₦airaland Forum

Putindbutt:
Very obvious you are talking from a place of pain, throwing tantrums like a typical loser.

That book you called "useless" was the beginning of formal Education in iboland. Other works that came after improved on it with a more general dialect among the locals. Knowledge is never static, books are revised.

Crowther, with his works, laid every blocks of foundation from Education to Christianity, not only in iboland but the old Eastern region.

Like I said, history predates you, centuries before you were formed in your mother's womb, history had been made that a certain Bishop Ajayi Crowther gave you a reason to be proud of your tribe.

"Administrative figurehead"...Lol. There's always something up the sleeves of ibos to flip their self esteem just for the charade.

Someone who couldn't speak laid down foundation of Igbo language.
No be juju be that?

You speak from a position of inferiority complex.
Crowther life work was translation and production of his native Yoruba language.
Why can't you be happy and contented with that?

Why do you have the insatiable need to claim that a man who couldn't speak Igbo language laid down the foundation of Modern Igbo language?
Are you okay at all?

Crazybeard:
You over rate yourselves. I do pray you get Biafra.Only then will you understand what awaits you.

What awaits us.
Ijaw of 4 LGA in Bayelsa?

DitariDisciple2:
Igbo people, Ijaw don't hate you guys.
The 5 richest countries in the world are very very very small and landlocked,not even as big as Igbo land,
E.g Luxembourg and Switzerland etc.
What is stopping u guys from changing that system and ask for an only Igbo Nation like d way Ijaw is asking for an only Ijaw Nation.
Europe countries are for tribes of their own.

As far as you stay off Bonny and Opobo.
Ndiigbo don't have any problem with Ijaws.
We don't love or hate you.
We are your mirror. We reflect all throw at us.
If you start throwing hate, we show you the most severe form of hate you will ever experience.
If you start habouring plans to annex Igbo speaking realms like Opobo and Bonny, we will push you back, and pay you back by annexing your Ijoid speaking realms as punishment.

So yeah, you decide the rule of our engagement with you.

mancoconut:
I've always maintained that in the larger scheme of things, IPOB have been a stumbling block and cog in the wheel of Igbo nationalism. The amount of time these directionless Ipob sycophants spent trying to force their preposterous and toxic idea of some multiethnic Biafra down our throat would have been better used using their strong platform and numbers to unite, re-orientate, and reach out more to the various Igbo subgroups that are cocooned in the bubble of identity crisis.

But I thank God for outstanding scholars and researchers like Maazi Ogbonnaya that is going out of the way to reach out to these beleaguered and forgotten Igbo communities outside the South East... his expose on the Igbos in Kogi state was brilliant and very enlightening.

Well, two wrongs don't make right.
You know our people are stubborn. If you start calling them(IPOB ) names like you just did above, they will feel insulted and out of anger and feeling of being disrespected, they will never come over to our side of Igbo nationalism, just to preserve their own ego.

So we must be careful how we call them names. I'm guilty of this too.
I'm sure they too can see they were wrong. We have to use respect, love and even sweet tongue if needed to woo them into dropping that Useless Multiethnic BIAFRA utopian, for the benefit of us, they and unborn Igbo generations.

IPOB have the numbers and resources that if deployed into Igbo nationalist movement would make us unstoppable.

If we can't convince our fellow brothers (IPOB) to support Igbo nationalism movement, then we have failed and shouldn't expect the world to support us.

We have our work cut out.

We just keep laying the facts and superior arguments without insulting them. I'm sure they are not blind or dense. They would eventually come around.

Malawian:
It is not as if these Ijaws are a "Higher" human beings for them to be actually seeking to have slaves, let along Igbos as slaves to them. I mean, these are people that should never ever be seen in civilized spaces, yet here they are right in our faces, taunting us.


Ijaw don't seem to understand yet that the coming of Biafra might lead to their extinction.

They know. Which is why most of them are anti BIAFRA.

The surprising thing to me is IPOB including them in Biafra and calling them "brothers" ,and then insulting any Igbo who try to correct them on that an "afonja" or "sabo".
I was labelled sabo and afonja on this forum by my IPOB brothers for being against Multiethnic BIAFRA especially with Ijaws included.

Putindbutt:
LOL. "Crowther was a mere figure head in CMS gospel to igboland"?

