OyeofIkoTuN:
E no fit better for Griffith..

You cannot write our tales or history for us..

TuEH.

Ndi ala

GeorgesDiary:


How you people read sometimes is funny. It is well.

OyeofIkoTuN:


don't patronize me....

If I'm not seeing Okeke or Okafor 1883...My broda throw that propaganda away

GeorgesDiary:


Unfortunately, the Okeke and Okafor didn't write.

OyeofIkoTuN:



oh man they did....All their works were stolen and haven't been repatriated back..

GeorgesDiary:


They didn't. History in many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa were mostly preserved orally and not in a written document. Some of the works referenced in the post above are from people who had physical interactions with the people they are writing about.

OyeofIkoTuN:


what?

you are telling me with your full chest,the Whiteman invented read and write..

wonderful

GeorgesDiary:


I am not telling you, that's what you choose to understand. However, most of our history as a people were not preserved by us in written documents but by oral tradition, inscriptions and other forms of arts.

Igbodicool:
Una tribalism don reach Sierra Leone?

Igbo versus Yoruba superiority contest no dey tire una?

Biko keep Igbo out of this.
We are not in any competition with any tribe.
Tankiuuuu!

OyeofIkoTuN:


Have you forgotten, any kingdom the crusaders invaded,they took what they wanted and burnt the rest to the ground..

Fact

GeorgesDiary:


Colonialism was terrible. I agree but let's not make propaganda out of every document. We may as well discard Western education and call it propaganda.

GeorgesDiary:
The Igbos and Yorubas are not indigenous to Sierra Leone but they played enormous roles in this country as freed slaves long before the nineteenth century. They were known in Sierra Leone as Ibos (or Ebos) and Akus. The Ibos were Christians while the Akus were principally Muslims.

Today, most of the Ibos and Akus in Sierra Leone have been absorbed into the Sierra Leone Creole people.

Sierra Leone Creole ethnic construction was naturally done by the mingling of the newly freed blacks, Nova Scotians, Jamaican Maroons and Liberated Africans such as the Akan, Bakongo, Igbo and Yoruba - over several generations in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Some of this information and history hold several advantages for the Nigerian people. It reveals who we are as a people and how we can have a common ground to forge a new identity without erasing our history. For example, in present-day Agbor, some people who have Igbo names and even practice a very similar culture to the Igbos claim that they are not Igbos, a phenomenon that gained ground after the civil war.

However, history tells us that before the 18th century, the people of Agbor and indeed some parts of the present-day Delta State and Edo State identified as Igbo.

Richard F. Burton and Verney Lovette Cameron, travellers who sojourned West Africa in their book "To The Gold Coast for Gold" published in 1883 noted that Agbor didn't only identify as Igbo but also was known as the HEADQUARTER of Igboland. The Yoruba people in Sierra Leone were known as Aku.

In volume 2 of To The Gold Coast for Gold, the Igbos of Sierra Leone were described as "Swiss of the community". Here is what the authors wrote:

"The Ibos, or 'Eboes' of American tales, are even more divided (diverse); still they feel and act upon the principle 'Union is strength.' This large and savage tribe, whose headquarters are at Abo, about the head of the Nigerian delta, musters strong at Sá Leone; here they are the Swiss of the community; the Kruboys, and further south the Kabenda-men being the 'Paddies.'

It is popularly said that while the Aku will do anything for money, the Ibo will do anything for revenge. Both races are astute in the
extreme and intelligent enough to work harm. Unhappily, their talents rarely take the other direction. In former days they had faction fights: the second eastern district witnessed the last serious disturbance in
1834.

Now they do battle under the shadow of the law. 'Aku constables will not, unless in extreme cases, take up their delinquent countrymen, nor will an Ebo constable apprehend an Ebo thief; and so on through all the different tribes,' says the lady 'Resident of Sierra Leone.'

If the majority of the jury be Akus, they will unhesitatingly find the worst of Aku criminals innocent, and the most innocent of whites, Ibos, or Timnis guilty. The Government has done its best to weld all those races into one,
and has failed."

This 1883 revelation by Richard F. Burton and Verney Lovette Cameron also points out that while Igbos weren't united into one kingdom, they had each other back to the point of safeguarding other Ibos who aren't innocent of a crime. The same could be said about the Akus and other tribes of Sierra Leone anyway.

To date, the "Union is Strength" philosophy known locally as "Igwe bu ike" has continued to be a major principle of the Igbo people. If anyone can understand this principle better, it should be the Igbos. The Igbo identity was formed by diverse people who shared similar cultures and spoke several dialects of the same language of which some of these dialects aren't even mutually comprehensible.

