₦airaland Forum

Dudu_Negro: Odumchi,

Nice observation! In a highly communal society, individualism will not succeed. Collectivism is what you need. You can split the North into six political zones if you want, they still act and speak in one political synch. You need a political community that is immune from the strategies of your enemy.

As you correctly pointed out, your people are taking lessons of individual successes in trade and business and supplanting it in political ambitions. Profit by any means possible has been perfected in Lagos and Kano and the models of those successes are expected to produce similarly scaled rewards to the politician in Alaigbo. Your political opponents understand this vulnerability and continously exploit people you vote into power. . . . steering them into the center of the cake where it's sweetest. The sweetness is a shackle!

Let's not talk of enemies here, we aren't in a war (at least not one of the conventional setting).
The problem with some Igbo leaders is that they like to pretend that all is well web it really isn't. There are many issues that need to be addressed and resolved, yet they sit idly.

This is a clear example of the drawbacks of the Igbo 'capitalist' mentality and the 'advantages' of northern 'socialist' mentality. Some Igbo politicians work only for their own personal gain and expect others to claw their way up whereas the northern politician feeds his people and works for them.

The disadvantage of the northern mentality is represented in the saying, "give a man to fish and he lives for a day; teach him how to fish and he's set for life". Northern (especially Hausa) politicians don't (for the nost part) create opportunities for their people to learn how to fend for themselves and adequately manage themselves. Rather, they take the soils of the country (aka "national cake" ) and give it to their people in the form of things like: roads, bridges, public works, donations etc. For example, look at how Sanusi dashed Kano state N100 million and how he was complaining because Akwa Ibom recieved more government allocations than the entire NE. Why should Akwa Ibom and the North East recieved the same amount of funds? What does the North East have that could possibly produce more wealth than Akwa Ibom?

The advantage of the Igbo mentality is that every Igbo man (or perhaps Easterner) is prepared to suffer and brave all odds for success since they aren't used to always getting what they want. As I'm seeing it, some of the Igbo are still locked in this perpetual effort to please Nigerians and gain re-acceptance into Nigerian affairs. The smart ones have moved on and have noticed that this Nigeria is a "race for one's life" or 'oso ndu' as we say in Igbo. Everyone is competing for his/her benefit, and those that try to please everyone (as some Igbo politicians are doing) will get left in the dust.

My prayer is that we realize this before it's too late.
Chineke yere ndi Igbo aka ka ndi iro wo gbeni imeri wo; ka umu Igbo gbeni igbochie oganivu onwe wo.

tpia@:
Nice, but ken doesnt look nigerian at all.

He's mixed, right? Lmaoo

The Ndokwa also have a well-developed music industry in Ukwuani dialect.

I once read some parts of a book that mentioned the practice of python worshipping in Ukwuani areas. Although I've forgotten the name, if I remember it, I will post it.

Oh, and the Ndokwa have four market days which are: eke, olie, afo, and nkwo.

Here's some information I found regarding the role of the Ndokwa in the slave trade:

Some early historical accounts from White (Europeans) visitors
The source of the material below is from Prof. E. Isichei's work: "Igbo World"

Olfert Dapper: Aboh in the seventeenth century
Gaboe is situated near the Benin River. To reach this kingdom from Benin, it is necessary to ascend the river for eight days. It is a country of the Acori and Jasper. The Dutch acquire many slaves there. The inhabitants are friendly and rather like those of Benin.

Ukwuani in 1896 (R. F. Locke)
This document describes a journey from Sapele to Abraka (an Urhobo community) to Abbi and Amai, which are western Igbo communities with strong Urhobo links. Amai claims to have been founded in the same migration as Aboh.


On the morning of the 19th., we all left[the Abraka area] for Abe[Abbi]. On leaving Asagba[Aragba] we soon came to some exceedingly well-kept and large plantations, consisting of yams, kassada,[cassava] and a bean called "isisi". These plantations continued the whole way to Abe, with the exception of short stretches of bush, through which the paths were about 3 feet deep in water and in one place about 5 feet.
After about one and three quarter hours walking we came to a village of considerable size, named Enam. This village is under Abe. After going through the usual native custom of welcome, I asked the Headman to go on to Abe with us, which he did. We arrived there about 1 o'clock, having taken one hour and forty minutes walk from Enam, still through large plantations, and at one place over a long bridge...
The Chief of Abe, by name Ijome, I was informed, was the Chief of the Quale country, but I found out that the real Chief lives in the Niger Company Territories near Abo...
When we left for Amie[Amai], which took us one hour and twenty minutes to reach. There we had an enormous reception, the people there not having seen a white man. At this town there are two very old men, who are the head Chiefs, but they now are past doing anything, so never attend meetings. Although the town is very large, with some thousands of inhabitants, there are only two Chiefs, both of whom appear to be shrewd men...This town has numerous kolanut trees, which may be made a further source of trade.
All towns and villages we went through are most beautifully laid out and well kept, there being broad roads lined with banana and cocoa-nut tress. The palm trees seemed to be rather scattered.