If you give an ibo man a pen, he would change a straight line to a curve. Why are you so much darkhearted to the extent that you belabour yourself way too to erase any external imprints on the ibo race.
I can imagine how hurtful it is that your "imaginary enemy" can't have an influence on ibo history.
Quite unfortunately for you, history predates you and there's absolutely nothing you can do to erase the past. Time and events was kind and gracious to Crowther to have played a major role in the history of ibo nation.

Calling the first African Bishop a mere figure head shows you're diametrically opposed to reasoning.
At the time Crowther was ordained a Bishop, there was no African missionary that wasn't under the leadership of Crowther. There was no expedition or mission assignment under CMS that were done without his approval, although he himself was answerable to the highest body of authority.

Taylor was far more learned and a junior missionary than Simons who was an house boy to Crowther. Simon served Crowther as an house boy in Sierra Leone. In my earlier comment, I stated that Crowther worked with missionaries of ibo descent on his expedition to Eastern region. To achieve a measure of success, Crowther worked closely with natives of different places of destination as he laid the foundation of Christianity from Onitsha, Bonny, Abeokuta to Lokoja.

Crowther was an administrative figure head as far as gospel in Igboland was concerned.
He couldn't interact with Igbo natives, he spoke no Igbo, the small Igbo he tried to learn in Sierra Leone from the slaves there ended up being Useless when he got to Igboland as he found out he couldn't use it to interact with real Igbos on ground.

So yeah, he was a mere figure head. An administrative dinosaur, as far as gospel of CMS is concerned in Igboland.

Simon and Taylor did the real work and reported to him as their oga.

It's madness and foolishness to suggest that Crowther wrote Igbo Bible or brought the gospel to Igboland.

Quit the stupidity.

bomb24:
This now come's to a conclution of some old records stating clearly that the kalabaris claim to be of Igbo descent...

which means at some point in time the kalabaris spoke Igbo but due to the heavy influx of some immigrants their language got heavily ijonized but they still maintained the name from where they migrated from (ebany)

asari dokubo attest to this: that the first kalabari ruler was Igbo of descent.

I don't really know about Kalabari.
Kalabari Igbo links is different from those of Opobo and Bonny.
Asari Dokubo claim his ancestor who established the Amakiri stool in Buguma came from Abam in Abia state.

The Aboriginals Igbos in Opobo and Bonny are of Ndoki stock.
Those of Okirika and Kalabari are not Ndoki.

One has to accept that Kalabari have Igbo and Ibibiod influence, yet their language today is Ijoid.
So I guess the population of those Bayelsa/Delta Ijaws in those places outnumbered those of Igbos and Ibibiod there.
That's the only explanation why their language became Ijoid.
But just like Eleme, because of heavy presence of non Ijaw elements in Kalabari, the people consider themselves unique from Izons(Bayelsa and Delta Ijaws) and now see themselves as somewhat independent ethnicity.
See the ethnologue of Kalabari language. It's unmistakably an Ijoid language.
If Ijaws are claiming them, then you have to admit they have a strong case to do so.

Igboid:
I don't have the full document from Koelle.
Just this snippet.

https://www.historians.org/teaching-and-learning/teaching-resources-for-historians/teaching-and-learning-in-the-digital-age/through-the-lens-of-history-biafra-nigeria-the-west-and-the-world/the-colonial-and-pre-colonial-eras-in-nigeria/an-outsiders-view-of-the-igbo-people-(1840)

I found out this link doesn't exactly lead to Koelle article on Bonny and Igbo.
I would recommend you search under Google: below.

I swear I copied the link, yet the link leads to a different article.

bomb24:
Mazi Igboid I'm trying critically to access baikies work when he made mention of grand-bonny town. does this means bonny was the capital of the kingdom and they were other little hamlets under the kingdom which the bonny Igbos precided over, hence they claimed to be Ebany.

If u look at the language table by baikie the Igbo language travelled as far as nembe and oru.

cc 9pluto
ekealterego

Yes!
This is something I have been trying to bring to light.
There were small Villages that have Kalabari speaking people who are part of Bonny kingdom.
These Kalabari speakers are the ones that labelled their language Ibani.
You find the same thing with OPOBO.
You have main Opobo that is Ndoki Igbo speaking and then you have small Kalabari villages who were subjects to Jaja and hence part of Opobo Kingdom.
Even Ikot Abasi people though Ibibiod speakers were part of Opobo.

