₦airaland Forum

clefstone:
Ossai may be the most common surname in all of Delta state. It is so common that people that bear the name are hardly relatives. If you say more people bear Ossai in Nsukka than in Ndokwa/Ukwuani, it means you make careless statements.

I know Nsukka people bear Ossai (the current Dep Gov of Enugu State bear the Surname) but the only possible explanation for that is that they have people that moved from Delta axis to that location. The people of Aboh are widely dispersed in all of Southern Nigeria, from Igala down to the Coast fyi

As a matter of fact, Aboh itself has a lot of her people originating from the Nsukka area. If you care to do surname comparison for both areas(Ndokwa and Nsukka), you'll be amazed at the similarities you'll find. I however doubt the sincerity of your quest for knowledge. You're more inclined at pushing a certain narrative than being open to the facts on ground.
Let's examine the most probable way 'Ossai' as a name could have come up or diffused to the Ndokwa area and/or Nsukka area.
1. If it first came up in the Ndokwa area, how did it move to the Nsukka area? Did some people from Ndokwa (Aboh) migrate to Nsukka area at any point in time? What could have been the reason for their migration and what is the likely path of their migration?
2. If it first came up in the Nsukka area, how did it move to the Ndokwa(Aboh) area? Did some Nsukka people migrate to Aboh at any point in time and what could have been the reason for their migration? What was the path they journeyed through to have arrived at Aboh?
When you examine both scenarios, you will see that the second scenario is more plausible owing to the fact that Nsukka is far older than Aboh. The most probable path of the journey would have been by water(River Niger) and recorded traffic shows people from the Nsukka area being brought to Aboh during the old days. Most probable cause for the migration in scene 2 is the plunder of the area by Igala invaders unlike Aboh and Ndokwa that had no such invaders.
Conclusion is that the second scenario is more plausible in the absence of the name being autochthonous to both areas.
Check another surname known as 'Ogbole'. It exists both in Nsukka and Ndokwa. I hope you're getting the idea now.
There's another surname called 'Alumona' that I found in both Nsukka and Aniocha north (Issele Ukwu) to be precise.
The same way 'Ugbo' in Aboh's history is most likely the same name in Asaba's history which is an Igbo name.
Finally, below is a work done by one of your brothers who did a well detailed research and comparison. His findings are very consistent with what I've been saying. Some of those touted migrants from Benin were originally of Igbo origin and they spoke Igbo which is why they named their children Igbo names mostly.
See below.

AuschwitzPrefec:
Nothing like igbophobia .

Do not confuse anti Igbo for igbophobia .

Nobody is afraid of you brainless orcs .

Says a hate filled Yeriba who lost his voice as the fulanis asserted their dominance in Ilorin.
I was waiting to see if you would show face in the various threads where fulanis silenced the entire Yeriba nation but alas, I was expecting too much from a coward.

Ologbo147:
Ugbo is also an Edo name, it means farm or bush, it can be given to anyone who the mother had labor pains in farm or maybe who the father was in his farm as at the time such a child was given birth to. Most persons with that name today bear it as a surname check up on “Curtis Eghosa Ugbo” on google

Ok. I guess it will be one of those shared names and it still depends on the pronunciation for it to be confirmed so.

Ologbo147:
stop throwing shades at the Binis, there was no time the Anioma area was larger than the Bini area in landmass and in population even if they have nine local government as against the Binis seven. Local government is not a yardstick for population strength, we ve proven that time and time again. we would have had more local governments today if not for scuffle between our elites that hindered that action.

