Olugbo of Ugbo dismisses Igbo link to Ife-Ife as tissue of lies
The Olugbo of Ugbo Kingdom in Ondo State Oba Frederick Enitiolorunda Obateru Akinruntan, has dismissed claims suggesting a historical and ancestral connection between the Igbo people of South-East Nigeria and the ancient city of Ile-Ife.
He said the claim is a tissue of lies warning the Igbo look for their ancestry elsewhere.
He cautioned against introducing fruad into history.
The monarch’s position is coming amid renewed debate over Yoruba-Igbo origins, a conversation that has in recent times involved the Ooni of Ife and the Obi of Onitsha, Igwe Nnaemeka Alfred Achebe.
In a clarification issued from his palace, the Olugbo insisted that the narrative being promoted by some commentators is a distortion of history.
According to the traditional ruler, writers he described as “Jankara historians” are mistaking the Ugbo people for the Igbo.
He explained that the pre-Oduduwa settlement of Ile-Ife was known as Ugbomokun, with its central market called Oja-Ugbo. He noted that references to raiders in Ife oral history, particularly in the legend of Moremi Ajasoro, were about the aboriginal Ugbo people of the coastal Ilaje stock who wore raffia costumes, and not the Igbo from the South-East.
The Olugbo further maintained that there is no ancestral relationship between the Yoruba and the Igbo of the South-East.
He stressed that the ancient monarchy of Ile-Ife was originally held by the Ugbo people long before the arrival of Oduduwa, and urged historians to stop merging two distinct identities.
“The Yoruba and the Southeast Igbos have no ancestral links,” the monarch stated, adding that contemporary books linking the original settlers of Ife to the South-East are misleading.
