OF IGBOS IN BENUEculled from the Nigerian Sun newspapers of April 12, 2014By Chris Oji.They are torn between two worlds. Being of the Igbostock, their soul is in the Southeast, but their bodies and homes are in Benue State, in the Northcentral. That is not all. In Benue, where they are quartered, more for political considerations than for cultural reaons, they lament their lack: no roads, no water, hardly any sign of modern life.They are Igbos of the Ezza, Izzi and Effium stock. Their kith and kin are in other parts of the Southeast, particularly Ebonyi State. They claim they are not fewer than one million scattered in four local governments of Benue State. And for close to 50 years since they were excised from their kinsmen, they have been living primitive lives.Their pathetic plight is that the authorities in Benue, from the state to the local governments, have not seen them as part of the state ostensibly because they speak Igbo. On the other hand, the Ebonyi Stategovernment where they should have rightly belonged is helpless as they are not under its area of administration and authority.The people allege that since their inclusion into Benue State they have not felt any government presence. None of their people were considered for employment in any of the two tiers of government. Indeed, in their lamentation, they are not in the scheme of things as far as government business is concerned in Benue.“We have been on our own. No roads, no water, no electricity, no employment. We just wander about to help ourselves in our own way,” an octogenarian, Pa Nwankwo Aloh said, clutching a bucket in search of water.Benue State Governor Gabriel Suswam is said to have acknowledged their existence and concerns, even promising to address them, but that was during his first term in office.Also, Mr Ogbu Igelega, spokesman of Ado Local Government Area, one of the councils where the Igbos are found in Benue, told our reporter on the telephone that one of the obstacles to the development of the Igbo-speaking areas of the stateis their difficult terrain. Igelega said this makes access difficult, adding that the few places which donot present such challenges get government attention.The spokesman cited the example of Etenyi which has 90 per cent Igbo population, saying the community “is being electrified at the cost of N17m”. He also said the Igbos occupy “important offices” in the council, adding that the assistant head of Revenue Development is Igbo, while the Senior Special Assistant on Inter-ethnic Relations isalso Igbo.The reporter met with the president, Benue Igbo Development Union, Nweke Cedrick Ifeanyi who narrated their ordeal. He said all they want is for theBenue State government to accept them since fate has lumped them together. He is of the view that if they can be given a sense of belonging, they would all wholeheartedly join in the effort to develop the state.Ifeanyi does not expressly condemn their inclusion in Benue State, be he said if the other ethnic groups do not want them in Benue, the Federal Governmentshould set up a machinery immediately to return them to their kith and kin in the Southeast, particularly Ebonyi State.He sent a save-or-soul message to the Senate president, David Mark and Governor Suswam to come and save them from “this ignoble plight”, adding: “We are neither here nor there.”In Nweke’s words: “The Igbos in Benue State particularly those in Ado, Oju, Obi and Okpoku LGAsof the state were in existence before the advent of Christian religion in Nigeria.The Igbo found in Benue are: Umuezeokoha, Umuezeoka, Oriuzor, Umuoghara, Amaekka and Amaezekwe all in Ezza communities, Izzi, Ezzamgbo and Effium, these are the people who would have been in present-day Ebonyi State but due for the fact that the Nigerian government then carved us into Benue in order to use our population to suppress our Eastern population. Apart from the Ezza-speaking clan, particularly the people of Umuezeokoha that has over 300 villages, if you are to calculate the number of Igbo-speaking villages, you find out that we are more than 600 villages because three of the biggest markets in our area areall in the Igbo-speaking part.The markets are as follows: Inikiri Ichari, Iddah, Iduokpe.”But in all these places, we have been facing a lot ofdeprivation of our fundamental human rights to the extent that we do not have any project attracted by the government, be it local, state or federal. In fact we have become the rejected part of the country because local government identification letters are not given to us any longer.“Before now we used to witness governmental attention in everything during and after colonial administration but since after the civil war we were dumped by the successive governments just because of our language difference.“We do not have any drinking water, our source of water here is a dam which Fulani herdsmen do carry their cow to drink at the same place with us because the water is not covered.“In the process of stopping them from coming to thewater with their cow, it later resulted in the loss of five lives.“We have no representative in local, state and federal levels. Mosquito nets that were given free of charge to roll back malaria have been sold to our people at the sum of N6,000 each. We have become slaves to our brothers because of language difference. No hospital, let alone health centre, we are seeing hell here in Benue State because of our language. I do not know whether it is a curse for someone to have fallen under a particular tribe like Ezza, Izzi, Ezzamgbo and Effium.“Our women are dying every day during labour. Alsoour children are dying for lack of polio immunisationprogramme and other medical treatment needed to be given to a child at a tender age.“Our roads are not passable. We have contributed so much not only to the development of Benue Statebut Nigeria at large. At least a place with over one million people in population has no primary school. We are therefore as a matter of urgency calling on federal government, our Southeastern brothers and any other corporate bodies to rush to our aid before water will come to our neck.It is obvious that if we are speaking the same language with them we wouldn’t have found ourselves in this forbidden and undeserved situationlike this one we are now.An area with over 50 polling units, but we are benefiting nothing even on every of our market daysthey do come and sell their ticket (tax). We have been regarded as slaves in the country of our birth and our fore-fathers, we are also calling on our ablepresident of the senate David mark to come to our help because after God we also contributed in making him what he is today and even Gabriel Suswan.We can never regret why we are Igbos or deny beingIgbo people before we are recognized in the country of our fore-fath