The Binis are not the ones claiming them, most times these people are the ones extending the olive branch, please stop throwing shade

I never shaded any Bini. I'm just trying to push critical thinking to Clefstone. The only Igbo groups with identity crises who point to Benin as their place of origin both in location and ancestry have 15 lgas: Nine in Anioma and six in Rivers. When you add them together both in landmass and population and compare with Benin, common sense will show you the errors of such thought. When you now consider that there are other Edoid speaking communities/ethnic groups who emigrated from the same Benin, their claims now become very shameful. Esan has five lgas, Afenmai and Owan have six lgas. In Delta central and Delta south, urhobos and Isokos have 10 lgas (I didn't include the Itsekiri people for obvious reasons). In Bayelsa, there's the Epie-Atissa people with one lga and in Rivers, there's the degema people with one lga. The total is 23 lgas with an Edoid speaking people who are not Bini. You as an Bini person should sit down and think very well how the Anioma people well surrounded by Edoid speaking people will end up speaking Igbo and having Igbo culture and traditions.

wesley08:
When you're done with these, be kind enough to offer an explanation on why a purely Isoko community like Ozoro and a purely Urhobo community like Orogun share a similar migration story from Benin with its Anioma neighbors. Since name and language are all that determines ancestry in your big and empty head, tell us why these "Igbo people" that came from Benin like Aboh people, with the latter living in Aboh for at least a generation, now speak Isoko and Urhobo languages, bear Isoko and Urhobo names and have Isoko and Urhobo culture. I can not understand for the world of me why a people cannot mind their frigging business and are so bent on rewriting other people's history. Like what the actual fork? I mentioned communities like Aboh-Ozara and Oguta in the heart of Igboland that assert Benin and Aboh ancestry that you've not been able to convince to drop their Benin and Delta identity yet you think you can come to Delta State to and rewrite a 600 year old story with your contrived and illogical bull-sheet? Where are you from and what is your own history? Have you decided if you fell from the sky or you matched down from Israel? Have you finished telling your people where they're from that you now want to tell Aboh people who they are?

Always writing trash. Urhobo and Isoko are both an Edoid speaking group so their claims are very near correct. I used 'very near' because it's either they were a purely Bini speaking people before they migrated from Biniland and their language evolved to what it is today or they spoke an Edoid language from antiquity and were settled closer to Benin before they migrated to their current locations only for pure Bini speakers to migrate into their midst and reinforce their original ancestry. Anioma is a very different case. All about them shouts Igbo. Nothing else can explain why they claim to have a Bini origin.
I wonder why we don't see this same identity crises among the Ondo Yorubas who were also influenced by the Benin kingdom. The title of the king of Ondo town is 'Osemawe'. This clearly is an Edoid title but we don't see people of that town claiming that their town was founded by one Bini prince. It's so funny how most Anioma communities always claim they were founded by a Bini prince such that one may ask if all Bini princes are only attracted to Anioma. It is very funny while being self defeating. How many Bini princes ever existed? Who founded all the other Edoid speaking communities and how many were left to found these Anioma communities? It is just shameful to say the least.

clefstone:
Very angry man. You think we don't know the Igbo people to the West of the Niger? Even inside Aboh we have people of Igbo stock who have your values. You probably do not have the ability to understand these things because you are from a closed group.

On the names of the Children of the founder. Esumei Ukwu, the founder of Aboh had two children: Ugbo and Ogwezi. Ogwezi's children included Ossai, Ojugbeli and Ozegbe. These names are 90% Edoid names e.g Ozegbe, Ossai, Ugbo. The same is observed in the Surnames/family names of the Onitsha people

The Aboh language is no doubt Igboid, if you like a dialect of Igbo. The Igbo language is said to have originated just south of the confluence area and of course along the Lower Niger where Aboh is located. The language spread to the eastern hinterland as a result of trade along the Lower Niger. The people of today's South East therefore lost their language to this dominant language of trade but we would never know what they spoke before maybe something similar to Ibibio. In those times, trade languages dominated, for example, you would notice that trade items coming from the North bear Hausa names even in the Igbo language as Hausa was another dominant trade language. For example rice in Hausa is Shinkafa, while in Igbo it's Oshikapa, Onion in Hausa is Albasa and in Igbo it's Yabash as the Igbo speaking people along the Niger pronounce the S sound as -Sh. It is very easy to understand why a people that migrated to these parts would lose their original language after centuries to this very strong language of trade which they participated in so actively. The vestiges of the original language of the Aboh people still exist though

