Re: Once again on my Igbo brothers
By Ikenna Emewu [ikenna@sunnewsonline.com]
Saturday, October 10, 2009

My piece on this topic last week elicited a deluge of responses. All of them pointed toi the truth that there is a problem of identity among the Igbo world. They also showed that the divisions spoken about is a real problem the people need solution to.
I have therefore decided to run some of the replies that came in e-mails and SMS messages.

Dear Brother Ikenna, I must commend you for the awareness campaign you are doing on The Sun Newspaper. Just this morning I read an article you wrote concerning the importance of unity amongst all brothers and sisters called Igbo. I am happy to read that. We need more of such conscious articles. The Igbo unity has seriously been severed. With passage of time, campaigns like yours will surely bridge the divide. Kind regards.
Aja Kalu

We need the awareness
I applaud your points on the above topic and I think that time is what we need to better understand who we are and how wide we spread out. No man tells another man who he is or where he comes from. Every ethnic group has those who live in the heartland and those who occupy the outskirts or bordering neighbors. Go to Germany, go to France, Italy, they all have same ethnic domain structure of scattered locations. I am from Nsu in Ehime Mbano in Imo State. During the Biafran war, all Igbo people converged in Ehime Mbano as the enemy troops was fast approaching from all sides. During the last days of the war, Ehime Mbano was among the few free Igboland that were not under the enemy’s siege, in short the civil war ended in Ehime Mbano at the tail of the time. But look at how our brothers and sisters kept coming all the way from Anioma, Ikwerre and from all other parts of Igboland to gather in Ehime Mbano as the last days of the Biafran revolution drew nearer.

It showed that people of same ancestry come together at the time of crisis. No one ran to Yorubaland or Hausaland, every Igbo family journeyed towards Igboland center. Cultural traits of Igbo people are same from Delta State to River State, so this issue of who is Igbo or not needs not arise. We are one people through ancestry, culture and geography. However, this argument further tells me that Igbo people are actually Jewish. In the United States, for example, only Jews are the ones who engage in ethnic identity and disdain.

You will  never hear an Italian, Irish, or Scottish American, try to disown their people or talk about who is one of them or who is not, but Jews always talk about this person is Jewish, not Jewish, or that person claims to be Jewish and that sort of thing. Ironically, Jews are the most hated among white Americans, just like Igbo people are the most disdained in Nigeria. Anyway, we are one and will always be one. Never you let any Igbo man tell you that you are Igbo man or not Igbo man, that does not make sense and it is against our ancestors belief. Just like Mexican president rightly told America, ‘any where you see a Mexican, that’s Mexico’. Anywhere in Igboland you see an Igboman that’s Igbo.
Okechukwu

All of us are Nd’Igbo
Ikenna Nwanne M,
Chukwu Gozie gi. Your piece in the Saturday Sun of Sept; 26 made my day. The piece reminded me of a drama that took place one day. We were in a place and a young man introduced himself as Chinaka; from Delta State. 
I shook hands with him and told him that we are brothers because I am an Igbo too. But alas; He told me that he is never and cannot be my brother. He said that he is not an Igbo person.

But even before I could regain myself to ask what he is, a lady standing by had asked that question. Chinaka had no answer but only maintained his ground. The lady then went ahead to tell him to wake up from his sleep and stop shopping with those who need peace in their own place but do all things to keep us divided. The lady told him that she is also from Delta State and knows herself to be Igbo person to the core because that exactly is what she is. 
To me it was a mixture of happiness and anger. But more of the later, because a woman is now the one telling a man what he should know and teach. However I still believe that the truth would one day prevail. 

I am from Nsukka part of Enugu State, the part that is asking for Adada State. But I have never hidden my support anywhere that the new state to make the South East have equal of six states as others should be given to Anioma people because it is more of importance to us as Igbo Nation than the Adada. 
There are just too many things to say on this, but I think we should put all things to God through prayers. 
Ka Chineke gozie gi ma gozikwa nwa Igbo obula n’eche uche di ka gi. 

Ndewo 
Jude Onyebuchi Onyishi.
Garki Abuja   

Nwannem, 
Odikwa na mma? I read your piece and I could not but concur with U completely. As an Onyeigbo from Anambra state myself, I have felt really sad, and sometimes outrightly disgusted, when some Igbo folks east of the Niger tend to discriminate against others on the West and tend to bestow upon themselves the absolute status of “original” Ndigbo. It is my unshaken belief it bothers on pure ignorance and short-sightedness had roots from the political balkanizations of Ndigbo after the loss of the failed Biafran campaign. 
I restate your position that all peoples and tribes are original to themselves and there is noting like a “true” or “fake” Ndigbo. That is the governing philosophy of Ohanaeze Ndigbo - which literally means - every Igboman is welcome. 
Nice piece.