KWENU BookReview: BON Eluwa - History of the Igbo

KWENU! Our culture, our future

Book Review

Oseloka Obaze^*

selonnes@aol.com

Saturday 3 April 2010

Ado-Na-Idu

History of Igbo Origin

B.O.N. Eluwa

(ISBN: 978-978-4886-0-3: De-Bonelsons Global Company Ltd. Owerri, IM, Nigeria, 2008/2009; 737pp; Price, $50.00)

Available at: nugakamche@yahoo.com

B. O. N. Eluwa's Ado-Na-Idu: History of Igbo Origin is a seminal work of history, politics, comparative sociology, and folklore that took all of five decades to research and write. It documents what the author calls the five era of Igbo history. A critical bona fides of the book is that renowned politician and writer, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, read the original manuscript in 1943, the revised versions in 1960 and 1981; and, in the end surmised of the work, “I have read almost everything written on Igbo history but none has got down to the roots like your work.” Another eminent Nigerian politician, late Chief Dennis Osadebay, remarked, “This book is certain to thrill every Igbo citizen who reads it and interest others.”

In Ado-Na-Idu: History of Igbo Origin, Eluwa set out to answer one simple question: What is origin of the Igbo?

This fourteen-chapter book, with all its heft and vital details, is an exceptionally propitious and invaluable work of history, yet it will not escape the critical dissection and controversy over historical veracity that dog such works. Indeed, the author opens the main chapter on Igbo origin with what seems to be a caveat: “the question of Igbo origin has always aroused great controversies and evoked strong differences of opinion.” Ado-Na-Idu: History of Igbo Origin also documents the peripatetic, yet not so nomadic, lifestyle of the Igbo and how that disposition may have widened the Igbo base and culture, while at the same time defusing the tribe’s genealogical antecedents.

In Ado-Na-Idu: History of Igbo Origin, the author acknowledges the broad historical variants of the locality of Igbo genesis. Three are particularly noteworthy: north of the latitude, where the Igbo nation is domiciled, as in “Schenchenigbo, a town situated between Bethlehem and Hebron on the road to Cairo”; or south of that latitude. The third scenario is that the “Igbo are autochthonous, that is, they are natives (sons of the soil) of their present homes”; hence, they did not migrate from anywhere, and have no antecedents other than that which is genealogically theirs.

Considering the long-standing claims that the Igbo may have some connection with the Hebrews – the lost tribe of Judah-- the author diligently scouted the Bible for such connectivity, a cause that led him to devote the entire Chapter 2 to “The Bible on Man’s Origin.” His excursion takes him through the dispersal of the Negro in Africa from the Egyptian civilization, thus establishing the possible linkage traceable to “African physiognomy of the inhabitants of ancient Egypt."

In the end, the author cites seven possible Igbo origins, yet he avers that “contrary to the belief that Igbo existence in their present Nigeria environment goes back for more than 6,000 years, our findings is that they have not been here for up to half of that period.” Chapter 4 Section 9 of the book is devoted to the Ado-Na-Idu Empire, which he notes, “existed long before the kingdoms of Oyo and Benin as well as their contemporary kingdoms of Dahomey and Ashanti.” Eluwa explores how the Igbo interfaced and intersected with other dominant Nigerian nations, especially the various Yoruba kingdoms and the ancient Benin Kingdom, as well as Igbo affinity and congruity to the Opobo, Bonny, Igala, Idoma, Igbira, and Nupe people, in order to delineate possible relationships premised on shared mores and other commonalities such as names and deities. He also delves into some dominant Igbo clans: Onitsha, Arochukwu, Nri and, Abiriba.

It may be interesting to the readers and people of Igbo origin alike that, in the end, Chief B.O.N. Eluwa dismisses the claims of Igbo “autochthony on the grounds that Igbo tradition speaks of a former home known to be west of the Niger.” More authoritatively, in explaining why “the Igbo man did not seem to have a group identity,” Eluwa surmises, “this is because he did not know his past, for as the saying goes, a people who do not know their past cannot find their future.” Painful as this may be, it is a reality most Igbo people can identify with and acknowledge. The book also contains a clarion call to Ndiigbo which ought not to be ignored: “Now that the a clear outline of the Igbo past has been delineated in this study, one hopes that the Igbo would produce a leadership capable of addressing itself to the task of helping the people to find their future.” That challenge remains unaddressed.

To contemporary historians, politicians, and casual observers, the value of this work may lie in the simple fact that the author succeeded in tracing various trajectories and common threads which, when pooled into a singular orbit and weaved together, placed the Igbo and the rest of their Nigerian ethnic counterparts into a common historical identity. Hence, for scholars with stake in the politics and sociology of ethnicities, Ado-Na-Idu: History of Igbo Origin provides solid and validating basis of the nexus in culture, language, and norms between seemingly disparate ethnic groups that form the present day Nigeria. The greatest value of this posthumously published work is not that it embraces every Igbo local history, or conclusively point to the genesis of the Igbo nation, but that it is the first such comprehensive and painstaking work that puts the origin of the Igbo in its proper perspective. It does, indeed establish, as has been rightly observed, “pointers to Igbo past- a framework into which every Igbo local history can be fitted.”

Chief Biyerem Onwuka Nwammo Eluwa was eminently qualified to have written this historical account of his nation. His bona fides as an Igbo spokesperson and historian is indisputable. He was a pioneer member of earliest pan-Igbo organization, the Igbo Federal Union, serving as the honorary secretary and eventually, as the full-time and Organizing Secretary of the Union between 1944 and 1954. He spent the rest of his life serving Nigeria and his fellow Igbo, while devoting ample time to this work. Ado-Na-Idu: History of Igbo Origin is an insider’s account, written without the bias or emotional slants that fraught some historical accounts. It is a study by a conscientious individual and one undertaken out of a commitment born of deep-seated love for that subject matter and keen devotion to research and other forms of inquiry into human and society development issues. The time – indeed, a lifetime – spent in the groundbreaking research that resulted in this book speaks to Eluwa’s commitment. Written in fluid, simple, and elegant language suitable for all readers, this book should grace the library of every Igbo historian, politician, and common person.

PS: This column was unavoidable absent for a while, due to circumstances beyond our control. We sincerely apologize to those who sent in books for review and to our regular readers and general audience.

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Mr. Oseloka Obaze is a founding member of the Kwenu.com Book Review Forum, which is dedicated to the promotion of books with Igbo and Afrocentric themes. He is also a supporting Member of the African Writers Endowment (AWE). From 1999 to 2005, he served on the editorial board of INYEAKA, the journal of Songhai Charities, Inc., a New Jersey community-based charity founded and run by Nigerians based in New York Tri-state area in the United States, first as its founding Publisher and later as the Editor-At-Large. He is also on the editorial board of The Amaka Gazette, the journal of the Christ the King College, Onitsha Alumni Association in America. His collection of poems, “Regarscent Past: A Collection of Poems” was second among the top three finalists in the poetry category in the African Writers Endowment Publishing Grant Program for 2004. He is working on a novel titled “Happy Eulogy”. He reviews books and arts strictly as a hobby.