The Igbos understand that together, as a united force, they can reach any height and protect their interest. To date, Igbos are always quick to form an Igbo association whenever they migrate or travel to places outside Igbo lands, they don't only form an association, they appoint, elect and coronate an "Igwe" or "Eze" who serves as a leader of the Igbos in that community.

While Igbos may be majorly divided across opinions at home, they are always united amongst strangers to protect their interests. Among Igbos, they see any Igbo who opposes the common interest of Igbos as a sell-out.

The Igbos and Yorubas of Sierra Leone also didn't have the best of relationships, they didn't see each other as one which means that they had no "pan Nigeria" ideology. At best, Nigeria was considered a colonial imposition. When an Aku beholds an Ibo, they don't see a brother, there was no such thing as the Nigerian consciousness then.

This kind of sheds light on the problem we have in Nigeria today. In Sierra Leone, the government failed to unite the Igbos and Yorubas into one ethnic group after several attempts. If we could borrow some sense from this, we can only postulate that the only solution for the divisions in Nigeria today is a regional system of Government or autonomy of States as practised in the United States of America.

The Ibos and Akus of Sierra Leone played significant roles in the country. The first President of Sierra Leone was an Ibo man, Christopher Okoro Cole.

Okoro Cole was Chief Justice of Sierra Leone in 1970. He was the country’s last Governor-General in 1971 before he became President on March 19, 1971.

Okoro was also the First Permanent Representative to the United Nations and Ambassador to the United States. He was the country’s last Governor-General in 1971 before he became President on March 19, 1971.

In April of 1992, an Igbo by the name of Captain Yahya Kanu became Military Head of State of Sierra Leone.

In 1857, a Sierra Leonian and ex-slave of Igbo extraction, Simon Jonas, wrote the first manuscript written in the Igbo language, ‘Isoama-Ibo Primer’. The Igbo dialect spoken in Sierra Leone is called Isoama/Isuama-Igbo. Ex-Lagos slave, Samuel Crowther, published it as a book. Both Jonas and Crowther stayed together in Lagos before being shipped to Sierra Leone.

Simon Jonas's work was a result of the assembling of a group of native Africans led by Schoen to master the Ibo language for effective missionary work with African other than Europeans. Simon Jonas worked with Christopher Taylor to produce a Primer in 1857 which they handed over to Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther, an ex-Yoruba slave and Scheon.

When the missionaries reached Igboland, the natives could barely understand them and they also could barely understand the Igbo natives. The dialect used in the primer was only spoken by Sierra Leonians of Igbo descent which is an adulterated Igbo from several generations. However, the works of Simon Jonas, a Sierra Leonean Igbo, laid the foundation for the official Igbo Bible.

The Aku people of Sierra Leone have always been seen as distinct from the Creoles even though some of them have intermarried and mingled with the Creoles. But their strong ancestry and religious identity separate them from the Creoles.

While the Creoles made up of various ethnic groups like Ibos, African Americans, Yorubas and even blacks born in the Western world are predominantly Christians, the Akus are predominantly Yoruba Muslims with only 0.5% of them identifying as Christians. To be accepted into the Creole community in those days, becoming a Christian was one of the unwritten rules.

Another thing that sets the Aku people apart from the Creoles was that the Aku people practised female genital mutilation and cliterodotomy which is the sectioning of the clitoral nerves. They also practised polygamy, unlike the monogamous Creoles.

Various scholars however do not consider Aku as distinct from Creole people but see them as a sub-ethnic group because of their closeness and adoption of western education and other aspects of Western culture.

While Igbos are known globally for their trading prowess, the Aku women too were great traders. However, several Akus who would later become educated returned to the core Yoruba lands in Nigeria.

According to the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (1886). The paper read by T. R. Griffith, Esq., Colonial Secretary at Sierra Leone on the Races inhabiting Sierra Leone indicated that the Eboes (Igbos) "...are a numerous and thriving people at Sierra Leone and many of them have acquired wealth and influence."

"They come from a country on the west bank of the River Niger, not far from its fall into the sea, and those who inhabit that country are described as tall and robust, capable of enduring great fatigue, frequently paddling their own large canoes for forty-eight hours without taking food."

He also revealed that the Igbos ascribe a superior social rank to their women in contrast to most other uncivilised tribes. The Igbos were known to be very dynamic as they quickly adapt to the customs of where they lived.

The paper read by Griffith also explained that the Igbos had a very strong desire to become excellent in whatever they embark on