Blame illegal bunkering and refineries around the area.

Sinistami:



If a lot of saboteurs were actually from the Igbo hinterland then why do you people always pin the minorities as being the main saboteurs. The way I'm seeing you too also have a problem.

You talked about some unruly Biafran soldiers attacking a man who refused to give up his goats. Now think of it, If those soldiers were Yoruba wouldn't that man think of Yorubas as scum? It's not Igbophobia it happens everywhere.
I can even accuse you Igbos of having Hausa/fulani phobia

Because the saboteurs in minority areas have become elevated to heroes with narratives twisted to portray them as people who defended their land against Igbos who wanted to conquer and possess their lands.
It took Igbo support for GEJ for Asari Dokubo to come out plain on how the saboteurs in Buguma after the town fell to FG forced his grandfather the then Amanyanabo to abdicate his throne, because the king was pro Biafra.

Sinistami:


Nothing like Igbophobia ...It's natural for Minorities to think that way when a majority filled army starts recking havoc in their communities. You make yourselves feel too special.

No its not natural to be manufacturing lies against Ndiigbo.
How exactly is asking civilian population to vacate a town that is about to be a theater of war between Biafran soldiers and Nigerian army wrecking havoc?

You obviously were fed same Igbophobic lies by your parents.

Dedetwo:


There is something wrong with the above statements. You are the person fully in the mode to describe Igbo man with funny adjectives. If it was not a western Igbo, it must be Midwestern Igbo or Bendel Igbo or Delta Igbo. When will you phony characters stop this madness? I had being around Joe and Ralp when they were alive and no single time did these fine gentlemen described themselves as anything but Igbo. Ralp Uwechue was Biafran ambassador to France and Joe Achuzia did not need any introduction in Biafra. I should give credit to LEO Irabor who made sure Eluonye and Onyenuchea were incorporated in his name tag. Irabor could be an abbreviated Igbo name but remains a discussion for another day.

Igbos at the boundary between Igbo land and minorities bear names of their minority neighbours, just as these minorities bear Igbo names.
The trick is intermarriage at these borders. If an Nsukka man marry an Igala woman, the woman gives his children Igala first name. By 4th generation, the Igala first name would have become a Surname for the current generation. There is also issue of migration from these minorities to their Igbo neighbors where they are assimilated as Igbo but retain their non Igbo names as surname.
In Nsukka we see families with Igala surnames like Idoko. We know of the Adukwu family in Nsukka area who migrated to Nsukka from Jukun and had since assimilated as Igbo but retained their Jukun Surname ADUKWU. In Arochukwu you see families with Ibibiod surnames like Ofong.

In Ndoki I know a politician with Ibani-Ijaw Surname in Abia state.

Ika being at the border with Edo is not different.
These influences go both ways, there are usually Igbo influence and names in non Igbo clans who border Igbo towns. I once met a non Igbo from Cross River whose village borders Ebonyi, his surname was "Igwe", I thought he was Igbo until I heard him making phone call and speaking strange language.. I asked him how come the Igbo sounding name, he flatly denied having anything to do with Igbo. He got angry the more I tried to ask him more questions so I left him.

Some times later, he needed my help in the organization, and he started playing the " I am your brother " game. He revealed that he might not be Igbo, but that his ancestor in the time past migrated from Igbo land(Ebonyi) to his current location where they had assimilated to become one with the minorities they now are.

The Igbo of the South-South strongly accept the fact that they are full-fledged Igbo but only in so far as it concerns the positive side of collective Igbo identity

The above is Nwaezeigwe echoeing what we always knew in SE. Many Igbo elements in SS only want to be Igbo in good times and when things are working for the Igbo. This was why the same clans comfortable with Igbo identity pre 1970 started singing different songs post civil war when things hit rock bottom for Igbo's.
If you are only going to be Igbo when there are positives to be accessed from claiming so, you should also not be surprised when Igbos deny you when doing so means you don't get to benefit from Igbo tag. You had reduced your ethnicity to a thing of fair weather( Positive times) , like a mask you can wear or remove when you please. Why then are you crying foul when people in SE start using same rules you set against you?

Recommendations: To stop suspicions and Anyim type of declaration in the future, SS Igbos will have to be Igbos in Positive and Negative times for the Igbos, if they cannot, then two can play the game. Its that simple.

It is essential to let the likes of Senator Anyim Pius Anyim to know that at no stage of their history did the Igbo of South-South demand to join the Southeast Igbo or solicit for their political mentorship. The Igbo of Delta, Edo, and Rivers States have always been contented and happy with their geo-political home-base and identity as a distinct Igbo sub-group and thus do no owe any allegiance to the Southeast Igbo,

Well well! Nwaezeigwe loves talking about Yorubas yet he can't even emulate them. He seem to only pick and chose when to use them as standard for SE.
The Yorubas in Kogi and Kwara constantly look up to SW for political mentorship and they have never flown distinct ethnic nationalities of their own. Unlike SS Igbos where every LGA is a distinct ethnic nationality whose founders all became Bini princes who suffered brain damage on their short trip from Bini to their current locations, hence why they all speak Igbo language.
You say you don't owe SE any allegiance, yet you are here ranting when Anyim returned the favor. This is supposed to be a Professor and he is this confused, you can now imagine how it is for commoners from SS Igbo speaking areas.
They don't feel they owe Ndiigbo in SE allegiance, but in same token, they want SE to regard them as Igbos and include them in things. This is a case of cognitive dissonance.

What Anyim does not know is that the greater part of Nigeria today has more faith in the South-South Igbo than their Southeast Igbo kinsmen for obvious reasons. First is the fact that the popular political definition of an average Southeast Igbo politician is “unreliability.”

Nwaezeigwe speaks of Nigeria being more comfortable with SS Igbos than with SE Igbos. Yet he doesn't seem to know why. While in same token he accused SE of being Fulani stooges. What an Irony.
Well, breaking news Prof: Nigerians consider SS Igbos more unlikely to cause Nigerian disintegration than SE. They consider you of being more of obedient servants to the Caliphate and less pro Biafra.
If the above makes you feel superior and more "reliable" than SE, then what more can I say.

Additionally, due to your above admission, you can understand why some Igbo political class will never be comfortable with Anioma being Igbo, because as you have noted, the Caliphates and anti Igbo elements in Nigeria would now shift all supposedly Igbo appointment to Anioma and claim they have appointed Ndiigbo, if SE political class start accepting Anioma as Igbo. Emefiele(CBN governor), Kachiukwu(former Petroleum minister), we (SEners) were all told were Igbo appointments by Buhari, even when no Igboman has ever seen Emefiele identify himself as Igbo.

It is obviously a bad trend that leaves SE in the cold while a people who spite us to the face and deny kinship with us when it pleases them are benefiting from our marginalization.

Bethel4Life:
Lolz pazienza mention me when u throw d bomb

Done.

eduj:
Pazienza, some of what you wrote here is a disservice to the SE,but let me state it as I see fit.
I believe the Igbo denial in the SS igbos has more to do with them than the SE igbos.
Why won't Ayim Pius make that statement when Amechi will claim to be igbo today and ikwerre tomorrow? why won't he -when wike says he isn't igbo today,yet tomorrow he will discover his igboliness?
At the end of the war,the Igbo nation was beaten.Her children had been starved ,raped, murdered in millions and her land and cities left desolate.
The federal government made no effort to finance reconstruction of the devasted cities,no commission was setup to ensure reconstruction or even rehabilitation. The war was swept under the carpet and became a footnote in history -yet the punishment for loosing is still being handed down to any igbo identifying group today.
That is why groups like the ikwerre,ika,ogba and etche and other SS groups convinently discovered geographical , historical and grievance based reason's why the aren't igbo.

