There is this Northern Muslim girl who has carved a niche for herself on social media by making candid comments on Nigeria’s major ethnic groups. She packages it as comedy to blunt accusations of bigotry. She recently commented on one of the greatest dilemmas militating against Igbo unity: identity crisis. According to her, the Igbo are “the most confused” people in Nigeria. A person will bear Sunday Ogochukwu Oliseh from Abavo in Ika South LGA of Delta. They speak a dialect of the Igbo language and practise Igbo culture, and yet he denies being Igbo.
A person will bear Chibuike Amaechi, from Ubima in Ikwerre LGA of Rivers State. As the Governor of Rivers State in December 2012, he went to Item in Abia State where Chief Arumma Oteh was being honoured as a global financial icon. He proclaimed: “We, Ikwerres, are not Igbos.” I was there, so I can confirm this. Years later, in 2019, as Minister of Transportation, the same Amaechi accompanied his principal, President Muhammadu Buhari, on a campaign stop in Aba. Amaechi’s political attire had suddenly changed to isiagu and red cap. He boasted: “Nobody is more Igbo than me!” Even today, Amaechi still speaks from both sides of his mouth about his Igbo identity, depending on his latest political adventure.
Amaechi’s arch political rival, Nyesom (Onyesom) Ezenwo (Ezenwa) Wike (Nwike), claims that as an Ikwerre man, his ancestors came from Benin. According to Dr Katch Ononuju in a recent television interview, Amaechi and Wike’s political rivalry has been reduced to a political circus such that any time Amaechi claims to be Igbo, Wike counterclaims Benin ancestry, and vice versa! Ikwerre people speak a dialect of the Igbo language and practise Igbo culture, yet some of them claim they descended from a cultural system that is totally alien to them and with near-zero valid historical and anthropological proof.
Indeed, the immediate past Oba of Benin, the late Omon’Oba n’Edo, Erediauwa Uku Akpolokpolor, Akenzua II, authored a book: I Remain, Sir, Your Obedient Servant, as a seasoned federal bureaucrat who served in the Igbo-speaking areas of Rivers State inhabited by the Ogba, Ndoni, Ekpeye, Etche, Ikwerre and Ndoki groups. He described them as being “typical Igbos”. Funny enough, these same people claim, with a straight face, to be descendants of Benin!
The confusion is such that within the same families, some wear their Igboness with pride while others stick obstinately to Benin origin or claim their ancestors “germinated” there. Laugh out loud! There is this case that I have written about before, and I beg to recall it here. A vibrant politician and activist, Sir Ekenechukwu “Kenny” Okolugbo, from Obiaruku, Ukwuani area of Anioma, Delta State, used to differ publicly with his father, the late Very Reverend Dr Emmanuel Ogeleka Okolugbo. The father, an academic, was a strong advocate for Igbo unity and documented the spread of Christianity among his Ndosumili people. He, however, was unable to publish his works before he went to be with the Lord. Kenny was a diehard Igbo identity denier as a young man. But, in spite of that, he still published his father’s autobiography and gave it wide publicity. It looks like Kenny, who voluntarily and honourably resigned as a communication consultant to Senate President Godswill Akpabio in 2025, has come home to roost, in agreement with his father, that Ndosumili people are Igbo.
In truth, identity denial has failed to confuse anyone, especially the immediate non-Igbo neighbours of these South-South Ndi Igbo. A typical Northern Muslim sees anyone who is from the South-East or South-South as Nyamiri, which they call Igbo people. When Governor Peter Odili was running for president in 2007 and drawing heavy traction, especially in the North, self-acclaimed Ijaw leader, ebullient Chief E. K. Clark, rose with fury and reminded outgoing President Olusegun Obasanjo that Odili (from Ndoni) was an “Igbo man”, and that they (the Minorities) did not struggle for their rights only for an Igbo man to take the benefits.
Obasanjo eventually sidelined Odili despite the latter’s sacrificial services to him as Rivers State governor. He picked Governor Goodluck Jonathan from Bayelsa State and paired him with Governor Umaru Yar’Adua for the PDP presidential ticket in 2007. When Yar’Adua died in 2010, Jonathan ascended to the presidency. Meanwhile, Odili, who fought the Biafra War as a Biafran soldier, was fond of portraying himself as a “Rivers man”, in a bid to conceal his Igbo identity. He never gladly entertained any notion of his Igboness publicly, but it did not stop him from being seen by his rivals for what he was. Nyesom Wike, in a trending video available on the internet, recalls how Chief Clark reacted when he picked Sir Siminalayi Fubara as his successor as Governor of Rivers State. According to Wike, Clark queried: “If it’s an Ijaw man, must he be from Opobo?” Clark knew that Opobo was founded by a freed slave of Igbo origin, King Jaja.
They answer Ijaw names in Opobo, but they speak Igbo and sometimes Igbani, an Ijaw dialect. Fubara is proudly Igbo in his disposition. He once mocked Ogba monarch, Eze Lucky Ben Nwokoro, at a public ceremony in Port Harcourt for Igbo denial despite bearing the title of “Ochi Oha”. Opobo and Bonny are enclaves of mixed Igbo and Ijaw heritage. Which is why I laughed when the newly crowned Opobo monarch, Charles Douglas MacPepple Jaja, claimed that under his reign, Igbo language would be phased out to give way to the teaching of Ijaw language in Opobo. Here was a man whose late brother, King Dandeson Jaja, forged a strong tie with his ancestral Igbo nation. His successor and younger brother, MacPepple, has turned Judas behind his back.
In part two, we will further explore the case for DNA settlement.
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