NNAMDI AZIKIWE'S OPINION OF OJUKWU AND BIAFRA

Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe, governor-general of Nigeria and member of the Queen's Privy Council, on the day of his appointments, November 16, 1960. Image: Popperfoto via Getty

AZIKIWE'S OPINION OF OJUKWU/BIAFRA

"Yes. I played a prominent role in Biafra for the unity of the country in order to restore peace and bring about unity of the country. That’s the role I played. I advised Ojukwu. I said well look, you have declared secession.

What we should do is to get the elder statesmen and women of the nation to reconcile you and Gowon. I said by declaring secession, you get so many people who do not believe you to remain there.

You see all of us were interned. As we were interned then, we couldn’t express our own views as we see it because, he made Decree Number 5 which vested absolute powers in himself and if you were against his views, it then constituted an act of subversion and the penalty was death by shooting.

Well, it was a war-time measure and that is understandable. So, I advised him. I said go to the conference table and iron out your differences. Allow elder statesmen and elder stateswomen to bring the two of you to the conference table and settle this matter so that there will no more be civil war and the country may be united. He agreed. But Gowon was advised by the Ministry of External Affairs to insist on pre-conditions .

That is that before he could negotiate with the secessionists, that they must accept certain terms; accept the 12-state structure and all. So, it was quite obvious that the Federal Government wanted Biafra to come to the conference table with their hands tied and their feet tied. But they won’t be free agents.

That was the diplomatic mistake on the part of the Federal Government. So, when they did that, then Lt- Col. Ojukwu told me, “How can I go to the conference table based on these ultimatums?”

Still I advised Ojukwu to go to the OAU and ask them to use their good offices to settle the dispute and that we should avoid loss of lives. He accepted my advice in good faith.

Then he said, ‘Now, you have some heads of state in Africa who are your friends, would you mind going to appeal to them to use their good offices so that the Nigerian civil war could be an item on the agenda for OAU summit in Kinshasa?’ I said I would gladly go. So he sent me to Monrovia as a peace envoy.

I went there and met my friend, President Tubman. Tubman expressed his willingness to use his good offices. He told me he would see another mutual friend, the late Haile Sellassie, Emperor of Ethiopia, and both of them would see that the civil war was placed as first item on the agenda of the OAU Summit in Kinshasa.

I returned and broke the news to Ojukwu. He was very pleased.

Then, when the OAU summit opened, Chief Awolowo, as Vice-Chairman of the Federal Executive Council and Commissioner for Finance, led a strong Nigerian delegation to Kinshasa and raised a very strong objective on the Nigerian civil war being placed as an item on the agenda on the grounds that according to the OAU Charter, this was a domestic affairs and member states were precluded from interfering in the domestic affairs of each other, which was really sound according to international law.

But we wanted to solve it in the African way, to use mediation and conciliation to bring two warring brothers together.

The OAU accepted the submission of Chief Awolowo and so it was not put into the agenda. Well, history will show now between Chief Awolowo and myself, who actually accentuated the war. I was trying to get the OAU to settle the dispute so they could go to the conference table and he was thinking of legalism, that it would amount to interference in the domestic affairs of a member-state.

But meanwhile here you have two brothers killing each other.Well, Ojukwu told me, I have done my best. You see, Nigeria was relying on law and we are relying on humanity.

What’s next? I said why not try other heads of states and see what could be done to bring about peace? He then said he left the initiative with me. I suggested going to some heads of state and see what can be done. But his advisers led by Dr. Nwakama Okoro suggested recognition.

That if we can get other states to recognize Biafra, maybe the hands of Nigeria may be forced to go to the conference table.

Well, I thought that was a sound idea and I placed my services at their disposal so as to meet my friends.

We had in mind President Senghor of Senegal, President Houphouet Boigny of Ivory Coast, President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, President Milton Obote of Uganda, President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia and of course Francois Bongo, he is now Omar. He now has become a Muslim. He was then a Christian.

The long and short of it all was that I and these great African statesmen agreed that if Gowon persisted with pre-conditions, then they would accord recognition to force the hands of Gowon to go to the conference table and bring about peace.

That was one.

Two, Gowon had already predicted that the war would end on March 31 and as far as these African statesmen were concerned, these killings and atrocities did not do any credit to the image of Africa and as such what should be done was to stop it as soon as possible.

Therefore if the war didn’t end by March 31, then the propaganda of ‘Biafra’ that it was an act of genocide would be justified. And they didn’t want to accept that.

I went on this mission and succeeded in persuading these heads of state to agree to give recognition just to force the hands of Nigeria, diplomatically speaking, to the conference table.

President Senghor said he couldn’t because the majority of his supporters were Muslims and rightly or wrongly they felt it was a religious war. And he said well, if he granted recognition, then his government would fall.

But he supported the idea of forcing the hands of Nigeria to the conference table. Houphouet Boigny was prepared, provided his people backed him. Ditto for the others except Milton Obote who told us that Prince Mutesa and the Bagandans wanted to secede and he couldn’t support secession when his own state was confronted with similar problems. It left four of them.

That is, President Nyerere, Houphouet Boigny, Kaunda and Bongo. They agreed on the understanding that the war did not end by March 31, 1968 and pre-conditions would be removed to make it easy for both Ojukwu and Gowon to go to conference table.

So they granted recognition and it worked like magic because immediately after this, Dr. Okoi Arikpo, who must be presumed to be responsible for this diplomatic blunder (he was the Commissioner for External Affairs]---a good man no doubt, but he is a very poor diplomat in my own humble opinion - announced to the outside world that Nigeria would no longer insist on pre-conditions and that he was prepared for conference table but the war did not end on March 31 and so, they left the impression, you see, that Nigeria wanted to annihilate the Ibos.

You noticed the Soviets gave Nigeria more arms and Nigeria used those arms to destroy the secessionists. Here, I came in again and I advised Ojukwu. I said look since Gowon has withdrawn the pre-conditions, go to the conference table and argue the points so as to pave way for a peace conference.

It was agreed that they should meet in Niamey. I advised Ojukwu to go. Again Gowon was ill-advised so he couldn’t come.

At Niamey here was Ojukwu. I was on his side. Gowon wasn’t there but Haile Sellassie, Hamani Diori, Tubman and General Akran were there representing OAU. So, I told Ojukwu, I said now you have an upper hand.

These respected leaders of the OAU were there. I had briefed Ojukwu. I said ‘look your line of approach is to express appreciation for what the OAU was doing in order to maintain peace in Africa but you were prepared to co-operate and you are leaving the whole matter in the hands of the OAU to see what could be done to bring an earlier cessation of hostilities.

I said just say that and thank them and sit down.Now Gowon didn’t attend. He sent a junior man, I think Alhaji Femi Okunnu or so, to represent him. And they didn’t even attend this conference at which the four heads of state presided. It was only the Biafran side.

So Ojukwu won a diplomatic victory and you know Ojukwu is a very good speaker if you give him all the facts. He was a good public relations expert and he won. He said, ‘well if Gowon was sincere why did he spite such great men and didn’t attend?’ That worked.

They agreed that Nigeria could be contacted so that we have a peace conference in Addis Ababa. It was a diplomatic victory for Biafra and so we returned to Biafra highly elated. And Ojukwu insisted that I should accompany him to Addis Ababa.

Then something happened. Some of his advisers felt that I was becoming a victim of compromise and that I was a bad influence. That all I was trying to do was to make Biafra impotent. They told Ojukwu that Biafra was holding its own militarily. And why should we want a peace conference?

That he should be very, very careful with me, especially as an Onitsha man because they thought that I was using him as a means to give publicity for myself internationally and that time will come when people will look more to me than to himself.

Well, as a young man, human, he fell for such flattery. I don’t want to mention all the names, but particularly influential in swinging his opinion at that material time was Mr. C. C. Mojekwu, who was based in Lisbon. Then Mr. Matthew Mbu was our Commissioner for External Affairs and he himself did as much as possible, but then he realized that he was having someone who has power of life and death over everybody.

So, we went to Addis Ababa and on the night before the conference, Matthew came to my bedroom at about 10 in the night. He said, “Do you know that all we have done, this man is going to undo them tomorrow?’ I said ‘No’. Then he brought out a printed version of a long speech.

The world press said it lasted for 90 minutes.

He [Ojukwu] went back on everything we discussed. He attacked the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union - all the nations of the world and the OAU, and said that they were misleading us and that the sovereignty of ‘Biafra’ was not negotiable.

We went to the conference. I sat next to him. I thought that he was going to speak in accordance with the spirit of Niamey. But he spoke for 90 minutes and he just got the whole place upside down.

Naturally, Tony Enahoro - he led the Nigerian delegation - replied in kind and so we were back to square one. So, when we returned, I advised him. I told him that I was surprised at what he did but it was not late. He said, ‘The sovereignty of Biafra is not negotiable and if anybody should try to compromise that sovereignty, then it will be an act of subversion.’

Well, that was quite clear to me so I said, ‘Your Excellency, you still have Port Harcourt and you can still bargain from position of strength - after all, the main issue in the civil war is oil and they say that in international politics, oil is combustible and as you have a combustible situation you can begin from the position of strength’. He said, ‘No, Port Harcourt is impregnable.’ ‘Very well, Your Excellency,’ I said. I went back to Nekede where I had been in protective custody since February, 1968. Two weeks later, Port Harcourt fell.

He sent for me. I said, ‘Well, Your Excellency, I did warn you. You cannot now negotiate from a position of strength but having received recognition from four states, we can still use them to see what we can do to appeal to the outside world.’ He said, ‘Very well, I think you should go to the United Nations to seek for recognition.’ I said, ‘Your Excellency, let us wait until after OAU summit in Algiers and find out what Africa thinks.’ In the meantime, I went to Tunisia to see my friend Habeeb Bourguiba of Tunisia. He wasn’t quite well, so we moved from Carthage to Hermit where he stayed. Ojukwu had always said the civil war would be won on the battlefield and not on the conference table, and Bourguiba didn’t take kindly to that. He said don’t you people advise this young man? I explained to him that I have done everything I could to advise him, but he insists on going to the battle field.

So we crossed our fingers awaiting the verdict of Algiers. You know it was decided by 33 to 4 in favour of Nigeria. I advised Ojukwu that to go to the United Nations to seek recognition would be unrealistic since Africa had decided by 33 to 4 in favour of Nigeria. I said Nigerian envoys, the Nigerian delegations, would just percolate the membership of the United Nations and they would frown at the whole thing. He insisted. I was then in Paris. I wrote him a letter. I said:

‘Since you refuse to go to the conference table to negotiate for peace, since you prefer that the civil war should end on the battle field and not on the conference table; since you said that the sovereignty of Biafra is not negotiable, I am afraid I cannot continue as a peace envoy because you have destroyed all the vestiges of any optimism for peace.

