IGBO NSUKKA AND NRI KINGDOM

IGBO NSUKKA AND NRI KINGDOM

IGBO NSUKKA AND NRI KINGDOM
(Written by Ekene Ugwuanyi)
In the days of yore, in the time of Ndә ishi, before the rise of the glory of Idah, there rose the fame of a certain distant kingdom talked about from one hut to another in Igbo Nsәka; it was called the land of Eze Nshị, the King of Nshị. The people talked about these people of Nshị of a far away land whose glory in terms of being closed to the divine had spread like wildfire in this part of Igboland.

The tale of this faraway land sounded like a folktale to many for, who had been to this much talked about land of the Eze Nshị, the King of the Nshị people? However, they soon found their way into Igbo Nsәka soil and many of the different Nkpǝrǝs (kindreds/villages) who had chosen to exist together as one embraced them and invited them for the consolidation of their Republic. For, at that time, whatever these people who claimed to have come from the land of the Nshị said became a law. The legitimacy was recognised by our people that if these people of Nshị pronounced a man the eldest in a gathering of others even if he was the youngest, automatically such a title was bestowed on such a person and he became the eldest, onye-ishi, of such a gathering and consequently the kindred he comes from became the eldest in the village group. Why was it so? It was so simply because the people of Nshị have made the proclamation.

Who are these Nshị people and what role did they play in the formation of Republics in Igbo Nsәka?… The famous Eze Nshị whose glory and fame was spreading like wildfire in Igbo Nsәka was no other figure than Eze Nri, the King of Nri land which was an ancient kingdom that existed in the present Aniocha Local Government Area of Anambra State. Professor Shelton has explained in his Igbo-Igala Borderland that the people of Igbo Nsәka referred to these Ndi Nri (the Nri people) as Ndǝ Nshị. Nshị was their name for Nri. The people of Igbo Nsәka were not alone in referring to Nri as Nshị as we note somewhere else in a remark by Major Leonard, a colonial officer who wrote his findings as early as 1906 that:
“It is in a certain measure evident that somewhere in this locality of Isuama, in which the purest Ibo is said to be spoken, is to be found the heart of the Ibo nationality; consequently it is quite reasonable to look among its people for the original fountain-head from which all the other clans have sprung. The inference too is supported not only by the purity of the language but by this right of dispensing or rather conferring royalty which is undoubtedly the prerogative of the Nri or Nshi people…the highest representatives of sacerdotalism in the Ibo race. “

Several has been said and/or written concerning Igbo Nsәka and Nri, although none has undertaken to investigate some of the claims made on the relationship between these two cultural zones. A good number of Igbo Nsәka communities have been described as having migrated from Nri and therefore, Nri offspring. Such has been said of Nsәka Town (as we have earlier noted), Ọba Udulekenyi, Ẹha-Arụmọna, Nimbo etc. However, problem arises when it comes to historical evidences to back up some of these claims. Still, one can never deny the fact that the Nri influence was felt in Igbo Nsәka. To what extent was their influence felt and what is the relationship between these two Igbo cultural zones? An important way to address these questions is to investigate the origin of the Nri people themselves. The next episode addresses the questions of Nri origin in Igboland. Follow the page and keep posted as we dig deeper.