Yoruba History has drawn a clear distinction between Ugbo Kingdoms of Ilaje Area of Ondo State and the Igbo or Ndigbo Republic of the Southeast of Nigeria.
The Ndigbos who want to lay claim to the Yoruba Ancestral home of Ile Ife now want the whole World to believe that the Ugbo People who were at Ile Ife otherwise called “Ugboro” which simply means the expanded piece of Land in their native dialect which is totally different from Ndigbo language.
The Ugbo people and their King Osangangan Obamakin KutuKutu Oba Ugbo which was mentioned in the 16 Odu Ifa as defined by Peter Fatomilola. were met at Ile Ife before Oodua arrived from where he came from..
I make this point to explain that the word “Ugbo” and “Igbo” have simply been misconstrued and interchanged as being the same thing. I hasten to submit that they are not.
The Ndigbos never at any time owned Ile Ife or momentarily established their domain at Ile Ife before moving to the Southeast where they are now..
The “Ile Igbo” Sacred Sanctuary at Oonirisa’s Palace was meant to be called “Ile Ugbo “ in deference to the Ugbo People that the great Oodua who finally became the Progenitor of the Yoruba Ethnic Tribe of Nigeria had successfully fought to standstill that had forced the Ugbo people to finally move further East beyond Okegbo, and Ifetedo and beyond IleOluji and Ondo town and Odigbo and Agbabu and Ore until they eventually established their current Domain in the area now called Ilaje Ese Odo which includes current Ugbo Kingdom, Ijaw Apoi and Kiribo, up to Iju Odo, Ijaw Arogbo and Agbagada town which is ruled by Oba Emmanuel Kukuru Agah.
Ilaje Ese Odo includes
Igbo Otu, Idepe and Ode Irele ruled by its King Olorofun and Igbokoda and up to Mogunyanje, Ugbo Nla ruled by their King Kabiyesi Ojofeyimi.
It includes Obejedo and Aiyetoro and Zion Pepper on the Coastal Belt of the Atlantic Ocean.
All of the ancestors of these people were forced by incessant wars to move from Ile Ife to Ilaje Area.
They were all referred to as Ilaje People and they were never at any time referred to as Ndigbo people at any point in their History.
The Ndigbos were never part and parcel of Yoruba History as now being insinuated by Ndigbos this late in the game.
I tell you all of these stories as the pioneer Director of the Directorate of Foods, Roads and Rural Infrastructures (DIFFRI) assigned to Ondo State in 1986 while Navy Captain Okhai Mike Akhigbe was the Military Governor of Ondo State.
I traveled extensively in the Ilaje Area in that capacity and not once was it mentioned to me by any community in the area that the Ndigbo were part of their migration from Ile Ife to Ilaje Ese Odo in the Riverine areas of Ondo State.
The word “ Ugbo” and “Igbo” were mistakenly misconstrued to be one and the same word but they are totally different.
If you come from East Africa where Swahili is their “Lingua Franca”, you are going to find some identical words in Swahili and Arabic
It is a common occurrence in languages just like much of the English words are derived from Latin or Greek .
That does not make the Romans the same people as the British and English People.
You can also find some identical words in French and English.
That observation does not make the French and the British to be the same people .
They are totally different.
Why is it only now that the Ndigbos suddenly realize they were the aborigines from Ile Ife?
If Azikiwe and the NCNC had realized that they were part and parcel of the ancestral home of Western Region why did they not say that when the Party had sponsored Azikiwe to become the first Premier of Western Region in 1952 or when Azikiwe had conspired with Sardauna Bello to put Pa Obafemi Awolowo in jail for 10 years or when Odumewu Ojukwu had ordered Colonel Victor Banjo to go capture the defunct Western Region for him and when Banjo had refused to carry the out the order, Banjo was accused of disloyalty and was made to face the firing squad.
The Ndigbos would never have described Lagos as a no man’s land if they ever own or occupy any part of the Southwest at any point in their History.
For your information the Ebiras of Okenne had some words in their language that are very similar to some words in Yoruba language.
The Ebira Language shares some common words with Yoruba Language as I am now going to prove with the remaining paragraphs of this article.
“Ota mi de, Ada mi da” simply means in Ebira Language “My friend has arrived where is my father to help me welcome him”
The same statement “Ota mi de, Ada mi da” simply means in Yoruba language. “My enemy has come where can I find my cutlass”
Ebiras and the Yorubas have not, because of that claim they are one and the same people and that they shared the same ancestry as the Ndigbos are now trying to claim.
The Ndigbos now claim that they own Ile Ife. Their claim is like “a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing”
It is a complete hoax or fallacy and it is completely baseless.
They knew nothing about how “Aje Festival” at Ile Ife had started and they knew nothing about “Oja Ejigbomekun” at Ile Ife and the significance of that market to the Yoruba People as descendants of Oodua.
I rest my case.
Dr. Wumi Akintide.