Eyaa sorry!! You guys have no choice than to pray for divine interference, for the next governor to save your plight.

mod, fp please so that thier plight can be heard and adressed

adebisiema:
Eyaa sorry!! You guys have no choice than to pray for divine interference, for the next governor to save your plight.

yes, they should pray and also work towards it for it to be effective

Just like the Igbos in Anambra are "oppressing" the Igala/kogi part in the state, so these ones are also taking it out on the Igbo minority in the state.
This life sha.

It's a pathetic one.

That's the extent to which the fragmentation of the erstwhile regions into states has done.

And why is this not yet on front page?

Gboliwe:
Just like the Igbos in Anambra are "oppressing" the Igala/kogi part in the state, so these ones are also taking it out on the Igbo minority in the state.
This life sha.

are you sûre of what you are saying....? i mean any evidence to back up your claim hope you are talking about Nzam

xrisdon:

are you sûre of what you are saying....? i mean any evidence to back up your claim hope you are talking about Nzam

Are you new on nairaland? The thread was trending some months back. I'll find it when I am not too lazy that's if you can't search it out yourself.

Here in Benue where d Tivs have captured everything. Even Governorship Idoma's and Igede no fit smell am. If not for David Mark helping d idomas with federal Govt jobs.

Tribalism,ethnicity is everywhere in Naija my broda. One day we would surely overcome.

Tho I'm ibo and grew up in Makurdi

Gboliwe:


Are you new on nairaland? The thread was trending some months back. I'll find it when I am not too lazy that's if you can't search it out yourself.

ok

Mods FP plss so the Govt can hear their plights and do the needful

xrisdon:


ok

Here you go buddy: www.nairaland.com/1934931/igala-language-anambra-state

u hav 1milion igbo in benue.laffin out loud in tiv

One of the greatest disservice the military did to Nigeria was drawing random lines on our map to demarcate states without proper planning. A lot of people in this country are suffering today because of this

walemoney007:
u hav 1milion igbo in benue.laffin out loud in tiv

Do you understand English out all?

LordMecuzy:
Here in Benue where d Tivs have captured everything. Even Governorship Idoma's and Igede no fit smell am. If not for David Mark helping d idomas with federal Govt jobs.

Tribalism,ethnicity is everywhere in Naija my broda. One day we would surely overcome.

Tho I'm ibo and grew up in Makurdi

You are an Igbo man not Ibo.
Chaiiii!!! I weep!!

Gboliwe:


Here you go buddy: www.nairaland.com/1934931/igala-language-anambra-state

thanks for that

Gboliwe:


Here you go buddy: www.nairaland.com/1934931/igala-language-anambra-state

Stop talking trash. There is no where in that thread where the Igalas were complaining of being marginalized via distrubution of infrastructures and development.

They only complained of the lack of promotion of the Igala language,which many Igbo posters there pointed out was because of the bi ethnic and bilingual nature of the towns,Igallas are found in,in Anambra state.

You would do well to stop misleading people.

holycup:
Mods FP plss so the Govt can hear their plights and do the needful

am doing the needful by quoting u, so that the mods can do the needful by moving it to the FP, and the goverment do the needful by dressing the problem

Gboliwe:
Just like the Igbos in Anambra are "oppressing" the Igala/kogi part in the state, so these ones are also taking it out on the Igbo minority in the state.
This life sha.

Igbos iN Anambra do not oppress Igala people and there is no Kogi part of anambra state.

Largas:

You are an Igbo man not Ibo.
Chaiiii!!! I weep!!

