HOW NIGERIA DESTROYED IGBO AFFINITY IN THE COASTAL AREA OF BIAFRALAND DURING THE CIVIL WAR
Before the outbreak of the Nigerian civil war, there existed no much pronounced hatred or rejection of Igbos within the coastal area of Biafraland or old the Eastern region and not even in most Southern parts of Nigeria.
All over the Biafran territory, there were noticeable influence of the Igbos as a tribe. Igbo as it were, was not a tribe but a grouped class of people that spoke similar languages with same ancestry. There are quite a number of Igbos who consider themselves to have descended from non-Igbo speaking areas like Bini, Ijaw, Ibibio, Igala, etcetera. These tribes never had one central administrative system apart from minor differences in cultures. This was what obtained all over Biafraland. This is the reason why even in Ijawland till date, there exists diverse tribes. Some were ruled by their tribal kings while others were ruled by their convenient cultural systems just like most Igbos. All over the land of Biafra, there existed no definitive boundaries demarcating Igbos, Ijaws, Idomas, Ibibios, Annangs, Efiks, Isokos and Urhobos.
Igbo had central Biafran ethnicity that one should not refer to as a group. They become grouped today because of similarity in tongue or language. For example, the Igbos in the present day Delta State like Aboh, Ika, etcetera, were in the olden days, seen and regarded as kins by our forefathers. And till today, we yet have a community in Oyiakiri kingdom that is Igbo-speaking in Delta State. My dad had always told me how they used to visit my community which is Odoni, to celebrate our festival with us when all the Oyiakiri sons gathered to celebrate with their brothers. In Oyiakiri history, it is stated that the first point of settlement was in Aboh which is an Igbo-speaking tribe in Delta State, before they migrated to Ebeni, a mother town, to finally settle.
The Ijaws had a very robust relationship with the Igbos like those presently domiciled in Abia, Imo and Anambra States. The relationship was so close and deep that the Igbo-speaking tribes in the present day Rivers State, cannot deny the mixture of Ijaw blood amongst most of them. Such tribes like Iwhuruoha (erroneously referred to as Ikwerre) Ogba, Ekpeye, etcetera, cannot refute the mixture of Ijaw, Bini and Igbo blood running in their veins. Realistically, history still accounts that tribes like Egbema and Ndoki that are Igbo-speaking, were founded by the Ijaws just like Opobo which if not for today's Ijaw awareness, would have been entirely Igbo-speaking. If Opobo were to be totally Igbo-speaking in the present dispensation, someone would have risen up to claim that because they speak Igbo, they are not brothers or related.
Now, to the influence and blackmail of the Nigerian State against Igbos.
THE CIVIL WAR
Growing up in my early days and finding it difficult to form vocabularies in my own native language as an Ijaw lad, my older friends who experienced the war or were given birth to shortly after the war, would always advise us on the importance of learning how to speak our language to avoid mistaking it for another. They would tell us how most of our people who could not speak Ijaw during the war, were killed just because the Nigerian soldiers failed to believe that they were not Igbos.
It was really a period of great fear and torment. The Nigerian army hunted for Igbo blood. If one could then prove not to be an Igbo, such an individual could then be rescued otherwise, he would be summarily executed.
It was really horrendous and entirely a genocidal target against the Igbo race.
The soldiers conducted house to house searches in communities, hunting down our Igbo brothers from city to city, town to town, village to village. Igbos were marked species for the slaughter. Consequently, those closest to the coast where the war raged, had to immediately activate a strategy for survival. They had to repudiate their Igbohood to save their lives. The Ijaws and other tribes whose people bore identical Igbo names had to immediately adopt to Ijaw names. My dad told me of certain people in my community that used to bear Igbo names but had to resort to instant changes to Ijaw equivalents. In fact, some Igbo songs which we used to sing in my community festival, had to be changed to Ijaw renditions. It is in this that part of my community that has recorded predominant Igbo ancestry, from Aboh in Delta State.
