₦airaland Forum

Igbo discrimination against Igbo will kill Biafra.

The pro-Biafran argument is partly based on the argument that Igbos are being “marginalised” in Nigeria. But that argument has never bothered to consider Igbo marginalisation against fellow Igbos.

More:
http://www.naijiant.com/sports/state-of-origi-failed-states/

OP, wake me when you post all news here or gerrarahere mehn!

Not that long ago, Theodore Orji, then governor of Abia State fired all the “non-indigenes” on his state’s payroll. These were predominantly fellow Igbos from neighbouring states. When Anambra and Imo State were created out of the old East Central State, civil servants in the state capital Enugu who had their origins in Imo were told to leave. These purges were repeated when newer states were created out of Anambra and Imo.

They're using Theodore orji, person wey wreck Abia State to fuel their argument of Igbo disunity even though, the lengths these people would go to.

Nigeria has been 100 years of failure, the Igbo people have been together for over 5000 years, what is wrong with you people?

ezeagu:
They're using Theodore orji, person wey wreck Abia State to fuel their argument of Igbo disunity even though, the lengths these people would go to.

Nigeria has been 100 years of failure, the Igbo people have been together for over 5000 years, what is wrong with you people?

Go and learn your history. Igbo people were not together before Nigeria was created.

Those in favour of Biafra usually argue that Nigeria, in the words of Obafemi Awolowo, is “a mere geographical expression”. British colonialists, the argument goes, brought together separate nations with nothing in common into this “geographical expression”.

This argument suggests that the Igbos were a nation before colonial rule, and it is ignorant of Igbo history. Nigeria may well be a “mere geographical expression”, but so is the US – a colonial contraption that was acquired through genocide against Native Americans, conquest and theft of land from Mexico. Italy is also a “geographical expression” of city-states sacrificing their sovereignty to become part of a bigger entity. So is Spain with Basques, Castilians and Catalans. As is the UK, whose constituent countries were conquered by the English. There are separatist movements in Spain and the UK. Democratic principles dictate that such movements should not be suppressed. Instead, a coherent discussion should be encouraged to inform everyone, on whatever side of the debate, about all the issues that come with unity or separation.

The Igbo nationality of today is a product of historical processes that coincided with the advent of colonial rule. Before then, very few among those we now call Igbo people identified themselves as such.

Kenneth Dike and Felicia Ekejiuba wrote in The Aro of South-eastern Nigeria, 1650-1980: A Study of Socio-Economic Formation and Transformation in Nigeria”: “It is often forgotten, or merely mentioned in the footnote, that Igbo is a modern ethnic category which many of the constituent groups have only recently and often reluctantly accepted as their ethnic identity, often on political and administrative grounds. During the period covered by our study, the now twelve million or more ‘Igbo’ distributed over 30,000 square miles of territory east and west of the Niger were variously referred to either as cultural groups (e.g. the Nri, Isuama, Ezza, or Otanzu), or by the ecological zones in which they are found (e.g. Olu or Oru i.e. the riverine people or Adagbe, people of the floodplain); Enugu, people who live on the hills, Aniocha, people who live on heavily leached and eroded solids; Ohozara, people of the savannah; or as occupational groups such as Opi egbe (people who fashion guns, Ndinzu or Umudioka (blacksmiths, artists. and carvers). Since Igbo was used at this time pejoratively to refer to the densely populated uplands, the major sources of slaves, and by extension to slaves, it is not surprisingly that many of these groups have been reluctant to accept the ‘Igbo’ identity.”

Present-day Igboland was then a collection of fiercely independent city-states, village and clan federations.

More:
http://www.naijiant.com/articles/the-biafran-question/

Igbo people have a traceable history to 2000 years and back. Political separation does not mean the Igbo people did not recognise their kinship.

ezeagu:
Igbo people have a traceable history to 2000 years and back. Political separation does not mean the Igbo people did not recognise their kinship.

