For decades, Ekoli Community in Edda Local Government has been without a traditional ruler or a government recognized king, as a result of web of crisis bothering on where the Eze should come from to the system of selection until mid-year 2024.
Through the courts, the Igbo-Eze stool was restored and His Royal Highness Eze-Ogo John Olughu Igwe was recognized after receiving the staff of office from the governor of Ebonyi State Rt. Hon. Francis Ogbonnaya Nwifuru. Although the community is still battling for stability but the royal stool restoration introduced both a compass for both internal reconciliation and a progressive edge.
In this interview with Eze Sampson His Royal Highness Eze-Ogo John Olughu Igwe speaks of the battles, Characters in involved among other issues concerning Edda as a clan.
Excerpt:
Your Highness how do you feel right now?
OK, I see myself as God anointed servant to ensure that the truth is told about anything concerning the Ezeship institution, the throne and the people. And the goal was to ensure that the objective is achieved. It is the giving of this staff of office whose foundation was the court verdict.
We have to go to court to sort it out and found the foundation of the Ezeship institution. And when the court gave her verdict, not one, not two, I may even say much more when it comes to how and what I passed through in the courts. Government said, OK, now the judiciary has spoken. We have no other choice than to act accordingly.
I made my submissions to the government, several of them. I went through it and found what the court says is the truth about the matter. One would ask, why did you go to court?
If you had a tradition, was it not so enshrined that nobody will accept it? Because one would say, a rich tradition is one that have self-recognition. Once you say, this is where the Ezeship should be sourced. It should be generally acceptable. That is what I expected. But the bourgeoisie, who felt otherwise, decided to challenge what they already know.
About the tradition?
About our tradition.
They know it, but to them it was unacceptable because they had the means to challenge it. Believing that they can get it since the person they want to challenge is the type that cannot overcome their challenges. They felt that he is too small to fight them.
And so when they find him, they’ll just shatter him, you know, bring him low, and silence him. That’s how I was seen. Someone that cannot make it. So they decided, now we know we are, by all means, more able. Let’s bring this man low and change the situation of things. What used to be shouldn’t be by their own view, so they were prepared to change and twist everything.
So lies, falsehood, falsifications prevailed. It became a singsong, Ohh! We are the people that used to be the Eze, we produce it. Now this man is coming. It’s not supposed to. I kept silent and watched events roll out.
Circumstances to roll out events for everybody to dance to. So they took me to court. The first section, a group of people took me to court for being selected by my people. This selection came on 27th November 2010. It was designed to bring a successor to Igbo-Eze the second, Eze-Ogo Jonathan Okorie Akanu, who died on the 29th, 28th or 29th February 2010. Then a vacuum was created and the question is who?
Who is next?
So, it was on that day, 27th after the burial of that man on the 8th. No, this is 6th or 8th of November that year. So, on the 27th the village elders and chiefs all met but one village didn’t come. All of them met except one.
One village exempted themselves?
According to tradition, I was selected without opposition. There were no two persons or more set against me. I and only I was selected and they did it according to tradition.
What’s the name of that village?
Nkagbo-Ogo.
Nkagbo-Ogo Ekoli Edda?
Yes!
Now delving into this royal tussle, can you give us the background of he whole matter? You know, there’re people who said that Igbo Eze II, late Eze-Ogo Jonahan Okorie Akanu was not selected that he was elected instead. And because of that, this one too will be elected. Can you give us the background that brought about this?
Eze Ogo Okorie Akanu coming into the show?
Yes!
You know, we do not have a written history and we are all growing up from pre-elited society. So, our usages and our history is coined into our conventions, customs, traditions and usages these things are not written but they are laws of its own.
Yes sir!
I was telling you that we operate with customs, traditions, conventions, usages. These are the core norms of a people. And in doing so, we have already acquired statehood, statehood. We are not a stateless society, we are a state oriented society.
A state oriented society has fixed traditional practices that cannot be broken, unlike other cephalous societies that create things for themselves. A society that have no clear leader will emerge by election.
But a society that has clear mode of leadership goes by selection and we have a clear mode of leadership and we go by selection. The tradition tells us where to go, conservation tells us where to go.
If you move it out from there, you’ll be creating a new platform that has no foundation and that will bring confusion in the society because what they know is what you are taking them away from. Then to where?