Therefore I am relieving myself of my services as a peace envoy. I cannot continue as a peace envoy. I cannot continue as a peace envoy because you have let me down. You left me under the impression that if I succeeded in getting recognition you will go to the conference table. You got four recognitions; you did not go to the conference table. I am therefore going to London on exile.’

I went to London in voluntary exile and the British government granted me asylum. I do not see how anybody could say that I ran away from my country.

I crossed the Atlantic 46 times, trying to negotiate with various heads of state so that they could grant recognition or make OAU to settle the dispute. How could the head of state turn round now and accuse all those who were politicians in pre-1966 and post-1966 as being responsible for the downfall of the republic?

I did my best to preserve the unity of Nigeria and also to preserve the lives of old men, able-bodied men and women and children but I failed. What could I do? I went on free exile and they keep saying that I was among those responsible for the downfall of the republic. I plead not guilty".

Excerpts from the interview he granted to New Nigerian Newspapers, 1979, as Presidential aspirant under the platform of Nigerian People's Party.

Filmmaker Rudy Rochman On Surviving A Terrorist Jail Cell In Nigeria

(Left to right): Filmmakers Edouard David Benaym, Andrew Noam Leibman and Rudy Rochman arrive in Lagos, Nigeria, July 2021. Image: David Benaym via @wewereneverlost

In traveling to Nigeria, the three men hoped to tell an incredible story. Little did they know that after just two days, they would become the story.

BY TABBY RAFAEL 

Rudy Rochman, a 28-year-old Israeli activist, social media influencer and former sniper in the Israel Defense Forces, had a plan for escaping the clutches of the Nigerian secret police when he and two other Jewish filmmakers, Andrew Noam Leibman and Edouard David Benaym, were rushed into a van by masked gunman this past July.

“We were thrown into the middle van, while the soldiers entered a van ahead of us and behind us,” he said. “I recognized from my army service that it was a patrol, and looked for signs that we were being taken to the jungle or somewhere else to be executed. So I came up with a plan: I would take one of the soldiers’ guns and use it to ‘take out’ the three guards. But what was I going to do about the front and back vans, which were also armed and extremely dangerous?”

Rochman decided to wait an hour before taking action. But soon thereafter he, Leibman and Benaym were taken to the Department of State Services (DSS) headquarters in the Nigerian capital, Abuja. It was there that Rochman, an unabashedly proud Jew and Zionist who asked for access to his tefillin while in prison, was forced to share a small jail cell with a convicted murderer belonging to the Islamist terrorist group, Boko Haram, which has killed nearly 40,000 people and abducted hundreds of school girls in its quest to turn Nigeria into an Islamic state.

To understand why Rochman and his colleagues were imprisoned in Nigeria, it’s important to revisit Rochman’s college days at Columbia University (he transferred from UCLA to Columbia upon learning that the latter was “the most antisemitic school in the United States,” he said, and he wanted to face his enemies head-on).

It was at Columbia that Rochman founded a group called Students Supporting Israel and first heard about Jewish populations in Africa. At Chabad of Columbia, he met a young woman who had traveled to Uganda and showed him pictures of the country’s Jewish community.

“I started researching all sorts of stories about Jews being displaced, seeking to be accepted back into the mainstream Jewish community, and I saw it as an opportunity to change Jewish history,” he said. “I want to bring them back to the fold of Am Yisrael (the Jewish people) and even give them an option to make aliyah.”

Rochman, who was born in Paris but now lives in Jerusalem, began researching the 2,000 to 3,000 people who practice a form of Judaism and belong to southeastern Nigeria’s Igbo community, which comprises roughly 40 million people, most of them Christian, in a total population of 211 million Nigerians.

Igbo Jews partake in many Jewish practices, including circumcision, kosher dietary laws, wearing kippot and tallit, and marital separation during a woman’s menstruation. They also observe Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and in recent years, have begun celebrating Hanukkah and Purim as well.

Rochman, Benaym and Leibman were able to film two days’ worth of interviews with members of the Jewish Igbo community during their first few days in Nigeria before they were captured.

“Their neshamot are so elevated,” Rochman said. “All they talk about is Torah and being Jewish. They breathe it, and it was a beautiful experience to be with them.”

He recalled seeing a single siddur with pages that had been photographed again and again for worshipers in synagogue, as well as meeting a young Igbo man whose dream is to move to northern Israel and become a pioneer in agricultural technology.

But despite some Igbos’ claims that they are descended from ancient Israelites, scholars have found the historical evidence lacking. Unlike Ethiopian Jews, the community is not allowed to immigrate en masse to the Jewish state because Israel’s Supreme Court does not officially recognize Igbo Jews as an authentic Jewish community.

Rochman and his colleagues weren’t the first Western Jews to visit the Igbo; in 2006, Rabbi Howard Gorin and members of his Rockville, Maryland synagogue, Tikvat Israel, visited Nigeria and also shipped computers, books and Jewish scripture to the community. Other visitors have included Dr. Daniel Lis, Professor William F. S. Miles, filmmaker Jeff L. Lieberman and Shai Afsai, an American writer who has visited the community three times and who, in 2013, invited two Igbo Jewish leaders to visit his Jewish community in Rhode Island.

But Rochman, Leibman and Benaym wanted to capture the story of Igbo Jews on film for a documentary series called “We Were Never Lost,” which is about unknown Jewish communities around the world. The trio is aiming to show the documentary on an online streaming service, but would not disclose more information. The first season will focus on Africa, and Nigeria was their first destination.

The crew applied for visas as filmmakers without specifying that they wanted to make a documentary about the Igbo community (providing film information wasn’t required). They also enlisted the help of a local “fixer,” according to Rochman, who handled the paperwork.

“NONE OF US COULD HAVE EXPECTED THAT THE GOVERNMENT WOULD SEND MERCENARIES TO ABDUCT US AND THROW US INTO A CAGE.” — RUDY ROCHMAN

When I asked if he and his colleagues knew that Nigeria was a dangerous destination (the U.S. State Department has issued a travel advisory against the country due to “crime, terrorism, civil unrest, kidnapping and maritime crime”), Rochman responded, “We knew that Nigeria is one of the least safe countries in Africa and that the government is very against the Igbo population, but our main concern was that a robber would take us for ransom. None of us could have expected that the government would send mercenaries to abduct us and throw us into a cage.”

In 1967, Nigeria endured a two-and-a-half-year civil war when Igbo secessionists tried to create their own independent state, calling it the Republic of Biafra. Up to three million Igbo were either massacred or died from starvation, resulting in what writers and historians have called one of the worst genocides in Africa of the twentieth century. But the conflict, which ultimately resulted in the dissolution of the separatist state in 1970, only increased ethnic nationalism among the Igbo. The government is still embroiled in conflict with the Igbo, accusing them of attacks against the state and blaming them for the country’s massive unrest.

In traveling to Nigeria, the three men hoped to tell an incredible story. Little did they know that after just two days, they would become the story.

“We Are Here to Spread Light”

Rochman, Leibman and Benaym didn’t consider themselves agents of Igbo separatism (Nigeria considers the movement, called Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob), a terrorist group); they wanted to explore Jewish identity through the African Jewish experience. A few days before the trip, Leibman, who runs Kavana Films in Tel Aviv, suggested taking a sefer Torah that was written in Ukraine and survived the Holocaust as a gift to the Igbo Jewish community.

"THE TRIO ARRIVED IN THE COUNTRY ON JULY 6, AND ONE DAY LATER, PHOTOS OF THE MEN PRESENTING THE SEFER TORAH TO IGBO JEWS WERE POSTED BY LOCAL BLOGGERS AND SEPARATIST MEDIA, CLAIMING THAT THE CREW WAS IN NIGERIA ON BEHALF OF ISRAEL, TO “OFFICIALLY DECLARE BIAFRA A JEWISH SOVEREIGN STATE.”

But the Nigerian government saw things differently: The trio arrived in the country on July 6, and one day later, photos of the men presenting the sefer Torah to Igbo Jews were posted by local bloggers and separatist media, claiming that the crew was in Nigeria on behalf of Israel, to “officially declare Biafra a Jewish sovereign state.”

In response, the filmmakers took to Twitter to adamantly restate their mission to connect with little known Jewish communities around the world. “We do not take any position on political movements as we are not here as politicians nor as a part of any governmental delegations,” they wrote. “We are here to spread light.”

Rochman, Leibman and Benaym had planned to attend a youth Shabbaton with hundreds of members of the Igbo Jewish community on July 9. At 7:30 a.m. that day, they received a phone call to their hotel room in Ogidi (an Igbo village) and were told to go to the lobby, and to bring their phones and passports. Upon arrival, 15 gunmen from the Department of State Services (DSS) surrounded them, placed them in separate vehicles and confiscated their passports and phones. They were taken to a holding facility where English-speaking guards told them that they would be detained for 15 minutes. Ironically, they were taken at gunpoint with Israeli-made Tavor rifles, which Rochman immediately recognized (and as a former sniper and paratrooper, knew how to use).

The trio never managed to make it to the Shabbat festivities. They spent the remainder of the day being questioned and verbally abused in separate rooms. For Rochman, whose maternal family members are Mizrahi Jews from North Africa and whose paternal family is Ashkenazi, it was his first time forgoing erev Shabbat rituals.

Upon realizing that they would be spending the night in the dark and filthy cell, the crew asked a guard for a few grapes and crackers so they could recite the prayers for kiddush and ha’motzi, in a miserable “cage,” as Rochman described it, thousands of miles from home, with their dire situation unknown to anyone at the time. They were joined in the facility by their Nigerian “fixer” as well as a matriarch of the Jewish Igbo community named Lizben Agha, whom the DSS had also arrested.

“It’s how I was raised,” Rochman said about maintaining Shabbat customs in the jail cell. “I’m a Jew, and as a Jew, I have these practices. I have respect for my ancestry. For me, saying kiddush and bringing in Shabbat is like brushing my teeth. I always do it.”

The following morning, the gunmen were even more belligerent. They released the fixer, but threw Rochman, Leibman and Benaym into a van together (Agha was also transferred). The filmmakers imagined an imminent execution, which only strengthened their resolve to survive. “In the van, I shifted to warrior mode and said to myself, ‘My story is not ending here in Nigeria,’” Rochman said.

They were taken eight hours away to DSS headquarters in Abuja and forced into another “cage” no bigger than a few feet. Agha was separated from them and placed in another cell. The smell of rat feces permeated the air and left the dank walls encrusted with black fecal matter. There was urine everywhere and the floor was littered with cockroaches. Even worse, the atmosphere was brutally demoralizing.

Rochman remembered the writing by former inmates on the putrid walls, and the messages were devastating: “Remember my name, because tomorrow, they will execute me,” read one. “This (prison) is the university of life,” read another. Finally, a solemn plea: “May my life see happiness one more time.” There were tally marks on the walls signifying prisoners’ terms as well.


