|
Listen to article
|
Colonial Maps and Records: Ethnic Zoning of Igbo Land
The enduring controversy surrounding the identity of the “core Igbo” population is more than an ethnolinguistic debate—it is a legacy of imperial design, cultivated by British colonial structures that imposed rigid classifications onto fluid cultural geographies. Communities like Onitsha in Anambra and Onicha Mbaise in Imo occupy liminal spaces in this discourse, often caught between internal oral histories and external administrative maps that redefined their place within Igbo identity. At the heart of this complexity is the colonial cartographic and ethnographic project that engineered not only boundaries of governance but also categories of cultural authenticity.
The British colonial amalgamation of 1914, which fused the Northern and Southern Protectorates into a singular Nigerian entity, was not a product of cultural synergy but of geopolitical expediency (Eze, 2016). The maps that followed this amalgamation were not neutral representations but ideological instruments of empire. Created mainly for administrative efficiency, they overlooked the existing ethnic and political affiliations. These maps solidified perceived ethnic zones into governing instruments, organizing groups into hierarchical structures under indirect rule. Core Igbo areas such as Nri, Awka, Nsukka, and Orlu were spatially and ideologically framed as Igbo heartlands, while transitional zones like Onitsha and parts of Mbaise were carved out as peripheries—bearing cultural and political imprints from neighboring non-Igbo polities like Benin and Bini (Jaja & Agumagu, 2017).
British colonial ethnographers, most of whom had no prior anthropological training, categorized ethnic groups for bureaucratic clarity. The label “tribal majority” applied to the Igbo was a simplification of remarkable cultural and structural diversity. Communities around the Nri-Awka axis followed decentralized, egalitarian political systems, an acephalous model where decision-making emerged through age grades and councils. Conversely, towns such as Onitsha retained centralized monarchies, echoing the hierarchical governance systems of the Benin Kingdom. Onicha Mbaise, though geographically within Igbo territory, exhibited sociocultural patterns distinct from the Igbo core, drawing from riverine and migratory influences (Nwaezeigwe, 2023; Ezeogidi, 2020). This administrative flattening of identity enabled the British to systematize indirect rule while planting seeds for future contestations over identity, citizenship, and representation (Mailumo & Anthony, 2020).
Nowhere is this more evident than in Onitsha. British colonial officers noted the town’s unique political structure—the Obiship—whose lineage is traceable to Benin. British records regularly cited Onitsha’s historical alignment with the Oba of Benin, further distinguishing it from neighboring acephalous Igbo communities (Kaplan, 1997; Okoh & Amadi, 2020). While Onitsha is situated in Anambra, its selective adoption of Igbo cultural norms and its historical reluctance to embrace missionary schooling positioned it as a culturally discrete enclave within Igbo-speaking regions. Colonial linguistic studies from the 1930s even classified the dialect spoken in Onitsha as “West Niger Igbo,” noting significant lexical borrowings from Edoid languages and syntactic divergence from central Igbo (Nwaezeigwe, 2023). Thus, Onitsha became emblematic of a cultural hybridity that defied easy categorization, but colonial records nonetheless imposed artificial boundaries that have endured.
Onicha Mbaise presents a parallel, albeit less documented, case. Oral traditions within the community recount migratory origins from west of the Niger—linking their ancestors to Benin and parts of present-day Anambra (Muoh, 2017; Ikporukpo & Rufus, 2023). British district officers stationed in Owerri and Aba frequently noted that Onicha Mbaise’s age-grade systems and masquerade rituals were structurally different from the neighboring Igbo communities, aligning more with riverine customs found in the Niger Delta (Ezeogidi, 2020). These inconsistencies posed challenges for colonial classification, as administrative officers struggled to determine whether to treat such communities as integral Igbo or as cultural hybrids. The answer, in many cases, was to enforce ambiguous administrative categories—designating these towns as “affiliated but not assimilated.”
Read also: Unveiling Origins: Benin, Anambra & Igbo Identity – Part 6
Colonial data further entrenched these distinctions. The 1931 census of the Eastern Provinces, for example, created a separate category for “Onitsha-Ado,” isolating it from the broader Igbo hinterland (Jaja & Agumagu, 2017; Ebegbulem, 2011). Early editions of the Ethnographic Survey of the Igbo People repeatedly emphasized the “transitional” nature of communities like Onitsha and Onicha, often citing their atypical political and ritual systems as evidence of ethnic adjacency rather than full inclusion. These classifications were more than academic exercises; they translated into administrative realities. Onitsha and Onicha were often administered separately, reinforcing their marginality in the postcolonial imagination and shaping their modern-day political relationships with the states of Anambra and Imo, respectively (Heaton & Hirschl, 1999; Muoh, 2017).
The legacy of these colonial frameworks remains palpable in present-day Igbo politics. Debates over who qualifies as a “true” or “core” Igbo are still entangled in colonial cartographic logic, often manifesting in disputes over traditional leadership, resource allocation, and claims to political representation. In states like Anambra and Imo, where intra-Igbo diversity is pronounced, these colonial-era classifications continue to fuel subtle—and sometimes overt—battles over authenticity, ancestry, and belonging.
In essence, the British colonial administration did not merely construct physical borders; it inscribed cultural hierarchies into the sociopolitical fabric of Nigeria. By privileging administrative simplicity over ethnographic accuracy, it imposed a matrix of identity that continues to shape perceptions of who the Igbo are and who they are not. Communities like Onitsha and Onicha Mbaise were neither fully excluded nor entirely embraced, placed instead in an ethnographic limbo that has withstood decades of postcolonial restructuring. The question of “core Igbo” remains unresolved not because the answer is elusive, but because the very framework within which the question is asked was designed to obscure more than it revealed.
References
Diamond, L., 1988. The Origins of Crisis. In: Class, Ethnicity and Democracy in Nigeria. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Ebegbulem, J.C., 2011. Ethnic politics and conflicts in Nigeria: Theoretical perspective. Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 14(3), pp.76–91.
Eze, R., 2016. Nigeria as a geo-political entity and sovereign actor in international relations. Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, 5(1), pp.59–70.
Ezeogidi, C., 2020. Resuscitating age grade associations in Igbo land. SSRN. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3563531
Heaton, T. and Hirschl, T., 1999. The trajectory of family change in Nigeria. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 30(1), pp.35–55.
Ikporukpo, I. and Rufus, A., 2023. Emerging secessionist threats in Nigeria. Research Journal of Humanities, Legal Studies & International Development.
Jaja, J.M. and Agumagu, J.E., 2017. Ethnicity, politics and national development. Elixir Social Studies, 110, pp.48325–48332.
Kaplan, F., 1997. Iyoba, the Queen Mother of Benin. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 810.
Mailumo, D.A. and Anthony, O., 2020. Multi ethnic nations and the multicultural state of Nigeria. Elixir Social Studies, 143, pp.54100–54107.
Muoh, O.U., 2017. Historiography of Igbo migrations and diaspora. Historical Research Letter, 40, pp.29–33.
Nwaezeigwe, N., 2023. The language factor in the politics of ethnic identity among the West Niger Igbo. Integrity Journal of Arts and Humanities.
Okoh, P. and Amadi, M.A., 2020. A comparison of linear anthropometric body features of Igbo, Ijaw and Yoruba ethnic groups. Journal of Advances in Medicine and Medical Research, 32(4), pp.78–89.