We need to do a mini exploration voyage to Bonny and Opobo to clear out some of these issues.

Anonymous15:
brother man, is it that you lack understanding?
you saw the counting system, you saw the wordings, you saw crowther and pepple report and you're now looking for where it must be written that Bonny language is an ijoh dialect after you saw the words, connection to calabari language etc.
you daft aswear.
ok if you want us to be stupid, let me join you to be stupid, but only for a minute.
where is it written that enugu, Aro, ngwa language is Igbo?
just in case you get an excerpt, I want you to show me where it is writen or how it correlates that Aguleri speaks the Igbo language.
prove to me.

See the facts before you and me today:

1. Bonny currently speak Ndoki Igbo as their mother tongue. Not second language, but mother tongue.

2. The same Baike you are relying on his number system unequivocally stated that Bonny people claim Igbo decent!
So if you are accepting those things Baike put down as Bonny number system, even Though we know that they don't correspond with the Ndoki Igbo and number system Bonny use today, then you have to also accept that Bonny are descended from Igbo land, the number system they used at the time of Baike is irrelevant.
Most relevant is that they descended from Igboland and as we are typing here, they use Ndoki Igbo dialect as mother tongue.

You don't get to pick and choose part of Baike report to accept. It's all or nothing.

3. The same Ajayi crowther you are quoting never said that Bonny is Ijaw. He also worked with CMS to use Bonny Igbo dialect to produce the Union Igbo Bible, the first Bible written in Igbo.

Bottom line: You have no case. You are desperate and beating around the bush.
You lost the intellectual battle and now hoping to have the last word, which I'm not going to let you have too, I'm that wicked.

Choke on this, your Baike freely provided us with it.

BKayy:
I think most of you confused Ika people (not the sensible ones) have an attention problem.
The thread is not about Ika so I wonder what you wish to accomplish by throwing yourselves on our faces.
Like one renowned Igbo doctor said some months ago about Ika people sampling themselves and still insisting on how Bini they are, he said "We (Ndigbo) are not recruiting"

Stop all these attention seeking and work on yourselves. Solve the identity crisis within you and make a choice.
Any one you choose will be respected in Igboland.

1. If you choose to make yourselves Bini slaves, we will accept.
2. If you choose to be distinct ethnicity, that will be OK by us
3. If you now choose to return to the Igbo nation, then TERMS and CONDITIONS will apply

If you look around, there is no Igbo asking Ika to identify as Igbo. Even Ọhaneze Ndigbo that don't take the identity as serious as they should have openly told Godwin Irabor from that your Ika when Nigeria wanted to use him to blackmail Ndigbo that they appointed one of us, that he is not considered as Igbo by them and Us

Ike gwuru.
Attention seeking set of people

Don't be surprised to find out that the guy is from Ozanogogo, the Edoid speaking part of Agbor.
Nah Dem dey usually carry the thing for head like gala.
Either way, Ndiigbo are not recruiting.
The location of Ika is not that crucial for Igbo nation.
We would be happy to have all Igbo speaking people which includes Ika in an independent Igbo country.
But if IKa people don't feel same way, then we wish them well.
We are not recruiting.

9Pluto:
Please, who is Koelle? Can someone identify him and mention his book?

I don't have the full document from Koelle.
Just this snippet.

https://www.historians.org/teaching-and-learning/teaching-resources-for-historians/teaching-and-learning-in-the-digital-age/through-the-lens-of-history-biafra-nigeria-the-west-and-the-world/the-colonial-and-pre-colonial-eras-in-nigeria/an-outsiders-view-of-the-igbo-people-(1840)

Truthvalue41:
1) I've got older documents showing Ika as bring Edo, and I posted those documents, yet you want to flatter yourself because you found an almost 100 year old document which did not in anyway show the contrary to my already proven claim.

The only person with PTSD is you. You can't force people to claim Igbo ! We are Edo, deal with it !

By the way, post the documents of which you posted a snippet, snippets are easily falsifiable.