I'm not the writer of the article.
The writer is Professor Nwaezeigwe, an Anioma man from Ibusa.

Juliusmalema:



It is literally foolish for someone to spend nearly 10 years discussing about others.

What happened to your own people?

Are they more important than your own people?

Over 10 years still on same topic..

Nde mgbu

Move on, bro.
It's not a must to comment.

eduj:
let me reserve this space first and begin by telling you that the political setup of Nigeria assures that only people like ouk,Rochas,ayim and their likes across every ethnic group in Nigeria,will emerge as president.
Never has the best each region has to offer emerged as president.2023 will vindicate this post.A flawed system will only breed flawed personalities.So let's see whom our SS brethren will bring forth-if truly they will be better than there SE brethren

Funny enough non Anioma Deltans are saying that Okowa is their worst governor so far.

Juliusmalema:




Silly things and petty issue like this shouldn't be giving you sleepless nights


Look at how you are stressing yourself just to dig up a congratulatory message?...This is petty

Proudly Anioma proudly Igbo....more like Proudly acronymn proudly Ethnic group.....


Going over same circle every year, spending lots of your time discussing about others but never talks about your own people.

Mr you are losing it...you have spent years making others more popular while diminishing your size.

Mr man, when you see a thread you consider irrelevant, the right thing to do is to move on.
You must not comment on all post.

No doubt that professor Nwaezeigwe is mentally handicapped and only in Nigeria would people be able to rise to professorship position in a university with such a mental disadvantage.
Too many beer parlor gists and halftruths and historical revisionism are in this his emotionally charged write up. But let's not forget that many hidden things of the heart are usually exposed in rage state or in alcoholic intoxication moments.

So when Anyim opined that Igbo presidency project should be restricted to SE. Prof Nwaezeigwe an Anioma man went into a state of APOPLEXY and revealed lots of things on factors driving Igbo SS Igbos speaking clans.
I will take time to x-ray them all one after the other and try to offer recommendations on how we( Igbos in SE and Igbos in SS ) can resolve our differences and maybe finally move on as one or go permanently apart.
Because honestly speaking, the to and fro movement on the issue of Igbo Identity in Igbo speaking parts of SS is already an issue most SEners have made the resolution to move on from, being content with just SE.

Other Igbos from both side of the Niger are free to make contributions here too.


cc: Abagworo, IDENNA, Andrew Uweh, ChinenyeN

The present writer while sojourning in Lagos had always looked with mournful pity at the faded yellow-painted semi-abandoned building with the bold inscription “Zik Group of Companies” situated right at Sabo Junction Bus-Stop Yaba. Even the once Centre of University of Nigeria, Nsukka Students’ Union mobilization—the famous Zik’s Flat Hostels has been abandoned under a state of sorry dilapidation by successive Vice Chancellors of the University, while students roam about confronted with acute lack of hostel accommodation. This would not be allowed to happen in Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. Is Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s Tribune Group of Newspapers founded in 1949 not still as strong as ever displaying in extravagant style the legacy of Awolowo’s intellectual struggles for Nigerian independence?


Furthermore, does it not sound ridiculous to the average Igbo man of Southeast that there is no single joint-business or cooperate venture linking the five Southeast States? What has happened to Eastern Nigeria Investment Corporation bequeathed by Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe? The Southwest States still maintain their Oodua Investment Corporation bequeathed by Chief Obafemi Awolowo and this has always formed the core basis of Southwest Economic Blueprint already positioned as the economic basis of future Oduduwa nation in case the situation comes to that. Is it not ridiculous that some people would be talking of a Biafra under such morbid state of shameful affairs for those who claim be the most intelligent set of people in Africa and among the entire Black race?
Indeed at Enugu one could see spectacular historical eye-sores of official abandonment woven in acute lack of historical consciousness and pride of their past. Passing through Enugu Presidential Hotel situated on Presidential Road between Asata and Independence Layout in late 2017 the present writer found himself fo a moment in a state of historical agony, weeping for the indolent Southeast political leadership and their lame-duck indigenes.


Beholding the once boisterous centre of international hospitality clad with extraneous weeds from the lawns up to the top-most floor only reminded the present writer of the melancholy site of his hometown Ibusa after their return from eighteen-month exile in the bush in escape from the invading Federal troops. The other spectacular sites of abandoned legacy of Southeast Igbo political pride were the old Court of Appeal Building, and the Eastern Regional House of Assembly Complex. If these buildings are no longer of official relevance why not convert them to Centres of Historical Heritage?


Suffice it to state that the same office and building used by successive Premiers of Western Region from Awolowo remains till date the official office of Oyo State Governor. When the present writer visited the Governor of Oyo State in the company of Prof Pat Utomi sometime ago, the Oyo State Governor then introduced his office to his guests with pride in the epithet, “this was the same office Chief Obafemi Awolowo sat as Premier of Western Region I am sitting in presently.” This is what it means to have pride in one’s history and past leadership which cannot be found among the Southeast Governors and leaders.

The Southeast has no sustainable framework of political mentorship. Their political character and pattern of mentorship have always been predicated on mentor and enslave the mentored, or be mentored and destroy the mentor. Chief Jim Nwobodo mentored Chimaroke Nnamani and it was a battle of survival between the two. Chimaroke mentored Sulivan Chima and it was the same battle of attrition. Only the present Governor Chief Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi appears to be seemingly removed from the baseline of predecessor-successor battle.


In Anambra State similar mentor-mentored war of attrition between mentor Sir Emeka Offor and mentored Governor Dr. Chinwoke Mbadinuju; then followed the battle for survival between Mentor Dr. Andy Ubah and mentored Governor Chris Ngige—a battle in which a sitting-State Governor was kidnapped and subsequently escaping from kidnappers to land in the neighbouring Delta State as a refugee, like the present writer. Indeed wonders shall never end in Southeast. After Andy Ubah and Chris Ngige came the turn of mentor Peter Obi and mentored Governor Willy Obiano, a battle that is still unsettled.

In Abia and Imo States it is the same tales of mentor-mentored struggle for power. Orji Uzor Kalu for some moments was engrossed in the same battle of political survival with his mentored Governor T. A. Orji and was for sometime placed in political limbo. The former’s battle with his once estranged Deputy Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe was a testimony of Southeast Igbo penchant for suppressing the ambitions of those under them. The Imo State scenario between Governor Rochas Okorocha and his Deputy presented similar situation. Ebonyi State is not left out of the same political quagmire. Governor Dave Umani is still under a state of official malice with his Predecessor, Elechi. Perhaps the Southeast Igbo leadership with their bogus sense of superiority should humble themselves for once and take a clue from Delta State on how best to govern a State and transit power without predecessor-successor conflict.
In sum, there is no doubt that the Southeast is a land of consummate intelligence, habitual enterprise and propelling industry but which unfortunately is guided by undulating layers of authoritative ignorance and morbid sense of patriotism which often decapitate on conception any good head that tends to provide enduring strong leadership, collective political will-power, and sense of historical consciousness. It therefore follows that a leadership which cannot chart a common positive course for its people cannot by the same token possess the capacity to lead a whole country. Charity must begin at home.


The Southeast has not shown good example of enduring political leadership to bequeath to Nigerians if saddled with the responsibility of leading Nigeria as President. Nigeria is not an individual business concern but corporate entity which only requires those with the habitual acumen for corporate governance to take charge. The Igbo of the Southeast lack this quality test in corporate leadership and thus do not qualify to lead Nigeria as President. This is the fundamental reason why the Southeast is not yet qualified to lead the country as President and it does not hinge on the amount lobbying employed to force people to support a Nigerian President from Southeast Igbo. The basic fact is that Nigeria and Nigerians are no longer willing to jump from frying pan to fire in the name of zoning madness, unless the trend is on making mediocrity and bad leadership rotate evenly in the nation.


