bigfrancis21:


Honestly, I don't know. Someone from Ebonyi should be able to tell us that.

The fact remains that the earliest academically documented evidence of the usage of oyibo in Nigeria was by the account of Olaudah Equiano, an ex Igbo slave who was born circa 1745 and the location was in Igboland around mid 1750s. Olaudah was captured when he was 11 years old or so and his memories of his native birth place were from his childhood days in Igbo land (which should be around the late 1740s and early 1750s). Olaudah's actual village in Igboland is still debated, with some claiming 'ashaka' in Delta Igbo region and some saying 'Isseke' in Anambra state, just around the border to Imo state. Personally, I am inclined to go with Isseke in Anambra state because his description of his travels after he was captured was mainly on land (he would have reported crossing the river niger across to the east as he made his way towards bonny or calabar port to be sold if he were captured from ashaka) and the dialect of the few Igbo words he used in his memoir indicates someone not from the 'core' anambra areas (onitsha, njikoka etc.) but from around the borders where dialects are similar to Imo north. For example, he used 'afor' to describe year in Igbo, which is correct, however the 'core' anambra or onitsha man would say 'aro' for 'year'. 'Afor' is used very well in Imo state. He also made mention of mgburichi which would have been mgbulichi in these 'core' anambra areas, with the 'r' indicating a southern influence on the dialect of his people, which many anambra towns near the border to imo state till today have.

The next academic evidence comes from the visitation of Simon Jonas, son of an ex Igbo slave born in Sierra Leone, to Onitsha in 1832 and being referred to as 'oh eboe ojii' by the natives.

Everything else is mere speculation.