The majority did not! Learn your history. You call yourself "Ezeagu". If you are from Ezeagu LGA in Enugu State, your people in colonial times would have seen themselves as Agbaja people and felt no sense of kinship with an Aro, Ezza, Ngwa person.

This is from one of the most respected Igbo historians, the late Prof Adiele Afigbo:

Such cleavages or dichotomies as Igbo/Ibibio, Ijọ /Ibibio, Ibibio/Ogoja, Igbo/Igala or Igbo/Edo which mean so much to certain persons today would have meant nothing to the peoples of south-eastern Nigeria in the period before 1900. It was local rather than global issues that conditioned peoples perception of the world and their reactions to those they met either in the farm-lands or in the markets or along the trade routes. The dominant mood was one of robust parochialism which most times made states-men and leaders criminally blind to the implications of new and wider developments. Thus long after the British had smashed all resistances to their advance between the coast and Abakaliki, the Ezza remained unaware of the gravity of the danger that contact with the colonial administration posed to any south-eastern Nigerian group. As late as 1905 they felt able to tell an emissary of the colonial government that the Ezza recognized no superior authority except the Heavens above and the Earth beneath. Between these two awe-inspiring super human potentates the Ezza said they alone existed as a third force. In. the same manner and in a similar circumstance my people of Ihube, continued to boast, rather anachronistically, that they are Ihuwe hukidere mba that is Ihuwe the unrestrained tyrant and bully of all village-groups. These two boasts, and many others like them, knew no distinction between Igbo and non-Igbo States.

If divisions and confrontations in south-eastern Nigeria during this period did not run along ethnic lines necessarily or inevitably, it must not be assumed, therefore that the region was more united ideologically than it has been in recent times. Such conglomerate awareness was simply beyond the ken of the people and their leaders.

http://ahiajoku.igbonet.com/1981/

Find out what 'ideological' unity means first and how that differs from kinship identity, then find out where Aro, Ezza, and Ngwa migrated from before proceeding to another reply.

ezeagu:
Find out what 'ideological' unity means first and how that differs from kinship identity, then find out where Aro, Ezza, and Ngwa migrated from before proceeding to another reply.

Find out what "conglomerate awareness" means b/4 you start talking about "kinship identity". The idea that Igbos had a pan-Igbo awareness in pre-colonial times is just historically illiterate.

But propagating the idea of British Shitgeria which was forced on everyone is somehow the height of "literacy" right? I can point to very general things that makes Igbo people Igbo, their market weeks, the earth deity, the idea of Chi, the basic customary laws, etc, etc. When Arochukwu looked for allies they went into Igboland and they invaded outwards. When the Igbo were kicked out of Benin or attacked in the 1500s they came back to and were welcomed by Igbo communities they had no relation to previously. I can't say anything that makes Nigeria a nation, that's the difference between kinship and (forced) political unity.

ezeagu:
But propagating the idea of British Shitgeria which was forced on everyone is somehow the height of "literacy" right? I can point to very general things that makes Igbo people Igbo, their market weeks, the earth deity, the idea of Chi, the basic customary laws, etc, etc. When Arochukwu looked for allies they went into Igboland and they invaded outwards. When the Igbo were kicked out of Benin or attacked in the 1500s they came back to and were welcomed by Igbo communities they had no relation to previously. I can't say anything that makes Nigeria a nation, that's the difference between kinship and (forced) political unity.

My guy, go and read your history. Fellow Igbos took part in the British expedition of 1901 that conquered the Aro and destroyed their Ibini Ukpabi shrine. Many Aro communities across Igbo land were slave traders who lived on the outskirts of towns and not allowed into their host communities. For many, it was an abomination to marry an Aro.

Lol, Biafra a workchagokwa a worku... If you feel like pitying Biafrans then commit......¥%*#§

And so what? Is that the worse thing you could find? Is there a successful country that has not had a civil war? Can anyone name any of the trillion dollar economies that have not had a civil war or internal conflict especially before 1900s?

Again, I can't name anything that makes Niggeria a nation.