“WE WERE MORE STRESSED ABOUT THE DANGERS WE COULD PUT THE COMMUNITIES IN OR THE WORRY WE BROUGHT TO OUR FAMILIES THAN FOR OUR OWN LIVES.” — EDOUARD DAVID BENAYM

“We were more stressed about the dangers we could put the communities in or the worry we brought to our families than for our own lives,” Benaym said. “But all I could truly think about at the very beginning of our arrest was a phrase from the Torah. After being welcomed by the Igbo Jews and before we could celebrate Shabbat with them, I kept thinking, ‘How beautiful are your tents, Yaacov; your home, Israel,’ because we had discovered a part of us in this village, a synagogue in the middle of Nigeria, and it felt amazing. And I also thought about how amazing it was to be captive with such amazing brothers as Rudy and Noam.”

Leibman said that the trio remained calm during the initial detainment: “We genuinely believed this was all just a miscommunication that we could clear up over a brief conversation,” he said. “Over the course of the next few days, it became clear that that was not going to be the case.”

It would be three days before they were given food, and the cell didn’t have a single bed, but Rochman, Leibman and Benaym had something more pressing on their minds: Benaym, a film director and Emmy-nominated journalist who specializes in analyzing American politics, suffers from an autoimmune disorder and his medicine was hours away in a hotel room in Ogidi.

“Once in the ‘cage,’ I was focused on trying to let the outside world know where we were, and on finding a solution,” Rochman said. “We had a ticking time bomb on his [Benaym’s] life. But we knew the guards wanted to keep us alive because they gave us water.”

On the fourth day, they decided to request nourishment in a way that would betray their location to the Chabad of Abuja: Rochman, Leibman and Benaym told the guards that they would only eat kosher food. Once the request was made to Chabad, the word got out: the three Jewish filmmakers had been imprisoned. Their families were notified and they immediately contacted Israel’s Chargé d’Affaires in Nigeria, Yotam Kreiman. Soon thereafter, the story broke worldwide.
Comforting Signs

Five days after being detained, the men met Kreiman, who secured one kosher meal a day for them from Chabad. Each day, they reserved part of the meal for Agha, the Igbo matriarch who was imprisoned elsewhere in the facility. The trio asked a guard to send her some of their meager rations.

After six days, they were handed buckets that previously contained human waste and afforded a chance to bathe themselves. According to Rochman, by then, their nostrils were black from inhaling so much rat fecal matter.

On the seventh day, the guards informed them that they were being moved into a new cell and delivered horrifying news: While one of their new cellmates was a gun smuggler, the other, they warned, was a Boko Haram terrorist who had killed 70 people. “He’s the one you have to look out for,” warned one guard.

That same day, Benaym was taken to a hospital and eventually released into the custody of the French embassy (he holds dual Israeli-French citizenship) due to his autoimmune disorder, although he was forced to report back to the prison every week for further interrogations. Meanwhile, Rochman and Leibman found themselves face to face with a murderer—an Islamist terrorist who knew they were Jewish and Israeli.

“We had to act with a lot of confidence,” Rochman said. “Let’s just say that I constantly was making him understand that I was a very dangerous person.”

Rochman managed to steal a pair of small scissors from a guard’s desk, which he displayed again and again to the terrorist. In case of an ambush, he and Leibman practiced back-to-back fighting in the cell, in full view of the Nigerian prisoners. Showing any sign of weakness could have gotten them killed.

Neither the guards nor the Israeli ambassador had any information about how long Rochman and Leibman would remain imprisoned, but the duo was hopeful. In fact, said Rochman, they derived strength and meaning from several auspicious signs: During each interrogation, they were placed in Room 18 (the numerical value for chai, or life, in Gematria, the Hebrew alphanumeric code), while the room across from them, where the guards gathered, was Room 26 (which alludes to one of the names of God). On each door of the interrogation wing was the Hebrew word “magen” (“shield” or “protection”). Ironically, the Nigerian facility had bought Israeli-made doors. According to Rochman, when put together, the signs were reassuringly clear: “Hashem is protecting our lives.”

"ON EACH DOOR OF THE INTERROGATION WING WAS THE HEBREW WORD “MAGEN” (“SHIELD” OR “PROTECTION”). IRONICALLY, THE NIGERIAN FACILITY HAD BOUGHT ISRAELI-MADE DOORS. THE SIGNS WERE REASSURINGLY CLEAR: “HASHEM IS PROTECTING OUR LIVES.”

There were other signs, too. On their tenth day of imprisonment, Leibman found a note in his tefillin bag that read, “When you lay tefillin in times of war, you strike fear in the heart of your enemies.” One day, Rochman and Leibman were brought downstairs for more interrogations in a space that was also occupied by civilians. They decided to protest their detainment and “make a lot of noise,” wearing their tefillin and shouting to attract attention. One guard asked them what they were wearing. When Rochman explained about the tefillin, the guard responded, “When I saw you in this, it really scared me.” That interaction also reinforced their hope of divine protection.

Each time Rochman was in Room 18, he took whatever he could find that would prove helpful, including ripping out pages from the middle of a paperback novel. On those pages, he wrote letters to his mother describing the crew’s treatment and identifying contacts who could help with their release. And each time he met with Kreiman, the Israeli diplomat, he slipped the notes into his pocket. This began during the second week of Rochman’s imprisonment. Kreiman took photos of the notes and sent them to Rochman’s mother.

Daily interactions with various guards became psychological assessments in which Rochman and Leibman tried to understand which guards were the stronger bullies, which ones were weaker and which ones only backed down when treated with equal aggression. More than anything, they spent three weeks finding a way to survive.

“Being a combat soldier in the IDF takes a lot of emotional and physical strength,” said Rochman, who is still a reservist. “You’re trained to know how to survive all situations, and as a paratrooper, I was exposed to minimal food, constant drills, marching for miles with heavy gear, simulations of grenades, carrying injured soldiers and much more. In training, I barely ate, slept or drank, and wasn’t allowed showers. But I learned how to read people and their body language psychologically and to recognize their dynamics between one another.”

Leibman and Rochman didn’t know if they would be imprisoned for weeks or years. And they rightfully feared that well-intentioned media campaigns to release them (including a planned protest in front of the Nigerian Consulate in New York City, which was later aborted) would only make things worse. Rochman said he believes that the Nigerian president, Muhammadu Buhari, could have easily ordered their execution if triggered by what he would have perceived as aggressive international pressure. In the past, Buhari has sworn to crush Igbo separatists.

Meanwhile, the trio’s family waited in angst, and on Instagram, Rochman’s 100,000 followers helped ensure that as many people as possible knew about the crew’s dangerous circumstances.
The Incomplete Light

After 20 days, Leibman and Rochman were finally released from prison. They’re still not sure why they were freed then, but Rochman is certain that the government never really suspected them of conspiring with separatists. “They only wanted to prevent us from making the film,” he said.

On their last day in Nigeria, Benaym was brought back to the facility so that the trio could leave the country together. Their pictures were taken so they could be identified as “criminals,” according to Rochman, and never allowed to enter Nigeria again.

Agha, whom the trio called “Ima Lizben,” was released on bail nine days later. Suffering from illness, she was hospitalized and has since returned to her community in Odigi.

“I gained an appreciation for life,” Rochman said about his release. “After three weeks, I saw the sun. It was such an intense experience. I could actually feel the sun’s vibrations in my ears.

“In 12 hours, we went from being in a cage to being back in Israel,” he continued.

Just before leaving Nigeria, the crew was handed back their cell phones and passports. “I went for weeks without any communication with the outside world, and when I got out, I realized, ‘Hey, Ben and Jerry’s is a problem now’ and that the Olympics were almost over,” Rochman said.

Exuberant family members as well as the media welcomed them home, but transitioning back to normal life proved overstimulating. “Just seeing colors [and] hearing music or even the sound of a dog barking was an overload,” Rochman said. For weeks, he had difficulty sleeping. “I kept feeling that it wasn’t real. Were we actually back? I remember thinking that we even take something as simple as colors, which weren’t anywhere in the prison, for granted.

“It’s hard to explain what it was like in that cage,” he continued. “For three weeks, you couldn’t move your body more than a step or two. And there was nothing to distract you, especially not a phone. There weren’t even lights. The conditions were definitely some kind of torture. And then, out of nowhere, you’re back to normal life.”

The filmmakers are including the limited footage they captured of Nigeria’s Jewish Igbo community in the documentary series. For Rochman, a return to normal life means continuing to create educational virtual content with the goal of combating antisemitism and influencing global conversations about Israel and the Jewish people. It also includes working with Leibman and Benaym on their documentary series “We Were Never Lost,” for which they are currently crowdfunding. Rochman also remains active on social media platforms (particularly Instagram and Twitter), and on his YouTube channel.

Ironically, his ordeal in Nigeria only strengthened his resolve to support the Igbo Jewish community and tell its story. “Each [Jewish] Diaspora group took something with them—a piece of life—when they were scattered,” he said. “The goal is to come together and be a full light. I realized that without people like the Igbo coming back home to Israel, we’ll never be able to complete that light.”

Rochman is challenging Israel’s rabbinate to use its “responsibility and resources” to visit the Igbo in Nigeria and investigate their claims of Jewishness for itself. Many Igbo Jews are willing to officially convert to Judaism in order to make aliyah, he said.

“Coming home meant that we were going to be able to tell the story, the tale that we were originally supposed to film,” Benaym said. “We became the story and that was never our intention. As a journalist, and as filmmakers, all we want now is to go back to document these amazing lives and bring back the consciousness of these Jewish souls to the world.”

“I PROMISED SOMETHING TO THE IGBO COMMUNITY: THIS IS THE LAST GENERATION OF JEWS THAT DOESN’T KNOW WHO YOU ARE.” — RUDY ROCHMAN

For Leibman, returning to Israel was bittersweet. “I still feel much frustration that we were blocked from being able to capture these amazing stories and share them with the world the way we intended,” he said. “On the other hand, it was a blessing to return to our homeland and experience the basic freedoms of daily life, such as being able to go outside, deciding when to eat and having the ability to be productive again.”

Some have expressed concern that the filmmakers’ trip put the Jewish Igbo community at greater risk, especially given that the trio posted photos of themselves with Igbo leaders and alluded to a relationship between Israel and the Igbo community (one Instagram post by Rochman stated, “Israel X Igbo are locking arms”). It’s an important question, especially given that the visit also resulted in the imprisonment of an Igbo Jewish matriarch. But Rochman is adamant that the Igbo story must be told: “To talk about her [Lizben] spending 29 days [in prison], to quantify even what suffering means for the Igbo people means that someone does not understand what the Igbo people are facing,” he said. Rochman claims he received several videos from Igbo members this week that showed “bodies on the floor; of people’s heads being blown off … there’s a massacre happening to the Igbo people and it’s necessary for us to bring awareness in the world as to what’s happening.”