Now, because of developments that somebody who should be presentable enough to be able to address the public. And when the time came, it became a challenge to the tradition.
Eze Ogo Okorie Akanu was a little bit literate. He can write his name, but not so much. And in the city of the blind, one eyed man can emerge. But why was his emergence breaking the tradition?
Yes and No.
Yes, if the tradition is something that can accommodate it without any loss.
No, if the tradition cannot accommodate it with a loss. Now, Ezeogo Okorie Akanu is a core Ezi-Edda man and the people that own the offor where the Eze is to be enthroned are the Ezi-Edda people. So, when something is lacking from the mainstream, the subsidiary could be given consideration.
And so when my father, Nnachi Igwe emerged, he was not that literate and Okorie Akanu was a little bit more literate okwanu nwadi ayi, oo nwadi ayi. He’s a sub offor holder but we hold the main offor, when you’re looking for something there must be a region in search of such, and that region is where the offor is.
As I’m telling you now, if I carry my offor, the next person that will follow me will come from Ama-Ogbu.
Not even from Nde Enworo?
Nde Enworo will carry the offor, “ooya ha esom azu eje offor”, even though “Ugwu-Elu eri agba anu”, yet offor will not take him. And the Eze must be given to somebody who will preserve the tradition, you can’t give it out, outside it has nothing to do with rotation. And if you can get something from the mainstream, why go to the subsidiary?
I am not saying that if I’m not there, somebody from Ama-Ogbu must come in, No! No! It’s just that we met with a disaster. And then we said, instead of us losing out entirely, let’s pick a substitute from the main.
You said that you met with a disaster, what exactly was the disaster?
We wanted somebody literate enough, not somebody who is just sunk into customs and tradition that cannot address his people. The generation we have now wants to know what tradition has not told them. The average Ekoli man wants explanation. He doesn’t really need to come to the Obi and then awaa Oji.
And then you talk it out, you can’t answer some of the questions they want. You can’t satisfy this new generation. They want to know the truth.
So at that time Nde-Enworo didn’t have that kind of a man?
…cuts in… We had the type, we had Nnachi Igwe who could have handled the Ezeship in the place of Okorie Akanu. But they were shouting we need somebody who’s educated! We need somebody who’s educated! Who can write his name!
The same thing was echoing at Ngwuzu, as at the time Okorie Akanu was made the Eze, Ngwuzu had their own, who was not equally literate, they said we will maintain the status quo, it has to be as it has been.
But they contest continued when it comes to Eze Okoro Onuma, the young generation said give us somebody who can read and we have somebody he’s available. It’s not that he’s been wanted in Nde-Enworo, he was there but they said we want somebody who can write and since the substitute was there and the substitute was not at Ngwuzu, Nde Ngwuzu chose their man.
What am I saying? They said okay, you hold it briefly Okorie Akanu, hold this thing briefly not forever, not for an inheritance, not for an interchange just hold it briefly until when we have somebody that will come. He was duly informed that he was just holding that office on a brief, he was duly informed.
Could that be what informed the children not coming after …cuts in…the crown?
He told them. The man, the elders told him to tell his children and he not only telling them he warned them never to contest it not to talk of emerge. Our Ezeship stool is hereditary.
That is Igboeze Ezeship stool?
Yes! It’s hereditary within the caucus, the ofor holders and the head of the ofor must come from Nde-Enworo, must be giving the first consideration let me put it in our dialect; oochoa afughu da eme-elea enya-akwa I have said it all, oochoa afughu. Omaghi emeba nu because oonu da abu Eze ga egweta onye isi adighi nma.
Eleghi ezi uka, so what actually changed the tripod was the peoples’ demand for a timely king?
I didn’t emerge that way.
No, I mean that of Okorie Akanu?
I said he was told to hold brief this thing till Shilo comes.
Okay.
I want the new generation to be told the truth.
Your Highness, haven taken care of the bone of contention; who and who were the people that took you to court?
The first village, the only village that took me to court stating that I am taking the position from them, that they used to hold it they used their language…Aayi da bu Eze. They took me to court looking at me as someone that came to occupy their seat, to take what belongs to them and we went to court and contested it and they failed. All their evidences and interrogations and witnesses all failed. They could not defend their suit and on the closing remark, the court told them you cannot put something on top of nothing and expect it to stand therefore your suit failed.
