₦airaland Forum

ChinenyeN:
EzeUche, you have started your own again. Like Asha said, this your initiative will effectively destroy that which you wish to build, before it is even built. Trust me, the day that you or anyone attempts this thing that you have in mind, is the day you will come to find out how 'clanish' we Igbo can really get. Remember, our Igbo identity was built on recognizing our similarities, while accommodating our differences (meaning that, being Igbo does not shove my Ngwa-ness into extinction. Likewise, Arochukwu is not forced to give up its Aro-ness just for the sake of an Igbo identity. Owere has all right to continue on as Owere. The same goes for Alayi, Ikwere and all other Igbo sub-ethnicities). With that in mind, your national objective will fail, if it fails to follow the path that Igbo identity took.

Akin-Egba:
Please help a brother with some history lessons. Thanks. I do not believe that God created any population of a few hundreds or thousand people. Who really are these our brothers with a population of a few hundreds to a few thousands? For e.g., Igbanke (Edo) Ogori (Kogi). Ishibori (Cross River), etc. Could they be from any of the big or semi big tribes?

EzeUche22:
That would need a centralized state. I hate to use this example, but China suppresses language being spoken, let alone lects. It can be done.

Anything that goes against unification of Alaigbo should be suppressed.

EzeUche22:
I see lects as destroying progress. That is why I enjoy reading about what Qin Shi Huang (China's First Emperor) did in creating a standard lect for the Chinese languages which had thousands of lects into one single lect which can be found through Mandarin. The lect in which 85% of the Chinese people speak.

Getting rid of lects should be our first thing should I do

EzeUche22:
Maybe we Igbos should be more focused on creating our own script using the Nsibidi but adding more symbols to it.

Also, getting rid of unnecessary lects and making every Igbo speak general Igbo. What angers me most is when Igbos speak in their lect so other Igbos present would have a hard time understanding what they are saying. The Northern Igbo clans are notorious for this.

ezeagu:
First of all Japan has no official language, it has recognised languages. Believe it or not there are more than one native peoples of Japan, in fact the Japanese are not the 'original' people of the island. I use Japan because of it's similarities with Igboland and its people.

experience:
On the surface: as is done in Britain. The institutions decide on semantics like percentages to win etc. It will save us money   while streamlining size. The political parties are formed on ideology though not the rubbish that goes in Nigeria. Matured politics.l

Prefer this because it stresses the presence of component nations rather than a single entity.

asha 80:
Does not work for us in nigeria because we do not have a herd mentality.It is kind of a drawback when you exist in a country where other nigerians are opposite most of the time.Exactly the reason why i laugh when people say that igbos should have a consesus candidate in an election.It is at parallel to our natural instincts.We were labelled democratic in our ways by the colonialists for a reason.Sometimes i feel the nigeria structure tries to force us into into something that is parallel to what we are.

asha 80:
Chyz i do not think choosing prime minister should be much of an issue.if you ask most igbos you know in real life the person they might tell you they want to be an 'igbo president' or 'igbo icon' likely to be someone that is not from their clan.

experience:
PM of a nation or the union Biafra?

asha 80:
Nigeria recycled again.


Personally i am not inclined to having other ethnic groups in a nation we want to build unless they say that they want to part of it not us forcing and believing that they will want to belong.

experience:
This time we have to carry everyone along. This should have never happened in the first place.


Hmmm,  there's some stuff brewing up over this, better to get this resolved asap. Many scholarly articles have pointed the need to keep all dialects (which I support with a view to gradual integration). As Igbo have no kings, so is no one dialect more superior than any other is the argument put forward on this issue.

I think Biafra has to be well defined especially to the minorities this time so they can understand no one will take advantage. Hence in the groupings I had Ndigbo as a nation and Ibibio, Efik etc as other nations with presidents/prime ministers. We then practice rotation amongst the head of these nations to ceremonially head Biafra for a period of say 6 months each.

Onlytruth:
So, let the spirit define what the nation does. If it is an Igbo only country, we can use Igbo. If not we can still keep English.

experience:
Can you please enlighten me on this.

Chyz

What would you suggest as the official language of institutions, house of parliament etc?

Asha, I think these provinces (clans) should have their institutions no biggie with that.

Thanks guys keep 'em coming.

