₦airaland Forum

I am a Khana. The Khana along with their cousins, the Gokana, Tai and Eleme have, since 1947, been grouped as Ogonis, in the Ogoni Division. Today, the Khana and Gokana are in the Bori Local Government Area, the Tai and Eleme are part of something called Otelga, a hybrid Local Government consisting of the Okrika Ijaws, the Ndoki Igbos and the Tai and Eleme. We belong to Rivers State.

The Ogoni number about 500,000, which makes me an extreme minority in a Nigeria of one hundred million people. The first secondary school in Ogoni country was established one hundred years after the first secondary school in Yorubaland, the CMS Grammar School in Lagos (1858). These two facts alone, in the first instance, establish my pitiable plight.

I am unfortunate to be a Nigerian. I would rather not be, but I am doing my level best to be one, and a good one at that. Being a Nigerian means that my brother Nigerian of the Bura ethnic group in Borno State has been told that I am a "Southerner," equal to the Yoruba or Igbos who are numerous, well-educated and are after the jobs which the "northerner<.q> ought to have. I wander, therefore, through the Federal Civil Service and am lost in the competition between "northern" and "Southern" Nigerians, between the Igbo and the Yoruba, between the various clans and religions of the various peoples of Nigeria, between personal ambition and greed. I am lost. I cannot truly answer the name Nigerian. [...] "

I was a graduate student when the cataclysmic events of 1966 happened. Apart from my revulsion at the needless murders of the innocent, nothing upset me more than Ojukwu's dishonest formulations and his attempt to kidnap the Ogoni, among others, into his Igbo empire called "biafra." I knew that he pinned his hopes of the economic viability of "biafra" on the oil of the Ogoni and the Ijaw. I rebelled. I became Secretary of a small committee which met nights in Port Harcourt and issued a communique calling on Gowon to create a Rivers State by decree.

When, by sheer quirk of fortune, this happened in 1967, I abandoned family and caution, crossed the fighting lines and found myself in Lagos. There I became a member of something called the Interim Advisory Council of Rivers State and, subsequently, Administrator for Bonny. I returned to the war front and struck up friendships with gentlemen like Sani Bello who comes from Kontagora, Akinrinade from Ife, Obasanjo from Abeokuta, Yakumu Danjuma from Takum, Dan Ato, now deceased, from Bida. I had reason to hope that my nightmare as an Ogoni in Nigeria was about to end.

With the war ended, and as a Commissioner in Rivers State, I soon found that the Rivers State for which I had fought did not end my nightmare. In the first place, oil money from Ogoni country (as well as Ijaw country) was being carted away to Lagos, leaving the Ogoni illiterate and backward. This is anti-federalism. Worse still, the Ijaws were taking their frustrations out on the non-Ijaws of the State. For the Ijaws along number more than the eight other ethnic groups in Rivers State put together. Though historically disunited, the Ijaws find unity when it comes to lording if over the non-Ijaws. The Ijaws will want to perpetuate this. Today, there is not even a Commission from my Local Government Area in the Rivers State Cabinet such as it is. My dilemma as an Ogoni is not about to end.

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/34a/049.html

It's obvious ijaws are land grabbers and dont mean well for fellow ethnic minorities. TonyeBarcanista how come every article about Ndoki's on the internet calls them Ndoki igbo? I am posting authoritative articles and not some hearsays from blogs.

Actually.. . The ijaws are the minority in rivers State.. ...

mrvitalis:
Actually.. . The ijaws are the minority in rivers State.. ...

Before nko?

mrvitalis:
Actually.. . The ijaws are the minority in rivers State.. ...

That was after the creation of Bayelsa state.

[b] The circumstances behind my joining a delegation for the burial of His Royal Majesty, Sunday Nnanta Woluchem, the Epara Rebisi XI of Port Harcourt on Saturday, April 21, 2012 is encapsulated in the above quote taken from his burial programme.
As the author of his yet to be published biography, former Chief of General Staff, retired Commodore Okoh Ebitu Ukiwe, asked me to join his delegation to bury a royal father who, along with Ukiwe and others, played leading roles in the creation of today’s Rivers and Bayelsa states between 1993 and 1996.
When the civil war started in 1967 and Biafra lost control of Port Harcourt to the Federal forces, the newly created Rivers State was handed over to the Ijaw. Ijaw leaders continued to maintain that Rivers State, with Port Harcourt as its capital, was created for them as reward for ceding their coastal terrain to the Federal side, thus making the sea blockade of Biafra possible. The Ijaw groups claimed to constitute the majority and continued to dominate the state both during military and civilian dispensations. With time, however, the Igbo speaking people of the state, particularly the Ikwerre nationality, decided they wanted a state of their own where they would be able to assert their own political and economic interests.
This was what led to the quest for the creation of Port Harcourt State. However, the Ijaws felt if such a state was created they would become estranged in a city they have been part and parcel of since it was founded by the colonialists. In fact, they had even started portraying Port Harcourt as the capital of a future Ijaw state. Thus was born a great rivalry between the Ijaw-speaking and Igbo-speaking groups for the control of Rivers and between what was termed the “Okrika-Ijaw” and “Ikwerre-Igbo” over the “ownership” of Port Harcourt. The gruesome murder of Dr Obi Wali, the leader of the Ikwerre political front by yet-to-be ascertained assassins in 1992, owed to this tussle, which often led to street battles between Okrikans and Ikwerres. [/b]