There have always been that mentality of oo ayi da abu Eze whenever you’re dealing with an Nkagbo-Ogo person.
More than average because that has so twisted their mentality, and that thing has grown to become a forbidden fruit that when taken it’s difficult to be free from it.
I am a prince! I am a prince!! I am a prince!!!
Eheee! But why would you continue to prince yourself when you don’t have the stool to back it up?
Is it not self-deceit?
If I say I am a prince and somebody ask me is your father a traditional ruler, how would I back it up? Or I would say we just answer prince my father gave it to me as a name, you know that kind of a thing. When there are too many princes and people answer it as a name. I will allow you to go ahead princing yourself.
Yes!
But then tell yourself the home truth, I am not a prince because my father is not a king! And you will go to heaven by that. If you deceive man will you deceive God?
Can you tell us where that hypothesis Udu-ligbo came out from?
Our history does not recognize any myth, it’s a myth. It’s a deceitful myth, that name did not feature when they were contesting with the Igbo-Eze the 2nd, Udu-ligbo never surfaced even in their court judgment as early as that time but they want to link their identity with Igbo-Eze and created that name Udu-ligbo. Until today Edda doesn’t know it, we don’t greet Udu-ligbo kwenu rather we greet Igbo-Eze kwenu because that’s our ancestral name. In our meeting and you mention Udu-ligbo Edda man will look at you as a mad man, who is that man?
We mix with Ohafia, see I attended their new yam Festival and I was greeting Igbo-Eze that’s our name. So, if I start greeting Udu-ligbo they will start looking at me like “Onyea oonye nno”? Who are you?
It’s a figment of imagination, let’s create a name to enable us carry out our enterprise or to feel accommodated so that we will not be entirely alienated and they carried this mentality to court, wrote it down and it was discovered as a methodology that does not and has never existed. I have no connection with anybody Udu-ligbo, it has never been the name of Nkagbo-Ogo until when they wanted to go into the second phase of the contest which is this court we went to and they did not prove it, they could not prove it!
Wow!!!
With the new leadership of the Ekoli Band, what are you doing about your cabinet?
Well, I have formed my cabinet. I wrote to every village without exception including Nkagbo-Ogo to join my cabinet and some responded and some have not responded, some are disgruntled. They have not come, not that they will not come because we belong to the same autonomous community, so I will wait for them to come.
You said that some have responded but some have not, is it only the Nkagbo-Ogo that have not or are there other villages yet to comply with your letter?
You know the town union supported by the immediate past local government chairman started a new war front?
War front?
War front against this Igbo-Eze stool.
Ok, the new town union?
Not the new one! The past. Dr. Uka Mba led administration.
Ok.
Supported by the local government chairman then, started creating another Igbo-Eze stool on their own type and they said that Igbo-Eze stool should come by popular selection.
By election?
By election, in order to execute their policy of popular selection, they started selling forms at the cost of #100,000 per form, per any person who wants to vie for it as if we are vying for political office and when I found out that they were becoming serious about it, I sued them to court.
Oh! Is that what happened? Was this also part of the just concluded legal battle?
Yes!
That of Nkagbo-Ogo settled and the former leadership settled, that’s good to hear. Can you tell us, what’s your relationship with the current town union leadership led by Engr. Kalu Ama Mba?
Well, cordial.
Beautiful. So, what that means is that Ekoli is about to experience new lease of life?
We have the task to re-unite Ekoli and it is my task now.
As a father.
All of them belong to me, under me and they are my subjects, no other institution of governance in Ekoli will be given a staff of office and once that is done every other person bows. All we need to do is to reunite, whatever maybe or may have been your differences you subdue it, you submerge it, and you concern it into the cost of unity. Sync your differences, if you don’t want to accept me as a person accept the law as a force. To oppose me is to oppose the law.
Yes sir!
By God, by our Lord Jesus Christ, he designed it.
Once again, we are glad at the reconciliation going on and they people will be glad to be home again.
First of all, celebrate Jesus Christ who redeemed us from our sins, for Ekoli people have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
We told lies, stark lies yet we knew the truth but we preferred the lies. So, celebrate Jesus Christ who made the truth to prevail, celebrate Jesus.