LMAO... Your conjectures are just very funny and can only be treated as a comic relief.
Now to more serious discussions. Esumei Ukwu definitely is an Igbo name which just like Ezechima points them being Igbo. Both Ugbo and Ogwezi are pure Igbo names. The Bini language has no "gw" alphabets which is enough to rule out it being the origin of that names. Only Ozegbe is a Bini name I find there.
No one says a couple of those who migrated with them won't be of Bini descent hence the few Bini sounding names that could be found. Let me ask you this question. Do you really think that Ossai is a Bini name? What are the locations that such names appear? I know that Nsukka people bear that name too and they have no business with Edo/Bini. I encourage you to do more research with an open mind around the East side especially with the various contacts Aboh had in recorded history and not just hearsays. You'll be amazed on what you will find.
Did Onitsha people ever claim that they learnt Igbo language from the new location they found themselves? Some things just don't make sense and shouldn't be used in arguments. Whatever Bini names you see in Igbo territories including Anioma are either of few migrants or just a borrowed one. Here is something I want you to research. Both the Igbo and Edo including the Igalas use the four market days of Eke Órìè Afọr Ǹkwọ with little variations. Who do you think owns it originally? If it was Igbo, how did it manage to permeate the entire Edo if not that there was a time a lot of Igbos lived in that very location? Think Clefstone, think.
Here's a video of a Benin Chief clarifying who Ezechima was and what title he held in Benin shortly before he emigrated out of Benin. I hope it will help you understand better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UfbFEiz7DE

clefstone:
I didn't start any argument here. It was the OP that started the topic: Igbo origin of Aboh. That said, notice how the author who stayed in Onitsha in the 60s carefully used the term Western and Eastern Igbo speakers as opposed to Western and Eastern Igbos. He did that for a reason. As for the term Ika Igbo and Aboh Igbo, that is what the people around the Ika and Aboh called them(today it is Delta Igbo) and the reason is simply that they speak Igbo dialect. However, at no point in history have these people self identified as Igbos. If you can show any evidence to the contrary, I will close my NL account immediately
As for Azikiwe and Osadebey, their motivation was politics and number. I can bet you that no Onitsha man of Azikiwe's time saw himself as Igbo. Everything the writer of the piece I shared was written after 1960, so the Anti-Igbo sentiment of the Onitshas still existed then

From the screenshot Wesley80 shared from an excerpt of Azikiwe's autobiography, the Onitsha people believe they are from the Bini royal lineage, not any fabricated back migration narrative

Infact, if you read the narrative I shared, it becomes even more obvious that aside language, the Western Igbo speakers always had very little cultural similarities with the hinterland Igbo speakers as remains the case today

When a man speaks from a position of ignorance, it is always visible. Onitcha doesn't have 'very little cultural similarity' with her neighbours. She had a lot in common cultural wise because she was Igbo just like your very own Aboh.
Do you know that many early Igbo priests used by the missionaries to evangelize in Igboland were from Onitsha? Do you think they never referred to themselves as fellow Igbos before those they evangelized to? Do you know that Asaba though in Anioma isn't of the Anioma stock but from the so called 'Igbo' stock? Asaba's founder came from Nteje- a pure Igbo stock from the eastward of Onitsha. Will that change your perception of them? Ogwashi-Ukwu's founder came from Nri- another pure Igbo stock from the East. The same story goes for many other communities in the present Anioma territory including Ndokwa area.
The point is this; many Anioma groups who don't want to be regarded as Igbos do so because they favour their clan identity (which many other Igbo groups are also guilty of) more than the nationalistic one (Igbo nation). Some think they're more modern/refined than the other Igbo group and insist on that notification to be appreciated whereas some like you insist on a totally different reason for the same rejection of being identified as one. Your likes always claim that your ancestry are from Bini (Bini people speaking purely Bini) but were gradually assimiliated into losing their culture, language, festivities and tradition. It is such groups that will always be laughed at because nothing they say ever makes sense. If your progenitors who left Bini had Igbo names and gave their children Igbo names including the communities they founded, then it should be obvious that they were originally Igbo speakers which makes them Igbos.
Ezechima- the foremost leader of most clans of Anioma including Onitcha was an Igbo man. His name says it all. Onitcha people just like their kins in Anioma never claimed they learnt Igbo by proximity to 'Igbo' communities. If you must know, Bini people used to journey by leg to Asaba area by leg to trade on the River Niger. Don't you think that at least Bini language would have survived in Anioma on account of having real Bini people coming into their midst always?
Finally, is it not alarming that those Igbo groups alone claiming to have come from Bini are almost thrice the size of Bini itself? Anioma has nine lgas and Rivers Igbos have six lgas making them fifteen lgas as against 6/7 bini ones. I didn't include other groups that claimed emigrating from Bini and are still speaking edoid languages.
My advice to you is to study further the SE so you can understand Ndigbo better before coming to a conclusion. My argument about Ukwuani being Igbo isn't based on anything outside the facts from history and on ground. Everything about them points to them Igbo of the Igbo stock. I can't go to Oza-nagogo and call them Igbo. Neither can I do so at the Isokos. I'll appear to be dumb. If your people are very serious to deny their Igbo heritage and grab onto their Bini claims, they should start dropping off Igbo dialect they speak and other Igbo stuffs and call Bini people to teach them their language, culture, traditions and norms of their bini founders.

