THEY ARE OFFICIALLY CALLED IBUSA BUT TRADITIONALLY CALL THEMSELVES IGBUZO

THEY ARE OFFICIALLY CALLED IBUSA BUT TRADITIONALLY CALL THEMSELVES IGBUZO Edit

27 Apr, 2020  in News  tagged Ibusa / Ibuzo / Igbuzo by Emeka Esogbue

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THEY ARE OFFICIALLY CALLED IBUSA BUT TRADITIONALLY CALL THEMSELVES IGBUZO

AND THE PEOPLE ENLIGHTENED EKE-EJELAM, THEIR GUEST DOCUMENTOR

Gazetted name – Ibusa
Traditional name – Igbuzo

As a non-indigene, he went on a biographical documentation of Prof Emmanuel Nwannolue Emenanjo, his Ibusa subject in Ibusa community and came up with a brilliant work. But something happened in the course of the research.

He was surprised that despite the imperial imposition of the name “Ibusa”, an anglicized word on the people, the people still knew, understood and had preserved their typical traditional name as “Igbuzo”. Hence, he was compelled to eventually adopt the accepted version in his book.

Hear him in his own words:

“For the intent of this book and except otherwise necessary, Ibusa will take the name, “Igbuzo”. All through my interviews of the people of the community, a semi-urbanised place, none ever used the anglicized version, Ibusa …”
– Eke-Ejelam, C (2016), “Emenanjo: The Man, His Story, His Language: A Biography (1943-2016), The BluePrint Limited, p. xxi

Obviously, the people used the word “Igbuzo” to refer to themselves traditionally much to the amazement of Eke-Ejelam, the Author.

Perhaps, unknown to the Author, his subject, Prof Emenanjo knew and understood very well, “Igbuzo” as the actual native name of his community and as such had retained it in all his documentations of the people, one of which is the reflection of the name in the below quoted work of his. In fact, the Linguist had gone ahead to document it in written form:

“Prince Umejei and Igbuzo: Perspective and Prospective”, a paper published by Emmanuel Emenanjo.

Eke-Ejelam is not alone in this task of ensuring unanimous decision on the identity of the people. On April 25, 2020, Chief Fred Ajudua in a post asked “are we Ibusa, Igbuzo or Igbuzor'” and responses were torrent.

Sir Onyeluka Igbonoba almost immediately responded:

“In my town, apart from our innate love for controversies, we also love being prescriptive. We love throwing up new ideas which we often insist others must embrace. Growing up, I knew my town was called Igbuzo or Igbuzor…. meaning Igbobinuzor. Just a few years ago, someone felt our town should be christened Ibu’uzor, as if we were not taught the name of our town and how it should be pronounced. Ibusa, is the anglicised version of pronouncing the name of our town, introduced by the colonial authority due solely to their inability to pronounce the word Igbuzor…..same way Ahaba became Asaba and Oka is called Awka”.

Igbonoba was corroborated by Emeka Esogbue below:

“We have always known ourselves to be Igbuzo at least, taking our present fathers as case study. The name was “Igbuzo” taken from “Igbuzor'”. In Ibusa traditional lettering, we do not utilise letter “r” so it is utterly useless to us. Traditionally, the elimination of “r” leaves us with Igbo- “Uzo”. This is also orally accompanied with the elimination of “r” in pronunciation. To the literate Igbuzo in Igbo, or precisely, in our form of writing, it is also “Obuzo” and not “Obuzor”, “Ogochukwu” and not “Ogorchukwu”, “Uzodinma” and not “Uzordinma”. However, those around us that utilize “r” know us as “Igbuzor'” which is what Bros Luka just rightly stressed so we natively know and refer to ourselves as “Igbuzo”. In time of “Imaekwe”, it is “Igbuzo” we hear. In time of traditional salutation, we hear “Igbuzo Igwe nu”. In time of exclamation, we had often heard our forebears scream “Igbuzo Okokoko” and in time of headship, we hear “Diopka Igbuzo”. However, suddenly, a certain Facebook name of “Ib’uzo” sprung up. Worse still, we befuddlingly started to see the misuse of apostrophe to emphatically underline this name in spelling, causing English students to wonder on what name of community deservingly breaks the English rule. As adventurous as it could, it got passed down from one youth to the other and we suddenly re-christened ourselves. On the other hand, “Ibusa” is the anglicized, official and gazetted form of our name. Like most communities also anglicized such as Bini (Benin), Isi-Ile- Ukwu (Issele-Uku), Ogwa-Nri or Ogwa-Nshi (Ogwashi), Esan (Ishan), Yariba (Yoruba), Onicha (Onitsha) Oka (Awka) etc, the Ibusa people have refused to adhere to this official name yet, we have done nothing to officially reverse it in collectivity since an individual cannot solely do this. We are therefore left with confusion of what we truly are with heterogenous forms of name to describe and charaterize ourselves. But we are correctly Ibusa (officially) and Igbuzo (natively)”.

