The Igbo people
*The Igbo people were first celebrated on this date in 1000. They are an ethnic group in Nigeria, including Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo.
There has been much speculation about the origins of the Igbo people, which are largely unknown. The Igbo people are one of the largest indigenous communities in Africa. The Igboid languages form a cluster within the Volta–Niger species, most likely grouped with Yoruboid and Edoid. The greatest differentiation within the Igboid group is between the Ekpeye and the rest. Some historians debate that based on this pattern, proto-Igboid migration would have moved down the Niger from a more northern area in the savannah and first settled close to the delta, with a secondary center of Igbo proper more to the north, in the Awka area.
Genetic studies have shown that the Igbo clusters most closely with other Niger-Congo-speaking peoples. The predominant Y-chromosomal haplogroup is E1b1a1-M2. Pottery dating from around 3,000–2,500 BC, showing similarities with later Igbo work, was found at Nsukka and Afikpo regions of Igboland in the 1970s, along with pottery and tools at the Anambra valley. In the Nsukka region of Igboland, evidence of early iron smelting has been excavated, dating to 750 BC. The Igbo language is part of the Niger-Congo language family. The Igbo homeland straddles the lower Niger River.
Before British colonial rule in the 19th century, the Igbo were politically fragmented by the centralized chiefdoms. The Igbos became overwhelmingly Christian during the evangelism of the missionaries in the colonial era in the twentieth century. In the wake of decolonization, the Igbo developed a strong sense of ethnic identity, with Christianity being the major religion and Islamic minorities. After ethnic tensions following Nigeria's independence in 1960, the Igbos seceded from Nigeria and attempted to establish a new independent country called Biafra.
This triggered the Nigerian Civil War. Millions of Biafran civilians died from starvation after the Nigerian military formed a blockade around Biafra, an event that led to international media promoting humanitarian aid for Biafra. Biafra was eventually defeated by Nigeria and reintegrated into the country. The Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra and the now Nigerian-government proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), two organizations formed after 1999, continue to struggle for an independent Igbo state.
