Obigbo Not Oyigbo, The Truth Not Fallacy

“Don’t mind those stupid Igbophobic bunch of idiots. They think they can bury the truth and murder history forever. It was Obigbo not Oyigbo even before the artificial and erroneous creation of Nigeria.
Obigbo was part of East central State when Gowon created Rivers state out of Eastern Nigeria. It was in 1979 when Melford Okilo was the governor of Rivers State and Mbakwe governor of Imo State. Okilo wrote the then civilian president of Nigeria Shehu Shaggari on the need to cede Obigbo to River State judging from it’s geographical proximity to Port-harcourt the capital city of River State.
He went further to argue that Yakubu Gowon erred in the boundary demarcation between the Old Imo State and Old River State by not using natural landmarks like rivers, lakes and mountainous forms rather he used ethnic identity and affiliation.
By this, he appealed through the boundary adjustment commission that the boundary be adjusted to accommodate Obigbo as part of River State siting the imo river has provided a natural boundary.The Boundary Adjustment commission saw the logic in his argument and convinced the presidency of Shehu Shaggari on the need.
As at then, large Deposits of hydro-carbon had been discovered at Afam and other communities in Obigbo arousing greed from people who thought Igbos would not have oil in their land. Mbakwe, the then Governor of Imo State objected to this move, countering the argument that Rivers State was created by Gowon to give voice to Eastern minorities that have been crying of Marginalization from their Igbo brothers in the old Eastern region dominated by the Igbos, therefore the objective of the creation of Rivers State was to have a State devoid of Igbo influence.

Mbakwe argued that it would be politically incorrect and catastrophic to have an Igbo speaking clan in a State with a state stereotyped hatred for the Igbos. River State then was under the control of NPN the same party in control of the government at the center led by Shaggari while Imo was in opposition NPP led by Zik.
The matter ended up in supreme court with NPN influencing the judgement, the court ruled that Obigbo be ceded to Rivers but River State. Mbakwe accepted on the condition that another boundary community in any part adjoining the two State should equally be ceded to Imo to make up for the lost, the Court and River State government accepted and Ohaji-Egbema, another Igbo speaking community gowon drafted to Rivers State during his obnoxious state creation, was returned to Imo State in exchange. though not all of Egbema community returned. Out of the 12 communities in Egbema, 10 were returned to Imo while River State retained the other remaining 2. That is why you have the same Egbema people in both Imo and River State and Asa-Ndoki in both River and present day Abia State.
After Okilo got what he wanted, in creating a local government for the people of Obigbo, instead of naming the Local government to reflect the aboriginal and ancestral nomenclature the people over time were known with, for best known to them, apparently to play this fast game they (Ijaws) played on the Ikwerres that resulted to them changing their igbotic communal name to things that sound strange to igbo system of name.
When (N)wike was talking rubbish of Igbos being migrants in River State, I was like; this man lack sense of history or simply being intelligent by half. Obigbo people are not like the Ikwerre’s played politics with their ethnicity and who are suffering from crises of identity today. You can’t be bearing Igbo name and say you are not igbo and speaking igbo dialect. Ethnicity is not defined by politics, though it can be influenced by it.
So Nwike and all the minion Igbophobias, take note; we know where Igbo land extends to and it is not definitely limited to the five South-East States.”
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