We all were victims of the oil war orchestrated and unleashed on us Biafrans by Nigeria. Yes, some Ijaws unfortunately fought on the side of Nigeria but that does not mean that all Ijaws were part and parcel of the oppressors. At least, in the absence of any other, the death of Major Isaac Adaka Boro who led some of the Ijaws to fight on the side of Nigeria and who later got dastardly executed by the same Nigerian army he served, proved to us that these people really intended to conquer us all.
A Biafran veteran who I met sometime ago in Lagos, told me that as he returned to the city at the end of the war, some Igbos never wanted to be publicly identified. They bluntly hated the fact that they were Igbos. This denial of their identity could not stand however, because their villages fell into the Nigeria structured geo-political entity called region. Ideally, a Nigerianised Igbo is sharply different from the real Igbo in during the pre-war era.
Written by Tari Nemi
Edited by Peter Oshagwu
For Family Writers Press
Before the outbreak of the Nigerian civil war, there existed no much pronounced hatred or rejection of Igbos within the coastal area of Biafraland or old the Eastern region and not even in most Southern parts of Nigeria.
All over the Biafran territory, there were noticeable influence of the Igbos as a tribe. Igbo as it were, was not a tribe but a grouped class of people that spoke similar languages with same ancestry. There are quite a number of Igbos who consider themselves to have descended from non-Igbo speaking areas like Bini, Ijaw, Ibibio, Igala, etcetera. These tribes never had one central administrative system apart from minor differences in cultures. This was what obtained all over Biafraland. This is the reason why even in Ijawland till date, there exists diverse tribes. Some were ruled by their tribal kings while others were ruled by their convenient cultural systems just like most Igbos. All over the land of Biafra, there existed no definitive boundaries demarcating Igbos, Ijaws, Idomas, Ibibios, Annangs, Efiks, Isokos and Urhobos.
Igbo had central Biafran ethnicity that one should not refer to as a group. They become grouped today because of similarity in tongue or language. For example, the Igbos in the present day Delta State like Aboh, Ika, etcetera, were in the olden days, seen and regarded as kins by our forefathers. And till today, we yet have a community in Oyiakiri kingdom that is Igbo-speaking in Delta State. My dad had always told me how they used to visit my community which is Odoni, to celebrate our festival with us when all the Oyiakiri sons gathered to celebrate with their brothers. In Oyiakiri history, it is stated that the first point of settlement was in Aboh which is an Igbo-speaking tribe in Delta State, before they migrated to Ebeni, a mother town, to finally settle.
The Ijaws had a very robust relationship with the Igbos like those presently domiciled in Abia, Imo and Anambra States. The relationship was so close and deep that the Igbo-speaking tribes in the present day Rivers State, cannot deny the mixture of Ijaw blood amongst most of them. Such tribes like Iwhuruoha (erroneously referred to as Ikwerre) Ogba, Ekpeye, etcetera, cannot refute the mixture of Ijaw, Bini and Igbo blood running in their veins. Realistically, history still accounts that tribes like Egbema and Ndoki that are Igbo-speaking, were founded by the Ijaws just like Opobo which if not for today's Ijaw awareness, would have been entirely Igbo-speaking. If Opobo were to be totally Igbo-speaking in the present dispensation, someone would have risen up to claim that because they speak Igbo, they are not brothers or related.
Now, to the influence and blackmail of the Nigerian State against Igbos.
THE CIVIL WAR
Growing up in my early days and finding it difficult to form vocabularies in my own native language as an Ijaw lad, my older friends who experienced the war or were given birth to shortly after the war, would always advise us on the importance of learning how to speak our language to avoid mistaking it for another. They would tell us how most of our people who could not speak Ijaw during the war, were killed just because the Nigerian soldiers failed to believe that they were not Igbos.
It was really a period of great fear and torment. The Nigerian army hunted for Igbo blood. If one could then prove not to be an Igbo, such an individual could then be rescued otherwise, he would be summarily executed.
It was really horrendous and entirely a genocidal target against the Igbo race.
The soldiers conducted house to house searches in communities, hunting down our Igbo brothers from city to city, town to town, village to village. Igbos were marked species for the slaughter. Consequently, those closest to the coast where the war raged, had to immediately activate a strategy for survival. They had to repudiate their Igbohood to save their lives. The Ijaws and other tribes whose people bore identical Igbo names had to immediately adopt to Ijaw names. My dad told me of certain people in my community that used to bear Igbo names but had to resort to instant changes to Ijaw equivalents. In fact, some Igbo songs which we used to sing in my community festival, had to be changed to Ijaw renditions. It is in this that part of my community that has recorded predominant Igbo ancestry, from Aboh in Delta State.