He acknowledged the inherent dangers of exposing the Igbo’s suffering, adding, “Of course, people are going to have to risk their lives to create change; that’s the only way that change has ever happened in the past, and they [the Igbo] are the ones who are spearheading that movement among their community. And we’re there to document and to show it in order to actually save them. If we focused our energies more on trying to save them, and less on trying to pin fingers on where that suffering is from, we would actually be saving more lives.”

When asked if he made any promises to himself or to God during those three tortuous weeks, Rochman thought for a moment. Then he responded, “I didn’t promise myself. I promised something to the Igbo community: This is the last generation of Jews that doesn’t know who you are.”

For more information on “We Were Never Lost,” visit www.wewereneverlost.com.

Tabby Refael is a Los Angeles-based writer, speaker, and civic action activist. Follow her on Twitter @RefaelTabby

The Indigenous Igbo People Carved Into Kogi State: Exposing The Hidden History

Image: Ogbonnaya Okoro via Twitter

BY OGBONNAYA OKORO

Let me usher this discourse by first clearing the air that the Igbo presently in Kogi are not migrants. The places they are settled had been their ancestral lands and never Ịgala land as erroneously portrayed over the years. The Ịgala are the ones who migrated from Wukari in Taraba State and settled at a place called Amagede before they moved to the Idah area. There are still the Ịgala tribe in Taraba State today.

When they migrated, they met population of Yoruba, Benins and Igbo who already lived in the various places. These Wukari people emerged with them and through their influence produced the language known as Ịgala language.

To cement this historical narrative, let us hear from the Attah of Ịgala himself, His Royal Majesty, Dr. Michael Idakwo Ameh Oboni on his interview with the Punch published on 26 August 2017. Regarding the history of the Ịgala people he said and I quote him verbatim:

“Talking about the origin of the Ịgala people, a sizable group migrated from Wukari in Taraba State from where they came to Benue along the River Benue and continued very close to the confluence at a place called Amagede by River Benue and slightly down from Amagede downwards to Idah and they settled there. And there, they met a sizeable population of the Yorubas and the Benins and to some extent, some Igbo. So the migrant population from Wukari merged with them and produced a language called Ịgala as a people”.

Before the migration of these Wukari people, they were some Igbo indigenous people in Ịda. That’s why we have Ụmụịda in Enugwu Ezike, Igbo Eze North Local Government Area, Enugwu State. I traced the history to Ụmụịda and realised that there is a community called Ụmụshiene. They left Idah and settled in this place in Enugwu Ezike. Some fraction of the community left, leaving their land there.

They didn’t just leave the land, some of them still remained there. When I interviewed a man called Ayọgụ who is 80 and Itodo who is 85, they said that annually, their brothers from Idah which is now in Kogi State bring to them resources from the land they left many years ago and settled in Enugwu-Ezike. Their brothers there take care of the land. Their wives prepare palm oil and other things. During Iri Ji Festival, they bring jars of palm oil to them as produce of the Ụmụshiene land in Ịda. There is Ụmụshiene in Ịda Kogi State and Ụmụshiene in Ụmụịda, Enugwu-Ezike in Enugwu State. They are the same blood. The Ụmụshiene in Enugwu-Ezike are the senior brothers. Any male child from there will first take kola nut before anyone from the Ida side of Kogi.

The question is: who migrated from where to where? What was their original language and culture?

Ụmụshiene in Ụmụịda Enugwu-Ezike migrated from Ịda now in Kogi State. Ịda was their ancestral land. Some left while some remained. Those who remained still bring goodies for their brothers in Enugwu Ezike.Their language spoken from time immemorial had been Igbo and not Ịgala. There are few other communities in Ịda which languages of communication is Igbo. Their pure culture is Igbo. You can also locate some in Ankpa Area but they are in the minority due to the high population of the Ịgala.

Back to the Ịgala influence. When those people who migrated from Wukari touched the place known as Ịgala land today, they made Ịdah their center. That is why till now, Attah Ịgala lives in Ịdah. The Ịgala people scattered all over the state and beyond. Remember, during this period, there was nothing like state, local government etc. We know people by their community name which is basically clan. People can migrate and settle wherever they find themselves.

Ịgala people extended their influence to the northern Igbo, especially the Nsụka area. They intermarried with the Igbo. Just to prove to you that Ịgala language is the combination of different tongues base on different people found in that settlement according to their Attah, there are many things in common linguistically, between the Ịgala language and the Igbo language. Our market days are almost the same. Some lexicons are the same.

Researchers and historians like Professor Afigbo and co had researched on the influence of the Ịgala people on the northern Igbo. There is acculturation amongst them. Intermarriage. Language. Names. Even the Igbo descendants found in those places could understand Ịgala and also Igbo. Some Ịgala people can also understand Igbo.

An Ịgala man in his 70s by name Ọjọbọ told me:

“Some of our mothers are Igbo from Nsụka. I speak both Igbo and Ịgala”.

There are names the Igbo and Ịgala share in common. Such names as: Ọnọja, Itodo, Atama, Ozioko, etc.

But from my finding and from the introductory remarks of the Attah of Ịgala cited in this article, you can believe me that some people the Wukari migrants met at Ịda area were Igbo before they emerged. This means, some we refer to as Ịgala in those axis are actually Igbo. You heard it from the mouth of Attah. Ha bịara abịa wee zute ndị nọ there. This is why it’s so easy to intermarry with the northern Igbo.

Some left those axis and migrated to other parts. While others joined them. This is like the case of Ovoko who migrated before the war to Ikponkwụ in Okpuje area because their land was fertile. After the war, Ovoko migrated back.

The question is, where is Ikponkwụ today? This question will lead us to the following subtopic:

State Creation as Divide-and-Rule System of Dispersing Brothers.

State creation is a major tool causing identity crisis. When a people are being carved away from their brothers to join others who subject them as the minorities. But then, every sincere human devoid of political selfishness and spirit of self denial knows exactly his or her root no matter how long the truth behind the history has been distorted.

In Kogi State, apart from the Igbo communities mixed with the Ịgala, there are aboriginals and indigenous Igbo communities without mixture. They are fully Igbo. Take for instance, Avurugo.

1. Avurugo:

This community is fully an Igbo community. This place had been their ancestral land before some individuals from other parts of Nsụka joined them. How do one locate Avurugo? If you are going through Nsụka, you will pass through Ịbagwa Anị and connect to Okpuje. You can also access there through Okutu. While interviewing a 75 years old man here, he said:

“All of us here are Igbo but we are now in Kogi State”.

They have a market square called Eke Avurugo. This market makes some people misconstrue the name of the community as Eke Avurugo. No. Eke Avurugo is the market located in a community called Avurugo. The market is open only in Eke market days. The language of transaction is purely Igbo. There is no mixture of Ịgala and Igbo in the market. There is no speaking of English in the market. I understand whatever they speak. Their dialect is Nsụka dialect and some parts also have relationship with a few villages in Ụzọ Ụwanị and Okpuje area.

Sitting amongst three elderly people I heard them interact:

“Ụnụ abọọ?
Ị bọọ?
Ị dị agaa?
Deeje
Ala nụ”

In Nsụka dialect of Igbo which I am highly conversant with, “ụnụ abọọ?” is a morning greeting just as saying “ụnụ abọọla chi?” if loosely translated into the English language it means— have you waken up? “Ụnụ” is the plural form of “you”.

When one says: “Ị bọọ?”, it’s a singular form, meaning: “have you waken up?”

“Ị dị agaa” means how are you? Other Igbo dialects could have it as: “i mere aṅaa, ị dị aṅaa, ọlịa, kedụ, olee otú, kee ka i mere” etc.

Deeje is the Nsụka’s greeting inform of daalụ, Ndeewo. Salutation. While in Nsụka dialect, “ala nụ” means welcome just as “nnọọ” in standard Igbo.

People of Avurugo speak this way. Undiluted Igbo dialect. Their location as well have no much outside influence. They are neighboring town with Okpuje and Okutu.

There is another market called Ahọ Ekwurugbo. Remember that in Nsụka dialect, Ahọ is Afọ. This market is open only on the Afọ days of the Igbo week. I saw some people going to the market and I decided to follow them. The market is far from Eke Avurugo. When I got to the market, my jaw dropped. Language of communication is purely Igbo without any other linguistic interjection. I went to price yam, cocoyam, pepper in Igbo.

“Ego ole ka ị ga-akwụ?” (How much will you pay) They’d ask.

Interesting.

These are farmers. They produce everything they eat. They look healthy because they eat natural food. In this afọ Ekwurugbo, you will see that food items they sell are coming straight from the farm. Their fresh pepper and tomatoes are not coming from the north. They grow them in abundance themselves and sell to each other. Such perishable goods look very neat and healthy. Sparkling red colour. Everything is original. They do not import food instead they produce food and consume within.

Their ọkpa tastes like that of original Nsụka ọkpa. They cook ọkpa-cup and nylon ọkpa. I must confirm whether it’s the same. I bought some and devoured. I confirmed my curiosity. Remember, everyone in the market communicate in Igbo. I use general Igbo, they still understand me. Yes, every Igbo who can converse in any dialect of Igbo understands the general Igbo known as Igbo izugbe.

The people of Avurugo are happy people. They are peaceful and welcoming. Another interesting Igbo trait characterised in the prism of ile ọbịa. The Igbo welcome strangers and treat them well. Passing through this compound, an old man approaching 80 years smiled and waved at me. I had to stop. I greeted him. He offered me a seat. Conversation had began. He told me a lot. He said they are all Igbo carved to Kogi and put under Ịgala’s leadership. They have their kin in Igbo-Nsụka.

Another interesting finding about the Avurugo is the names of their villages. All are Igbo. The following are the villages in Avurugo:

* Ụmụọchịna
* Ekwurugbo
* Ụkpabiogbo
* Ụkpabioko
* Obinagụ
* Amaọhụrụ
* Nwa-Olieze
* Ere-Ane
* Ọzara
* Iheobune
* Nnọkwa
* Ekproko
* Alọme
* Agbataebiri
* Abụtaogbe
* Ọla
* Ịgabada
* Ọdọlụ
* Amaokwe

Please kindly read through these villages again. Check their names. Igbo or not? Before you conclude, let me also tell you that I visited all and confirmed my curiosity and shock that they are all Igbo people pushed into Kogi State. Their worldview, daily communication is purely Igbo. Just as every other Igbo villages, they do their thing. They have large expanse of land as well. Their vegetation is greenish. Their forests are neat. Fresh air and beautiful shed left and right.