Weep for yourself Bro.

On the case of the Igbo communities in Benue. Like some one once pointed out the first time this article hit NL front page, i am sure that if those communities were in Rivers state,and were oil rich, they wouldn't be fighting hard to reconnect to the rest of the Igbo nation in the SE,they would have formed a new ethnic group by now,and Bini migration histories would be made up to support it, while they label the rest of us in SE as land grabbers and parasites,should we dare to try to reconnect to them.

But now, they have nothing,and so,are not blinded by greed, they can clearly see how good and pleasant it would be, for Brothers( Ndiigbo) to dwell together( in the same region) in unity.


Even if Ebonyi is not oil rich,and wont have much to offer them,but being a part of Ebonyi,would give them a sense of belonging. Ohaneze and other Igbo pressure groups should look into their plight, in the spirit of " Onye aghana nwanne ya".

LordMecuzy:


Weep for yourself Bro.

You are not ashamed to identify where you're from. No well-bred Igbo man spells it Ibo. Iti. Go and learn your culture.

Zonacom:
One of the greatest disservice the military did to Nigeria was drawing random lines on our map to demarcate states without proper planning. A lot of people in this country are suffering today because of this

^^^Bros, you're talking as if you don't know why they did it!

@Post: If they didn't make any representations at the just concluded farce of a national conference to at least let everyone know their feelings on the matter; and if they're still maintaining that they'd rather stay in Benue instead of agitating to join their kinsfolk in Ebonyi....if all this is the case, then they should just shut the fuc/k up and quit whinging!

I have absolutely zero tolerance for cry babies that can't get off their backsides and do something to change the course of their destiny!

pazienza:
On the case of the Igbo communities in Benue. Like some one once pointed out the first time this article hit NL front page, i am sure that if those communities were in Rivers state,and were oil rich, they wouldn't be fighting hard to reconnect to the rest of the Igbo nation in the SE,they would have formed a new ethnic group by now,and Bini migration histories would be made up to support it, while they label the rest of us in SE as land grabbers and parasites,should we dare to try to reconnect to them.

But now, they have nothing,and so,are not blinded by greed, they can clearly see how good and pleasant it would be, for Brothers( Ndiigbo) to dwell together( in the same region) in unity.


Even if Ebonyi is not oil rich,and wont have much to offer them,but being a part of Ebonyi,would give them a sense of belonging. Ohaneze and other Igbo pressure groups should look into their plight, in the spirit of " Onye aghana nwanne ya".

Nwanne you hit the nail on the head. Even non-Igbos would have helped point out the differences. What if this was Ikwerre and Etche saying they want to reunite with their kins of Ohaji, Ngor and Owerri? It would have gotten to 100 pages of different definitions of language and ethnicity.

How can there be over one million Igbos in Benue state when the state population is slightly above 3 million?

Largas:

You are not ashamed to identify where you're from. No well-bred Igbo man spells it Ibo. Iti. Go and learn your culture.

Lol

xrisdon:
OF IGBOS IN BENUEculled from the Nigerian Sun newspapers of April 12, 2014By Chris Oji.


The Igbo found in Benue are: Umuezeokoha, Umuezeoka, Oriuzor, Umuoghara, Amaekka and Amaezekwe all in Ezza communities, Izzi, Ezzamgbo and Effium, these are the people who would have been in present-day Ebonyi State but due for the fact that the Nigerian government then carved us into Benue in order to use our population to suppress our Eastern population.

These may be good Igbos afterall to have allowed their names to stay as it were.Maybe that is why they are being punished. They refused to blend their town name by adding R.
Some would have added the famous "R" to their town names to disguise the Igbo names into sounding strange.

Like RUmuezeokoha, RUmuezeoka, ROriuzor, RUmuoghara, RAmaekka and RAmaezekwe

OreMI22:


These may be good Igbos afterall to have allowed their names to stay as it were.Maybe that is why they are being punished. They refused to blend their town name by adding R.
Some would have added the famous "R" to their town names to disguise the Igbo names into sounding strange.

Like RUmuezeokoha, RUmuezeoka, ROriuzor, RUmuoghara, RAmaekka and RAmaezekwe

^^^Not so fast bros!.....Just throw a couple of oyel wells into the mix and see how fast the narrative changes!

Gboliwe:
Just like the Igbos in Anambra are "oppressing" the Igala/kogi part in the state, so these ones are also taking it out on the Igbo minority in the state.
This life sha.

mumu,which oppression are you talking about, I knew u want to derail did thread. sry ur plan cannot work.