Igbo Information

The Igbo are the second largest group of people living in the southern and some part of the western Nigeria. They are socially and culturally diverse, consisting of many subgroups. Although they live in scattered groups of villages, they all speak one language.

The Igbo have no common traditional story of their origins but ancient history has it that they migrated from Israel. Historians have proposed two major theories of Ibgo origins. One claims the existence of a core area, or “nuclear Igboland”. The other claims that the Igbo are descended from waves of immigrants from the north and the west who arrived in the fourteenth or the fifteenth century. Three of these are Nri, Nzam, and Anam.

European contact with the Igbo began with the arrival of the Portuguese in the mid-fifteenth century. At first, the Europeans confined themselves to slave trade on the Niger Coast. At this point, the main item of commerce provided by the Igbo was slaves, many from whom where sent to the New World. After the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, British companies pushed beyond the coastal areas and aggressively pursued control of the interior. The Protectorate of Southern Nigeria, created in 1900, included Igboland. Until 1960, Nigeria remained a British colony, and the Igbo were British subjects. On October 1, 1960, Nigeria became an independent nation. It is presently structured as a federation of states with the Igboland comprising of the following states: Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, Imo, Eastern Delta and Northern Rivers with the population of over 40 million.