2. Ikponkwụ

Ikponkwụ was once a community within Okpuje area in Nsụka but now a community in Kogi State. Because of their beautiful land for agricultural activities, Ovoko moved there and would finally return after the war. Ovoko is located in Igbo-Eze South L.G.A of Enugwu State. Some who could not return stayed back, some even extend to Avurugo and settled amongst them.

3. Akpanya

This community is fully an Igbo community. If you want to access Akpanya you can easily do so through Enugwu-Ezike. Assuming you are coming from Obolo-Afọ, you will pass Ụda, Amụfie before getting to Ogrute. From Ogrute, take the roundabout as if you are going to Ịbagwa-Aka, then take the first right turn leading to Ụmụịda. These places are located under Igbo-Eze North Local Government Area of Enugwu State. Immediately you pass through these places, you will get to Ụnadụ in Igbo-Eze South L.G.A which has the same topography with Akpanya which is now under Kogi State.

The first village by the boundary is called Agbedo Akpanya. I remembered the name of my professor in Nsụka, Professor C.U Agbedo immediately I got to this village and found out its name. He is from Enugwu-Ezike. The proximity between Enugwu-Ezike and Agbedo Akpanya as well as sharing the same dialectal similarities got me thinking. But then, that’s not the bone of contention here.

I targeted the market day. It’s called Orie Akpanya. The market is always full in Orie market day of Igbo week. People from different parts of Nsụka do visit the market. The language of communication in the market is Igbo. Not just the market, the entire village. They converse in Igbo. They think in Igbo.

When I interviewed some group of young men, about 6 of them, they told me plainly that all their parents are Igbo. Some for political reasons told me they are Kogi. As we continued discussion and it was getting interesting, one of them said:

“Forget that we are in the north central, our mothers are from Nsụka. All of them. Some married to Ịgala men that is why some speak both Igbo and Ịgala”.

One going by the name Amos Ọnụ said: “my ancestor was from Ngwuru Nsụka. He lived here”.

From the valuables and the elders I interviewed, I found out that while some Igbo were aboriginals, some Igbo also visited from other parts, migrate and joined them. As discussed from the outset, there was nothing like state or local government in the past but clans. The people of Akpanya are Igbo. If going deeper, entering into the heart of Kogi, you will see pure Ịgala communities and some having mixtures of Ịgala and Igbo.

The reason for such mixture is as a result of proximity and intermarriage. Most people in those places are bilinguals. They speak both Ịgala and Igbo accurately and respectively.

The pure Igbo villages within Akpanya include:

* Agbedo
* Oji Akpanya
* Ogboligbo
* Ịjagudu
* Ajịobi
* Ojiela Akpanya
* Akpabirikpo (Igbo/Ịgala)
* Ajịkele
* Oju Ogboligbo
* Ajekele Ogboligbo
* Agbọkete
* Apata
*Igudu
* Ọdụmọgwụ, etc.

These are Igbo speaking villages that can be found under Akpanya. Akpanya share boundary with Ụnadụ, Agụ Ịbagwa, Ichi under old Nsụka region. They have the same traits.

A man in his 40s whom I interviewed said:

“My grandfather’s mother was from Ịbagwa Aka; my direct father is from Ngwuru Nsụka. All the women in this place are married from Igbo land. All our fathers are born from Igbo women from Igbo land. But as you can see, we are in Kogi. North Central”.

Oji Akpanya was the first place the missionaries visited in the olden days while Ogboligbo is in the center. Agbedo is the getaway of the community.

If you leave Akpanya and go further, you will get to another community called: Amaka.

3. Amaka

Just as the name implies, you already know the language it belongs to. Amaka is an indigenous Igbo people whose language and culture is Igbo. But as a result of state creation, they have been carved into Kogi State. Church services are conducted in Igbo language just as every other communities I have previously mentioned. Their land had been their ancestral land and never Ịgala land as erroneously portrayed. They are just victims of state creation due to their location. They are pushed into Kogi State.

4. Ọnịcha Igo

This is another Igbo speaking community which can be found in Ofu L.G.A of Kogi State. There are different villages here. They mix with Ịgala too and intermarry. Some individuals here are bilingual speakers—Igbo and Ịgala.

5. Ịbaji

There are concentrated Igbo communities in Ịbaji. They don’t deny their Igboness especially those who never allowed state creation to demarcate them from their bloodline. The headquarters of Ịbaji is located at Odeke. Odeke has an ancestral connection with Agụleri now in Anambra State. They live close and share common boundary.

How do we confirm this?

During festivals, just as some would shout: “Igbo kwenụ!”, the Odeke people will say:

“Odeke-Agụlụ Kwenụ! Odeke-Agụlụ Kwenụ!”

But these people are now in Kogi State because state creation say: “Okeke you are Anambra, Okafọ you are now in Kogi”. But they still say till date: “Odeke-Agụlụ Kwenụ!”

Other Igbo settlements in Ịbaji include:
* Uchuchu Anaọcha
* Uchuchu Anapịtị
* Echọwa which they now corrupted as Echeño
* Ọbale,
* Omabo, etc.

These places are said to be originally farmlands of the Odeke people.

The Ịbaji live and connected to the Ogurugu and Ụzọ Ụwanị in Enugwu State and even share common boundaries with them.

There are three major clans of the Echọwa now called Echeño. These clans are:

* Ịkana
* Olugo and
*Nyagba.

The village called Ụmụọnụra in Echeño Ịbaji originated from Ezeawụrụ. Some clan migrated from Ifite Ọka (Awka) and settled there in Echọwa which was one of the farm settlements of the Odeke people who have root and bloodline with the Agụleri. Their oral tradition and citation during festivals say it all.

These Igbo communities in Ịbaji also connect to the Anam people of Anambra, then extend to Ịga, Ugbela, Ahịa of Ụzọ Ụwanị Enugwu State and Ojo Ogurugu in Enugwu State as well.

These communities lived together because there was nothing like state or territory. They interacted. They are bloodlines until statism happened and they are carved to the north central.

Till date, their culture is Igbo. They still have four Igbo market days, but then, the mixture with the Ịgala changed afọ to ede especially in the Echeño side but others as Eke, Orie, Nkwọ are in tact.

Their masquerades are Igbo masquerades: They have Ijele. They have Akpaakụ. Ofe nsala is their native soup and they still maintain the name—ofe nsala. They speak Igbo.

But then, there is Ịbaji dialect. It is a creolized language as a result of mixture of Igbo and the Ịgala. Not everyone in Ịbaji is Igbo. Some are Ịgala. They mixed with Igbo and created Ịbaji language. That’s why Echọwa changed to Echeño.

Some other unaffected Igbo villages in Ịbaji which are strictly Igbo and now regard as Kogi people include:

* Ụmụọbụ
* Ụmụoye
* Anapịtị
* Nwajala
* Eweli,
* Ubulie-Ụmụeze, etc.

Echeño people of Ịbaji bear Igbo name as Ujumma, Egwuatụ, Ifemere etc. Many I interviewed did not deny their origin.

6. Akolo

The full name of the community is Akolo Ukwueze— indigenous Igbo people community in Kogi State. You can easily access here through Okutu, Nsụka Local Government Area of Enugwu State. They are predominantly Igbo. No migration. Their location had been their ancestral land before they were said to be Kogi. These people are farmers.

Note: I have mentioned Amaka before. The full name of the community is Amaka Okpodu. They are pure Igbo.

Other Igbo communities in Kogi State include:

* Ugwuebonyi
* Ebokwe
* Ọzara
* Amaokwu
* Amadịefiọha
* Amaụfụlụ
* Amaụwanị
* Amankpo etc.

In conclusion, we have seen the effect of state creation as well as the migration of the Wukari people from Taraba state who came down to the lower Benue through Amagede and mixed with others then became what we know today as the Ịgala. They met some Igbo in the land especially those in Ịdah area. The blend and intermarriage has affected both languages to have similarities. State creation has moved some Igbo land to join Kogi. We have pointed out those people who still maintain their language and culture.

But the question is, why is it that the indigenous Igbo carved to Kogi are not even recognised as an ethnic group just as others? There is a ploy to hide this identity and push some narratives. Tales of lies have been told for some to believe that those Igbo living in Kogi are the Ịgala who learnt Igbo language because of their interactions, intermarriage and proximity with the Igbo people. BIG LIE. They know their identity. They have kinsmen in different part of Nsụka. They breathe Igbo. They live Igbo. They eat Igbo. They dream Igbo. They had been in their ancestral land before they were told to be Kogi immediately Kogi State was created.

Even Kogi government knows that these Igbo communities are purely Igbo; could it be the reason for absence of government intervention and development? The Igbo spirit in them help them to create their own world without being totally dependent on government. Nigerian factor has made them to neither feel the presence of Enugwu and Anambra government nor Kogi State government. These territories are like displaced people. But they have decided to make life out of everything. They created their own world and happily living in it. Only Ịbaji area where oil was discovered that government of Kogi State began to drag the territory with Anambra; Enugwu also joined hand. This shows that treasure is priority for recognition of people’s identity. That settlement is Igbo speaking part and Igbo land.

Finally, these are indigenous Igbo people who have been in their ancestral land before Kogi was created and they were pushed into it under the Ịgala leadership. They are not Ịgala people who speak Igbo because they are on the boundary side but Igbo people who through Nigerian definition of things carved out of their land to join others for the purpose of divide-and-rule system hidden under state creation..

This history should be preserved for posterity.

I paused!

© Maazị Ogbonnaya Okoro
Linguist, Writer, Researcher and Historian.

The Metamorphosis Of Ndi Igbo

If Igbo was the Igbo of the 40s 50s and 60s how would the elders keep quiet while the youths run around aimlessly in search of destruction?

When did a people with enviable commercial instincts learn to forget to do simple cost benefit analysis before frolicking let alone taking deep plunges like flirting with violent secession?

BY DR. UGOJI EGBUJO

VANGUARD NOVEMBER 21, 2015

“Igbo enweeze” ( Igbos have no kings) pays tribute not to disunity but to the independent mindedness of Igbos and their republican spirit. Igbos rightly believed that when the community ruled itself then arbitrariness and inequality that kings epitomized would not afflict them. ‘Igbo enweeze’ therefore is the enthronement of not just consensus and equity but also industry and meritocracy. Monarchy and feudalistic structures , despite all the historical sophistication ascribed to them , enthrone not mediocrity but also servitude. But the political docility that has beset Igboland now is startling.

The colonialists came and , in the name of civilization, adulterated Igbo culture. When they left, the legacy of messengers and headboys gave rise to a multiplicity of pseudo kings and contrived kingdoms , serviced by the logic of ease of administration. Autonomous communities proliferated supposedly to bring governance to the grass roots but, in reality, only allowed many maniacs become Ezes.

