Igbos are originally from Yoruba’s Ile-Ife — Ooni

The Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi, has claimed that the Igbo race of the Southern part of Nigeria was originally from Ile-Ife.

He also challenged academia in Nigerian universities to document the history of the Yoruba race properly rather than relying on jaundiced history.

Oba Ogunwusi said proper documentation would foster unity and reveal the ties across ethnic groups, saying evidence showed that the Igbo race migrated from Ile-Ife.

The monarch put the challenge before the academia while addressing journalists ahead of an International Conference on ‘Ile-Ife and Yoruba Civilization: Nexus between Tradition and Modernity’, at his palace in Ife.

He said the Yoruba race has about a quarter of its history documented; hence, the reason he is collaborating with select universities on the need to properly document the history of the race with a view to enhancing cohesion among the people globally.

“We have good evidence to believe that Igbo race has its roots here in Ile-Ife. There is Ile-Igbo here in the palace which was not a recent creation but has been existing here for decades. For this and many other reasons, I believe we need proper documentation of our history,” the Ooni said.

“We are not involving government in this project so that we can just place all the facts together, we must write our history properly and put things the right for the coming generations”.

Also speaking, a renown professor of history, Siyan Oyeweso, said the conference aims at bringing scholars together to discuss how to properly document the history of Yoruba, with focus on Ile-Ife as the source of the race.