We have our own construction of our minds which is different from one another but the truth remains the truth and it cannot be compromised with falsehood. Celebrate that man called Jesus Christ. Let us go to church and thank him so that we open our mind, if it’s just coming together drink, dance yet you may still be of the same opinion of Heee! Let’s fight this man so that he will step aside and we resume our quarrels. It doesn’t change you but if you celebrate Jesus Christ, you’re changed, you’re bound to accept the truth, practice it and that will give us the peace we want. We don’t want liars. If I send you to do something in Ekoli you begin to tell lies, you will not be straight, and you will not come with good conscience. That time is over, we can’t continue to deceive ourselves. Accept that one, Ekoli has gotten Eze and co-operate with him and secondly, you accept the fact that “ebohu edoro Eze ohu is where it should be, sync your differences because we are not giving it back to you again. God did not say ham ngweri ya he nighi, he has not commanded me ngweriya he nye onye oduo. And in doing so we are now liberated from blindness, amaghi Ife, ignorance! We have achieved our independence from the hand of terrorists who wanted us to accept their pattern and new creation than what God had already established before we were born through our ancestors. The culture was there, the tradition was there, the uses were there, the conventions were there.I mean, these things were in place before we were born. You want to convert Ekoli to a political party. I am not a politician I don’t belong to any political party all of them are my children, just that!
Your Highness sir, you’re a custodian of history and tradition, a man known by many with resounding testimonies. What do you think Edda does not have that our neighboring communities such as Ohafia, Afikpo and Abiriba have?
Well, it’s a good question. For now we lost our centrality, Edda clan lost her centrality. Edda enwoghu Ibe Ikpari Uka that’s the language Edda man will understand. Ngwuzu autonomous community, their ancestral name is Imo Eze and Ekoli is Igbo Eze they are our senior brother while we are their junior, but they don’t have everything all alone we respect that seniority and they also respect us as their own blood brother. We share ofor with a degree of division of labour. That’s the reason for this saying that kara Ngwuzu kara Ekoli, Edda agwule. These are centers of message and cultural practice, message are communication dissemination and cultural practice. When we go to Ngwuzu, we sort out ife gbasara Eze now we are sorting their own we go for their ceremony igbubi Ebule.
Yes!
They were supposed to use that position of seniority to be holding meetings, inviting other people whenever something happens in Edda, we are supposed to go to Nguzu and sort it out. Lo! It is not so, then Edda people created a parliament called Osisioma where we all meet, but that is not the end of the matter…cuts in…
Are you saying that Osisioma was created as a result of the vacuum created by Ngwuzu?
No! It’s just our ancestral parliament.
Okay.
That place called Osisioma is the land of Edda people, it doesn’t belong to any village or family. That’s where we meet, the next place we meet is Ekoli when it comes to new yam festival. Ngwuzu does not have much to do with new yam and also when Egbela was centralized, we meet at Libolo which is in Ekoli and handle our matters concerning major ceremonies and I declare the year, how the year should go ada akpo ya “itu omu”, I do it or any person I delegate in that regard. So there’s that cooperation between Nguzu, Ekoli but what was lacking is that center of unity and I titled it ibe ikpari uka.
And I titled it ibe ikpari uka, ife mee where will Edda people stay and discourse their issues.
Your Highness, you’re taking us to a very interesting part of this discussion, while this royal tussle lasted what were the reactions of our sister communities?
Because of ibe ikpari uka, our centrality was lost they did nothing. They didn’t come I expected them they didn’t come. So, I was fighting alone with my God. At no time did they say noo! This is not our practice ooo, you people should stop, and this politician don’t go that way. They didn’t say it and God delivered me and when God delivered me I started fighting for ibe Edda da-ano-akpari uka. I went in search of it and Edda monarchs accepted that position and rose to go to Atamata to ask, why are we so separated? Is it good for Edda people? And the answer was overwhelming NO! We have to come together, then we went to Osisioma and invited every other village from Edda and put the same question before them and they said there’s need for us to meet, to be meeting not just to meet but to be meeting. For now the unity of Edda is being held by Nde Eze Edda because this is the only institution that is always meeting and discussing about Edda affairs. We are on the move on the move because it will not start and end with us, we need to carry other institutions of governance along and we are going to create the platform for them to feature. It’s our endeavor, and until this central place ibe Edda ano akpari uka is founded we will continue to go separate. I will only know you as onye Edda but I can do anything to you because ifo ohu mere any buru one imaghi ya, so ife dighi nma ga-emem.