Now even Igbos in places far flung from Igbo land, who have come by some money, would not be left out in the craving for a whiff of royalty in that artificiality – ‘Ezendi Igbo’.

Ezendi Igbo, a potentially useful instrument for community organisation soon became a bogus social contraption for vainglory. Often bought , borrowed , usurped, snatched or stolen , that title is now emblematic of a much deeper rot in Igbo culture. Let’s ignore the Deji of Akure.

Despite a slower start, by the early 60s Igbos had established themselves through giftedness polished by hard work in the top echelons of all aspects of national life. Dick Tiger had become a world boxing champion , Kenneth Dike was vice chancellor of university of Ibadan while Eni Njoku headed the university of Lagos. Envy could not be excluded from what befell the Igbos.


After the civil war , Igbos , stripped to bare bones , faced institutionalized discrimination. Participation in government was curtailed, so individuals embraced industry and innovation and communities practiced communal self help and “onyeaghalanwanneya” ( be your brother’s keeper). With the determination that Enugu Rangers once represented, Igbos and their stock grew.

There were days when Igbo businessmen were known for frugality rather then exhibitionism. When they lived as tenants in one or two rooms till they owned more than 4 or five houses. Not because they lacked in refinement but because conservation was given priority and the flaunting of wealth was still obscene .

Those days when the worth of a man was measured by his nobility and his success by how many lives he had touched positively. And philanthropy was moral duty rather than a vehicle for personal aggrandizement and positioning for public office. Businessmen grew organically and their wealth could be explained.

The second republic came and Igbos returned to some reckoning. The northern establishment courted Igbos with the vice presidency and more. The days when Azikiwe won elections in Igboland because he was one of our finest and could easily lead Africa . And Mbakwe didn’t need billions or rigging or ballot box stuffing to win against the ruling NPN. And even the moneyed ones deferred to some tradition , and delegates weren’t available to be traded like ‘kulikuli. It is true that corruption has always been rife in our politics but politics then was not the commercial enterprise we have now.

That was before ‘419’ came and upset the order of things. Serious crimes lost moral pungency and lost that ability to attract opprobrium. Well known advance fee fraudsters and drug dealers reveled in fame and became the envy of Igbo youths. They and their philanthropy undercut the industry and took away whatever virtue was left in patience. Then many businesses left Onitsha and headed to Lagos where things could be conjured and decades could be reduced to days. The decadence was general but it would appear that Igbos with their innate cleverness were the masters of both the good and the ugly.

‘419’conmen assumed newly minted traditional stools in Igbo land where honesty and hardwork had always ruled. The commercial instincts of the Igbo youths became perverted and male school enrolments dropped drastically amongst a people who once nostalgically sang “ …….amataramsoroibemgara school, amataramsoroibemoo…” ( I wish I had followed others and taken to education) .

School and education became redundant nonsense as ‘ get rich quick ’ moved from being a mantra to being a religion. Graduate unemployment rose and left many of those who chose education and ended up as bus drivers inconsolable. Many became more certain that education was acostly superfluity.

When democracy returned in the 3rd republic, some other regions began reviving political cultures and structures while money took hold of Igbo politics. Igbos played peripheral shortsighted politics. And were very easily and cheaply bought. Semi literate businessmen became political godfathers. Elections were all about rigging and sane people left the show for thugs.

Some fraudsters became governors and legislators and made a mockery of democracy and all that Okpara and Louis Mbanefo had envisioned. They fended for their personal ambitions and their pockets while the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches quibbled, continued with their primitive political rivalry which would amuse Irish and English clergies. Nominal affiliation with a denomination by reprobates mattered more to priests whose endorsements many unfortunately relied on.

When a people lose the courage to condemn evil, let alone check it, they regress. But Igbo communities didn’t just stand aloof, they also valorized ill-gotten wealth and sanctified criminal careers in the worship of money. Neither drug trafficking, nor advance fee fraud was evil enough to be openly condemned by communities. Criminals were celebrated and atrocities became banal.

Survival of the fittest has always underlined the healthy competition and rivalry prevalent amongst Igbos of the old. But that sort of competition had the virtue of the recognition of abomination and sensitivity to sacrilege. It was once condemnable to abandon a brother in need. It was once obscene to brag about wealth let alone exaggerate ones achievements. It was once a sacrilege in Igbo land to steal because future generations would be tagged and smeared as Igbos believed that, like madness, stealing was transmitted along bloodlines. Times have really changed.

Little wonder Kidnapping came and found a foothold. All the bulwarks against the sort of moral degeneration that would permit the thriving of such evils have long been dismantled. Priests, by their conspicuous unrighteousness, trivialized priesthood and kidnappers showed no reverence. Churches have replaced shrines but they didn’t replace the deterrent dread of ‘Ala’ and ‘Amadioha’ and the immediacy of their retribution with anything comparatively exacting and decisive.

The priests are not wholly to blame for this, their God is a merciful one. The secular police the missionaries relied upon to maintain law and order have been made unreliable by corruption. Taboos have been demystified, the society is now naked. We are relentlessly emptying ourselves of content and the tradition.

Before tragedy befell Igbos, an Nnamdi Kanu in the throes of the most intense of hallucinations will not pretend to the leadership of Igbos. But he is not to blame. ‘Nkaramanya’ ( ‘open eye’ ) has displaced reason and decorum. You look at some of the persons who have become governors in the south east today and you struggle to hold back tears. NCNC was a phenomenon, NPP held the south east and had plateau and parts of Rivers and was forging national coalitions. 0ver 30 years after, the trademarks are now the disorderliness of a moribund APGA and the running of errands in the PDP? Igbo politicians now lack stature, lack vision and are extremely greedy.

If Igbo was the Igbo of the 40s 50s and 60s how would the elders keep quiet while the youths run around aimlessly in search of destruction? I know things have degenerated and courage has fled with morality but when did Igbos start to lack even prudence? When did they come to be associated with the sort of foolish risk taking that IPOB epitomizes?

When did a people with enviable commercial instincts learn to forget to do simple cost benefit analysis before frolicking let alone taking deep plunges like flirting with violent secession? Igbos are not cowards but they are not frivolous. If the events of 1966/1967 repeat themselves they will rise and defend themselves more robustly. But this inculcation of violence and hate in our youths by a shallow and intellectually wretched IPOB and other such groups is poisonous.

Some have suggested that if Buhari doesn’t handle Nnamdi Kanu’s matter well he could end up a Yusuf ( late founder of boko haram). And they implied that something more savage than Shekau will rise and IPOB and its deluded youths will become more barbaric than Boko haram. Buhari therefore should fret , perhaps cry. It’s a good cautionary tale. And I want the president to pay serious attention to the agitators.

But that reading of that cautionary tale lacks perspective. The tale bearers can’t understand that if IPOB becomes Boko haram then Igbo land will become worse than the desolate northeast. Why would anyone sufficiently this paranoid leave it to his ‘oppressors’, from whom he expects mischief and malice, to save him? Why wouldn’t Igbos then take their destiny in their hands and stop IPOB and other groups and their gospel of violence in the interest of Igbos.

Why are the churches quiet? Why are they so aloof even when Nnamdi Kanu has ridiculed Jesus Christ? Don’t get me wrong, if they wont act out of morality or civic duty, why won’t they do so out of prudence, self preservation?Why are the Bishops silent , why have they left it all to Father Mbaka to speak? Nnamdi Kanu may not be an anti Christ but he wants a Biafra, where Jesus is treated as a farce. He is entitled to that position but why would avowed Christians consider him sane let alone a freedom fighter ?

We know the traditional institutions have been bastardized but we still have a few respected traditional rulers. Igwe Nwokedi has spoken but why are the others sitting on the fence? If they support the position of violence and hate canvassed by IPOB they should be bold and say so.We know Igbo politics is largely “ cash and carry” but we have governors on whom the constitution has invested legal duties.

Why is it only Rochas Okorocha that has made a categorical statement? When did Igbo leaders become so cowardly? Igbos can be accused of brashness but not timidity. If Biafra is an immediate necessity why don’t they say so and give reasons? Why can’t we relocate the discourse from the streets to town halls and village squares so that reasons will be separated from emotions?

‘Igbo amaka’ shouldn’t be a mere chauvinistic slogan , it should be a call to the restoration and preservation of Igbo values , culture and interests which materialism has set ablaze.

COMMENT:

Dear Dr. Ugborji, with your level of education, knowledge and enlightenment, you're supposed to know that this contraption called Nigeria is a monumental fraud right from the beginning up till now, I'm surprised you do not know this. I expect you to be very angry that a country that had a person of your caliber, and thousands or even millions of others like you is still operating with a military constitution. which was drafted and doctored 20 years ago in the living room of one man called Addulsalam Abubakar, former Military ruler. This constitution and the structure it produced has shackled the Igbos that they remain dormant and docile in Nigeria

In case you don't know, Igbos are completely fed-up with this system, and by extension, Nigeria. I mean the majority of Igbos, young and old, which I can put to up to 95% of Igbo population. Those who still believe or hope on Nigeria are the privileged few like you, who were able to either amass wealth through crook or hook. Or got good university education abroad or in Nigeria and secured a good job that can support their families. This number is very few among the Igbos, which I put at 5% or more. Understand that Igbos are suffering in this country and they have lost hope in it. All over cities, towns, villages no matter how small in Africa, Igbos are there in thousands, jobless, stranded, living as vagabonds. In the desert Igbos are there in thousands stranded. Those Africans crossing the sea with rickety boats Igbos are among in their number both men and woman, some with their children. Some of the Igbo ladies give birth in the desert. All these are what the new generation Igbos who know the ingenuity gifted them by their God are suffering in Nigeria and you expect them not to react.

If you're truthful to yourself, you'll admit that this country Nigeria is for Housa/Fulani, it doesn't serve the interest of the Igbos. And they have been rude, crude and arrogant even with brazen impunity in demostrating it, at least you can bear the witness with your current President. Have you asked yourself, why is it that the north, Housa/Fulani upon the total mess and shame the country is in, they still resist change to the system.

You've been lamenting why Igbo leaders have kept quiet in the face of the ongoing protests in the SE and SS. Well, in case you don't know, those so-called leaders have all compromised themselves. Their leadership of Igbo has only served their selfish end and that of their families. The Biafra war ended 45 years ago, since then, this so-called Igbo leaders were in Nigeria, watching and abetting every northern leaders that came up. Instead of speaking truth boldly to the authority about the plight of the Igbo, to change the structure of the country, they're there scrambling for crumbs from the master's table. This has emboldened the northerners to shackle the Igbos and hold them hostage with savagery.

