People of Bonny

"Groepsportret van inwoners van Bonny in Nigeria rond Chief Fred Pepple [Group portrait of people of Bonny in Nigeria around Chief Fred Pepple]" – J.A. da Cunha Moraes, 1870.

Background of the Movement for an Anioma State

The people of Benin Province were mostly Edos and people of Warri Province were mostly Urhobos. The Ibo-speaking people living in the area were put into two Administrative divisions namely, Asaba Division and Aboh Division. Asaba Division was put into Benin Province and Aboh Division was put into Warri Province. This exercise is an example of the old Roman practice of "Davide et Impera (divide and rule)". Naturally, this did not please the Ibo speaking people West of the River Niger and so early in the Nineteen-forties, some fifty years ago, they formed the Western Ibo Union with headquarters in Lagos to demand that Asaba and Aboh Divisions be taken out of Benin and Warri Province and constituted into their own province to be known as Western Ibo Province. The British paid no heed to this demand and the people went on agitating.

– Dennis Chukude Osadebay (1991). "History of the Demand for the Creation of Anioma State."

Agitation for a separate political identity for the West Igbo dates back to 1939 when a Western Ibo Union, following the division of the Southern Provinces into East and West, requested a merger of the Igbo-speaking communities on the west of the Niger with their kith and kin on the east. Although the colonial government recognized the demand, 'the exigencies of the Second World War made the necessary boundary adjustment impossible.' At a mammoth rally at Amai in August 1956 delegates from West Igbo areas of the former Western Region forwarded to the Colonial Secretary, Rt. Hon. Lennox Boyd, a resolution on the creation of a West Niger Province which would have given them 'a sense of belonging in the context of Nigeria,' and placed them 'on equal footing' with Benin and Delta Provinces.

– Ugbana Okpu (1986). "Genesis of the Anioma Movement" In: Asian and African Studies: Vol. 20, No. 3. pp. 338–340.

The Western Ibo Union has lately been very active in the propagation of the idea of a Mid-West State, and it has spent a considerable amount of money sending delegates to accompany Western Ibo politicians touring the Mid-West, in order to explain the necessity of voting solidly for the creation of a Mid-West State. Western Ibo land has been a traditional National Convention of Nigerian Citizens area, and most of the elite feel, justly or unjustly, that as a result of their political alignment, they had not, in the former Western Region, received their fair share of amenities.

– Chukwuka Okonjo (1967). "The Western Ibo" In: “The City of Ibadan.” p. 114.

An Igbo Girl with Nja

An Igbo girl photographed by British colonial government anthropologist Northcote Thomas, c. 1910-11. MAA Cambridge. Colourised from black and white, Ụ́kpụ́rụ́ 2019.

An Igbo Girl

An Igbo girl in the photo album of British colonial government anthropologist Northcote Thomas, taken c. 1910-11. MAA Cambridge.

Mbari

Urata-Igbo Mbari votive shrine. The buildings are built in honour of particular deities, most often Ala the Earth Mother, in what is now Imo State and Rivers State. The actual site is not used as a place of worship. Photo: Edward Chadwick, 1927-1943. British Museum.

Some Igbo Women's Titles

Photo: Igbo copper bracelet. 19th-20th century. Metropolitan museum.

While Lọlọanyị was the highest and most important women's title (the equivalent of the male Ọzọ title among the Nsukka), Ogbuefi was the highest female title in Oguta. In addition to enhancing their social status and political power, these societies also offered the initiates avenues to exercise religious power in their communities. Some of the women members were seen as "males" who consequently enjoyed certain privileges that were denied non-initiates. Such privileges included admittance into exclusive men's societies such as [...] the privilege of breaking and sharing the kolanut. [In notes:] Kolanut was a status symbol and a male's preserve. Women were not allowed to break it in Igbo society, especially when a male figure was around. But in Oguta, titled women could break and share kola nuts with men.

– Gloria Chuku (2009). "Igbo Women and Political Participation..." pp. 86–87.

Nsibidi Bende

208. On left breast of Essem, a Bende [Igbo] man (a man offered two rods to a woman, but she refused them and turned her back upon him).

– Elphinstone Dayrell (1911). "Further Notes on ‘Nsibidi Signs with Their Meanings from the Ikom District, Southern Nigeria." The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 41.

"Mbari Njokku"

An Mbari house at "Omo Dim" [Umudim?] which is known as "Mbari Njokku" according to P. A. Talbot who says it was built in honour of an elder named "Njokku and his wife Mbafor." P. A. Talbot (1927). "Some Nigerian Fertility Cults."