Eze looks like Aro would keep the peace internally can't have them in diplomatic talks  

experience:
nationhood at the clanhood tier? (army, currency etc)

or a govt. system  taking clans into consideration first, ain't that a mini-Nigeria, cos quota system etc would have to come on in order to make sure all clans are 'represented' and no clan is marginalized?

ezeagu:
I think this union is only for the benefit of having a shoreline. What would be the point of creating another country when all you'll do is create a smaller Nigeria? If there was once an Edwin Clarke and Adaka Boro, what stops there from being another, and worse of all, this time the people controlling them may be from a different continent all together? The issue still remains that Opobo and Bonny, which aren't even established as Igbo towns, are not even connected to the mainland Igbo, you'll have to go through other lands. This is half of the reason why this thread is still open, the second reason is the question of whether these towns could be called Igbo when 1. A significant amount of the population does not identify with Igbo 2. Just because the towns were founded by Igbo people some centuries ago, doesn't mean they are still Igbo, if you disagree hand back Arochukwu and other towns to the Ibibio, and 3. The leaders of these two towns are Ijaw.

The line for Anioma state has been shaped, and so can a line for the Igbo boundary in Rivers which is in every map most of you have agreed with. Is this 'no boundary' issue about Okrika alone, here's the solution, go and ask Okrika people if they are Igbo, if the majority say no, Port Harcourt is the end of your boundary, if yes, Okrika is the end of the boundary. I don't even know why Kalabari is even being considered as Igbo here because that is far from the fact. Many of them have Igbo mothers, yes, but that does no make them Igbo in any culture in most of this planet's cultures. You really want to fight for people who have denied you time and time again just because of water?

ezeagu:
How can you split Agbor, which is heavily Edo, from Edo, but yet you cannot split Okrika from Igbo. Whatever Agbor shares with the Edo is what the Okrika share with the Igbo. There is a boundary around Okrika and it can easily be grouped with the Ijaw just like Agbor can be grouped with the Igbo. As for characteristics, Ika has many Edo words, their culture has a lot of Edo influence like their kingship, many of them cannot be differentiated from Edo people in looks and they share characteristics with the Edo as well.

ezeagu:
You must not know that there are actually several Igbo towns in the West that bear Edo names. Many people, maybe half, of the extreme west of Igboland bear Edo last names, the Oba of Benin has relations with many of the leaders of the communities west. How is a town like Agbor different to a town like Okrika?

ezeagu:
What about the heavy inter-marriage between the Western Igbo and the Edo?

Ibime:
^^^Biafra invaded midwest to collect their Igbo brothers.

Did they invade midwest to also collect our Ijaw brothers to join us?

No wonder some people say Biafra is an Igbo thing.

Whats good for the goose is also good for the gander.

EzeUche22:
My very own father fought valiantly during the siege of Onitsha so you are using only antedotal evidence. Yes, the Ohafia/Abam warriors are known far and wide, but we were not in the leadershjip positions, of course we could not tap into our true potential.  

The biggest lesson of Biafra is that in times of peace, we should prepare for war, and in times of war, we should prepare for peace. We should never have invaded the midwest region and we should of focused on the Niger Delta. Not pacifying the Eastern Ijaw was our BIGGEST mistake. We should of handled Adaka Boro when we had the chance.

EzeUche22:
This is how it should be.

If someone kills 1 of our people, we kill 10 of their people.

When a 100 Igbos are killed, we should wipe out an entire village.

This is what was done in the old days when Igbos were known as brave warriors!

In this world, MIGHT MAKES RIGHT!

The Fulani have mastered this. Keep their minorities in check. You see what they are doing in Jos. It is not right, but it sure does send a message that they are here to stay.

Andre Uweh:
@Chyz: I think Ndigbo should be there to protect the Ijaws when attacked by other super-powers in Nigeria regardless of our minor understandings with them. Before the union of England and Scotland, the two groups fought against each other with intense hit.  But if Scotland was attacked by Norway or any of the Scandinavian nations, England will join the war on the side of Scotland.
Ndigbo should rice up against assault to our Ijaw neighbours by those other large two.

Obiagu1:
Thank you chyz for the post. It has been my pain.  