By the way, Ibini Ukpabi shrine is not destroyed and the is a lie that the British soldiers were Igbo, they were Hausa as they have always been in the conquering of Nigeria.

Naijiant:
My guy, go and read your history. Fellow Igbos took part in the British expedition of 1901 that conquered the Aro and destroyed their Ibini Ukpabi shrine. Many Aro communities across Igbo land were slave traders who lived on the outskirts of towns and not allowed into their host communities. For many, it was an abomination to marry an Aro.

I find your argument interesting. In essence you're saying that since Igboland wasn't a single nation before the British Invasion, it might as well continue as part of Nigeria which itself wasn't a nation before the British either. In order words if a little bit of a "bad " characteristic (diversity in this case) is bad then more of it is good. If a little poison is bad then a massive dose will definitely do you some good.

This is a definition of "nation";

a large aggregate of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular country or territory.
"leading industrialized nations"
synonyms: country, sovereign state, state, land, realm, kingdom, republic;


Now take the conditions; 1)common descent, 2)history, 3)culture, 4)language, compare each element between AlaIgbo and Nigeria, then tell me which one best fits the definition of a nation.

I love that quote from the Ezza.

As late as 1905 they felt able to tell an emissary of the colonial government that the Ezza recognized no superior authority except the Heavens above and the Earth beneath. Between these two awe-inspiring super human potentates the Ezza said they alone existed as a third force.

We should replace Ezza with Igbo there and include that statement as part of the preamble to our new constitution.

Great quote!

Some people have become so rattled and unsettled by IPOB that they are not themselves any longer and are already losing their sanity...and they think they can regain some by cheap propaganda and campaign of calumny against a concluded reality.

Time shall tell...

Curlieweed:
I find your argument interesting. In essence you're saying that since Igboland wasn't a single nation before the British Invasion, it might as well continue as part of Nigeria which itself wasn't a nation before the British either. In order words if a little bit of a "bad " characteristic (diversity in this case) is bad then more of it is good. If a little poison is bad then a massive dose will definitely do you some good.

This is a definition of "nation";

a large aggregate of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular country or territory.
"leading industrialized nations"
synonyms: country, sovereign state, state, land, realm, kingdom, republic;


Now take the conditions; 1)common descent, 2)history, 3)culture, 4)language, compare each element between AlaIgbo and Nigeria, then tell me which one best fits the definition of a nation.

Good contribution sir!

Igbos do not have a common descent. Their common history is a recent phenomenon linked with British conquest of Nigeria - similar to a common Nigerian history. The culture is similar, however, you can find cultural similarities b/w frontier Igbo communities and their neighbours such as the Idoma, Igala, Ijaw, Ibibio, etc. There is a common language, although some historians and linguists have claimed that the Igbo language is actually a coming together of several languages.

ezeagu:
And so what? Is that the worse thing you could find? Is there a successful country that has not had a civil war? Can anyone name any of the trillion dollar economies that have not had a civil war or internal conflict especially before 1900s?

Again, I can't name anything that makes Niggeria a nation.

By the way, Ibini Ukpabi shrine is not destroyed and the is a lie that the British soldiers were Igbo, they were Hausa as they have always been in the conquering of Nigeria.

The British soldiers involved in the Aro Expedition were recruited from all over Nigeria including many Igbo converts to Christianity and Ngwa people who had sided with the British against their long-standing enemies the Aro!

They blew up the Ibini Ukpabi shrine.

ALISMILE:
Not that long ago, Theodore Orji, then governor
of Abia State fired all the “non-indigenes” on his
state’s payroll. These were predominantly fellow
Igbos from neighbouring states.
When Anambra and Imo State were created out
of the old East Central State, civil servants in the
state capital Enugu who had their origins in Imo
were told to leave. These purges were repeated
when newer states were created out of Anambra
and Imo.

Do u know that igbos have coexisted peacefully n successfully for several millenias before the arrival of the white man

Naijiant:
Igbo discrimination against Igbo will kill Biafra.