And ime, ga-eriri ya.
Because that is why cultists are high jacking this vacuum, iletudua nwaneghi ga-emeya ife. Anybody can highjack it, nde mba bia wo emeonye Edda ife wo alagha. Odihi ife yo bayi tahe obodo because you know your core value, you will reject it.
Yes sir!
If we had held fast to our core value ife gbara Ekoli anighi ada-agba, they will be people to say no to it and they will not run away from the community, what happened is that because of political interest, mama anwu everybody was on flight, then who will save the community. Igbapugha onye ha da akpa uka ya?
I want to thank God, I have nothing no credit for anything except the fact that God said “don’t run away, face this battle I am with you” and that’s why I am here talking with you. The truth must be told!
I have told you what I think I can say to you not because you asked me but because you are going to tell the world the truth.
Yes sir!
Let me repeat, the Igbo-Eze stool is hereditary and not elective, we know where to pick our Eze we know it, is not for public consumption. We know when the time comes and we know where to pick and how to pick it because it is embedded in our customs and tradition. Complete that sentence, we know where to pick our Eze, Eze and how to pick it because it is embedded in our customs and traditions. To move it away to another place? Huuu!
You’re coming from a Christian background, before now the Christians seldom accept the royal and this has affected so many communities because they say it’s traditional that is for the non-Christians and here you are, a devoted Christian what has been your challenge in marrying these two?
Thank you, when Christ came into the world the Jews already had a culture and he said I have not come to abolish the law but to fulfil it. So when you see me as a threat you’re just kind of a prejudiced person, after all what have I come to abolish so that the Edda man will have a good identity?
Wow!
You made mention of something very significant, that Nde Edda have everything but there’s something missing and it is that thing that gives them the courage to celebrate their identity, can you throw more light to it?
Ahhhaahha! If you see someone ahead of you why not learn from him but this time around someone is ahead of you and you don’t even want to accept that person is ahead of you. What you need to do is you begin to patronize them, you will now come back to say why are this people ahead of me are so that I will create my own foundation for progress and be like them if not over take them. Within this two regions Ohafia and Afikpo, they have already started education, they benefited from the colonial masters and the missionaries and the white man’s traders. They have the institutions, if you go there you will see them. The divisional headquarters for governance was Afikpo and Old Bende division was at Ohafia which one was in Edda? None and they started creating developmental institutions within those areas, imagine Government College Umuahia established in 1929, the very year you had Aba women riot because the women refused to be taxed, that’s the Igbo man.
You can tax our husbands but why we traders? So of old we learnt how to reject what we don’t want. Look at this, when did we have the first secondary school in Edda? It was in 1975 at Owutu, this Ekoli out of protest Ekoli/Ngwuzu came on board in 1976 or thereabout, now you can imagine the intellectual gap between 1929 and 1975-76. In 1953, government secondary school Afikpo was built you can imagine the intellectual gap between Afikpo and Edda. They used this western education to uphold their own places and promoted even their cultural lives but you can celebrate Egbela in Afikpo without killing or harming anybody but in Edda it’s not so.
You can celebrate Egbela in Afikpo without interrupting traffic but not so in Edda and this is the place we are still primitive. You interrupt commuters and interrupt even the economy, is that progress?
We didn’t say you should not celebrate it but must you be primitive about it? Destroying and disturbing the economy and the people ada atughu ujo? Is it better to fear you than to love you? Which is better?
Love brings cooperation but fear brings distance, alienation agbanahighi, understand me that way and change must come, we can’t remain primitive.
And that change has started.
Thank you!
Your highness what else do you have to tell Nde Ekoli, ma Nde Edda Ozuzu oha?
Celebrate Jesus, if God has done something good celebrate Jesus! You also celebrate the Ekoli people, I am thanking the entire members of Ekoli Community for their patience and faith till now.
Thank you!
Kaa Sir!