That the Igbo of the Southeast are a spectacle of bad dancers in nearly every facet of Nigerian politics cannot therefore be disputed and, the Igbo of the South-South Geo-Political zone as their kinsmen are ashamed of them. Under such circumstances monstrous ethnic dance of shame why wouldn’t the Igbo of South-South deny their Igbo identity when occasions demand they should do so? Yet some Southeast Igbo have the tenacious clannish obscenity to describe the South-South Igbo as those suffering from identity crisis just because the phrase sounds sweet in pronunciation.


The question here is who is actually suffering from identity crisis—the one who holds his traditional values in high esteem with sumptuous patriotism and pride or, the one who treats his time-honoured and tested traditional values with reckless stupidity, unpatriotic temerity, incendiary profanity and colonized mental impudence? Does being Igbo only end with having Igbo as one’s native language? Language alone does not define one’s ethnic identity and this for sure the present writer can boldly state with authoritative historicity.

The Ngoni of Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique and, Tanzania have over the centuries after migration from South Africa lost their native Nguni tongue yet, that did not redefine their ethnic identity as Ngoni with the adoption of their hosts’ languages. So those Igbo of Southeast who think in their infantile imagination that they can easily meddle with the political future of their kinsmen outside the Southeast Geo-Political Zone should think twice and retrace their steps quickly before it is too late.

The post of Secretary of Government of the Federation was indeed rightly meant for Okwadike Dr. Chukwuemeka Ezeife but Anyim Pius Anyim ridiculously maneuvered himself into the position and subsequently became the symbol of Igbo abuse and misuse of the unfathomable magnanimity and opportunity offered by President Goodluck Jonathan which no previous Federal administration had offered the Igbo of Southeast since Nigeria’s independence in 1960. Under the official oversight function of Senator Pius Anyim as SGF none of the major eye-sore trunk “A” Federal Highways throughout the Southeast was rehabilitated, but he found time to construct non-existent link-roads from his remote Ishiago Village to both Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway and Uturu town.


This was paradoxically the authentic Igbo leader saddled with the task of defining who are and, who are not true Igbo and, which Igbo group should contest or not contest the position of President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Needless to engage him seriatim his befuddling intellectually catastrophic presentation titled “Identifying the Political Interest of the Igbos of the South-East Geo-Political Zone in Nigeria and Strategies for its Actualisation.”However, it is on point to put him squarely in a square hole and his outbursts roundly in a round hole before the judgment of posterity and those Igbo of Southeast who have become drunk with the purgative wine of illusion of superior Igbo caste and mirage of 2023 Igbo Presidency.
First, it is important to inform the likes of Senator Anyim Pius Anyim that being Igbo is like two sides of the same coin—one with head and the other with only inscriptions and, in this case concerning the Igbo—the positive side represented by the head and the other side defined as negative represented by the inscription side.


The Igbo of the South-South strongly accept the fact that they are full-fledged Igbo but only in so far as it concerns the positive side of collective Igbo identity. Under this circumstance Senator Anyim Pius Anyim thus lacks every facet of human capacity—intellectually, politically, or culturally to define or redefine the identity of any Igbo sub-group. That job professionally resides with anthropologists and historians, of which Percy Amaury Talbot (1926), Daryl Forde and G. I. Jones (1950), Simon Ottenberg (1959), Adiele Afigbo (1986), and the present writer (2007) are prominent.


Talking of Igbo heartland therefore it is important to let Senator Anyim Pius Anyim know that his Ishiago Village and the wider Afikpo Senatorial District he once represented do not form part of the Igbo heartland in culture, language, and physiognomy, but a transition culture zone between the Igbo and Ekoi groups of Ogoja District of Northern Cross River State. This explains why his present Senatorial Zone including his home-village was once part of the defunct Ogoja Province of Eastern Region. Even his physical body frame which is ridiculously larger than normal Igbo body side with strong non-Igbo strain, is a clear testimony of his remote ancestral origin among the Ekoi ethnic groups of Ogoja in Cross River State.
So it is instructive to let Senator Pius Anyim know that mere claiming to be Igbo or having one’s home-village situated within the Southeast geo-political zone does not make one better or more Igbo than others. After all the Southeast itself has many people and communities whose ancestors were Igala, Benin, Idoma, Efik/Ibibio, Jukun, and Ekoi among others as in the case of Senator Anyim’s Ishiago.

There are core and fundamental indices that define an Igbo and, Anyim Pius Anyim did not mention any of these as lacking among the South-South Igbo, except of cause the incident of geography.
It therefore amounts to intellectual foolery for someone of his high status to begin to decide who qualifies and who does not qualify to partake in the share of an animal yet to be hunted down in the bush. It was the height of political ignorance and irresponsibility clad in undignified sense of over-blown ego for Senator Anyim to speak as if the Southeast are the reason for South-South Igbo’s relevance in national politics. What really made him to believe that the Southeast Igbo are better suited to be President of Nigeria than the Igbo of South-South is beyond the least of anyone’s imagination.
It is important to state that the Southeast by their weird culture of politics have over the years constituted political liability to the Igbo of South-South rather than the other way round. No Southeast State employs indigenes of South-South Igbo in her State civil or public service, but there are a lot of Southeast indigenes employed in Delta and Rivers State till date. Similarly the trend of migration and settlement has always remained Southeast to South-South and not South-South to Southeast. So the question of Senator Anyim Pius Anyim coming to dictate which Igbo are ripe for Nigeria’s Presidency is as fortuitous as the achievement of that objective is to the Southea


It is essential to let the likes of Senator Anyim Pius Anyim to know that at no stage of their history did the Igbo of South-South demand to join the Southeast Igbo or solicit for their political mentorship. The Igbo of Delta, Edo, and Rivers States have always been contented and happy with their geo-political home-base and identity as a distinct Igbo sub-group and thus do no owe any allegiance to the Southeast Igbo, a status which could have elicited the kind of reckless utterance from the person of Senator Anyim’s status.
For Senator Anyim Pius Anyim to arrogate to himself the power to decide for the Igbo of South-South the right to the Presidency of the Nigerian nation is the height of Southeast Igbo iniquitous arrogance painted in vainglorious sense of superiority complex—a complex for which reason they are mostly loathed by other Nigerian ethnic groups, including of course their South-South Igbo kinsmen.

Does it not sound ridiculous that such a Fulani personality like Senator Sani would tell off Senator Anyim for creating unholy segregation among the Igbo when other ethnic groups in Nigeria are busy with the in-gathering of their peoples outside their zones? Is it not a truism that neither the Fulani nor the Yoruba accept the existing six geo-political zones as effective political divisions? It is only among the Igbo of Southeast that such divisions are ingloriously put on as robes of ethnic identity. For the Yoruba, as far as they are concerned, the concept of Southwest is only relevant in matters pertaining to State affairs and not ethnic identity or matters of collective Yoruba interest.

The Yoruba in Kogi, Kwara, Edo, Delta and the Anago of Benin Republic are one and the same people without defining who is and who is not a core or of heartland Yoruba. Ogun State alone has produced Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Obasanjo on two occasions, and Chief Ernest Shonekan and, none of the other Yoruba States ever talked about domination or the Southwest Yoruba passing a fiat stating that the Yoruba sub-groups in Kogi, Kwara, Edo, and Delta States should not vie for the office of President. Similarly, the Northwest geo-political zone has produced Ahmadu Bello, Murtala Mohammed, Shehu Shagari, Muhammadu Buhari on two occasions, Ibrahim Babangida, Sani Abacha, Abdulsalami Abubakar and Umaru Yar’Adua, yet without anyone section of the Fulani and Hausa attempting to draw lines of separation with their kinsmen in other geo-political zones.