So much for religious harmony.
We all know that this truce is temporary. Once the Muslims gather more strength, the egungun festival will be banned forever and no baskart will open his mouth to scream ronu.

RedboneSmith:
Not exactly sure why I was mentioned here.

LMAO, he thought the excerpt he posted will be an eye opener. He doesn't know that it means nothing to those who know Igbo history.

clefstone:
oh! So you suddenly realize that the explorers could be wrong because you saw something inconvenient to you. Interesting.

To say the people of Aboh tended towards Warri because they were made a part of the Warri Province would lead me to ask why then the people of Onitsha didn't consider themselves Igbo even into the 1960s. Where they also included in the Warri province or are they geographically separated from the South East? BTW, the Aboh people have never tended towards Warri so don't assume things you do not know

It's ironic that you are the one getting emotional here when you are trying so arrogantly to tell an entire community who they are, a community you most likely have never been. Don't you think I should be the angry one here because you insult me and my people both those now and those that are gone

I want you, redbonesmith, bigfrancis21 and others to read the below. I have avoided sharing this on Nairaland because of the sensitive issues it contains. Who knows, maybe it's already here

https://amightytree.org/the-slave-trade-and-long-lasting-ethnic-stereotypes/

LMAO. There's nothing sensitive there if only you could read further down the page you posted to see that both Ika and Aboh were still referred to as "Igbo".
Clefstone, you've been on nairaland for very long and should have gone beyond this stage of argument that you are bringing. We don pass this level na. Are you saying that Nnamdi Azikiwe who was already one of the major leaders of the Igbo nation as early as the 1940s didn't see himself as an Igbo man? Are you also saying that Dennis Osadebay of Asaba who was one of the founder of the Igbo Union in 1920s didn't see himself as an Igbo man? Nnamdi Azikiwe even wrote about the ancestry of his people migrating from Benin but never alluded to them being Bini.
There's a big difference between you and the Onitsha people who are referring to others as Igbos and you denying Igbo entirely. For the onitshas, their kins are those in Enuani and they prefer to be identified with them. Language was not a problem as they never claimed to have been influenced by "Igbos" to speak what they were and are currently speaking. Do you understand?
Many Igbo groups also referred to other Igbo speaking groups as 'Igbos' without seeing themselves as being "Igbo". The Ngwa people refer to other Igbo speaking people as "ohuhu" while the "uratta" group of Owerri and her Southern brothers see other non-uratta group as "Isuama people" pronounced "Isoma". The list goes on and on for how various Igbo groups see other Igbo groups different from them.
Lastly, is it most Ukwuani communities that were formed by the Bini migrants or just a few? If it is the majority, how come they lost their language entirely to a smaller and probably a weaker group when Ukwuani land shares boundary with Biniland?

