I am from Anioma and i am not an Igbo man. Singer Simi, Waje and Omawunmi are not Yoruba too. Dont force me into your clan because i speak your language.There are hausa speaking people in Edo state but you cant call them that.We have Yoruba speakers in Brazil go and claim them na

From the ages being some Anioma people do not have problem with identifying as igbo probably but the constant discrimination, rejection, Delta igbo name calling, run away igbo and fake igbo name calling made Anioma people reject being an igbo.

Anambra people think they OWN igbo. Anambra man can fight Ebonyi people that dare say they are igbos. Anambra people call Anioma indigens Ndi Delta. What a deluded people

Dont get me wrong. Anambra is a Good land but when you dont accept us then why wail when we publicly now denounce igbo

You cant call Hausa speaking Auchi people in Edo hausa people, itshekiri speaks Yoruba e.g Omanwunmi, you cant say she is yoruba likewise waje from Edo.Dino is FROM kogi and not a Yoruba man. So why are you all igbos crying because i say i am from Anioma and not Igbo. God help me

we are as a people. We know exactly who we are. We have no
confusions about our geography and genealogy. We know that
identity is like gold. Just as the gold bar stands behind a currency
as a guarantee of its legal tender, so is identity to an individual The Anioma people

The analogy is only partial, of course, the price of gold
may rise or fall, but we tend to pride ourselves on the stability of
our identity. Anioma ethnic identity is a value we must guard. In
recent times we have contended with the intrusion into Anioma. Leave tf alone

By Igbocentrism or Igbocentricity
we mean an existential point of
view that puts Igbo at the centre of
Igbo people's cosmology.Central
to Igbocentrism is the idea that
people believed or assumed to be
Igbo must acknowledge,
understand and love their
"Igboness" so as to understand

and deal with non-Igbo. It is a
conceptual approach to human
relations from the Igbo point of
view. It is an Igbo-centeredness of
interpretation of such relations
and quotidian realities. Because
the vast majority of Anioma people speak dialects derived from
the Igbo language

it is assumed that they are "Igbo." Anioma
history records individuals from diverse origins. There are in
Anioma the "Olukunmi" who speak a variant of Yoruba spoken
around Owo. Ebu people in Anioma speak Igala as their mother
tongue.

While language delimits cultural fields, it is not permanent
because people have mastered more than one language. Language
is one of many indices of a culture. Language is not enough to
define who a people are. Because Americans or Australians speak
English does not make them Eng

Because Mexicans, Cubans,
or Argentineans speak Spanish does not make them Spaniards.
The nationals of these countries will not introduce themselves as
"English" simply because they speak English nor as Spaniards

Anioma people recognize a geographical contiguity, a clearly
defined historicity and cultural commonality, that in their
consciousness they define as their collective identity. Our Anioma
ethnic identity derives from our common set of symbols and
cognition shared by our people

The systemic prolonged subordination and
marginalization has lead to the gradual radicalization of our
youth and elders, as exemplified by the formation of many
Anioma associations in Nigeria and abroad.

Through culture contact or
cultural cross-pollination, borrowing from contiguous neighbours,
Anioma displays cultural syncretism in the real sense of the
word. History notes that Anioma people trace their origins to
Edo, Igala, Yoruba and Igbo. Ibusa (Igbo Uzo) and one part of

Ogwashiuku trace their ancestry to Igbo. All other Anioma people
trace their origins in entirety to Edo, Igala and Yoru

With such a background, one would have thought that the identity
of Anioma people would never be a matter of debate nor an issue
that might unsettle the tranquility of informed mind. Yet,
writings about Anioma people are replete with misconceptions,
distortions, selectivity,

inaccuracies and just blatant falsehood. To this regards Anioma isn’t an igbo clan just because they speak slight igbo language

This muddle as to the definition of an Anioma is not intrinsic to
the Anioma identity, but rather a problem fused into the tinted
lenses of Igbocentrism through which the Anioma people have
erroneously been viewed over the ages.

We have maintained cool-headedness in the face of
provocation from Igbos who call us 'Hausa Igbo', Ika-Igbo and
now Anioma-Igbo. Such appellations are as insulting and
denigrating as they are meaningless and nonsensical.

We reject attempts to Igbonize Anioma. We do not inhabit the
same historical and cultural space with Igbos. When ethnicity
becomes subject to the elaborations of cultural identity politics, it
often develops into a focus of symbolic contestation.

Those
wanting Anioma to become "Anioma-Igbo" undermine the efforts
of our founding fathers who christened us "ANIOMA." Osadebay
puts everything in perspective when he stated, "Strictly speaking,
Ibo is a linguistic group or a language, not a tribe, as all Ibo-b

For decades we, Anioma people, have been buffeted back
and forth by people attempting to impose a persona on
us. Some described us as being neither here nor there.
Others do not give us chance to define and describe who..