the British, in 1931
through the Warrant Chiefs Ordnance of that year,
tried to establish territorial kingships or
chieftaincies. Hence, the need to create “warrant chiefs” who
were supposed to work like their counterparts in
the Yorubaland and in Hausaland. However, it did
not work. The Igbos now claim that the acephalous
nature of their people meant that they were
genetically democratic. Therefore, their Age Grade System continued, even under the kingship
dispensations. Thus, they continued to have the
“Elders”, who worked with their “kings”; whilst the
“Youths” continued to operate as the law
enforcement personnel, until the modern policing
system eventually displaced them, and the Native Authority Police eventually took over that task from
the “Youths”. Some anthropologists and linguists have described
the Igbo as autochthonous – so unique have their
culture been that it must be indigenous. The
Founder of the Yoruba Dynasty was Oduduwa, who
migrated from Egypt. The Hausa/Fulani claim they
came from Arabia in the Middle East. The Igbos have a vague idea of being Jewish – one of the lost
tribes of Israel. All stories of origins of different peoples round the
world are folkloric and mythical. So, we cannot
dismiss the Igbo claim of Jewishness out of hand.
One thing is certain, the Igbos have a great deal of
empathy for the Jews, whose persecution over the
centuries by Europe and Asia, the Igbo sublimate and claim that they too have been persecuted for
centuries. Just as the Jews have vanquished their
oppressors, so the Igbos believe that they would
triumph over all comers who persecute them. The Igbos identity with Jewish success is an
inevitability regardless of what obstacles may be
thrown in their way. They are God’s chosen people.
This is an extremely powerful tonic for the survival
and great foundation for success. No other ethnic
group in Nigeria is so armed for struggle of efficient development. The slave trade affected most of West
Africa. The chiefs along the coast soon became
procurers or middlemen in this odious trade. Many
of those sold off were their own people captured
from many slave raids in the interior of Nigeria. This is where the story of the Igbos and the Ijaws
of Bonny and else where began. Bonny was a
major slave trading port; its deep-water shores
made it unnecessary for European slavers’ ships to
venture into the interior. The Bonny (Igbani Ijaws) sold slaves and even had
a most lucrative empire. One Bonny Chief went to
England and bought a steamship fully outfitted with
an English captain, officers, and sailors to bring him
back to Nigeria. Such business needed trust worthy
lieutenants. These the Bonny Chiefs found among the Igbo slaves who became their trusted
employees. The “Civil Servant Employees” became
trustees. The Igbani Chiefs, however, were not over trusting.
They did not want the Igbos to learn their language
for fear of being overthrown or appealing directly
to their gods. The Igbanis, therefore, decided to
learn Igbo to better communicate with their
trustees; while keeping Igbani as the royal language to be used only by the Chiefs among
themselves. In a little while, the Chiefs became proficient in
some kind of Igbo better described as pidgin or
patois Igbo. After the slave trade, the Igbos
remained in Bonny, inter-married and continued to
speak this bastardized Igbo; so pervasive had the
Igbo influence been that the patois Igbo became the lingua franca. Unfortunately the Chiefs and
people of Bonny started losing touch with their
own language. Today, Igbani is losing ground to
Igbo; whilst the study of Igbani has been
reintroduced in schools and it is beginning to pick
up. The Bonny, the Okrika, and the Kalabari are to a
large extent, bilingual – speaking an Ijaw dialect
and Igbo; just as the Abua, the Egeni, the Ikwerre
of Isiokpo, and the Igbos in Oguta, Imo State, can
speak Kalabari and their own language. There is
even a Kalabari beach in Oguta, Imo State. There are Igbo speaking peoples in Rivers State – the
Ikwerre, the Etchie, the Andoni etc, and in Delta –
the people from Asaba right through to the
outskirts of Benin – through Isele Uku, Ogwashi
Uku, Agbor, Boju Boju Owa, Obiaruku, Abraka, etc. We would have to place these people within the
Igbo linguistic family. But there are distinct
behaviour patterns which differentiates these
various groups from mainstream Igbos. Among the
Ikwerre, Ahoada, etc the Chieftaincy practices have
tended to veer more towards Kalabari, IJaws than the mainline Igbos. In Delta and Edo, the Igbo
cousins have a Chieftaincy profile more like Benin
(Edo) than the acephalous Age Grade System of the
Igbos. This superficial observation is strengthened by the
Yoruba claim that the Asagba of Asaba, the Obi of
Onitsha, and the Olu of Warri were grandsons of
Oduduwa. (The Edos, on the other hand, counter
claim that Oduduwa was a son of the Oba of Benin
and therefore the Yoruba are Edo). There is a definite relationship between the Benin Kingship
and the Yoruba Kingships: The Benin, the Itsekiri
Kingship, the Lagos Kingship, the Badagry
Kingship, the Uhrobo and Isoko Kingdoms and
even the Benin Republic Kingship are all inter-
related. The relationship is not necessarily one of
subjugation. In fact, in many cases, there was no
such subjugation. Rather, the relationship has been
familial. But the Oba of Benin has a special position
in Asaba, Lagos, Warri and nearly all the large
Kingships in Edo. Any student of history will soon discover the close and confusing relationship
between the Kings of France, Britain, Spain, Italy,
Holland, Austria etc. Many of the Kings of Britain could not speak English
even as late as less than 200 years ago! These close
ties did not stop the wars for over 300 years
among the Kings of Europe. Do the Igbo then have a central core of worship –
which therefore mentioned Kings and Chiefs and
Obas have? One belief is that, though
autochthonous, they have a core of religious beliefs
which were maintained through the itinerant
mystics or spiritualists – the Aros – from a place known as Aro Chukwu. Closely allied to this is that the source of all Igbos
and their spirituality is from a village called Nri. I
have no idea how much of this is a general belief
among the Igbos. But if people claim that they are
genetically democratic, then you may not be
surprised if quite a few do not accept this interpretation. To be continued tomorrow. Dr. Cole
(OFR) is Nigeria’s former Ambassador to Brazil.

Blowing Lies Fast

Igbokwenu!
Ibo is za best tribe in 9ja. Unlike the onu mmanu ppl