A smith at Utchi, 1890 (C. Harford-Battersby)
I went through the Native village, and saw a Native blacksmith at work with a very original pair of bellows, the bellows being made of goat's hide and the funnel of earthenware.

Ukwuani in 1902 (Widenham Fosbery)
The document, which follows, refers to the Kwale area. Iselegu is one of the component villages of Afor. (This is the only reference known to me, of Aro activity west of the Niger.
With regard to the reported sale of slaves at Iselleugu, they acknowledged that such had been carried on by the Aros but that since the occupation of Umuchuku it had ceased and this I believe....
The trade of the Creek is in the hands of the Aboh and Aseh Natives who act as middlemen between towns inland and the Factories.
They have small trading settlements at most of the waterside markets of these towns, and trade as far as Omona on the Creek; oil, kernels, and food stuffs being the chief products dealt in...
The banks of the Creek are generally low lying with thick bush or long grass - here and there patches of red soil.
Ukwuani in 1904
All the towns named in the margin ["Ogume, Ebide[Ebedie], Umukwata, Okoku[Akoku], Obiaruku, Jocpa [Iziokpo], Amie [Amai], Amebu [Umuebu], Asagba[Aragba]"] were visited between 28th. March and 6th. April and they may be said to form the northern half of the Kwale country trading chiefly with the markets of Obiaruku and Abraka on the Ethiope River...The towns admitted that they were constantly engaged in inter-tribal warfare consisting chiefly in raids on persons and markets. Many of them, notably Ebide, had elaborated stockades and entrenchments as a protection against a more powerful neighbourhood. We also found that the towns farthest from the waterside markets were prevented from sending their produce direct to them, but were compelled to pass it through a chain of towns as intermediaries.

Obiagu1: It still surprises me how Igala is classified as Yoruboid. The two languages, Igala and Yoruba, may sound similar tonally but morphologically and syntactically are different. The only Yoruboid group in Nigeria is Itsekiri. Ekpeye is not a good example when it comes to Igala. Ekpeye language is very much Igbo but more divergent than any other Igbo subgroup dialect. The equivalent should be Idoma and it will be ridiculous to classify Idoma as Igboid.

I'm not saying that the lexiconic relationship between Igbo and Ekpeye is the same as that between Yoruba and Igala. What I'm saying is that just as the Ekpeye language is said to be Igboid (but the people are not), that's the same way that Igala is said to be Yoruboid (even though the Igala people are not). The terms 'Yoruboid' and 'Igboid' only apply to languages and not people.

I'm not a linguist (at least not yet ) so I can't say exactly why the Igala language is Yoruboid. If you believe this is wrong, maybe you should write a book on why Igala shouldn't be classified as such .

But let's let Shymmex move along with his thread.

@ Ohanaeze (Everybody),

You guys are all saying the same thing in regards to efulefu.

Biko nu, ka anyi ga na iru. Please, let's move ahead.

Onlytruth: Odum, edere m gi ozi imeelu

We shall soon launch our constitution making process here so that we would design a road map document to facilitate/ease our goal achievement methodology. The document will also ensure that the Eze Ndigbo position NEVER falls into the wrong hands in the future.

Ihe anyi na eme di nnukwu mkpa. Anyi achoghi ka otu efulefu bia mebie ihe nile anyi tara ahuhu we mee.
Ndi ojoo kariri ndi ezigbo madu na ubochi ndia.

Translated: What we are doing is very important. We don't want it to fall into the hands of one "efulefu" (lol can't translate that ), who would trash everything we struggled hard to organize. There are more bad folks than good ones these days.

Please expect that process to start by next weekend.

Signed,


Onlytruth, ndu di n'eziokwu 1 of Igboland, Eze Ndigbo Nairaland.

Eze, nsogbu adighi.

I will respond to your email shortly. Although I won't be present for/able to participate in the drafting of the constitution, I can't wait to see it when I return.

shymmex: ^^^^Why can't you preach the same sermon to yourself when you call Igboid groups like Ikwerre Igbos?