TonyeBarcanista will avoid this thread and keep posting thrash articles from an unreliable source. Using it to deceive his yoruba supporters as the opinion on ndoki igbos.. lol

[b] Meanwhile, the late father of Nigeria’s nationalism, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, had discussed the best strategies for reducing the animosity between the Igbos and their Minority neighbours as well as dousing the ethnic tension between Ikwerres and their riverine co-indigenes of Rivers State. It was agreed that as the touted largest Minority group, the Ijaw needed a state of their own. But with their emotional attachment to Port Harcourt, how would Rivers State be split without creating a permanent ethnic war front in Nigeria’s premier oil city?
With the Ijaw groups obviously being favoured by the Northern-led Federal Government, Eze Woluchem, a lawyer who was installed paramount ruler of Port Harcourt in 1977 turned to Dr Azikiwe, appealing for him to support the aspirations of his Igbo kinsmen in the struggle. An ageing “Zik” referred the Eze’s delegation to Commodore Ukiwe, who had become Zik’s close political confidant. The Eze’s delegation of four, which included the late Chief Okogbule Wonodi and Chief Andrew Uchendu, met with Ukiwe in his office in Victoria Island.
Their proposal was that Port Harcourt State should only be for Igbo-speaking Rivers people, while the Ijaw-speaking part would be named New Rivers State. On the other hand, the Kalabaris did not want to be parted with Rivers State, neither did the Okrikas, and Ukiwe advised that it would be “unstrategic” to cut out Bonny, Opobo, Kalabari and Okrika, apart from the fact that the Head of State, General Abacha, who was pro-Ijaw, might be pushed not to create any new state at all.
Between Ukiwe and the Ikwerre delegation, and taking into account the expressed needs of others, the maps of the present Rivers State and Bayelsa State were drawn and presented to Abacha, who found it acceptable. [/b]

[b] On October 1, 1996, General Abacha included Bayelsa as one of the six new states approved by the Provisional Ruling Council, PRC. The postulations put together by Ukiwe and the Rebisi’s delegates worked like magic. Today the Ijaws have a state of their own with a capital (Yenagoa) which is being styled the “Jerusalem of the Ijaw Nation”. The Igbo-speaking groups in Rivers State also have a state in which they constitute a comfortable majority and have led since 1999. The issue of “ownership” of Port Harcourt has also been (partially) resolved, as Governor Chibuike Amaechi has retrieved the Crown Lands being claimed by the Ikwerres and Okrikans into government custody.
In fact, he has pressed on with the establishment of New Port Harcourt in virgin land within Ikwerre heartland. The ethnic tension is still there somewhat, but it is no longer at the level of street battles and assassinations.
Indeed, there were “varied positions on the matter”, but all is well that ends well. Rebisi Woluchem has returned to his Creator satisfied that he played a central role in giving his people the ground on which to stand and, along with other stakeholders within the Rivers state, chart a future devoid of rancour but full of promise for fast-tracked development for its many dwellers, both indigenes and non-indigenes.
Let me note a sour irony of it all. A supposed beneficiary of Eze Woluchem’s struggles, Governor Chibuike Amaechi, was nowhere to be found during the funeral! He was reported to have travelled to the US during the burial. Funny, the Governor was also absent when the king’s wife died a few months before he followed her.
I gathered that the Governor and the king had not managed to patch up their differences, as Eze Woluchem was solidly behind former Governor Peter Odili when he and Amaechi fought. As soon as he secured his second term of office, Amaechi voluntarily made up with his estranged godfather, Odili.
Useful lesson: Be careful how you follow a politician into an enmity. You won’t know when they will make up and leave you in the lurch. [/b]

FreeGlobe:
That was after the creation of Bayelsa state.

Indeed.

FreeGlobe:
It's obvious ijaws are land grabbers and dont mean well for fellow ethnic minorities. TonyeBarcanista how come every article about Ndoki's on the internet calls them Ndoki igbo? I am posting authoritative articles and not some hearsays from blogs.

so, it is the ijaws that are now land grabbers on their own soil

this is not good at all. these igbo's are annoying in a first class capacity.

always wanting to lord over another man's territory.

well, I guess that accommodating these primitive beings for too long was a mistake.

they still think we're in the 1600s where u fight over an empire...lol

More facts for the rablerouser called TonyeBarcanista

https://books.google.com.ng/books?id=9c_HAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA71&lpg=PA71&dq=ndoki+igbos&source=bl&ots=QWjWOfVeQ4&sig=QZ3F-29qbFSdWXgRwr8ypFHryHc&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=ndoki%20igbos&f=false

In PH now, u barely notice u have Ijaw tribe as part of the cityz's make up. Major tribe there is Ikwere.


Ndoki is never Ijaw. No similarity between the two. Yes, one can barely understand their dialect, but relaxand let an Ndoki man say the words little by little, u will then see thatthey speak Igbo truely.