We all were victims of the oil war orchestrated and unleashed on us Biafrans by Nigeria. Yes, some Ijaws unfortunately fought on the side of Nigeria but that does not mean that all Ijaws were part and parcel of the oppressors. At least, in the absence of any other, the death of Major Isaac Adaka Boro who led some of the Ijaws to fight on the side of Nigeria and who later got dastardly executed by the same Nigerian army he served, proved to us that these people really intended to conquer us all.
A Biafran veteran who I met sometime ago in Lagos, told me that as he returned to the city at the end of the war, some Igbos never wanted to be publicly identified. They bluntly hated the fact that they were Igbos. This denial of their identity could not stand however, because their villages fell into the Nigeria structured geo-political entity called region. Ideally, a Nigerianised Igbo is sharply different from the real Igbo in during the pre-war era.
Written by Tari Nemi
Edited by Peter Oshagwu
For Family Writers Press
They incentivised hatred and rejection of Igbo as part of their efforts to survive on the oil wealth in the name of "keeping their country together". Consequently, it became a "rightous thing" and a standard/condition for accessing favors from Nigeria to say "we are not Igbo" or "we have no relationship with the Igbo". Awolowo and his people carved out the words "nationalists" and "secetionists" to cast an evil image on Igbo leaders and politicians. They stigmatized the Igbo and Biafra. This gave rise to all sorts of idiotic narratives turned into histories and made authentic by our enemies. The likes of Elechi Amadi made up histories of their creation from hell. Some others from around Asaba wrote theirs saying that they came from Benin Kingdom; from a forefather whose name was Cheema - sorry I have to spell it that way. The centre of excellence for this was Lagos, and remains Lagos, as it was the nerve centre of Nigeria.. Even today, with Abuja established, Lagos continues to be the soul of business/commerce in Nigeria. Hence all Nigerians gather here and take the gospel of hatred of the Igbo everywhere. So you can see that, in Lagos, Igbo died/die even more than in the war front. That is why, when a Yoruba friend of mine said they have never killed the Igbo like the Hausa-Fulani do, I told him that killing is not only done with guns and bullets and that death is not only a stoppage of breathing. It is unfortunate that Igbo is still dying in Lagos today, a phenomenon that only Biafra can stop, a problem that only Biafra can solve. It affects everything: our unity, our image as a people, our language, our traditions, our religion and worship of God, our girls marriages and time spent before marrying, our manner of thinking as a race, our value system, indeed EVERYTHING about us. It saps the life off our economy and daily diminishes the chances of our place developing cities for our future generations. Yet our people do not know it. That is why I am grateful to Nnamdi Kanu for reviving the spirit of the Igbo. In 2015 the same stigmatization came up again because the Yoruba wanted Jonathan out. They said he did not give them ministerial positions and all that. I had to ask them to Google "list of ministers in Nigeria" to confirm. However, even though the list showed their claims were wrong, they insisted that Igbo must go, that is, in Jonathan. It was all over the papers, radio stations etc. Oyatogun"s daughter ran their own programs on Radio using an idiot that went by the name Monday Ubani and one animal that was called Aresta or so. Igbos became like children that lost their parents as discussions regarding how bad Jonathan, Ngozi Iweala and co had finished Nigeria's wealth never pursed for a second. The stigmatization never seized for a single second of the day or inch of movementt as political discussion became like meals I saw 1970 playing back itself completely and exactly. The Igbos lost their confidence and could not speak up in discussions. They were being wiped off with the foot like sputum on the floor. Thank God for Nnamdi Kanu. Igbos have regained their voices. But one thing is unique here also: The Igbos were turned into orphans for Jonathan who once frowned in replying a question as to whether he was an Igbo man. Well, that is our lot. We carry the burdens of those we call brothers and get "I no be Ibo" in return. I guess it also happens in families, even with siblings.
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