And I never said Igala were Yoruba, I said they're Yoruboid - peep the difference...

A topic like this deserves a thread of its own so that it can be discussed thoroughly.

I've never called anyone 'Igboid'. For someone to understand the term 'Igboid', they would have to understand the complex and encompassing term 'Igbo'. One could spend a great amount of time discussing this.

The Ikwere are one of the people that make up the Igbo nation. Neither they nor their languages are properly referred to as 'Igboid'. The term 'Igboid' was only made to accommodate the Ekpeye language since it resembles Igbo proper but is still divergent enough to be considered a separate language. The term 'Igboid' is broken up as follows:

Igboid = Igbo proper, Ekpeye (Ika is sometimes referred to as an Igboid language although most of the time it's considered a dialect of Igbo)

The Ekpeye language is 'Igboid' but the Ekpeye people are not. See the difference? That's the point I'm trying to make in the case of Yoruba and Igala.

afam4eva: I regret reading that crap of an article. Some people should stop making it seem as if they're been neutral whereas their article reeks of one-sidedness. The stupid authore even went ahead to insult Ojukwu.

God punish the author of the article, the person who opened this thread and anybody who agrees totally with the author.

Exactly.

I don't even know why people still bother replying to this guy, knowing his past record of instigation (while simultaneously claiming a lack of bias):

https://www.nairaland.com/910104/which-tribe-owns-lagos
https://www.nairaland.com/910823/understanding-naija-why-yorubas-called
https://www.nairaland.com/918931/sw-most-prosperous-part-naija

Another (or perhaps more proper) example would be the Romance languages. The French and Spanish languages are said to be descended from the Latin people of Italy. However, that doesn't mean that French and Spanish speakers descended (or haw any affinity) with the Latin people. The bulk of the French people are descended from the Franks (Germans) and the Spanish from the Visigoths, however, their languages are Romance; they aren't.

Let me just add something I noticed...

It seems as if you guys have misunderstood the suffix '-oid'. That suffix only refers to languages and not to ethnic groups as whole. In this case, the Igala language is said to be Yoruboid; that doesn't mean the Igala ethnicity is Yoruba or anything like that. If it did, then Igala would've been a sub-group or clan (whichever you choose to call it) of Yoruba and not it's own ethnicity.

Igala is an ethnic nationality which is separate from Yoruba. However, the Igala language is said to be 'Yoruboid'. Remember, people are never 'oids', languages are.

That's just my two cents.

@Shymmex and co

Take am easy.

O buru onye ozo nwe echiche o choro ikwuputa, ya egbukwala oge!

If anyone else has any ideas that they'd like to put forth, please, don't hesitate to speak!

PointB: That song is very deep; and pregnant with a lot of unsaid words.

The huge number of our brethren living outside Igboland whether by choice or default should start looking inwards and asking the very tough question:

What happens if Nigeria implodes? If you wake up in the morning and it's 1967 all over again, how will you feel, what will you do? Answers to these question will guide rational individuals to make plan, and preparations.

achi4u: Is this not the same question Ojukwu threw to all Igbos doing businesses at Alaba,idumota and Trade Fair complex some years ago when he was invited to the opening ceremony of one of their market.Ndiigbo bu ewu is what he called them.

The little war boko haram decleared on them is already causing them alot of damages hw much more a full scale war___to be frank...Onwero ebe ndibe anyi ji azu aga ma oburu na nukwuta ogu esuu.so,feel for may people up north.
ChineyeN says we should pin point on solving one urgent issue...okwu gi amaka mana olee ka anyi ga ebido ghara ibe ya?,they're all important.
The Niger bridge to me is the most important because that is the life wire to the east,we will never know the impacts of that bridge till the unspeakable happens.GOD FORBID.

I wont forget the of ONE giant intern'al airport___either to up grade Enugu own or build another one entirly.
infact,the more we list our problems the more fears griped me.
so Niger bridge first...

Na egbehi oge,ejim ohere a na asi ka unu jidekwa ka unu ji.

udu diri unu

You guys have said it all. We, the Eze Ndi Igbo Nairalanders group, are working on something regarding the airports/bridges and etc.
The eyes of every Igbo should be on the ground because a stitch in time saves nine.

re@lchange:
some igbo people are trapped in kaduna because of the curfew
if igbo people will learn to stay in igbo land they will stop experiencing problems
that is our biggest problem

Nwanna o kwa ya?

People should learn to give back to where they came from so that others will have opportunities also.

Okay Germany won.

dayokanu: And none of the strikers can score or even assist a goal

So you watch football eh?