[b]
What Anyim does not know is that the greater part of Nigeria today has more faith in the South-South Igbo than their Southeast Igbo kinsmen for obvious reasons. First is the fact that the popular political definition of an average Southeast Igbo politician is “unreliability.” [/b]And it is this culture of unreliability that more than Fulani jihad scheme brought untold negative political consequences on the Igbo as a group in Nigeria. If the Igbo of the Southeast had been reliable, principled, and above all patriotic to the letter of their identity like their rival Yoruba ethnic group, perhaps the Fulani would not have had the leeway to break through the Southern political wall of defence.
From Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe to the present crop of Southeast Igbo political leadership their political identity stigma has remained “unreliability.” Every trend of events that brought about the series of Nigeria’s post-independence crisis right from the Western Regional crisis of 1962 to the outbreak of the Nigerian civil war had had the sore imprint of Igbo unreliability. Mention could be made of the shameless roles played by the likes of Chief Arthur Francis Nzeribe and his infamous Association of Better Nigeria (ABN) gang-up against Chief M. K.O. Abiola’s June 12 mandate and, Daniel Kanu’s Two Million-Man March for General Sani Abacha’s dictatorship. Perhaps one can take a short historical promenade on some special Igbo leadership on this matter of political dishonesty.

Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe: The Secretary of State for Colonies Mr. O Lyttelton in his Memorandum to the 1953 London Constitutional Conference PREM 11/1367, no. 375 of 17 August, 1953 described Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe as: “an American-educated demagogue, who makes few interventions but able, persuasive, apparently moderate and wholly unreliable.” Dr. Azikiwe agreed with Chief Obafemi Awolowo in their Joint NCNC-AG Memorandum to the 1953 London Constitutional Conference to support the creation of additional Regions out of the three Regions after independence, but went ahead to betray Chief Awolowo by joining Sir Ahmadu Bello to create only Midwest Region out of Chief Awolowo’s Western Region; while abandoning the Middle Belt and CORE State Region agitations respectively in Northern and Eastern Regions.
Dr. Azikiwe even directed his NCNC Members of the Federal House of Representatives to join the Northern People’s Congress (NPC) to vote for the 1962 Declaration of State of Emergency in Western Region all his bid to eclipse Chief Awolowo’s influence in the Western Region. He clandestinely joined the NPC to form a Coalition Government in 1960 against the collective interests of Southern Nigeria, and later broke it up in 1964 to form UPGA Coalition with the same Awolowo he betrayed. In 1979 he repeated the same act of betrayal when he joined the same Fulani-led Political Party form NPN/NPP accord and later realized that he could not really work with the Fulani, and then came back to Chief Awolowo again to form Progressives Party Alliance (PPA.) In both cases it was already too late to make the required political impact. Dr. Azikiwe’s culture of medicine after death has remained a cancerous political nightmare among the Southeast leadership till date.


Major GeneralJ. T. U. Aguiyi-Ironsi: Characteristically described as a Tally-Clerk by the patriotic and ever brilliant Major Patrick Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, General Aguiyi-Ironsi was indeed the most unreliable gift of human treasure God Almighty ever bestowed on the Southeast Igbo. The tragedy of his death was not that he died in the hands of those who indeed were destined to kill him, but that he died in his foolishness sending millions of innocent Igbo citizens to their untimely grave. He blatantly refused to release Chief Obafemi Awolowo and all those Action Group activists imprisoned with him for trumped up charges of treason in spite of Lt Col Fajuyi’s advise that such release would widen their support base but instead listened to the callous advice of Lt. Col Usman Katsina who advised him that releasing Chief Obafemi Awolowo would anger the Fulani leaders.
He also in the same foolishness refused to release the thirty-five Tiv political activists detained without trial by Sir Ahmadu Bello for the reason of placating the Fulani leadership and even threatened to arrest Joseph Tarka for demanding constantly for the release of his kinsmen; yet went ahead to abolish the Regionalism and unified the Civil Service against the strong opposition of Lt Col Usman Katsina and the same Fulani leadership and, people are blaming the North for the counter-coup of July 29, 1967 and General T. Y. Danjuma for leading the operation. Indeed if the present writer had the chance of being there, he should have joined Major T. Y. Danjuma in that operation.
To state the obvious fact, if General Aguiyi-Ironsi and the likes of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Dr. Michael Okpara, Chief Dennis Osadebe, and Dr. K. O. Mbadiwe were killed during Major Nzeogwu’s coup of 15 January, 1966, together with Ahmadu Bello and the others killed, perhaps there wouldn’t have any need for the pogroms, counter-coup or the civil war. It was the Southeast Igbo mentality of clannish exclusivism than more than any factor brought about their untold alienation today and it seems quite paradoxically that history is fast repeating itself.

Lt. Col Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu: Chief Richard Akinjde described Col. Ojukwu as someone who “suffers from Hitler-like megalomania.” For Klaus W. Stephan, “Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu had harboured an ambition to ‘alter the political constellation of power[b]He presided over the sabotage of Major Nzeogwu’s coup in the North to placate his Fulani friends and then turned around to lead his people into a devastating civil war that claimed millions of innocent lives against the same North. [/b]. He fled to exile after his defeat abandoning his officers and men to languish in detention for many years, with someone like the brilliant Major Timothy Onwuatuegwu being callously executed after the war.

He later returned from exile after thirteen years celebrated as a hero, and then turned around to betray the same people he led in the civil war by joining the same Fulani enemies to work against them in NPN. This was the reason Chief Jim Nwobodo referred to him as OGBOSO I. Not only that, he became General Sani Abbacha’s political messenger working against the struggle for the actualization of the annulled June 12, 1993 Presidential election won by Chief M. K. O. Abiola, and ended up betraying his kinsman and Chief of Naval Staff then Admiral Alison Madueke who was subsequently removed unceremoniously from officer to pave way for General Abacha’s ascendency to power. Yet this same man is celebrated and exported as a hero by the same Igbo of Southeast. This cannot be tolerated among the Igbo of South-South no matter the circumstances. It either you are a hero and remain so for life or you are a villain with no fixed patriotic objective.

Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu: A Southeast Igbo 2023 Presidential Aspirant. This is one Igbo person who was bold and proud to state that he would support the Fulani Ruga colonization scheme against the wishes of his Igbo kinsmen because the former helped him to become wealthy in material things of life. But he failed to specify from which source they wealth came—Fulani cattle or petroleum resources deposited by nature in his father’s land? He is a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria through the votes of his Southeast Igbo kinsmen but ostensibly representing the interests of his Fulani mentors. On 17 June, 2015 Orji Uzor Kalu an acclaimed devout Roman Catholic joined his Igbo-Fulani kinsman Chief Rochas Okorocha to force nineteen youngIgbo men to convert to Islam at Abuja with both men giving them the sums of one and two million naira respectively to the new converts. This is the man that wants to lead Nigeria as President in 2023. Igbo kwe Nu! Abia State Mma Mma Nu!