With the caliber of eminent people Igbos have produced all over the world, both before and after the war, till today. If they've good leadership, they ought to have put their heads together, to decide their future in this fraud, Nigeria. Also, if Igbo leaders have been brave and have the true spirit of Igbo, they would be bold to look the Nigerian authority in the face and say, "this is the system we want in Nigeria, if not acceptable to you, then let us find our destiny in our own country in peace”. Therefore, the so-called Igbo leaders have failed the new generation woefully. The result is what you're seeing today. What is wrong if Igbos with population of 40 million decide to live their destiny in a country of their own?. It's only the foolish Igbo that would argue against the ability or efficiency of the Igbo to master his destiny.

Igbos have lived in Nigeria like slaves, their leaders serving the Housa/Fulani as servants, never to argue with them. All these are what angered new generation Igbo, so they have decided to take their destiny in their own hands. You don't expect Igbos to live with this gargantuan injustice and impunity forever. They have decided to exercise their right of self determination, to establish their own country. It is the right of every people to decide their fate in a country they will live in joy, not living in perpetual misery like in Nigeria.

The only sense you make to me in your articles was that they should avoid violence and war. So, let it come through a referendum. So what you and those Igbo leaders you call upon should do is to intervene and halt the protests, by promising them that you should approach the Nigerian government to conduct a referendum to decide the future of the Igbos in Nigeria. And not to be calling the protesters absurd names as if they are rascals.

You've always emphasized on the investment of the Igbos outside of Igbo land, that being the reason Igbos should continue to live as servitudes to the northern nomads. Understand that no amount of financial investment, even in billions or trillions of dollars can compare to the destiny of the Igbos. Again, Igbos are leaving Nigeria in peace. It's only fools that fight war in this modern age. So, Igbos are not fighting war. Only that Nnamdi should be properly advised.

The destiny of Igbo race, including the generation yet unborn should not be tied to the financial investment of tiny minority of Igbos, for what one can rightly say is their own demonstration of insensitivity and crude mentality. Recall that Dim Emeka Ojukwu himself has advised, lament and even bemoaned Igbo people for their foolish behavior in this regard. But they were so callous they cannot listen. Because they take delight in developing another man's land while leaving theirs desolate.

Any Igbo that loves the truth, or can see future will know that Nigeria is hopelessly in a void. Since 1970 till today, it's shredding Igbos while their leaders are too afraid to talk or they’re pursuing their pockets. Therefore, Igbos are looking for a Moses to deliver them from Nigeria, to their promised land. If it is not Nnamdi Kanu, there must be another person that will save Igbos from the prison call Nigeria. Israelites were in slavery in Egypt for 400 years at the end, God saved them. So God must elect an Igbo man that will lead them out of this slavery in Nigeria in peace without them losing any of their investment. Thank you.

-----------------------------MRS HELEN MOMOH

The Bitter Truth About The Igbo

Femi Fani-Kayode

BY FEMI FANI-KAYODE

PREMIUM TIMES

AUGUST 8, 2013

Permit me to make my second and final contribution to the raging debate about Lagos, who owns it and the seemingly endless tensions that exist between the Igbo and the Yoruba. It is amazing how one or two of the numerous nationalities that make up Nigeria secretly wish that they were Yoruba and consistently lay claim to Lagos as being partly theirs. Have they forgotten where they came from? I have never heard of a Yoruba wanting to give the impression to the world that he is an Igbo, an Ijaw, an Efik or a Hausa-Fulani or claiming that he is a co-owner of Port Harcourt, Enugu, Calabar, Kano or Kaduna. Yet more often than not, some of those that are not of Yoruba extraction but that have lived in Lagos for some part of their lives have tried to claim that they are bona fide Lagosians and honorary members of the Yoruba race.

Clearly it is time for us to answer the nationality question. These matters have to be settled once and for all. Lagos and the South-west are the land and the patrimony of the Yoruba and we will not allow anyone, no matter how fond of them we may be, to take it away from us or share it with us in the name of ”being nice”, ”patriotism”, ”one Nigeria” or anything else. The day that the Yoruba are allowed to lay claim to exactly the same rights and privileges that the indigenous people in non-Yoruba states and zones enjoy and the day they can operate freely and become commissioners and governors in the Niger Delta states, the North, the Middle Belt and the South-east, we may reconsider our position. But up until then, we shall not do so. Lagos is not a ”no-man’s land” but the land and heritage of the Yoruba people. Others should not try to claim what is not theirs.


I am not involved in this debate for fun or for political gain and I am not participating in it to play politics but rather to speak the truth, to present the relevant historical facts to those that wish to learn and to educate the uninformed. That is why I write without fear or favour and that is why I intend to be thoroughly candid and brutally frank in this essay. And I am not too concerned or worried about what anyone may think or how they may feel about what I am about to say because I am a servant of truth and the truth must be told no matter how bitter it is and no matter whose ox is gored. That truth is as follows. The Yoruba, more than any other nationality in this country in the last 100 years, have been far too accommodating and tolerant when it comes to their relationship with other nationalities in this country and this is often done to their own detriment. That is why some of our Igbo brothers can make some of the sort of asinine remarks and contributions that a few of them have been making in this debate both in the print media and in numerous social media portals and networks ever since Governor Fashola ”deported” 19 Igbo destitute back to Anambra state a while ago.

In the last 80 years, the Igbo have been shown more generosity, accommodation, warmth and kindness and given more opportunities and leverage by the Yoruba than they have been offered by ANY other ethnic group in Nigeria. This is a historical fact. The Yoruba do not have any resentment for the Igbo and we have allowed them to do in our land and our territory what they have never allowed us to do in theirs. This has been so for 80 long years and it is something that we are very proud of. As I said elsewhere recently, to be accommodating and generous is a mark of civilisation and it comes easily to people that once had empires. The reason why many of our people take strong exception to the apparent outrage of the Igbo over this ”deportation” issue and the provocative comments of my friend and brother Chief Orji Uzor Kalu when he described Lagos as being a ”no man’s land” is because the Igbo have not only taken us for granted but they have also taken liberty for licence.

We cannot be expected to tolerate or accept that sort of irreverent and unintelligent rubbish simply because we still happen to believe in ”one Nigeria” and we will not sacrifice our rights or prostitute our principles on the alter of that ”one Nigeria”. Whether Nigeria is one or not, what is ours is ours and no one should test our resolve or make any mistake about that. ”One Nigeria” yes but no one should spit in our faces or covet our land, our treasure, our success, our history, our virtues, our being and our heritage and attempt to claim those for themselves simply because we took them in on a rainy day. It is that same attitude of ”we own everything”, ”we must have everything” and ”we must control everything” that the Igbo settlers manifested in the northern region in the late 50’s and early and mid-60’s that got them into so much trouble up there with the Hausa-Fulani and that eventually led to the terrible pogroms where almost one hundred thousand of them were killed in just a few days. Again it is that same attitude that they manifested in Lagos and the Western Region in the late ’30’s and the early and mid-40’s that alienated the Yoruba from them, that led to the establishment of the Action Group in April, 1951 and that resulted in the narrow defeat of Chief Nnamdi Azikiwe in the Western Regional elections of December, 1951. As a matter of fact they were the ones that FIRST introduced tribalism into southern politics in 1945 with the unsavoury comments of Mr. Charles Dadi Onyeama who was a member of the Central Legislative Council representing Enugu and who said at the Igbo State Union address that ”the domination of Nigeria and Africa by the Igbo is only a matter of time”.

That single comment, made in that explosive and historic speech, did more damage to southern Nigerian unity than any other in the entire history of our country and everything changed from that moment on. To make matters worse, in July 1948, Chief Nnamdi Azikiwe made his own openly tribal and incendiary speech, again at the Igbo State Union, in which he spoke about the ”god of the Igbo” eventually giving them the leadership of Nigeria and Africa. These careless and provocative words cost him dearly and put a nail in the coffin of the NCNC in the Western Region from that moment on. This was despite the fact that that same NCNC, which was easily the largest and most powerful political party in Nigeria at the time, had been founded and established by a great and illustrious son of the Yoruba by the name of Herbert Macauley. Macauley, like most of the Yoruba in his day, saw no tribe and he happily handed the leadership of the party over to Azikiwe, an Igbo man, in 1945 when he was on his dying bed. How much more can the Yoruba do than that when it comes to being blind to tribe? Can there be any greater evidence of our total lack of racial prejudice and tribal sentiments than that? If the NCNC had been founded and established by an Igbo man, would he have handed the whole thing over to a Yoruba on his death bed? I doubt it very much.

Again when northern military officers mutinied, effected their ”revenge coup” and went to kill the Igbo military Head of State, General Aguiyi-Ironsi on July 29th 1966 in the old Western Region, his host, the Yoruba Col. Fajuyi (who was military Governor of the Western Region at the time), insisted that they would have to kill him first before taking Aguiyi-Ironsi’s life and the northern officers (led by Major T.Y. Danjuma as he then was) promptly obliged him by slaughtering him before killing Aguiyi-Ironsi. How many Igbo know about that and how many times in our history have they made such sacrifices for the Yoruba? Would Aguiyi-Ironsi, or any other Igbo officer, have stood for Fajuyi, or any other Yoruba officer, and sacrificed his life for him in the same way that Fajuyi did had the roles been reversed? I doubt it very much. Yet instead of being grateful the Igbo continuously run us down, blame us for all their woes, envy our educational advantages and resent us deeply for our ability to excel in the professions and commerce. Unlike them, we were never traders but we were (and still are) industrialists and when it comes to the professions we were producing lawyers, doctors, accountants and university graduates at least three generations before they ever did. That is the bitter truth and they have been trying to catch up with us ever since. For example the first Yoruba lawyer Christopher Alexander Sapara Williams was called to the English Bar in 1879 whilst the first Igbo lawyer, Sir Louis Mbanefo, was called to the English bar in 1937. Again the first Yoruba medical practitioner, Dr. Nathaniel King, graduated in 1875 from the University of Edinburgh whilst the first Igbo medical practitioner, Dr. Akannu Ibiam, graduated from another Scottish University in 1935.

Yet despite all this and all that they have been through over the years and despite their terrible experiences in the civil war we are witnessing that same attitude of ”we must control all”, ”we must own all” and ”we must have all” rearing its ugly head again today when it comes to their attitude to the issue of the deportations from Lagos state and when you consider the comments of the Orji Kalu’s of this world about the Igbo supposedly ”owning Lagos” with the Yoruba and supposedly ”generating 55 per cent of the state’s revenue”. It is most insulting.

