IGBO AND IGBO IN OONI OF IFE 2019 SPEECH – CHIDI OSUAGWU

It is BEST to understand WHO the Ooni refers to as IGBO in this his 2019 Ajie Festival speech:

1. IGBO in this speech refers to the AUTOCHTHONOUS Forest peoples of Southern Nigeria before the 9th Century immigration of the Oduduwa, Eri and Ogiso groups into the area.
2. These immigrants named above (Oduduwa, Eri and Ogiso) were displaced by the invasion of the Nile Valley by Arabs, as a result of a major global drought that occurred about the same time and fervor of expansionist Islam.
3. These immigrants, characteristic of NARCISSISTIC Middle-east cultures, set out to establish monarchial hegemony over the indigenous peoples they ran to for refuge, even when they were Technologically and Civilizationally inferior (compare Nri who met Awka -Isu people who made Bellows for them to deflood their mythic world, yet can’t stop peddling their Parachute-fables in the Anambra River basin. Same thing as Oduduwa group who met better-warrior Igbo at IGBOMOKUN/ILE-IFE. Yet the Oduduwa were able to impose their MONARCHY over The Western Igbo by using the YELLOW-SISI BOTTOM POWER of MOREMI, the light-skinned Araboid woman (note that Shuwa Arabs and Fulani, in the Sahel, employ the same YELLOW-SISI BOTTOM POWER strategy to dominate Kanuri and Hausa peoples politically today).
4. When the Ooni uses the term IGBO in this speech, he is referring to the Igbo Obalufon, who crowned him Ooni, and other related autochthonous peoples, not ISU Igbo in the East. The ruling Houses in Oduduwaland today are Descendants of Oduduwa. The ordinary peoples are mostly autochthonous Igbo stock, and related to the Isu Igbo in the East. The Ikale people, led by the OLUGBO OF UGBO are among the group of Igbo peoples challenging the right of the Oduduwa to form monarchies over them.
   Unfortunately, the Olugbo, Oba Frederick Obateru Akinruntan, claims to be Igbo, but not related to the Eastern Igbo who he claims are IBO (one notes that an Onitsha Chief, in Karl Maier’s ‘This House Has Fallen’, used this argument in reverse to distinguish his people from the autochthonous Isu Igbo). On the other hand, two autochthonous Igbo men of Western Nigeria (Professor Sam Aluko, Ekiti, and Chief Olu Akinfosile, Ikale, introduced me to this whole History. They identified as autochthonous Igbo of Western Nigeria. And it is this TRUTH that the inspired Ooni is addressing in the speech.
5. One noteworthy fact of Igbo History is that the Imo Basin ISUAMA Igbo kept clear concepts of the Oduduwa/Ogiso/Eri immigration and the associated monarchy Myths, which they dismiss as Akukọ Nd’Eri, Akụkọ Iduu N’Oba and Akụkọ Ife. I had addressed this concept in my 2003 Ojukwu 70th Birthday lecture. This followed my extended follow up Research to what Aluko and Akinfosile told me in 1993. Interestingly Isuama, within the context of Colonialism and Slavery before insisted theirs is THE IGBO. Wether it is the ISU resistance in the East or the Ekumeku resistance in the West, the ISU are the heart of it. The same thing turns out to be True in modern Yoruba land. The best true freedom-fighting was done by the autochthonous Ekiti and Ijesha under Ekiti Parapo.
6. Of particular interest is that the Autochthonous Igbo, under NO circumstances, surrendered SOVEREIGNTY to the Immigrants (The Igbo at Igbomokun/Ile-Ife used the slogan “KUTUKUTU ỌBA IGBO!” to shut off the option. So, the Igbo Obalufon still crown the Ooni. The Igbo Oliha crown Oba Bini. The Igbo Adama crown Ezenri.



7. Because people don’t understand these facts, they don’t understand many associated events. Like ill-informed people are supposing, the misguided article in a textbook is about ‘Yoruba’ and ‘Igbo’ War. When major inter-Yoruba debate involving Ooni, Olugbo, Soyinka, Obasanjo etc, 2016, addressed the issue. Publications on it are still online.
   Well it is not about Igbo and Yoruba. It is about Igbo and Oduduwa. 8. People don’t understand how Ojukwu bypassing the Ezenri to take Gburugburu title from autochthonous Adama complicated IPOB situation. This is because MNK, in a bid to upstage Uwazurike who was given title by Ezenri, went to Nri and imitated Ojukwu. He bypassed Ezenri and took title from Adama. One needs to understand acts have effects. This event created serious complications for IPOB in a way one doubts they understand.
8. The identities of most African peoples in the last millennium are complicated. Those complications are part of what keeps Africa week and down. Europeans understand this and exploit it. The blowback from younger Africans seeing through European and Arab games is part of what has spoilt the show for France and Britain (one hears French President Macron talked about the complications of Ethnic score-settling in Niger). People have to have the interest and capacity to understand to get involved.
   Professor AI Akinjogbin wrote a very informative book ‘IFE:The Cradle of A Race’ in the late 1990s. He discussed the subject of Igbo and Oduduwa at Igbomokun, etc. He couldn’t get the Lagos-Ibadan to publish it. He later got SUNRAY Publishing, Port-Harcourt, to publish it. The weakness of the African Academic Community is a serious part of the crises of AFRICAN IDENTITIES RECTIFICATION.
   Chidi G Osuagwu.