Mr. Peter Obi: A Southeast Igbo 2023 Presidential Aspirant. This is a man who roundly fits the description of a green snake under the green grass. A shrewd businessman not uncommon with the culture of his Anambra State native home-base, he exhumes a pretentious carriage of an Angelic politician founded on the precepts of Conservative Roman Catholicism, yet he is the most crudely dogmatic politician in Southeast dangerously delineating the political terrain of Anambra State with sharp lines of denominational division between Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism. Always enchanting with a deceptive tiny soft voice clad in ostentatious humility that lives him with the simple title of “Mr”, he has underneath a fearsome character of a dictator woven in self-additive arrogance. Indeed this was clearly exhibited when he refused to render the account of the campaign money given to him during the 2019 Presidential election as demanded by both the PDP leadership and Alhaji Abubakar Atiku. He was once said to have secretly granted a large expanse of land to the Fulani leadership for the establishment of an International Islamic Centre in his Agulu home-village in return for their support for his Presidential bid, an allegation he is yet to debunk. Igbo Kwenu! Ndi Anambra State Ekene Mu Nu!

The Five Southeast State Governors: Of all the State Governors of the six geo-political zones the five Southeast State Governors without exception are the most colourless and most primeval in carriage with the striking facsimile of Colonial Provincial Governors.

They speak and act as if mentally caged and with the subconscious mind of leaders whose positions are not dependent on the will of their people but existing by the grace of the Fulani leaders. They do not seem to possess any positive idea about the collective future of the Southeast they preside over. They move with the garland of Executive Governors and multiple sobriquets of political invincibility yet have not been able to define a common political framework for their zone in case the need for “go your separate ways” arises, thereby creating a deeper gorge of insecurity in the zone.


From the foregoing there is no gainsaying the fact that the Igbo of the Southeast are the most politically corrupt, culturally disconnected, economically blindfolded, socially cosmetic, and clandestinely unpatriotic, all of which are woven in the pitiable garb of religious bankruptcy, of all the six geo-political zones. They are the most fictional in character— claiming to be traditional in cultural carriage but only as it pertains their dressing mode. They lack a sublime sense of moral judgment hence it does not matter to them if they betray their own people, or engage on actions that would clearly bring negative consequences on their people. Politically they are dearth of any concise ideological orientation and so represent what the physicists refer to as scalar quantities which have magnitude but lacking in direction.


As individual businessmen—hundred percent success; but as corporate business managers—zero percent. Yet even their so-called individual business successes do not often outlive their proprietors but die as natural a death as their owners. The evidence is there and clear. Where are the Louis Odumegwu Ojukwu Group of Companies, the C. C. Onoh’s Reno Drinks, Joseph Nwankwu’s Olympic Drinks and Packers, Augustine Ilodibe and his Ekene Dili Chukwu Transport Company and other subsidiary industries, Izukwu Chukwu, Chidiebere, and Osondu of Umulolo Transport Companies, to mention just a few? Above all what has happened to the once domineering Zik Group of Companies with all its subsidiary newspapers? Have they not all gone to eternity leaving their inheritors only saddled with the business of final burials through deadly disputes over inheritance and illicit sales of assets they knew not how they came about?

The big question here is if an Owerri man could draw such a bizarre distinction between Mbaise and Owerri—two people from not just the same Igbo sub-culture zone but within the same nuclear Uratta Clan, then what makes Senator Anyim Pius Anyim’s incendiary tantrum against the Igbo of South-South worthy of attention? Perhaps one could say because of its timing and by extension its sinister motive. Otherwise the Southeast Igbo are well known for their dog-eat-dog political culture and brazen carriage of self-crucifixion.

Just as the Owerri money lender warned the present writer and his Ngwo friend to be wary of Mbaise people so it is the common culture of the indigenes of Enugu and Ebonyi States to warn their people to be wary of people of Anambra State origin whom they refer to as” Ndi Ijeko Ebei” of which Delta Igbo are included. Similarly other indigenes of Abia State warn their people and strangers to be very cautious of Ngwa people because they eat human beings. It is also a common scenario to see the so called free-born telling strangers to avoid the other person because he or she is of Osu and Slave origin. The Roman Catholics often tell their members to be on guard against members of the Anglican Church and even warn them not to marry Anglicans. This is the core mentality of the average Igbo of Southeast. They have never taken time to ask themselves this one simple question: why is Yorubaland more developed and advanced than the Southeast and who were the agents of Yoruba development?

Thus as the Igbo would often say, “Agwo ga-amurili ife so ogonogo”—the snake must beget something long, Pius Anyim’s political paroxysm did not bring out any new conceptual character of what the Igbo of Southeast are not known for. What only makes it look novel in political terms is the fact that such hate-filled convulsion was coming out of someone who although of homunculus intellectual quantity, was once entrusted with two noble leadership responsibilities for which he exhibited colossal catastrophe.

The tragedy of Anyim Pius Anyim’s political ascendency is the tragedy of present-day Nigeria where educational disadvantage becomes the grooming ground for mediocrity in political leadership. Ordinarily within the wider Igbo intellectual and political contexts Anyim Pius Anyim should be the least person to be presented as Igbo political masquerade at the exalted level he so opportunistically or better stated accidentally attained. But coming from one of the least intellectually developed zones of Igboland Pius Anyim saw himself clad with the scary robes of political Ijele masquerade first as a Senator and then Secretary of Government of the Federation. Otherwise if his kind of person were to come from either Anambra or Imo State, including to some appreciable extent Abia State, he would have been in either Ochanja Main Market Onitsha, or Ariaria Main Market Aba selling one article or the other; or at best based at Abakiliki or Onitsha as “Charge-and-Bail” Lawyer.


Senator Anyim Pius Anyim’s opportunistic journey to political stardom only began with his oath of slavish allegiance to Sokoto Caliphate during his sojourn in Sokoto Caliphate for his National Youth Service Corps in 1987/88 Service Year. It was this oath of allegiance that eventually gave the job of Protection Officer with National Emergency Management Agency from where he widened his roles as one of the staunch members of Pro-Abacha Daniel Kanu’s Two Million-March for Abacha Presidency. Known for his habitual sleeping-on-public-occasion syndrome (SOPOS), as President of Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria Senator Anyim Pius Anyim could not point to one single achievement of collective Igbo interest. The only remarkable feat he still boasts of as a Senate President was his instigation of and presiding over the failed impeachment against President Olusegun Obasanjo.

It is not uncommon to hear many Igbos from SE say the above about Anioma people.
This is usually said out of annoyance about how ambivalent some Anioma people have become about their Igbo tag since 1970.

There is this feeling among Ndiigbo in SE that many Anioma persons only accept Igbo tag when there is something to gain from claiming such. And are quick to deny Igbo tag when there is nothing to gain.
Many SEners have had ugly experiences where they were publicly disgraced by Anioma persons who they tried to embrace as fellow Igbos in midst of other non Igbos , only for the Anioma person to deny being Igbo. Such Igbo persons usually live with hurt feelings and would usually go about denying any Anioma person who wants to claim Igbo the chance to do so in the future.
The Anioma person exposed to such Igbos, become bitter in their hearts too, and would thereafter go about denying any innocent SEners that try to profile him as an Igbo.

It's a positive feedback thing. Where both sides are pointing accusing fingers at each other.
The Anioma claims that SEners see them as fake Igbo and only call them Igbos when they need their political numbers. On the other hand, the SEners claim that Anioma people are opportunists who only accept Igbo tag when it is helpful.

Duru9:
Fools
Y'all trying to make the man an igbo to change the narrative about buhari nepotism

He's a delta man SS
Buhari should appoint SE person

No ethnic group is called Delta or SS.
Unless we are accepting that Nzeogwu was a Delta/SS man and nolonger Igbo.
Which means his so called Ibo coup would have to be reviewed.