Don't be stupid.
All Colonial anthropological work recorded Ika and the rest of Delta North as Western Igbo and not Eastern Edo.
Stop being dense.
How exactly do you want to claim a people you don't share local language with?

Is that not madness?

Igboid:
How do we explain how Baike ended up with those Kalabari number systems as Bonny numbers when we know that Bonny use Ndoki Igbo number system today and that the number system provided by captain Crow earlier matches what is obtainable in Bonny today.

The data and info we have before us would somehow have to be interpreted.

1. At some point in Bonny, the number system and language switched from Igbo to Kalabari and then back to Igbo we have today. Crow met it when it was Igbo, Baike met it when it was Kalabari and we are now in an era where it is back to being Igbo?

2. There were non Igbo speaking parts of Bonny Kingdom and it was this part that Baike collected the Ijoid number system from?

3. Dismiss Baike report totally for being contradictory?

My point is that data and inform not only has to be collected and presented, they have to be rationally examined and interpreted.

Like I said.
These are the only three ways we can interpret Baike work. And none of them favors the Ijaws.
If we throw away Baike work for being contradictory, we are left with Crows work ( which gave a totally Igbo word list used in Bonny) and koelle( which stated that Igbo was the dominant language in Bonny).

Head or tail, we still win. As long as Bonny and Opobo continue speaking Igbo language as mother tongue, we will win this.

Ijaws know it too, which is why they have been kicking so hard to make the people drop Igbo language and chose the dead Kalabari language they christened Ibani language.

The Ijaw quickly quoted Baike number system but cunningly avoided this part of his work which will solidly dismiss Ijaw claims to Bonny.

9Pluto:
Please, do so we all can take a look.
Thanks.

http://www.opensourceguinea.org/2014/05/peppel-ex-king-of-bonny-in-clarence.html?m=1

Check out page 422, I took a screenshot.

9Pluto:
I wanted to wanted to ask you to provide references until I saw the attached pages myself.

That is not Baike's work as he was obviously quoted the the upper section of that page.

The person who wrote that book was referring to Baike while writing his own book.

It's Baike work.
I have checked it out myself.
Let me provide you with it.
I'm coming.

Yes the one he posted was an Ijaw distorted work which dubiously quoted Baike number system, but smartly avoided where Baike unequivocally stated that the people of Bonny told him that they originate from Igboland.

Just give me a minute let me provide you a link to the original Baike document.

Crazybeard:
Those documents are from the same book. Ijaws occupied the areas beyond the Forcados and from Cabo Fermosa to the Rio Real.

This debate is over as far as I'm concerned.AlexBells warned you'll about the Portuguese and Dutch accounts and that you shouldn't wash your dirty linen in public.Instead,you chose to castigate him.

I'm off to better things

Cheers!

Lol!
You are not okay.
I swear.
Reports noted Ijaw pirate activities in those waters, hence Ijaw presence there.
Reports never said Ijaws were the founders of Bonny, nor did it say that they were involved in the trading activities going on in Bonny.
Reports fingered you as troublesome pirates lurking these Waters, which you have continued to do today.

9Pluto:
No conjectures please. All proposition should have a literature referenced. Besides we understand the relationship between Ikot Abasi and Opobo.

How do we explain how Baike ended up with those Kalabari number systems as Bonny numbers when we know that Bonny use Ndoki Igbo number system today and that the number system provided by captain Crow earlier matches what is obtainable in Bonny today.

The data and info we have before us would somehow have to be interpreted.

1. At some point in Bonny, the number system and language switched from Igbo to Kalabari and then back to Igbo we have today. Crow met it when it was Igbo, Baike met it when it was Kalabari and we are now in an era where it is back to being Igbo?

2. There were non Igbo speaking parts of Bonny Kingdom and it was this part that Baike collected the Ijoid number system from?

3. Dismiss Baike report totally for being contradictory and ambiguous?

My point is that data and info not only has to be collected and presented, they also have to be rationally examined and interpreted.

bomb24:
That is not baikies work. it was written by one fumbo around 1980's. they should provide his main excerpt from his work and the exact page.

I'm going to attach an image, so i want you too carefully look below the page you will see the year and the reference.

Nope.
I have checked it.
It was actually Baike work.

