Words by Dikachi Nwanna

I initially started off this article with quotes from great writers of igbo history and philosophy, till i asked myself, “what is your own opinion, What does it mean to be Igbo? Who is Igbo?”, then I started to rewrite.

Before I begin to tell you Who is Igbo and Who is not, I want to say that I’m a bit disappointed in people’s views about the Igbo People and the Igbo Culture (even the ones who preach One Nigeria up and down the ‘sociomediasphere’). How can you say you want unity and integrity when you know next to nothing about the other person’s culture? How can you say you want to marry a wife and you dont understand her goals and aspirations? I see so many views saying things like “The Yorubas do this and do that, but the Igbos dont…” or “The Igbos do this and do that, while the Yorubas can never do such…”. The word thrown around too often for such is tribalism but actually it is ethnocentrism. (I generally dont mention other tribes when i speak about the Igbos because I’m always viewed as tribalisitic, so please forgive me for this one)

Secondly, I’m then greatly disappointed in the supposedly Igbo people who go about with ignorant views of the same Igbo culture (maybe for RTs, likes, lols or to sound politically correct or to please partisanship).
So now Who is Igbo? What does it mean to be Igbo?

Let me start by saying Igbos, are not a superior people to the rest of Africa, but we are quite unique. We are generally held to be tolerant and ultrademocratic. “Igbo enwe Eze”, which means we have no kings. We dislike and suspect any form of external government and authority. We have a practical, unromantic approach to life. We have a strong family system, marriages are not just based on attractiveness, we believe those are not bound to last.

We are success oriented. We are egalitarian but individualistic. We believe it an essential aspect of the ‘right and natural’ that talent should lead to enterprise, and enterprise to promotion, and promotion to privilege. We insistently stress social mobility. We are also very competitive amongst ourselves. We consistently thrive to attain more levels of success not because we want a global domination but because we want to be able to go back and give back to the local community(obodo) where we come from.

There were certain views I want to address

1. @nicholasIbekwe – “The Yorubas will celebrate people with the faintest Yoruba lineage from Brazil. Put a bridge between 2 Igbos towns and they become strangers”. Igbo people will never celebrate you because you just bear an igbo name, even when you are doing so much in brazil. We celebrate and respect anybody (be it yoruba, Igbo, Hausa or philippino) who actively gives back to the Igbo community. You are not just Igbo because you bear an Igbo name. It is not our culture.

2. “Igbo People should be united” It is not in our nature to be united, it is in our culture to disagree, we are an ultrademocratic people.

I also want to add that being Igbo is like being in a cult, we have social classes you need to identify with and you must belong to one and recognised by one to be said to be one and part of the community at large. You are not just Igbo because you have an Igbo name, with all this said if anybody from whatever geolocation or colour wants to be Igbo, just get with the program.

As for the clangour about Mr Kachikwu, the New GMD of The NNPC, sincerely I don’t care if Buhari appoints 142 northerners into 120 positions, i feel we are not too far behind in development as a country to bother where the person mandated to bring development comes from.

However, The appointment is from the South South, the South East still have legitimate rights to continue to speak against perceived marginalisation from this present administration

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.