SOUTHEAST IGBO 2023 PRESIDENTIAL MIRAGE AND ANYIM PIUS ANYIM’S DELUSION OF TRUE IGBO IDENTITY

Nwankwo Tony Nwaezeigwe, PhD, DD
Institute of African Studies/ Dept of History and International Studies
University of Nigeria, Nsukka
Odogwu of Ibusa Clan
nwaezeigwe.genocideafrica@gmail.com
******************************************************************************In 1982 while working as a Trainee-Assistant Superintendent of Civil Aviation Signals at Enugu Airport, Emene, the present writer had one funny, yet most instructive encounter of his life that summed up the characteristic debilitating mentality of self-destruct among the Igbo of Southeast.

He had two very close friends from Southeast then. One Sunday Ogbu from Ngwo in the present Enugu State, and Joseph Okonkwo from Mbaise in the present Imo State. Sunday Ogbu was his fellow Trainee-Assistant Superintendent while Joseph Okonkwo was a Cleaner. In spite of the professional disparity the three moved on as very close pals. However of three, Joseph Okonkwo was the most extravagant in life-style and so always had as his guest one professional local money-lender of Owerri origin.


One evening as the three men were cooling off at the Transmitter Station situated at the outskirts of the Airport very close to Chief Ene’s Destiny Hotel and Quarters, the Owerri money-leader quietly appeared from nowhere with his 504 Peugeot car apparently rolled down towards them noiseless with its engine switched off and parked about half a pole distance from where the three men were sitting. The three highly perplexed men quickly took a sorrowful glance at each other and watched with confounded attention as the man opened the door of his car to step out.

It was later revealed that Joseph Okonkwo had accumulated so much interest on the amount he borrowed from the man beyond what he could conveniently pay and so had artfully been evading the man. But that very evening luck ran out of his way, and it was like the heavens had fallen down on him. Both the present writer and his Ngwo friend Sunday Ogbu were very much aware of Joseph Okonkwo’s relationship with the man and so were palpitating with anxiety over what would befall their pal in a moment.
However, just as the man was stepping out of his car Joseph Okonkwo confidently and quietly got up from his seat and gently walked into the Transmitter Building like someone going to get something for the man, which was indeed what everyone else thought. As soon as Joseph Okonkwo entered the Transmitter Building the money-lender joined the present writer and his friend, and after formal exchange of pleasantries stood waiting for Joseph Okonkwo to come out of the building.

The Transmitter Building had only one exit door and only a tiny ventilation outlet quite impossible for a normal human head to pass through, which was meant to provide minimal ventilation during power outages, since the Transmitters work under strong air-conditioning cooling system. So the question of Joseph Okonkwo being in the building was out of place.

After standing for close to twenty minutes without Joseph Okonkwo coming out, the agitated guest requested the two men to go inside the building and call Joseph Okonkwo out. The two men who thought Joseph Okonkwo might to be sitting there refusing to come out since it would be impossible for the money-lender to take any rude action against him while there moved in to meet their friend, but on getting inside meet no body. Since the Transmitter Building was an open apartment housing transmitters without additional office rooms or partitions, there was no question of searching for Joseph Okonkwo. If he was not seen, it meant he was not there; and that was what was conveyed to the anxiously waiting money-lender.

Not satisfied with the message the Owerri money-lender decided to go inside the building to see by himself. On entering the building he was greeted with four standing Non-Directional Beacon (NDB) Aviation Transmitters in an open space with no reserved place for hiding. He stood motionless and speechless for a moment, and then turned towards the only opening in the building outside the main door—a tiny ventilation hole with metal protector and said “you mean that boy escaped through here or that he disappeared.” Moving outside charged up with fearsome rage, he turned to the present writer and his Ngwo friend and said, “My children listen, fear an Mbaise man! I say fear an Mbaise man! We all say we come from Owerri but when we get to Owerri, we say Mbaise one side, Owerri one side.” With these words of evergreen memory he jumped into his car and zoomed off.
The next day when confronted by the present writer and Sunday Ogbu on how he made possible his escape, Joseph Okonkwo simply laughed and casually told them that he just jumped up, squeezed his head through the hole and once his head was off, his body followed and the next moment he was on the ground. Falling off from the hole, he quietly trekked into the adjoining tall grasses and took a decoy to Destiny Quarters and off to his home.
ccept the fact that they are full-fledged Igbo but only in so far as it concerns the positive side of collective Igbo identity. Under this circumstance Senator Anyim Pius Anyim thus lacks every facet of human capacity—intellectually, politically, or culturally to define or redefine the identity of any Igbo sub-group. That job professionally resides with anthropologists and historians, of which Percy Amaury Talbot (1926), Daryl Forde and G. I. Jones (1950), Simon Ottenberg (1959), Adiele Afigbo (1986), and the present writer (2007) are prominent.

APPOINTMENT OF MAJOR GENERAL LUCKY ELUONYE ONYENUCHEA IRABOR AS THE NEW CHIEF OF DEFENCE STAFF!

The proud and good members of "PROUDLY ANIOMA, PROUDLY IGBO" Group, wish to use this opportunity to congratulate our brother, son, father, Major General Lucky Eluonye Onyenuchea Irabor on his new appointment as the chief of Defence staff of the three Armed Forces of Nigeria.

There is no doubt that it was a well-deserved appointment. You merited it above all odds. Major General Irabor attended Ika Grammar School, Agbor where he came out in flying colours. He was such a brilliant student, that according to his class mates, he had wanted to read medicine but ended up studying Engineering & destiny led him into the Army.

One of his role models, was Ika born and Aliokpu-Agbor son, late Brigadier Agholor (retired) of the Nigerian Army Pay & Roll department. The believe was that he must have had a significant influence in the choice of the young Irabor joining the army. Again, one of his science teachers, the late disciplinarian, Mr. Ukpere, regarded him as a disciplined, well focused, brilliant and an overly intelligent student. He always used Lucky Irabor as a model and a positive reference point for other insubordinate and recalcitrant students. Fortunately enough, the young Irabor was from same Ihu-Iyase kindred with the late Mr Ukpere even though the Ukperes are from Agbor-nta while the Irabors are from Aliokpu-Agbor.

With your appointment sir. We, in "The Proudly Anioma, Proudly Igbo" forum, will always continue to pray for you, that God will use you to restore peace and tranquility in Nigeria; that kidnapping and terrorist attacks would be reduced or completely eliminated from Nigeria; that Nigerians can sleep and wake up in peace; that indeed we, our parents especially our mothers, can go to their farms without fear of being killed, maimed, raped and stripped of their human dignity. We also pray that your tenure will restore the much needed elusive peace in the North East by defeating Boko Haram once and for all; that the criminal acts of banditry and cattle rustling going on in the North Central and North West would soon be a thing of the past.

We congratulate you for reaching the pinnacle of your chosen military career and pray that God will give you the much needed wisdom to navigate through the murky waters of Nigeria politics that is characterized by ethnic & religious bigotry and nepotism.

May God use these obstacles to catapult you to heights never achieved in Nigerian Military. May your excellent performances bring honour to humanity & glory to God. With Godwin Emefiele, as the governor of the Central Bank (from Ika) and another son, Kingsley Obiora (from Oshimili) and as one of Emefiele's Deputies and now, your appointment, we believed that God will use Igbo people of Anioma to cement the cracks in the walls of our much abused federalism & help to remove the ugly scare and trauma of the 1967 to 1970 civil war on us.

We are proud of you! Just as you made 9 straight A's in your WAEC in Ika grammar school, we expect nothing less than an "A" performance from you and your team. Please make sure you stay on top of the game. Do not allow any person from any region or tribe to bully you from performing and discharging your responsibility. Be rest assured that we are all behind you. Be proud and of good courage. Maintain your fearlessness! GOD BLESS and good luck! Members, should wish our son the best of luck!

