Emeka Esogbue: 'The intellectual Squirrel' by Ajumeze, Obi Henry, PhD
"I share the belief that the history of Anioma people must be recorded, not only to remove controversies but for the future generation"-- Emeka Esogbue.
Because large bulks of cultural and historical knowledge about Anioma people are still in the oral mode, what is very safe to say or write is that Emeka Esogbue stands out as Anioma's most published historian. This recognition of Emeka's exploits in the print culture is important, because it helps us to come to terms with the transition of his scholarship between orality and 'documentation'. Considering how many books he put out already, it further helps in knowing how much effort he invests. He makes clear that the strength of his work lies in that pedagogic and epistemological nexus.
His pre-occupation with Anioma history is very far-reaching, very exploratory, yet continues to burgeon into multiple frontiers of knowledge about the people of that area. In other words, he strolls ideas that bring history into conversation with interests in ethnography and community development. At the level of critical enquiry, his devotion to history is calibrated by the awareness of the shortcomings of orality, one that seems to propel his interest to an exclusive obsession with publishing. Hence, in many places, he agues about the indeterminate weakness of the oral beginnings of Anioma people in general, and igbuzor in particular, and hopes to address the problem through vast publishing projects. Works such as "Essentials of Anioma History", "A Short History of Omu" and "A Study of the Origins and Migrations of Anioma Settlements", etc, bring Esogbue's authorship to that threshold of what the British theatre scholar, James Gibbs, describes as "the intellectual squirrel". Because just as much as a squirrel, Esogbue digs holes everywhere, anywhere, straddling between the pre-modern, modern and the millennial in search of Anioma's way of knowing and being. His books bear witness to how Anioma communities struggle to recover their place in the politics of nationhood. In fact, the books are woven together by a common thread that upholds the group as a nation: he identifies cultural practices as well as institutions in a strictly Anioma colouration. In "A Study of the Origins and Migrations of Anioma Settlements", for example, he discusses how erroneous and often intentional misrepresentation of Anioma people have created a complicated identity, one that underwrites instances in which the people are annexed into other existing ethnic groups. Some Anioma people, he contends, appear unwittingly sold to this view. He seeks, therefore, to revise this hegemonizing historiography, privileging instead the many cases of the people's migration from several other ethnic groups in the formation of a distinct identity and nation. In this book, as in the others, Esogbue extricates the Aniomas from such discourses that subsume her identity, especially the Igbo paradigm, that 'uncritically' claims Anioma people as ndi' Igbo. There -- even some Igbuzo historians disagree with him -- open
ing his work further to
debates and controversies that are both insightful and enriching.
This is why all his books find space in my library
Dr Henry Obi Ajumeze, Scholar and Researcher, Centre for African Studies, University of Capetown, South Africa. Dr Ajumeze is a recipient of several prestigious research grants and fellowership which include Social Science Research in Africa (SSRC) as well as Consortium of Humanities Centres and Institutes (CHCI)
"I share the belief that the history of Anioma people must be recorded, not only to remove controversies but for the future generation"-- Emeka Esogbue.
Because large bulks of cultural and historical knowledge about Anioma people are still in the oral mode, what is very safe to say or write is that Emeka Esogbue stands out as Anioma's most published historian. This recognition of Emeka's exploits in the print culture is important, because it helps us to come to terms with the transition of his scholarship between orality and 'documentation'. Considering how many books he put out already, it further helps in knowing how much effort he invests. He makes clear that the strength of his work lies in that pedagogic and epistemological nexus.
His pre-occupation with Anioma history is very far-reaching, very exploratory, yet continues to burgeon into multiple frontiers of knowledge about the people of that area. In other words, he strolls ideas that bring history into conversation with interests in ethnography and community development. At the level of critical enquiry, his devotion to history is calibrated by the awareness of the shortcomings of orality, one that seems to propel his interest to an exclusive obsession with publishing. Hence, in many places, he agues about the indeterminate weakness of the oral beginnings of Anioma people in general, and igbuzor in particular, and hopes to address the problem through vast publishing projects. Works such as "Essentials of Anioma History", "A Short History of Omu" and "A Study of the Origins and Migrations of Anioma Settlements", etc, bring Esogbue's authorship to that threshold of what the British theatre scholar, James Gibbs, describes as "the intellectual squirrel". Because just as much as a squirrel, Esogbue digs holes everywhere, anywhere, straddling between the pre-modern, modern and the millennial in search of Anioma's way of knowing and being. His books bear witness to how Anioma communities struggle to recover their place in the politics of nationhood. In fact, the books are woven together by a common thread that upholds the group as a nation: he identifies cultural practices as well as institutions in a strictly Anioma colouration. In "A Study of the Origins and Migrations of Anioma Settlements", for example, he discusses how erroneous and often intentional misrepresentation of Anioma people have created a complicated identity, one that underwrites instances in which the people are annexed into other existing ethnic groups. Some Anioma people, he contends, appear unwittingly sold to this view. He seeks, therefore, to revise this hegemonizing historiography, privileging instead the many cases of the people's migration from several other ethnic groups in the formation of a distinct identity and nation. In this book, as in the others, Esogbue extricates the Aniomas from such discourses that subsume her identity, especially the Igbo paradigm, that 'uncritically' claims Anioma people as ndi' Igbo. There -- even some Igbuzo historians disagree with him -- open
This is why all his books find space in my library
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