The turnout agreeably invited Mr Luke Ashinze and he postulated:

“Good talk, the pronounciation is Igbuzo. Dragging this narrative further, the ‘R’ at the end of the spelling, (Igbuzor) is that the native spelling? I am from Umuwo and I find it to be of foreign imputation to spell it as Umuwo(r) which many ascribe to”.

Ashinze’s view unarguably dispels the use of letter “r” in Ibusa native spelling, a subscription to Esogbue and Dr. Collins Nweke who later noted “Ogbo” and not “Ogbor” to be the right spelling for Ibusa.

On the scene, Nneka Edith Obiechie had this to say:

“From our ancestors, Igbuzo is what we have always known ourselves as even though some Igbos still call us Igbuzor, which is similar to Igbuzo. The confusion started with the social media when users came up with Ib’uzor and a few people joined them. Growing up, Igbuzo was our name until things suddenly changed. When the British visitors to our community arrived, they found it difficult to call the name, so they changed it to Ibusa which the people started to write. In the midst of this confusion, I think our elders should fashion out an ideal name for us which all of us should adhere to instead of all these different names at the same time and different time. If we have to stand collectively on a name, we should also know since the Government must be officially involved”

But in his own response, Founder of Academy for Governance, Prof Austin Uwandulu submitted:

“Nneka, we are what our forefathers bequeathed to us namely IGBUZO without any prefix or suffix. This is our traditional name. However, as you observed, we are also known as Ibusa because our British colonial masters had it convenient to spell Igbuzo as Ibusa. Thus we have the nomenclature IBUSA as our official name. Ofcourse it is not unique to Igbuzo. Onicha for instance goes by the official nomenclature, Onitsha just as Ahaba is widely known as Asaba. I need not say that the contraption, Ibuzor, was thrown up during our court case with Ogwashiuku. Even then that contrived name didn’t fly because the courts- High Court, Appeal Court and Supreme Court, did not buy the arguments in that connection.
As if the three names are not confusing enough another bizarre nomenclature has been added with apostrophe that is unknown to Igbuzo literature, namely I’buzor /IB’uzor thereby adding to the crisis of identity that we find ourselves. It is this identity crisis that has compelled stranger elements and even some of our children to claim that they reside in Asaba. The complication is that in due course , it will difficult to convince people that Igbuzo is not a Quarter in Asaba. It is my hope that we will learn a lesson from Awka and Amawbia episode in Anambra State. There is urgent need for a Think Tank session dedicated to addressing these issues of name and identity”.

Invariably, all commentators above agreed the community to be officially “Ibusa” and traditionally “Igbuzo”.

However, it should be further mentioned that writers of Ibusa history have at all time in acknowledgement of official Ibusa, identified Igbuzo as the traditional name and they include Prof Onwuejeogwu, Prof Don Ohadike, Nosike Ikpo, Ashikodi and Emeka Esogbue. For instance, Chinazor Onianwah had affirmatively written:

“My family hails from “Igbuzo”, a contraption of “Igbo bi na uzo” or the Igbo resident by the wayside, stemming from the account of the legendary founder of Igbuzo who was exiled from Is near Nri and settled miles after crossing the River Niger…”

Some Political Commentators that include Mr. Azuka Ashikodi, the Political Messiah agree that “Ibusa” is the official name and “Igbuzo” is the traditional name.

The interview of about 200 Ibusa sons and daughters by Eke-Ejalam in which he established Igbuzo to be the appropriate and accepted traditional name of the community has sealed this. Indeed, “Ibusa” is the written word as gazetted by the Government since the colonial days but the pronunciation of the word is uniquely and traditionally “Igbuzo”.

Conclusively, on papers, the written word is “Ibusa” but orals and culture, it is natively “Igbuzo”

“…the foremost Igbo linguistics professor, Emmanuel Nwannolue Emenanjo was a true Anioma son from Ibusa, in Oshimili North LGA of Delta State, born on April 21st, 1943. In his accomplished career spanning five decades, he contributed immensely through his writings, lectures and leadership positions in several No colleges of higher learning …”
– Prof Emeritus Ayo Bamgbose, University of Ibadan

Report by Emeka Esogbue

You may also want to order the book, “A Short History of Ibusa” by Emeka Esogbue published by Carophem Media Ltd