Obiagu1:
I don’t think we do, one has been very hostile to the other, so it can never work. East minus Ijaw (Izon) is ok for me.

You see, the Ijaw do not understand or respect the language of peace, harmony or brotherhood which you and other Igbo preach. The only language they understand and respect is beligerence, confrontation, belicosity and militancy. The failure of the Igbo to understand this basic fact is the reason for their lack of success in relating to their Ijaw neighbours. Your Ijaw have more respect for Umaru Dikko, Jibril Aminu etc. despite their threatening and arrogant stance than the turn-the-other-cheek-peace preaching Igbo. When the Igbo learn to return militancy for militancy, beligrence for beligerence etc., their relationship with the Ijaw will be transformed. How does this work? Borrow from how other groups deal with the Ijaw. Examples:

1. Not long ago, Asari Dokubo, a Kalabari Ijaw went to Lagos and granted an interview to a TV station. In that programme, he accused the Yoruba leader Mr Obafemi Awolowo of transfering Ijaw resources to Yoruba and Hausa with his revenue allocation formula in the 1960s/70s. While Dokubo was still talking, the Yoruba dispatched their OPC hit squad to the TV studio to kill with Dokubo. Dokubo was lucky to escape unhurt. Reuben Abati boasted about it in the Guardian. A couple of months later and despite Ijaw profuse apology, obasanjo, a Yoruba caught Dokubo, put him in jail where he remained ever after.

2. obasanjo has sent military forces to destroy Ijaw towns- Odi, Odioma etc. Imported helicopter gunships have been deployed to shoot at them. Look at the way he treated Mr Alamayeseigha. But the Ijaw love obasanjo so much that the have crowned him Kabaowei of Ijawland. By contrast, the same Ijaw have been insulting Igbo leaders from Zik, Ibiam through Okpara to Ojukwu, Ironsi etc. without any consequences to themselves. No Igbo leader is spared. Why? Because familiarity breeds contempt.

3. When the Ijaw persisted in intimidating the little Itsekiri group in Warri, the Yoruba despatched the OPC to go and sort them out. Since then, the so-called Warri crisis has died down. Same for the so-called Arogbo Ijaw crisis. The Yoruba do not take any nonsense from the Ijaw and the Ijaw respect them for that. In fact, some Ijaw even now claim thay they are related to Yoruba!

4. Even the Bini has learnt that the way to deal with the Ijaw is to confront them every inch of the way. Thus when the Ijaw started claiming ownership of Ovia LGA in Edo State (as usual, renaming Bini towns like they did in Port Harcourt after the war), the Oba of Benin summoned his war chiefs and confronted them squarely. Since then the Ijaw have learnt to respect Bini territory in Edo State.

Only the Igbo treat the Ijaw with kid gloves and let them ride roughshod over Igbo interests. David West and co. have been allowed to continue to undermine Igbo interests in Nigeria, can they try it on the Yoruba, any Yoruba without serious consequences? Hell no! Isaac Boro was elected student leader of UNN in the 1960s by Igbo students, but all Ijaw remember and teach their kids is that Boro was not elected in his first attempt because he was Ijaw.

Even Yakubu Danjuma made US $3billion from oil block in one deal alone. But the Ijaw continue to insult Igbo leaders for what? As long as the Igbo refuse to understand the basic Ijaw psychology of an eye for an eye and apply it when dealing with Ijaw, the later will continue to poke their fingers in Igbo collective eyes.

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Gen. Ironsi - Held Boro in protective custody out of harms way. Sabotaged by Ijaw





Mr Benjamin Adekunle - Shot Boro in the back- worshipped by Ijaw







Gen. Abacha- Hanged Saro-Wiwa high, poured acid on his bones- respected by Ijaw




obasanjo - Destroyed Odi, Odioma. Orders helicopter gunships to fires rockets at fishermen of Gharamatu. Crowned Ambaowei of Izonland



Photo: Sir Francis Akanu Ibiam - eastern nigerian leader pilloried by Ijaw because familiarity breeds contempt.



Photo: Obasanjo - Destroyed Odi, Odioma and told his victims to shut up much to Ijaw admiration. He was crowned Ambaowei I of Ijawland for his effort.

ziddy:
Beaf, one of these days you're going to choke on Jonathan's come. Just keep at it, you hear