RedboneSmith:
There's absolutely no reason to get worked up and verbally abusive over it. It is good as you hold yourself. I tell Southeasterners to just look inwards and focus on themselves.

I understand you but don't agree to your last clause. If we focus on ourselves, it is still these same people that will accuse us of not regarding them as one with us.
You should know already that I don't really care how any individual chooses to identify himself. The problem is when an individual decides to ignore all the clear evidences before him in order to insist on a jaundiced idea that it becomes annoying.
I will continue to point historical facts to them bini wannabes.

clefstone:
and Obi Ossai was identified as the king of the Igbos. Hope we all agree that the Obi of Aboh once ruled over all of Igbo land

Let's assume we agree that he ruled all over Igboland; will that stop you running away from your shadow?
Even Eze Obi Ossai did confirm to them the limits of his territory. As the explorers went up stream (above Aboh), they got a clearer picture.
Good luck to your search for what isn't missing.

RedboneSmith:
There's a lot of truth here though. Who is Igbo today and who is not has a lot to do with administrative lines that were drawn in the 20th century.

It should never be forgotten that the idea of an Igbo ethnicity is itself fairly recent. As late as the 1940s, Igbo ethnogenesis was still an ongoing project. Acceptance to participate in that project had a lot to do with 20th century administrative and geopolitical realities.

There is this strong tendency for people in Anioma to underline multiethnic heritage as the reason why they can't be Igbo. But multiethnic heritage equally applies to many people in the Southeast, where many villages can be found claiming Igala, Benin, Ibibio, Ijaw, Idoma etc origins. There's even some village-units with Nupe backgrounds in the Enugu-Ezike axis. The linguistic tie is practically the only unifier.

If Ngwa had been carved into Rivers State, best believe they will not be Igbo today. If Abiriba had been carved into Cross River State, they will likely not be Igbo today.

But make we leave this matter. There are people who fall within the Igbo(id) linguistic continuum who are not going to come under the Igbo pan-ethnic umbrella anytime soon. It is what it is. Everyone should be able to live with that.

The main concern is why the highest propensity to deny being Igbo simply because a couple of migrants settled in your midst without changing anything significant in your way of life or culture? Why are the Ukwuani insisting in looking away despite all the similarity? The same thing for the Ika, Ogba and Ikwerre? Are they the only people that had migrants settling within them? Don't Bini people have some other migrants settling within them? Isn't it the same thing for Esan, Igala, Idoma, Annang, Ibibio, Ijaw, Isoko and Urhobo having some Igbos settling among them? Why is it not an issue for them? I'm temted to say something about these Igbo groups afflicted with the centrifugal pull but I'll just hold myself.
No Igbo person will consider oza-nagogo people as fellow Igbos because clearly they don't speak any dialect of Igbo. The kinship isn't there despite them being in Ika North East but an Igbanke person will be felt as a brother when he speaks even though he's from Edo state.
Na who do our people this thing?

Aboh well identified as an Igbo town 200 years ago.

clefstone:
It's more complicated than this.

In terms if origin/ancestry, the Aboh people are of diverse origin. There are many Aboh people of Igbo origin as there are many of Ijaw, Igala, Isoko, Itsekiri and Yes, Bini origin. Most Aboh people know their origin so it's not a speculation. These people of diverse origin to form a single identity- Aboh

The truth is that whether an Aboh man tells you he is Igbo or not, they do not have the Igbo consciousness

Aboh man of the 20/21st century not having the Igbo consciousness is simply because of how the British chose to administer Igboland.
The whole of Ukwuani territory was placed under Warri Division. This is what pushed your people towards Warri more than how the Enuani people will gravitate towards the same place.
You were never grouped together with the larger part of Igboland which if it was to be so would have seen you flow with it easily. As you would have observed, your brothers in Ogbaru and Oguta are not complaining.
At present, Asaba is pulling you into the Igbo consciousness even if it is at a slow pace.
Not that it matters to me though. Everyone is free to choose whatever he wants for himself.