I believe its either a mistake on part of Baike.
Or it could be that there were other non Bonny Igbo speaking villages that was part of Ancient Bonny kingdom and the number system Baike collected belonged to those villages.
For example, the old Opobo included Ikot Abasi which is Ibibio speaking and other few Ijaw speaking villages like Finima and co.
So when one speak of Opobo, one has to be deliberate in specifying that one is talking about the Igbo speaking Opobo main town, and not Kalabari speaking Villages like Finima and co who are still considered as part of Opobo Kingdom.

I made another example with Ozanogogo and Agbor.

Crazybeard:
No it is not.Bonny's problem is straight forward.

Ijos bought Igbo slaves(mostly) and slaves from ethnic groups around.The Elders at time chose to use the language of the slaves to trade with the Europeans and other Igbo merchants from the hinterland.Their thinking as silly as it was,was to prevent outsiders (slaves et al) from learning their language.That way they could keep certain secrets.

Also,a lot of Igbo slaves were made part of the canoe houses after passing through certain rites.These slaves still had their language and they taught their children.Before long,Igbo language became dominant.

No Ijaw man could buy Igbo slaves.
Stop being high on cheap Ogogoro.
The Kings of Bonny and Opobo were Igbos.

The slave trade was about Igbos enslaving themselves.

If the Igbo in Bonny were as a result of Igbo Slaves, the Igbo dialect of Bonny would be Isu Igbo where most of the slaves came from and not Ndoki-Igbo.
Nice try though, but you have to try harder.

Kiss the truth below.

Crazybeard:
Lol...
You need to update.

First you said no early account of Ijaws,then Ijaws came from Sierra Leone bla bla bla

As far back as the 15th century,the sold slaves.

Documents speaks of Jos (Izon) in the territories of Sobous( old name for Urhobo and Isoko).
This is just about the first place the Ijaws arrived in, in Nigeria, from where they spread.
This is why those Ijaws in Kolokuma areas claim to be the original home of Ijaw.
That's where your Sierra Leone ancestors first arrived.

bomb24:
oga this has been trashed severally here ijos didn't own slaves. there sole existence documented during the niger expendition was abominable and nothing worthy of note to write about them, just rest.

The language in bonny has always been Igbo same with Opobo no need regurtitating this over and over again.

They were just pirates, terrorizing the whole area.
Something they continue to do even today.

Crazybeard:
Where did I quote Koller?

What's wrong with you guys?Can you ever be straight forward?

I quoted Captain Pereira and Dr. Fage's commentary of Captain Pereira's account.

Your colleague was quoting Koller (German) and Baike account like it favoured him, when it actually doesn't.
Koller established that Igbo was the predominant language spoken in Bonny while Baike confirmed why it is so. ie the people trace their origin to Igboland.

I'm only trying to understand why Baike ended up with those non Igbo number system in Bonny.

Another example is the case of Agbor and Oza nogogo.

Oza nogogo are Edoid speakers who are not Igbo speaking. They are not really Ika people as they don't speak Ika, but have always been part of Agbor kingdom as they pay homage to Obi of Agbor.

If an explorer landed in Oza Village and ask them their kingdom name, they would say Agbor.
And if the explorer end up collecting words in Oza language to present as Agbor language, you will end up with Edo sounding words.

The explorer will then create ambiguity if he doesn't clarify that Ozanogogo though part of Agbor kingdom, are only but a minority there, and even though their language is an Agbor language, the people in main parts of Agbor don't speak like Ozanogogo.

I think this could be the problem with Bonny.

There is something I noted too in course of my research here.

It would appear there is a Bonny main town which they call Grand Bonny. Then there are other smaller villages which surrounds it and are part of Bonny kingdom.
For example, in the past, Opobo Kingdom included Ikot Abasi, who are actually Ibibiod speakers and Opobo town itself.

So when an explorer arrives in Ikot Abasi and start interviewing the occupants, they would say they were Opobo people, which is true, afterall King JAJA was there king and they were part of Opobo Kingdom.
But you would find out that if you collect the language of Ikot Abasi and present it as Opobo language, you would be right and also wrong. You would be wrong since the language would be Ibibiod and not Igboid as obtained in Opobo main town, and you would be right since Ikot Abasi are Opobo people and by right, their language also qualify as Opobo language.