More:
http://www.naijiant.com/sports/state-of-origi-failed-states/

Do u know that igbos have coexisted peacefully n successfully for several millenias before the arrival of the white man

Ok

chuna1985:
Do u know that igbos have coexisted peacefully n successfully for several millenias before the arrival of the white man

Go and learn your history. Some Igbo communities co-existed peacefully, while others fought with each other. The Aguleri/Umuleri conflict started b/4 the colonial era. The Aro Confederacy fought wars with many Igbo communities using Ohafia and Abam warriors. Aro v Ngwa conflict lasted for centuries.

Okay, so this Ibini Ukpabi shrine tourists are still visiting was blown up in 1902 by the British, so what we're seeing in these pictures is what, an apparition?

"The British set out to destroy the Cave Temple Complex when they found out that it was the abode of Ibin Ukpabi, who they called "The Long Juju." At the end of the expedition, the British soldiers claimed that they had destroyed the cave. That was in 1902. But the Cave Temple Complex together with the Oracular Shrine of Ibin Ukpabi is still intact."

http://people.wku.edu/johnston.njoku/arochukwu/temple_complex/

[img]http://people.wku.edu/johnston.njoku/arochukwu/temple_complex/23_023_23A.jpg[/img]

[img]http://people.wku.edu/johnston.njoku/arochukwu/temple_complex/24_024_24A.jpg[/img]

The vast majority of British soldiers were Hausa, the Ngwa and other Igbo people who were not Aro were invaded with the same army.

Naijiant:
Go and learn your history. Some Igbo communities co-existed peacefully, while others fought with each other. The Aguleri/Umuleri conflict started b/4 the colonial era. The Aro Confederacy fought wars with many Igbo communities using Ohafia and Abam warriors. Aro v Ngwa conflict lasted for centuries.

Loooooooooool, standard Yoruba fooooooool. Who says neighbours don't fight It's very normal. Today several countries are at wars n boundary disputes in the world so biafra won't be an exception.

But fact is that after all ur prayers of war, we will always live in peace because we have always been peaceful people. We have been democrats before d white man came, our motto is ""live n let live"

We never paid tax to any king or any rulership.

We are not yoruba

D lost tribe of israel abi na egypt??

#who kwesh??

chuna1985:
Loooooooooool, standard Yoruba fooooooool. Who says neighbours don't fight It's very normal. Today several countries are at wars n boundary disputes in the world so biafra won't be an exception.
But fact is that after all ur prayers of war, we will always live in peace because we have always been peaceful people. We have been democrats before d white man came, our motto is ""live n let live"
We never paid tax to any king or any rulership.
We are not yoruba

You no fit make your point without abuse? Dem use quarrel swear for you @birth??

My people, I know they no longer teach history in Nigerian secondary schools. We need to learn our history. George Orwell said: 'Those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future.'

The British expedition that defeated the Aro comprised of many Igbos that joined the Southern Nigeria Regiment.

In 1901, all the native units on the West Coast of Africa were amalgamated into the West African Frontier Force. In Nigeria two district units were formed, the Norther Nigeria Regiment and the Southern Nigeria Regiment, which remained separate until 1914. The Northern Regiment comprised two infantry battalions, a battalion of mounted infantry, and a battery, while the Southern Regiment had two infantry battalions and a battery. In 1906 the Southern Regiment absorbed the Lagos Constabulary.

Troops of the two regiments took part in the various major expeditions between 1900 and 1902. Both the Southern and Northern Nigeria Regiments were engaged in what the British regarded as war against Slave Raids. While the Southern Regiment fought against the Aro, the Northern Regiment fought the Emir of Bida. Between 1902 and 1903 the Northern Regiment was despatched against Kano and Sokoto. The Mahdist revolt which occurred at Satiru in 1906 was suppressed by the troops of the Northern Nigeria Regiment. In the South the British took arms against the Aro which had remained opposed to British penetration into the hinterland. The Aro fought gallantly but in the end suffered terrible humiliation while the Aro invincibility crumbled. Serious opposition to British rule in Nigeria ended with the mahdist revolt and the Aro Expedition, though there were still pockets of resistance in different parts of the country which called for a number of patrols.

http://www2.rz.hu-berlin.de/orient/nae/milihist.htm

chuna1985:
Loooooooooool, standard Yoruba fooooooool. Who says neighbours don't fight It's very normal. Today several countries are at wars n boundary disputes in the world so biafra won't be an exception.