And I must say that it is wrong and unfair for anyone to lay the blame for the perennial suspicion and underlying tensions that lie between the two nationalities on the Yoruba because that is far from the truth. We are not the problem, they are. Pray tell me, in the whole of Nigeria who treated the Igbo better than the Yoruba after the civil war and who gave them somewhere to run to where they could regain all their ”abandoned property” and feel at home again? Who encouraged them to return to Lagos and the West and who saved the jobs that they held before the civil war for them to come back to when the war ended? No other tribe or nationality did all that for them in the country- only the Yoruba did so. And the people of the old Mid-West and the Eastern minorities (who make up the zone that is collectively known as the ”south-south’ today) have always viewed them with suspicion, have always feared them and have always resented them deeply. From the foregoing, any objective observer can tell that we the Yoruba have always played our part when it comes to accommodating others. This is particularly so when it comes to the Igbo who we have always had a soft spot for and who we have always regarded as brothers and sisters. It is time that those ”others” also play their part by acquiring a little more humility, by knowing and accepting their place in the scheme of things and by desisting from giving the impression that they own our territory or that they made us what we are.

Now, let us look at a few historical facts and one or two more Igbo ”firsts’ that many may not be familiar with to buttress the point. The Igbo people were the FIRST to carry out a failed coup on the night of Jan 15th, 1966 under the leadership of Major Emmanuel Ifejuna, Major Chukuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, Major Christian Anuforo, Capt. Ben Gbulie, Major Timothy Onwatuegwu, Major Donatus Okafor, Capt. Ude, Capt. Emmanuel Nwobosi, Captain Udeaja, Lt. Okafor, Lt. Okocha, Lt. Anyafulu, Lt. Okaka, Lt. EzedIgbo, Lt. Amunchenwa, Lt. Nwokedi, 2nd Lt. J.C. Ojukwu, 2nd Lt. Ngwuluka, 2nd Lt. Ejiofor, 2nd Lt. Egbikor, 2nd Lt. Igweze, 2nd Lt. Onyefuru, 2nd Lt. Nwokocha, 2nd Lt. Azubuogu and 2nd Lt. Nweke in which they drew FIRST blood and openly slaughtered and butchered leading politicians and army officers from EVERY single zone in the country except their own.
I should also mention that even though this was clearly an Igbo coup there was one Yoruba officer who was amongst the ringleaders by the name of Major Adewale Ademoyega. It was a very bloody night indeed. Amongst those killed were the Prime Minister, Sir Tafawa Balewa, the Premier of the Western Region, Chief S.L. Akintola, the Premier of the Northern Region, Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Federal Minister of Finance, Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh, Brigadier Zakari Maimalari, Brigadier Samuel Ademulegun, Colonel Ralph Shodeinde, Lt . Colonel James Yakubu Pam, Lt. Colonel Abogo Largema and numerous others. They did not just kill these revered and respected leaders but in some cases they mocked, tortured and maimed them before doing so, took pictures of their dead and mutilated bodies and killed their wives and children as well. For weeks after these horrific acts were carried out, the Igbo people rejoiced and celebrated them in the streets and markets of the north, openly displaying pictures and posters of the Saurdana’s mutilated body with Nzeogwu’s boot on his neck, loudly playing a famous and deeply offensive anti-northern song in which northerners were compared to goats and listening to it on their radios, jubilating that they had brought an end to what they described as ”northern rule and Islamic domination” and openly boasting that they themselves would now ”rule Nigeria forever”. Though the first coup failed the matter did not end there.

The very next day after the Jan.15th mutiny and butchery had failed and did not result in Ifejuana taking power in Lagos, the Igbo people set their ”plan B” in motion and they were the FIRST to carry out a successful coup in Nigeria just one day later on Jan. 17th 1966. This was when the Igbo Major-General J.T,U. Aguiyi-Ironsi (who was Supreme Commander of the Nigerian Army and who had inexplicably and suspiciously not been murdered by the young Igbo officers in their violent mutiny and killing spree the night before) in collusion with the Igbo Acting President Nwafor Orizu and the entire Igbo political leadership of that day, invited the remnants of Sir Tafawa Balewa’s cabinet to a closed door meeting, threatened their lives and took power from them at the point of a gun. Aguiyi-Ironsi did not just ask them to give him power but he took it from them by force by telling them that he could not guarantee their safety if they refused to do so. Meanwhile Orizu point blank refused to do his duty as Acting President and swear in Zana Bukar Dipcharimma as the Acting Prime Minster when the members of the cabinet and the British Ambassador (who was also at the meeting) implored him to do so since by that time there was a power vacuum because the Prime Minister, Sir Tafawa Balewa, had gone missing and had probably been murdered. It was in these very suspicious circumstances and as a consequence of this murky and deep-seated Igbo conspiracy that General Aguiyi-Ironsi came to power. Amongst those that were present at that famous ”meeting” that are still alive today are Alhaji Maitama Sule, Chief Richard Akinjide and President Shehu Shagari who were all Ministers in Balewa’s cabinet . Those that doubt the veracity of my account of this meeting would do well to ask any of them exactly what transpired during that encounter.

Yet the seeming success of the conspiracy was short-lived. Only six months later, on July 29th 1966, General Aguiyi-Ironsi and no less than 300 Igbo army officers reaped the consequences of their actions and plot when they were all slaughtered in just one night during the northern officers revenge coup which was led by Lt. Colonel Murtala Mohammed, Major Abba Kyari, Captain Martins Adamu, Major T.Y. Danjuma, Major Musa Usman, Captain Joseph Garba, Captain Shittu Alao, Captain Baba Usman, Captain Gibson S.Jalo and Captain Shehu Musa Yar’adua as they then were. Lt. Colonel Yakubu Gowon was put in power by this group after that and a few weeks later between September 29th 1966 and the middle of October of that same year approximately 50,000 Igbo civilians were attacked and slaughtered in a series of horrendous pogroms in the north by violent northern mobs as a reprisal for the killing of the northern leaders, including Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Saurdana of Sokoto, by Major Nzeogwu, Major Ifejuna and other junior Igbo officers on the night of Jan. 15th 1966. Please note that despite the fact that a number of Yoruba leaders were killed on that night as well no Igbo civilians were massacred anywhere in the west by mobs in reprisal killings throughout that period.

The Igbo understandably left the north in droves after those terrible pogroms and fled back to the east from whence they came. And perhaps that would have been the end of the story but for the fact that they also declared secession and sought to dismember Nigeria. They then made their biggest mistake of all by provoking a full scale military conflict with Nigeria when they launched a vicious and unprovoked attack against the rest of the south attacking and conscripting the eastern minorities , storming the Mid-West and attempting to enter Yorubaland through Ore to capture it. Thankfully they were stopped in their tracks by the gallant efforts and courageous fighting skills of the Third Marine Commando (which was primarily a Yoruba force and which was under the command of the great Colonel Benjamin Adekunle, ‘the Black Scorpion’), prevented from entering the west, driven out of the Mid-West, pushed back into the East, defeated in battle after battle and were eventually brought down to their knees and forced to surrender to the Federal forces in Enugu.

The Igbo and their Biafra fought Nigeria and killed Nigerians for three hard years in that brutal civil war in which over one million courageous, loyal and faithful sons and daughters of the Federal Republic lost their lives at the war front trying to stop Biafra from seceding from the federation, from taking our land and from taking the minority groups of the Mid-Western Region and Eastern Region and our newly-discovered oil with them. Yet despite our massive casualties and the monumental loss of life that the Federal side suffered (a total of 2 million died on both sides) the Igbo people were welcomed back into Nigeria after the war with open arms. Yet it was only in Yorubaland and especially in Lagos that they were given all their ”abandoned property” back and welcomed back as brothers and sisters without any reservations or suspicions whatsoever. Everywhere else in the country for many years they were denied, deprived, shunned, attacked, killed, discriminated against and humiliated but never in the southwest or Lagos. It is the Igbo people more than any other that have complained about marginalisation in Nigeria, forgetting that there is no other country in the world in which there was a major civil war and yet only 10 years after that war ended the losing side produced the Vice President for the whole country in a democratic election in 1979 in the distinguished person of Vice President Alex Ekwueme.

Some have described my submissions in this debate as being ”inflammatory” and have claimed that I am ”not a true progressive” for making them. I reject these labels and I wonder whether those people that conjured them up described the comments of my dear friend and brother Chief Orji Kalu as “inflammatory” and whether they labelled him as ”not being a true progressive” when he erroneously claimed that the Igbo generated 55 per cent of the revenue and owned 55 per cent of businesses in Lagos and that they are effectively the owners of the state. Unlike most of those that are attempting to label me and brand me as a tribalist I know the history of Lagos and the Yoruba very well.

We will not let anyone poison the minds of our Yoruba youth or dispossess them of their heritage by keeping silent when we witness the irresponsible and dishonest propagation of the most desperate and despicable form of historical revisionism that some Igbo leaders are suddenly churning out. If anyone thinks that they can intimidate us into keeping quite when their leaders say such things then they will have the biggest shocker of their lives. We shall not be silenced and they shall not pass. Lagos and the Yoruba generally have much stronger historical, cultural and trading ties with the Bini, the Itsekiri, the Urhobo, the Isoko, the Hausa-Fulani, the Tapas, the Nupes and the Ijaws than they do with the Igbo. The input of those other major ethnic groups to the development of Lagos and their stake in her is far greater than that of the Igbo. Whether anyone wishes to accept it or not that is the bitter truth. We will not let anyone distort history and we will not keep silent when we hear the irresponsible and disrespectful effusions of those that seek to substitute truth with falsehood. When it comes to Lagos it is time that everyone respected themselves and knew their place. The Igbo particularly should display a much higher degree of respect and gratitude to those who were gracious enough to accept them in their land as equals when things were very difficult for them and who treated them with love, respect and kindness after the civil war when hardly anyone else was prepared to do so.

We the Yoruba have accommodated others in Lagos and throughout the South-west and we have let them live in peace for the last 100 years. As a matter of fact we have been glad to do so because as far as we are concerned that is one of the hallmarks of civilisation- the ability to accommodate other faiths, other cultures, other races and other nationalities and to create an equitable and just racial melting pot where equal opportunities are available to all. It is a great and noble virtue to be open and tolerant but that does not mean that we are fools and it does not mean that we do not know who we are, where we are coming from, what is ours and what our heritage is.

The fact that we have allowed others to thrive and settle in our land and share it with us does not mean that we have stopped owning that land. The suggestion that Lagos is a ”no-man’s land’ and that the Igbo or any other nationality outside the Yoruba generate up to 55 per cent of it’s revenue or business is absolutely absurd and frankly it has no basis in reality or rationality. It is not only a dirty lie but it is also very insulting. Guests, no matter how welcome, esteemed, cherished and valued they are, cannot become the owners of the house no matter how comfortable they are made to feel within it. Those guests will always be guests. Lagos belongs to the Yoruba and to the Yoruba alone. ALL others that reside there are guests, though some guests are far closer to us than others. The Igbo are the least close, the most distant and the least familiar with our customs and our ways. They ought to be the last to be claiming our heritage and coveting our land and neither can they claim to have made any real input to our glaring success. For them to think otherwise is nothing but delusion.