Emeka Esogbue

 Chukwu Mgbengbe and the Metaphysics of Ibusa Cosmology Emeka Esogbue …so Isioma, the graduating History student called to pick my brain on the traditional belief system of our Ibusa people as preserved in the people’s oral tradition, a familiar request I often receive from young Ibusa and Anioma scholars in the humanities seeking to conclude their theses. I explained that the Ibusa belief system is rooted in the totality of the traditional, spiritual, and philosophical worldview of the Ibusa people — descendants of the three ancestral progenitors: Prince Umejei, Prince Edini, and Ishite, migrants from what is today southeastern Nigeria. This cosmology predates the spread of Christianity in the settlement and shares deep affinities with the indigenous belief systems of neighbouring Enuani communities, particularly Asaba and Okpanam. At the summit of this metaphysical order stands Chukwu Mgbengbe. Chukwu Mgbengbe embodies supremacy, sacredness, the ultimate source of existence, and ...

  A Brief History of Ibusa By Emeka Esogbue The Ibusa account of foundation depends on oral sources as continually handed down from generations, and also documented by the writers of the community’s history of origin. The community offers an example of a bipartite society, formed by two distinct movements from two dissimilar settlements that have now merged. Indeed, it is a federation of two autonomous communities considering that its major founders were from Nri and Isu of the Igbo outside the present Anioma enclave. Nevertheless, the modern community of Ibusa has the three founders being Edini (founder of Ogboli), Umejei (founder of Igbuzo) and Ishite (founder of Ezukwu).   Ibusa, an Igbo-speaking settlement as it exists today was founded in the 15 th century by two major migrations to the West of the River Niger Basin. The movements were by migrants from Nri and Isu, two ancient settlements that are located in today’s Southeast part of Nigeria. The Nri migration oc...