Igbo Nation: History, Challenges of Rebirth and Development is a chronicle of the Igbo past, the challenges Ndi Igbo have faced across the centuries, how Igbos have survived discrimination, pogrom, genocide and how now they stand on the threshold of a new renaissance that will make their numbers and business, intellectual and scientific acumen manifest the world over. They probably constitute the single largest ethnic group in the world and geographically, Ndi Igbo regard Igboland as the center of the earth. Present state of Igbo studies and research tend to lend credence to the postulation that Ndi Igbo were part of the original inhabitants of the earth before their migration to other parts of the world as we know it today. A careful look and study of the world cartography shows that at the pristine stage of evolving creation [eri mgbe - time immemorial] the world was one single contiguous undivided mass of earthland with Africa at the center before the so-called continents of North and South America, the other islands (Australia, Arctic Region and Antarctica) floated away due to seismic upheavals. These floatings carried away some of the original Igbo inhabitants who then struggled and succeeded in surviving in sometimes very hostile conditions and became the dark colored inhabitants of the Americas, Asia and Australia and New Zealand. Many marvel at the coincidence of the name of the place of birth of Jesus, namely Nazareth ("small Naze") and the town Naze, five miles from Owerri in Central Igboland? In the works of two major Igbo scholars we see so much evidence of the place of Igbo culture and civilization within the matrix of human culture and civilization in general. The late Catherine Acholonu, an outstanding authority in pre-history, has, through the study of ancient languages and cultures shown how several elements of Igbo language and general culture find their equivalents in the language and culture of far-flung civilizations as those of the Europeans, Chinese, English, Hebrew, ancient Canaanite, Greece, etc. Similarly, in the ancient Igbo civilization depicted in Chinua Achebe's novels, particularly, Things Fall Apart, every other ancient civilization finds its own image. It is no wonder then that Ndi Igbo rank even higher than the Jews in being the true global citizens, found in every nook and crany of the earth, yet adapting as if that very part of the earth is their natural home. The JigSaw Earth Theory which we deign here to postulate believes that the earth was initially one land and a contiguous mass until seismic eruptions created the oceans, seas, lakes and rivers, separated the American continent, north and south, from mainland Africa and created the Mediterranean sea separating the European land mass from Africa, creating in the process also Australia, the Eastern Horn of Africa and the Asiatic continent. All the jigsaw parts put together can recreate the contiguous land mass that existed Mgbe Eri. The process transplanted some Ndi Igbo, the original inhabitants of mangrove Africa, to various parts of the present universe where they influenced the language and culture that developed in those areas. The Igbo language and people far from being on the verge of extinction are facing today an irrepressible renaissance. Ndi Igbo should look beyond Nigeria and Africa and see the world as their new theatre of operation.
About the Author: THE EDITORS Mezu, Dr. S. Okechukwu, MA, LL.B, Ph.D, The Johns Hopkins University, Biafran Ambassador to Ivory Coast, was Professor, the Founder/Director of the African Studies Program at the State University of New York/Buffalo in 1970. A novelist and author of Behind the Rising Sun (Biafra war novel); poet, Tropical Dawn; literary critic, Léopold Sédar Senghor et la défense et illustration de la civilization noire, and political critic, Dr. Okechukwu Mezu has published several books in Igbo, English and French and his works have been translated into several European languages. He is the publisher of Black Academy Press, Inc. established in 1970 and the very first black owned academic publishing house in the USA. Nwala, Prof. T. Uzodinma is Distinguished Professor of Social and Political Philosophy, Father of Contemporary African Philosophy, Statesman associated with the founding of some major institutions of our society- NYSC, ASUU, G-34, Rotational Presidency, six-geo-political zones in Nigeria, PDP, etc. Former Chairman, United Nations Youth Caucus and Chief Representative of ISMUN at the UN. Author of Igbo Philosophy. Coordinator of International Colloquium on the Igbo Philosophy and President of Alaigbo Development Foundation (ADF).