What was that A goal kick or a strike?

GOOOOOOOOAAAAAALLLLLLL

Anyway, the Kalabari, though sometimes referred to as a distinct group, are increasingly moving themselves under the umbrella term otherwise known as 'Ijaw'. The Ijaw are only a collection of riverine peoples whose speak dialects that vary in intelligibility, and share a similar culture and similar traditions.

Other peoples such as the Okrika, Brass, and Bonny fall under this ethnic umbrella also.

dayokanu: Where were the men of Arochukwu when Adekunle came to town?

Ndaa aga ihe à za gbasa Arochukwu? I kpuola ìsi ka ọ bu na i puwala igiri? Nwonyeke m, kpaa ihe diiri gi, isọkwà ìsì na ọvia.

Fulaman198: I don't agree that any of us are of Middle Eastern origin, Africans came before Middle Easterners

Exactly. However, the sad part is that some of our cultural leaders are beginning to buy into these absurd theories of Middle-Eastern origin.

I think that most southern Nigerian groups branched out of a single ancestral ethnic group. I came about this theory by analyzing the population of certain groups. For example, a hundred years ago, the Igbo were about five million in population; today they are around forty million. If a mere hundred years meant a growth of thirty five miillion then what could have been our population two thousand years ago? Certainly too negligible to form an independent social group.

The Nri Kingdom (which was the first recorded kingdom in southern Nigeria and the first Igbo state) was founded sometime around the year 900 ce and it is given credit (by some) as the "father of the Igbo". This means that the peoples that identify themselves as the Igbo are only a bit older than a thousand years.

This has led me to conclude that a millenia ago, we were probably all members of a larger ethnic group that settled in central Nigeria.

Ileke-IdI:
Well everyone comes from a "conceptualized" Adam and Eve.

Well, if you put it that way, then yes.

Ileke-IdI:
Everyone originated from Adam/Eve.

This pure Western-oriented thinking. About half the world does not believe in Adam and Eve, you know.

Brixtonyute: Mouthy cowards! Why didn't they run their mouth to the bombs? If bravery was determined by how mouthy a tribe of people are, these cowards would be the bravest people ever. All they ever do is bi.tch like women.

Lol. Wasn't this the guy who was asking who the Igbo and Yoruba were not too long ago?

I shi nini? Elee otu bombu shi ri na Imo na uwa ke?

Aba is truly a city with an age-old tradition of impressive craftsmanship and revolutionary ingenuity. The last time I was in Aba (Christmas time 2010), I was blown away by the display of native skill exhibited in the various masks, costumes, and works in the city's various vendors. The air was thick with the scrumptious aroma of frying delicacies, and the streets were abuzz with traffic and pedestrians.

Aside from this, Aba is also Nigeria's autoparts capital; serving as a home to arguably the best engineers, mechanics, and do-it-yourself repair men in the country. There's a saying that goes: o wuru Aba enwee ya mara na odii na obodo a; meaning 'if it's not in Aba then it's not in this country'.

Aba is my second favorite city in Abia state. I won't be surprised if it has already invented something.

achi4u: mazi Odumchi,i na agba mbo nke ukwuu.jide kwa ka iji.

Anugo m ihe ikwuru maka idepu akwukwo ozi degara Eze Ndiigbo nke Nairaland,aga m eme nke ahu osiso makana nwata nnaya dinyere ozi na eji ukwu agbawa onu-uzo.

biko ike agwukwana anyi na mbo anyi na agba...makana eji igba mbo mara umuigbo.

udu dirikwa unu.
_____________________________
odumchi enwere ndi oyi na Aba nke ukwu mgbe m bi Nnewi.
Asina igbo na asu n'olu n'olu mana akwa ukwara oburu otu,ya bu na anyi nile bu umunne.
Aha obodo m na Ebonyi bu Onueke Ezza.
ndewo.OkeOdum.

Ezigbo nwa afo Achi4u,

Otu i si kwuo ya ka o si di. Ka Chineke ekwekwa ike gwu anyi ma obu ka agara mee anyi na oru a anyi ruga. Ihe nile ga adicha Ndi Igbo nma na mgbe adighi anya. Igbo bu otu ka I si kwuo ya.
Lol biko awughim Mazi m ka bu okorobia.

Udo diri gi nwa Onueke Ezza.

ifyalways: I'm preparing and having ofe owerri tonight so i'll translate this tomorrow. . . With enough owerri-ness flowing through my obara and akwara.

Lol. Take your time.