Signed:
1. Osita Mordi ( Ika)

2. Comrade Ephraim Adinlofu (Oshimili)

3. Samuel Chukwuneku ( Ndokwa)

4. Amaka EJIOFO ( Aniocha)

5. Jossy C Obieze (South East)

6. Doris Chii Nwike (South East)

ChinenyeN:
Pazienza, you're so quick to respond that you end up accusing me of something I never said. Not once did I say that minorities were targeted. The targets of the sabo era were communities with known discontent that had clashes with the Biafran army and were likely to clash again. For instance, Ngwa and Ndoki villages experienced the same combing and clashes with Biafran army that minorities faced. So no, it is not that minorities were explicitly targeted (and that was never my statement).

What I said was that they were disproportionately affected. Please read for comprehension next time.

Sabo campaign is not an Ndoki, Ngwa, or minority thing.
It was a widespread thing.
It happened all over Igboland. No clan was excused.
Some people who had vendetta against each other even started abusing it to eliminate their enemies.
All they need do was accuse you of being Sabo and provide as much dodgy evident as possible. It was war time, emotions were high, people were hurting from relatives lost in the progrom and the war, so there were usually not enough investigation before the accused is killed and his family members targeted and their house burnt.
The above was more common in minority areas and they were usually led by minorities themselves who found themselves in the Biafra army and abused their powers against their own people back home.

It's an aspect of the war Ndiigbo don't talk about much, but that minorities had over time exploited and twisted to justify their own innate Igbophobia.

You should stop patronizing them.

HarryDuce

Lol you are castigating someone for being woke while your submission has little to do with reality.

All I submitted were are the reality.

That an Igbo man somewhere in the East was killed for being a "sabo" is not the business of the fisherman in the creeks whose major concern then was to get away from unruly Biafran soldiers causing mayhem in his community

This is not about what is the business of a fishermen and what isn't, no Igbo man gives a damn about your business.
The point of my post is to dispel the notion that whatever perceived sabo war that happened in Minority area was isolated case, when in truth this happened everywhere in Biafra, Igboland inclusive.
When we acknowledge the above fact, then we can all accept that the "they vs us" narrative the minorities created in their mind was only but an illusion born out of innate Igbophobia.

What your people think is immaterial, what matters is that we acknowledge that that sabo campaign cut across all ethnicities in Biafra and not targeted at minorities.

What were the Igbo towns that were relocated steadily? Riverine towns such as Bakana, we know of, what were the Igbo towns? And they didn't protest? How noble of them.

My people in Ogidi were asked to leave the village when it was obvious Onitsha was going to fall, Biafran soldiers laid many mines in the villages that we kept discovering after the war. Abagana people had to be relocated for the Biafran soldiers to set up their ambush.
This was the theme throughout the war. The idea was to protect the civilian population from casualties.

Most Biafran soldiers were Igbos. It made no difference to the Igbo majority, but it made a lot of difference to the minority tribes. Trying to downplay the atrocities of the Biafran (mostly Igbo soldiers) soldiers as a general problem every one faced, rather than see where others are coming from further reveals your blindness to the concerns of the minority tribes, and then an arrogance only the majority can afford to display.

Igbos constituted 2/3 of Eastern region population, and of course the Biafran army was always going to have majority Igbo soldiers. Its simple common sense. Biafran soldiers had minorities soldiers as well. Trying to pin any indiscipline of the Biafran soldiers on Ndiigbo alone is mischievous and would be resisted by any sensible Igbo.
We were all aware of how some of your minority brothers who were in Biafra army tried to use the Biafra army to fight their local enemies in your land, they were using it to abuse and kill each. I have once heard a sincere minority admit to the above point.
You cannot hide behind Biafra and pin your internal strife on Ndiigbo. It will not happen.It was that same internal strife within the minorities where you have sharp division between the pro Biafrans and pro Nigeria that resulted in Saro wiwa killing those Ogoni elders who were pro Biafra by inciting his own faction to murder them.

It's funny how you think the minorities are liars and playing victim, while you're also trying to play victim at the same time.

Of course, the minorities stock in trade has always been to lay false accusations against Ndiigbo.
Lying against Ndiigbo is your main thing, that was why Willink report was set up and all your lies against Ndiigbo then were all shown to all lack any iota of Truth. You didn't start today.

AsomughaChuks02:


With this type of comment, the people of Agbor and indeed Ika will hold tight to their distinct identity. If being Igbo is by name, then those nsukka people who bear Idoko are not Igbos too, right?

They are the ones who first started the madness by denying their Igbo identity.
You can't blame any Igbo man denying them now.
If Irabor and his Agbor people feel they are Igbos and are being denied their identity by this Igbo body, let them come out and challenge them by asserting Agbor and Ika Igbo identity and why Irabor is fit to represent Ndiigbo.

To me, this is a perfect opportunity for Ika and Agbor people to lay to rest the identity crisis they started in their land. They can do this with just a press release affirming Irabor Igbo identity. Onu Ika can undertake this task.
Chikina!

ChinenyeN:
Sinistami, yeah, the Sabo Era is almost never discussed. However, you may sometimes notice the fallout of it in the way Igbo people talk about the Southeast minorities. Phrases like “they sabotaged us” used to be heard a lot even up to 2008, but from what I can tell, most Igbo people aren’t aware of what the Biafran army was actually doing in that time. It may surprise you just how many Igbo people respond with disbelief or even denial. when I go into some of the details about the Sabo Era. Yet, they just repeat “sabotage” and “betrayal” like a mantra, without knowing that villages in Kalabari, Okrika, Ngwa, Ndoki, Ibibio, etc. were actually clashing with the army. For the most part, the Biafran administration (and people in general) just seemed to keep quite and not discuss the saga after it happened; much like how many of our elders have generally remained quiet about the Biafran war.

It’s no wonder we can’t reconcile these events and heal, because the ethnic tension has never really been openly and honestly discussed beyond the nonstop insults being thrown both ways. Everyone feels victimized and they want to stay victimized. It’s understandable, but very tiring to have to go through the victimized conversations over and over again. But I guess that is what happens when there’s no room given for open and honest conversation.

You are talking nonsense again to appear unbiased and woke!

Sabo war was not specifically targeted at minorities.
It was done all over Igbo land. Heck, Ifeajuna was killed for being a Sabo. Many people found harbouring or aiding Nigerian soldiers in Igbo land were also killed and in many cases their family houses bunt.
Ifeajuna family members became endangered species in Igboland, their family houses were burnt.
The Igbos simply don't cry about sabos killed in their hometowns and the Sabos themselves are so ashamed of themselves to speak up.

There was nothing that happened in minority areas that didn't happen in Igbo areas.
My mum told me of how some unruly Biafran soldiers invaded where they were staying as refugees in another town and forced the man hosting them to give up his goats, when the man refused, he was beaten to pulp and suffered injuries.

If this happened in minority area, it would be exaggerated as Igbos maltreating them and the man would poison the heart of his children against Igbos rather than see it as soldiers indiscipline.

Towns were relocated steadily in Biafra during combats with Nigerian army to reduce civilian casualties.
No Igbo town cried foul when they were asked to vacate town for Biafran soldiers to build ambush for FG forces.
But every case of such relocation in minorities areas, the parents went and told their children stories of how they were forced out of their homes at gun point by Igbo soldiers who wanted to repopulate their towns with Igbos after the war and rename the town.

