Comparing the Igbo and other Nigerian cultures on toilet practices

...comparing the Igbo and the other cultures of Nigeria................REMY ILONA:The last discussion which was on eating habits was very enriching. Many persons made very valuable comments.

I would like us to talk about another custom today. How do the Igbo and other Nigerians deal with defecation and human faeces?

When I grew up in Igboland, every Igbo home in Ozubulu had a pit latrine situated some distance away from the main dwellings. I cannot recall any dwelling that did not have toilets or latrines, and when a miscreant child mischievously defecated on the farms or on the roads, what I observed was that the first person that saw the excrement would exclaim, 'anya afuo m aru' (my eyes have beheld an abominable thing), quickly look for an egg, break it, and smear the contents on the eye (our belief is that this is purification), and a search is conducted for the offender who's parents will be fined.

Yesterday in synagogue, as we discussed Omenana Joseph N Igbo recounted what was the older practice in his Orogwe, near Owerri. He said that in the distant past when many Igbos could not afford toilets, that what people did was to head into the wilds with "mbazu"-a spear-like farming implement, and on getting to the wilds-very far from human dwellings, the person in need would dig holes with the implement, relieve himself/herself over the holes, cover the excrement carefully with sand, and return home, fully relieved.

And what does the Igbo (Hebrew) Book of life say?....Deuteronomy 23:13 says.....And you shall have a trowel with your tools, and when you sit down outside, you shall dig a hole with it and turn back and cover up your excrement......

I mentioned in my last post that I have lived in many non Igbo parts of Nigeria. In one part, that is deemed to be the most sophisticated presently, and its people the most civilized, the people defecate in their bedrooms, living rooms, and in all parts of their homes. Fully grown adults retire into their homes with the plastic bowl called 'poo', defecate inside it, and pour the excrement on the streets.

In some other parts people simply defecated on streets, leave the excrement uncovered and walk away.

And in some areas people have the tradition of defecating inside bodies of water.

These are part of my observations....
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You, Luke Chinweuba Eke, Moore Black Chi Mmadike, ‎אבן כהן‎ and 2 others like this.
Leo I. Chiegboka: This was and still obtained at my place and Aguata however, you can now see some dispicanle acts as you walk along the ways.
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אבן כהן :Defecation is simply defined as act of discharge of feces from the body. Even though is act is purely natural, most people according to their culture does not discharge feces properly. The Igbo for instance responds to this natural call positively by not deficating in their farms, market places, and other designated public or private areas. The reason for doing that in Igbo culture is because feces though regarded as a waste, is not only loathsome but very foul smelling. In other tribes' culture, I have not seen feces properly handled or disposed. Take for instance; I went to a kiosk in a motor park in Lagos to buy some biscuits. On getting there I saw a woman who covered herself, sitting just beside the open door of the kiosk and I asked her if the seller is around to sell some items to me. A man who wanted me to board his vehile came to me and said; "nwa nne! okwa I bu onye Igbo?" And I answered 'yes', then he said; "hapu nwanyi ahu obu nsi ka onanyi." I was shocked and horridly left the scene because I can not imagine a full flaged person deficating openly in the public right there in the business shop! Ever since then, I stopped buying biscuits and other sealed edible things for travel in the park and similar places. Today, it needed the power of task force to stop defecation on the main roads and other public areas, a typical sign how their culture view feces. http://pulse.ng/student/lasgidikis- please-give-us-toilets-uncle-fashol a-id2799180.html
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Nnamdi Ezeji: Another good observation Remy.
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Remy Ilona: Nnamdi, thanks. Great differences exist between the Igbo and other Nigerians. Knowing and understanding these differences will help the Igbo to cope.
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Chinonye Laz :@Remy Ilona, broda it is quite appolling, a great eye saw i am sorry to say this the only thing yorubas never do with feces is cooking. As for toilet they do not digg atall, in Lagos what they normally do is connect their toilet pipe to the gotta thats all. And thesame to the hawusa Fulani
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Paper Delivered at the Igbo Political Conference by Remy Ilona

