Okonko Research: About Igbology

The Dawn of Igbology

Igbo civilization is a gift of the Niger in the sense that Egypt is said to a gift of the Nile. As the earliest and oldest world civilizations developed around river basins and deltas, so did there develop a vibrant and dynamic cultural heritage and civilization around the Niger Delta. Ancient Igboland is caved in by the Atlantic Ocean in the South, the Cross River in the East, the River Benue in the North and the River Niger in the West. The major difference is that the Igbo live on both sides of the River Niger until it empties into the Atlantic. It is interesting to note that the center of the world is located beside the Bight of Bịafra and this is where the Greenish Meridian intercepts the Equator. The geographic nature of the Igbo culture area was blessed with natural resources and protection in the sense that Igboland was never invaded by any foreign power until the British colonial conquest of 1914. This peculiarity makes it possible for Igbo culture area to conserve an original or primordial pattern or model of authentic Afrịkan culture.

Igbology is a discipline and a scientific title for what is commonly called Igbo studies. In this new dispensation, there is an honest and calculated effort to render a scientific approach to the study of Igbo Civilization and Cultural Heritage. As it is in the case of any other world civilization under study, topics to be researched upon in the Igbo culture area would fit into all classes of disciplines in the natural and social sciences. The collective data in Igboland will serve in the Humanities, Philosophy, Cultural Anthropology/Ethnology, Ethnography, Sociology, History, Linguistics, Religion and Political Science.

When Archimedes discovered the principle of the lever in physics, he exclaimed: “Da mihi locum, et terram movebo”. –“Give me a place, and I will move the world”. A recent research project on Igbo Cultural Symbols reveals that Symbols form the base or foundation of any possible scientific or human intellectual endeavor.