By Chukwuma Okoro
There has been a growing increase in the crisis of identity plaguing the Igbo nation, and this is anchored on the triple challenges of recognition, denial, and acceptance of who and what is truly and uniquely Igbo. Nurtured in perception and transformed into reality by the unpretentious character of the central government in dismembering the Igbo nation during and in the aftermath of the civil war, the effort seems to have gained greater momentum in recent times, with the Igbo playing into the agenda by creating a fission that reinforces the plans of the masterminds of that conspiracy.
Since the bill for the creation of Orlu state for the Igbo South East by Ugochinyere Ikeagwuonu passed the first reading in the House of Representatives, there has been a flurry of opinions, as disparate as the demands for a new state sound, that tend to upend one another in the race to win the new state. After Ikeagwuonu’s bill, two others seeking to create a new state for the Igbo nation have been sent to the National Assembly: one by Ned Nwoko, Delta North Senator in the Senate, for the creation of Anioma State, and another by Amobi Ogah, representative of Isuikwuato/Umunneochi in the House of Representatives, for the creation of Etiti State. Premised on the political necessity to bring the Igbo nation into equity and fairness in the number of states for each geopolitical zone, the exercise that ought to unite the Igbo and prove the unblemished unity of a people has turned to a struggle that once again divides the Igbo nation and puts to question the centrality of an Igbo identity.
Last week, the Ika people of Delta State, one of the Igbo sub-groups in Delta State, took to the media to denounce the bill sponsored by Ned Nwoko to carve them out of the present Delta State into a new state to be called Anioma State. Part of the grouse of the leadership of the Ika people is that they are an amorphous group that traces its origins to Bini, Ishan, and Igbo and therefore do not want to lose their other identities by being domiciled in an unadulterated Eastern Igbo state. They would prefer to be grouped into a state with other minorities in the old Western region than be carved into a new state within the South East, while advancing the geographic barrier of the Niger River as another reason why they do not want to be in the proposed Anioma State.
In their best effort to denounce every association with the plot for the creation of Anioma state as proposed by Ned Nwoko, they went down memory lane to trace the coinage of the word Anioma from the initials of the four local governments that were supposed to make up Anioma state in the early days of the struggle: A from Aniocha, N from Ndokwa, I from Ika, and O from Oshimili, which came up the word ANIO. When they got stuck with the meaningless word ANIO, they supposedly took the M from Oshimili and A, which is the last letter in the names of the other three local government areas, to get ANIOMA, which, according to them, coincidentally means ‘good land’ in the Igbo language. What an embarrassing irony. One even wonders how only four local governments could pass for a state. It may have been an idea inspired by wishful thinking and of course, it died a natural death.
It is utterly befuddling that a sub-group whose language, culture, and tradition speak directly to the language and culture of the Igbo nation will conspire with history and geography to find avenues to deny their known ancestry while attempting to create a unique identity that falls apart before historical, archaeological, and sociological scrutinies. The leadership of the Ika people is not alone in this misadventure and desperate attempt to exorcise themselves from the Igbo nation. Various Igbo sub-groups that live at the fringes of the South East, especially the Ikwerre in Rivers State, have consistently found themselves struggling to either deny, accept, or identify with their kith and kin in the South East Igbo.
There is a large population of the Yoruba ethnic group in Kwara and Kogi States, but they all owe allegiance to the Yoruba ethnic nationality, which cuts through the boundaries of the South West. For instance, the penultimate Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, is originally from Kwara State, but he served as the Chief of Staff of the current President, Bola Tinubu, when he was the governor of Lagos State. His son, Folajimi Mohammed, was a member of the Lagos State House of Assembly. Mr. James Faleke, who represented the Ajeromi/Ifelodun federal constituency of Lagos State in the House of Representatives, is originally from Kogi State and contested the governorship election with the last governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello.
