The Igbo tribe

_{photo by Piotr Usewicz}

In Nigeria, there are three main ethnic groups and they are, Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa and sadly I fall uder the Igbo tribe. You might be wondering why I said "sadly" but the truth is that I've come to realize that amongst the three ethnic groups, the Igbos are the only ones who don't belive in togetherness and unlike the Hausas who belive in unity abd helping one another, the Igbos don't.

I've seen multiple occasions where people from the Igbo tribes have betrayed their brothers due to their greed for money and all sort of things, unlike people from the other tribe (especially the Hausa tribe), who have one spirit and work together.

Few years ago, myself and my family had moved into a home that was owned by an igbo man, a man whose brother was a close friend to my dad back then. We had moved into that home about nine years ago and everything was cool between my parents and the landlord, when all of a sudden we received a quit notice from the caretaker, the man who was also my dad's friend. I didn't know it at the time but it turned out the owner of the home we were living in, was the brother to the caretaker.

I wasn't at home when the whole thing happened but based off of the information I got from my family during the entire process, I realised that when it comes to unity and helping each other as a fellow tribesman, the Igbo tribe is the least on the list.

When in an inconvenient situation, the Hausa man would do all he can to help his fellow Hausa man to make sure that he gets out of whatever difficult situation their brother might be in, the same applies to a yoruba tribesman, unlike the Igbo tribesman who would rebel against his fellow tribeman.

Personally, I've had first hand experiences of these things (because I'm based at the east which is mainly dominated by the Igbos), where I see people who are suppose to act as my brothers, working with other people while trying to scam me, meanwhile, those other people from other tribes wouldn't do the same with their fellow tribesmen.

This is why I still feel like we the Igbos aren't ready for the independence that we keep on asking from the government because we're not even ready to be united as one, not to talk of becoming a country of our own.