But fact is that after all ur prayers of war, we will always live in peace because we have always been peaceful people. We have been democrats before d white man came, our motto is ""live n let live"

We never paid tax to any king or any rulership.

We are not yoruba

I'm not Yoruba either. Stick to the facts and don't worry about where I come from. My point was addressed to the brother that said Igbos coexisted peacefully. Learn to follow the discussion b/4 diving in.

The late Igbo historian Don Ohadike and every other serious Igbo historian (Kenneth Dike, Felicia Ekejiuba, Adiele Afigbo, JC Anene, Elizabeth Isichei, etc) would tell you that most Igbos did not have a sense of kinship in the pre-colonial era.

POLITICAL ADMINISTRATION IN IGBO COMMUNITIES PRIOR TO THE ADVENT OF COLONIALISM

To discuss political administration in Igbo communities prior to the advent of colonialism does not mean that all Igbo speaking communities had a homogenous political system. There is a distinction within the Igbo speaking people between Oru-na-Igbo. This distinction has also its implications in political organisations. The origin of these words is still problematic. However, there are some sets of agreements among scholars. Don Ohadike (1994: 27) is of the view that the word Igbo means ‘the people’ or ‘a community of people’ but encountered a corruption of meaning at a point in history to mean ‘forest dwellers’, ‘bush people’, ‘backwardness’, ‘slave’ or a term used to refer to outsiders or sanctioned conducts. For Henderson (1972: 41), Oru referred to the “riverain or riverain-derived, slave dealing, kingdom associated peoples; Igbo meant upland, slave producing, kingship-lacking populations.” The Oru has a well-defined kingship structure, which moves from the Obi, Ndi-Ichie down to the titleholders. The saying Igbo enweghi eze (the Igbo lack kingship institutions) is accredited to the Oru, in contempt for the Igbo (Agu 1989: 216–217). Nevertheless, it is still said that Oru na Igbo bu nwanne (Oru and Igbo are siblings). The different sub-groups that constitute the Igbo cultural area used to live in city-states and defined themselves more in terms of their immediate locality than in reference to a general Igbo identity. “The Aro, for instance, would say that they are not Igbo but the children of God (Chukwu), while the Anioma would point to all the Igbo groups who live on the eastern side of the Niger as ndi igbo (Igbo people). The people of Onitsha, Atani, Osamala, and Aboh say that they are not ndi Igbo, so do group of towns in the Agukwu Nri area” (Ohadike 1994: 27). He is of the view that a consciousness of a more general Igbo identity, interest and destiny started in the 1940’s after the formation of the Igbo State Union. He argues that “until an Igbo national consciousness was forged in the second half of the colonial period, nearly all the Igbo clans continued to reject the expression ndi Igbo” (Ohadike 1994: 27–28).

http://www.njas.helsinki.fi/pdf-files/vol14num1/njoku.pdf

Naijiant:
I'm not Yoruba either. Stick to the facts and don't worry about where I come from. My point was addressed to the brother that said Igbos coexisted peacefully. Learn to follow the discussion b/4 diving in.

I see say u Don run out of more rubbish to talk about. Igbos are very peaceful n don't bring in those useless stories again.

Why don't u Yoruba people want us igbos to remain in nigeria

Are u saying that u can't survive without IGBOS

localblood:
You no fit make your point without abuse? Dem use quarrel swear for you @birth??

Yes.

chuna1985:
Yes.

No wonder.....#receive_deliverance!