Aboh just like Onitsha was founded by Igbo groups who earlier lived in closer proximity to Benin City or they sojourned there and only left Benin to assert themselves on a weaker/suitable location within a place they were familiar with. Nothing else can explain how the Bini language disappeared in entirety in Aboh if actually her founders were truly Bini speaking people. There's next to nothing of Bini influence in Aboh. Almost everything there shouts Igbo yet some of her children are determined to continue searching for what wasn't lost.
Una well done o.

You certainly can't help a man who's fixated on running away from his shadows.
When you assume that because some migrants who came from Bini to Aboh were strictly Binis even when their names aren't Bini names, you'll understand the point I'm trying to say.
Migration will always be part of human history. While some will be migrants from another ethnic group to a new ethnic group, others are within the same ethnic group but from a different clan. From my studies, I found out that the most probable thing was another Igbo group from North of Ukwuani displacing the Aboriginal Akarais.
Take a look at these pointer. If the Akarais (well accepted as an Igbo group) were dispersed to Atani in present day Anambra State, we don't expect to have any Bini 'borrowing' from them. However, in Atani we still find vestiges of Bini influence. Osita Osadebe is from Atani. His surname points to it. There's a quarter in Atani known as 'umuiyasele quarters'. There are many more of such vestiges. They are supposed to be a pure Igbo group who ran away from the other side of the Niger.
The Aboh that is been spoken of had a king in the early 19th century who unambiguously identified his people as Igbo people but 200 years later, his descendants are still arguing about their ancestry.
Una well done o.

Note: Many people in Aboh have slave origins with some being non-Igbo groups. They were the remnants of the slaves who weren't sold after the abolishment of the trans-atlantic slave trade. It was well documented.

Tetrahedron:
It we don’t restructure the country while we are still one country or UN peace keeping will restructure it for us when everything is in turmoil

Direct to the point.
Restructure or implode.
I don't see any restructuring though. Better prepare for implosion.

LegendHero:
How do you now proof to them that you’ve been to Lagos?

In another news, Yoruba is a language that is bigger than Africa. Even in Nigeria, you have Yoruba speakers in Kwara, Kogi, and Niger who run into several millions.

In Africa, you have countries that speak Yoruba. In South America, you have countries that speak Yoruba, and etc.

Igbo should go and compete with Ijaws. Yoruba language is bigger than Africa.

Soon fulanis will ban the language in Kwara just like they banned Isese forever.

ba7man:
If you guys like, be the race of Billionaires that defeated the Decepticons and drove the army of the dead back to the underworld, we still don't give a rats ass and we don't like you either.

The feeling is mutual... collect 👊

dustmalik:
The ongoing attacks in Mangu is as a result of community clashes, but the media will never say it as it is. They will always leave the impression that herdsmen are the culprit.

Communal clash between who and who? You think you're smart. There are people on ground who know the happenings over there and they're here on nairaland.
I'm waiting for your response.

haslaw:
Isn't this what Asari Dokubo has been saying all along?


SAD EASTERNERS should apologise to Asari Dokubo

What concerns SE with this now?

No hypocritical lover of one Nigeria will come out to speak in the defence of the victims of the genocide in central Nigeria but you'll see them screaming their lungs out of minor security situations in the SE simply because Igbos are involved. If you happen to lose your voice in this middlebelt genocide, ensure to lose your voice in whatever happens in Biafran land you hypocrites.
Nigeria is supposed to have an army and police saddled with the duty of protecting her citizens and therefore we ask; where are the Nigerian security men to do their jobs? Since they can't stop it then it is clear to say that they are abbetting it. There are supposed to be protests against the failures of government in stopping these killings if truly there are citizens who truly love Nigeria but as we all can see, their love is fake. Their hypocritical love for Nigeria when it comes to Biafra is just hate for Biafrans disguised as love.
I've always said that the Nigerian army is not meant to protect you. They are just there to ensure the people trapped inside Nigeria are suppressed and exploited to the fullest. Do you still doubt me? Wait until these killers get to your community. We will read about your lamentation here on nairaland.
May the souls of the victims rest in peace.