I believe there are some Kalabari speaking (the so called Ibani language is basically Kalabari language) people that were part of Bonny kingdom.
These people lived in their own villages, considered themselves part of Bonny and paid royalty to Bonny kings.
So when an explorer land in this part of Bonny kingdom, the words he would gather would definitely be Kalabari words( modern day called Ibani) and not the Ndoki words used in Grand Bonny.

I think this could be the reason for the discrepancy in Baike reports.

Crazybeard:
This is an outdated argument sir.

Next please...

Lol!
I guess this is you admitting you have no point.
Good.

Also I found out that Koller you were quoting noted that Igbo was the most widely spoken language in Bonny when he visited, he could only offer a reason why he thought it is so. But from Baike account, we know better.

"Of all these, Ibo is the language which is most widely spoken."
~ Koller.

Anonymous15:
Take this weeded obsolete fallacious nonesense out from my face.
You were most definitely out of data when I crushed all of these obsolete weeded, discarded hocus-pocus. Because it is no longer in the British national library because of its great fallacious stories.
Horton's works too are shoved off for even blundering greatly by saying Nembe is Igbo.
You better go back to the earlier page to clear your daftness

This is the legit information from crowther and pepple BECAUSE OF THE CONTRADICTING BLUNDERS FROM BAIKIE AND HORTON of whose both accounts do not even tally.
This is crowther's report in the mid to late 1800's, and it is with this truth that the real informations are found on every information repository around the world.
https://www.britannica.com/place/Bonny

No where in your attachment was it claimed that Bonny people are of Ijaw descent.
If there are, please mark it out.
The post you posted doesn't even contradict Baike.
It speaks only of language (which is still debatable since Bonny speak Ndoki Igbo today and earlier record noted they spoke Igbo in the past, even CMS Igbo union which Crowther was part of, used Bonny Igbo to write first Igbo Bible).
You are for all intents and purposes grasping at straws here.

Guestlander:
You are posting nonsense. Do you know more than the CMS about the early missionaries in Nigeria?
You have no interest in being part of Yoruba history! Like you have a choice in that. Perhaps you have the power to travel back in time and change the course of history.
You are posting crap because you are consumed by bigotry and inferiority complex.
A Yoruba man led the first missionaries to Iboland.
Wrote the first primer for Ibo language.
Translated the Bible to Ibo language.
Brought Akpu too.
You can rave and rant from here to eternity and these facts will never change.
Sorry you feel sad about this.

You are suffering from inferiority complex.
Ajayi crowther was never able to speak fluent Igbo, but he could write Igbo primer.
Your head is not working well.

Wake up.

Simon Jonas is the one who wrote the Igbo primer, Crowther was a mere supervisor for CMS for the project.

You can't give what you don't have.

aribisala0:
Nna
I understand the need to make yourself feel good.
It is what it is

Umunna politics
Nothing more

You never evolved beyond the village level

There was NOT A SINGLE recorded town in your history. In fact your history is largely forgettable and that s why you are now claiming to be Jews

We are evolved enough to teach your people better metallurgical methods.
See for yourself, we are your chi!
We were bringing civilization to you.

https://www.nairaland.com/6765286/early-igbo-sojourners-eastern-yorubaland

No be today.

wealthtrak:
True... Cassava and yams came to
Africa from South America. They were part of the foods used to feed captives on the notorious slave ships.

Many returnee "formerly" enslaved
Yorubas from Brazil and Cuba in the 1800s settled in the Campos Square and Popo Aguda areas of Lagos Island. Some of the
Yoruba-Brazilian/Yoruba-Cuban returnees were the first adherants of the catholic religion in modern
Nigeria, before French catholic missionaries first moved to Onitsha based on archival documents.

Nigeria's first pound millionaire, Candido da Rocha's Ijesa-Yoruba family who returned from Bahia
in Brazil.

Many Yoruba returnees in the
1800s from Sierra Leone like Ajayi
Crowther and Desmond Elliot's
paternal ancestor, (or the Jackson family who returned to Yorubaland from the U.S. after first settling in Liberia) settled finally in the
Olowogbowo area of Lagos Island.

Cassava and Maize came to Africa from Americas.
But Yam is Indigenous to Africa.