It was more symbolic and meaningful for the Yoruba nation that Bukola Saraki, a Yoruba from Kwara State, was a Senate president than it was for the Igbo nation that Ifeanyi Emefiele, an Igbo from Delta State, was the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria. It is a distortion of the Igbo identity that has permeated the Igbo worldview and created such disruptive identities as Delta Igbo, Rivers Igbo, and Edo Igbo, or any of such nomenclatures where Igbo are found outside the South East. Understandably, it is an ascription that denotes a place of permanent domicile, but such ascriptions are rarely found among other ethnic nationalities, creating a crisis of identity for the Igbo.
Across the border and in faraway Brazil, there are thriving Yoruba communities, and there is no fuss about their identity but rather an agreement that they all belong to the one and only Yoruba nation. There are Ijaws in Akwa Ibom and Ondo states outside the traditional Ijaw states of Rivers, Delta, and Bayelsa States, and they always have a unique identity of being Ijaw irrespective of their states of residence.
The Fulani are found in many states of the North, and they keep expanding their reach into new frontiers without losing their unique identity, despite having different subgroups that make up the Fulani nation across many countries in the Sahel region. Closely knitted beyond comparison, they have, through a unity of purpose, formed a formidable force in Nigerian politics, while the Igbo continue to respond to tendencies that divide instead of unite them.
The character of the Igbo-speaking people outside the borders of the South East to denounce their Igboness has endured since after the civil war, and it is an indictment on the leadership of the various pan-Igbo organisations, including Ohaneze and those of those sub-groups like Ogbakor Ikwerre, Onu Ika, and others, that more than 50 years later, this trend persists, and the Igbo cannot find a central and common identity of what is and what is not Igbo. As an advantage, the spread of an ethnic group across different states and geopolitical zones is a source of strength in the political chessboard that the Igbo nation must harness to build political capital in contemporary Nigerian politics. What the Igbo intelligentsia should do is take a critical look at where the interests of these groups overlap as well as intersect and find a common ground that maximises the interests of the larger Igbo nation.
It is to the credit of many sons and daughters of the Igbo nation from the present Delta State that they have stood unperturbed by the conspiratorial schemings of the Nigerian state to continue to dismember the Igbo nation. In 2011, Professor Chike Edozien, then Asagba of Asaba, at the Ahiajoku Colloquimon on Igbo History held in Owerri, declared that he is a proud son of Igbo land and urged the federal government to create a distinct state for the Igbo people found in Delta and Rivers States, while urging the governors of the seven states where Igbo are found to support Ohaneze Ndi Igbo in its efforts to unify Igbo wherever they are.
Before Obi Chike Edozien, there were the late Ralph Uwechue who played prominent roles during the war years as a Biafran diplomat and later led Ohaneze Ndi Igbo, late Prof. Frank Ndili, the former Vice Chancellor of the University of Nigeria, and Prof. Pat Okedinachi Utomi, who does not miss an opportunity to proudly flaunt his Igbo identity, Ned Nwoko who has shelved political correctness and reached out to his kins across the Niger and seeks a common destiny for one and same people, Tony Nwaezeigwe Nwankwo, the irrepressible scholar of African History at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Austin Jay Jay Okocha who has never denounced his Igbo identity, and many who have in the past and continue to identify with their Igbo identity unhindered.
The resurgence of the historical antagonism between the Igbo of the South East and other Igbo groups, prompted by the agitation for the creation of a new state for the Igbo, once again offers a galvanising moment for the leadership of the Igbo nation across the board to persuasively and conclusively define the Igbo identity and demolish cultural boundaries and inhibitions, if any, that exist between the Igbo of the South East and their neighbours who speak the same language, have cultural similarities, and have a common ancestral origin. It is the work of Igbo intelligentsia and historians to do, and it is deeply concerning that the Igbo nation, with its preponderance of scholars in history, archaeology, sociology, anthropology, religion, and linguistics in this time and age, cannot have a definite answer to the myths that surround the origin, ancestry, and identity of the Igbo when smaller ethnic groups have long settled those issues, even as it continues to plague and distort the Igbo political relevance in present-day Nigeria.
• Okoro writes from Enugu