Igbos like you who go about trying to sound unbiased by misrepresenting facts are dangerous, and are a problem and not a solution.

obailala:
I was irritated by your opening sentence where you claimed Nwodo was the only one who disregarded the Igbo origins of the new CDS; and to make matters worse, you went ahead to insult me for speaking otherwise? Seriously, what sort of broad daylight delusion makes a person churn out such nonsense even in this digital information age? I didn't bother reading beyond your opening sentences cos the rest of what you wrote was an irrelevant rant which had absolutely to connection with the point I made, nor my position. Next time learn to read and understand before you jump in to reply with insults.

Lol!
Typical.
Nnia Nwodo is on his own. And considering Ika fluidity when it comes to Igbo tag, one shouldn't fail to understand why some Igbos will say they are not being Igbos,even deep in our hearts we know we consider them Igbos. We are just bored of the identity crisis.

VirginFinder:


Because an Igbo was colonized by the British and not the Edos...

Ika was under Bini empire imperial control some while ago too.

obailala:
Huh? What sort of deluded nonsense are you saying? That No Igbo man denied Irabor directly or indirectly? Are you saying Nnia Nwodo is the only one who made those statements? Is that exactly what you're saying? Are you sure you're okay or are you blind? or you're just forcefully feigning ignorance just to pass a message across?

I'm sorry I don't subscribe to your brand of self deceit; stopping smoking that thing you're smoking. If you go online on this forum, on facebook, instagram etc., there are thousands of comments from both Igbos and even sympathetic non-Igbos, echoing the same sentiments as Nnia Nwodo. Those misguided statements is exactly what I was addressing in my last comment; if you choose to feign blindness and ignorance to what's very obvious, then that's your damn business. Don't quote me again to tell me I'm saying nonsense when your head is the one churning out deluded trash

Good to see that you have not denied or provided rebuttal to my historical narratives on Nzeogwu, Chinaka of the Buhari dog saga, and Dr Okonkwo who was appointed the military governor of Midwest region but was rejected by Edos who accused Ojukwu of Imposing Igbo hegemony on them.
These are real life issues.

Nnia Nwodo spoke in isolation and probably out of ignorance, what so you expect of an Ohanaeze past president, they are not usually the brightest bulb in the Christmas tree which is why those who put them there chose him, however Ohaneze as a body had released a new statement affirming Irabor as Igbo.

obailala:
Hmmm... Lucky Eluonye Onyenuchea Irabor, an Anioma man has just been appointed as a service chief but there're still cries in the open about PMB not appointing Igbos in the military?... Going by the current sentiments, a Delta Igbo man apparently isn't a 'proper' Igbo man...

When it's convenient, we claim all of Anioma land, Igbanke in Edo, some parts Benue and half of Rivers state as Igboland; but when it comes to politics, we thoughtlessly discriminate and ostracise these people even publicly all because they aren't from the south east zone... and we wonder why non-southeastern Igbos have sworn to never accept their Igboness?

Stop posting nonsense.
No Igbo man denied Irabor. Nnia Nwodo don't speak for Ndiigbo.

If anything it's Nigerians that play funny games with Igbos in Delta and Edo. They become Igbo when convenient for them and non Igbo when its not.
The man who named his dog after Buhari and was arrested was an Igbo man from Anioma, same Igbo town in Delta that some mischievous Yorubas claim is Yorubaland, but it was Ndiigbo that were bashed for the man's actions. No one from Niger delta, Delta state or Edo state came out to claim the man. All news agencies called him Igbo man and Ndiigbo bore the brunt of his actions.
https://www.nairaland.com/3293032/trader-arrested-naming-dog-buhari
Nzeogwu is from Anioma too. No Edo man will agree for Nzeogwu coup to be called Edo coup, no Niger Delta will agree for it to be called Niger Delta coup. They all agree that Nzeogwu and his Anioma people are Igbos just because his actions have negative connotations. Ndiigbo never denied Nzeogwu or his people for once.

When an Anioma person is in the news for good things, Nigerians(Edo, minorities in Delta) will jump out and tell Ndiigbo that Anioma is not Igbo.
If an Anioma person is in the news for bad things, these same lots will quickly label them Igbos and bash Ndiigbo.

When Ojukwu appointed Dr Okonkwo as the Governor of Benin Republic, the Minorities there especially the Edos opposed it strongly and accused Ojukwu of trying to enthrone Igbo hegemony on them.
But Dr Okonkwo was from Anioma, the same people Edo people tell us are Edo descendants when it's convenient for them to do so.
Who is deceiving who?

Ekealterego:
Anioma is not homogeneous... It's just an umbrella group for "Delta Igbos". Just Igbos and Igboids group West of the Naija. There are different distinct groups with different identity. Places like Asaba, Oshimili, Ibuzo, etc are pure 100% Igbo and their dialect is as easy to understand by any other Igbo group, and this group identifies as Igbo 100%.

Then, there is the Ukwuani group, who claim a different identity.... Their language is just a dialect of Igbo, albeit, harder to understand but still very mutually intelligible. Denial can be 50-50.

Then, there is the most distant of the whole, IKA (Integrated Kingdom of Agbor)... This is not a homogeneous group itself, that is why it is difficult. Some villages you can tell, are clearly Edoid-Igbo mixed, while some are more Igbo, but trust me, they are the most confused and I think that their dialect is mostly mixed. Go to their Facebook groups, because they come from different origins. Their dialect is not also homogeneous by a long shot. It is just a political identity.

What most are looking for is a minority status, they think it gives them an advantage. Also, it's politics. They are forging for their own state, the Anioma state, so, all the clamour for "Subnation-hood", they believe will drive their quest for a separate state.

However, trust me, if they step into Benin, what they call them is Igbo as the people they claim can clearly see that their language, culture and dressing is Igbo.

There are people in Edo who bear Yoruba names, yet they are not Yoruba. My friend from Usen in Edo goes by the name Olarenwaju. A typical Yoruba name. Dele giwa was an Edo man with Yoruba name as well.
Can we now say that Edo and Bini are mixed people? The whole idea that Ika and Anioma can not be Igbo because they have people of non Igbo descent in their midst is a fallacy and flawed, because the same can be said of Bini who have people of Igbo(Anioma), Yoruba, Ijaw, Igala in their midst. So what then, there shouldn't be a Bini ethnicity because they have people of diverse origin in their midst?

See, Agbor and Ika people married a lot of Bini women in the past as they are neighbors and these women naturally gave their children Edo names which in few generations become surnames.
Additionally, Ika and environment were under Bini empire influence and in the past, Obis from these part usually go to Oba Bini palace for confirmation and on their return they take on a Bini name, just like Christians end up with foreign European or biblical names after baptism.
Over time, these Bini acquired names survive as surnames for their descendants. Just as many Christians don't know the meaning of foreign European names they bear, so do Ika people who bear these Bini names as surnames don't know their meaning. They are simply vestiges of Bini colonialism on the region and nothing more.

Furthermore, few Bini refugees wandered into Ika land and were summarily Igbonized by the aboriginal Igboid Ika people they met on ground.

post=98470321:

We will not take because of few bad eggs and throw others out learn that bro, you have no power deny them who they are, Agbor is typical Igbo enclave, Joseph Ezeoba former Chief of defence was a proud Igbo man

That page was edited on 26/12/2020 to show that your picture by an Igbo by name "Ekene Ejiofo" or something. Certainly not an Agbor man.
And it has been re-edited just few minutes ago by an anonymous source to read just Ika.

You lots should leave all these people alone. They are not worth the struggle. The what's the point of claiming relationship with someone who wouldn't reciprocate it?

No body is denying anyone anything. Agbor people on majority don't like the Igbo tag. Heck! Many of them are even against the Ika tag preferring just Agbor.