PAPER Delivered By Remy Ilona
Greetings my umu nne na umu nna!
I very carefully studied what I’d describe as the term of reference-to craft an Igbo political agenda, a manifesto, and possibly give ideas on what should be a political road-map for the Igbo people.
I very nearly informed Ms. Ntinugwa who has graciously kept me in the loop that I won’t be able to contribute anything at the present time, due to a few reasons:
I am very busy at the moment: tied up attending to some time and energy consuming tasks, and this may stop me from giving my best. Also I have very little interest in ‘politics’, and I do not know much about it. But from what I learned from my father, one should always view calls or summons by kinsmen as priorities and respond with alacrity. I have also observed from the three presentations submitted earlier; that presentations that don’t deal strictly with ‘politics’ could also help us to reposition our ethnic group, and are from the look of things acceptable.
Frankly much of what I wanted to recommend have been touched on by those that presented before, and in some comments. In fact the erudite summation by Prof’. Mark Odu…….” congratulations for articulating survival lines. The main ingredient for starting is mutual love and social responsibility for one another. We have to build Ndigbo to a level of trust for one another in order to motivate and power effective leadership and followership. The stomach will need to be provided for. I believe cooperation at SE Zonal level should precede any movement toward independence. Prior to that we must ensure that we have ingredients for survival. That can only be built after effective and trustworthy leadership cadres have been built and tested. In the meantime we must suffer indignities of degradation and that should power us into sustainable levels of trust in one another with attendant social responsibility for one another. We do not have to start agitating for statehood without healing ourselves and our youth of our presumptuous and atomization proclivities which invariably motivate criminal tendencies. Our age-old reverence for right thinking leaders must return before we can move forward”…. sums up what I wanted to say.
What I would recommend is that we first without further delay embark on a journey of self-discovery and without delay begin to revive the bonds of Igbo brotherhood that I believe that they have gotten frayed almost to an irretrievable level, because they have not been nourished and refreshed since ancient times.
I’ll explain why we need to rediscover who we are, because my mother used to say; ‘anwupu nkita akoro egosi ya ka ogharu idi ka owu mbo ka aturu ya’. Virtually all the laws and policies rolled out in Nigeria that on their face seem harmless are in the main very harmful and disadvantageous to the Igbo, but because the Igbo as I believe is largely unaware of who he is, he carries on as if nothing is wrong. I’ll illustrate. Take a look at the Land Use Act. This law took my, your, and everybody else lands in Nigeria and vested them on the various governors. This looks harmless, and is in fact harmless to a person or group whose lands was/were traditionally vested in the Sultan or Emir or Oba or Alaafin. But to the Igbo individual whose land was vested in him traditionally and historically, and who as of right has a vested interest in ‘ana umu nna’, can we say that this ‘new law’ would not have dangerous and hazardous consequences? What if the governor that you took my lands and gave hates me? My point is that because we know so little of and about ourselves, culture and history, and have in fact become ‘more Nigerian than Igbo’ we accept anything and everything that would lead to many problems. We also take steps and actions that would only entrap us. Though I was a toddler when Obasanjo promulgated this law that captured and reflects his own Yoruba traditions, as Nigerian Law, since I grew up I have not noticed Igbos trying to make sure that this law which runs counter to Omenana Igbo is made not applicable in Igboland. And as ‘onye gbaru nkiti kwere ekwe’….our silence could be used against us when we wake up and begin to see danger in the form of herdsmen…..
Another example: recently the Supreme Court took a decision that would destroy what’s left of the resilience and viability of both the Igbo family and the Igbo marriage by making a landmark ruling that henceforth Igbo women would share with the men all the patrimony, and this includes the ‘ana obi’. I have not seen the Igbo protests against this law that would make easy divorce an Igbo way of life in the next fifty years.
What do I make of all these? We know very little about ourselves, and we care even less.
And curiously other Nigerians that we interestingly see as less smart don’t accept what we do without question, often to our detriment. We all saw the Hausa/Fulani push aside the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria when they noticed that it was infringing on their rights to practice ‘Sharia’. We also all saw the Yoruba declare publicly that by their customs and traditions that a non Yoruba can not head a market in Yorubaland. And that they have a right to determine who strangers in their land would vote for. And all these moves which should all be ultra vires the Constitution stood.
So, if as I recommend, we begin to look at ourselves with the objective of knowing who we are, what we should do, what should be our relationship with fellow Igbos, non Igbos and the Land of the Igbos, we should also begin to study what and what we should and would do to become one people “indeed” again. Other Igbos experiences may be different from mine, but as for me I am not convinced or persuaded that today the average Igbo feels that a fellow Igbo is more his brother than say a Yoruba or Ishan with whom he shares religion or religious denomination. I would also need to be convinced or persuaded that even here in this forum that we all have deep filial feelings for each other.
In addition as we work on coming back together to become umu nne again, and in deed, we should look again at the question of who is Igbo? It is queer to me that most Igbos that I meet today consider just the South East as Igbo. But that’s not what I learned from my father or what I have observed. I believe that Igbos who are as much Igbos as myself own ancestral lands, and are resident in: all the way from Edo, through Delta, the South East and Rivers. Some even say that a few are native to Akwa Ibom and Cross Rivers. Last year I read a Sun story in which a big group told a haunting story about how they (the Igbos of Benue) have been left behind the lines, marooned, to be dealt ruthlessly with by the Idoma.
I recommend that all the above be dealt with urgently, because they have bearing on how we are treated by others. I want to believe that other Nigerians, never fools, have observed that there are deep disconnections between us, and that we are not united, and are thus vulnerable, and can accordingly be mistreated, and that there would likely not be consequences. An Igbo senator from Enugu state led the opposition to the inclusion of Anambra among the oil-producing states. And when Kogi sued Anambra for stealing its oil, if I am not wrong, Enugu sued Kogi, and also Anambra. Also I prefer to first deal with, and discipline myself than to begin with dealing with, and disciplining others. I have a strong conviction that if we become self-aware, knowledgeable, and one indeed again, that we would become strong again, and that our neighbours would begin to take us serious. They may not love us, but they would fear and respect us. I believe that when things get to this point, if we choose to remain a part of Nigeria, our existence in the country will not be onerous, and if we choose to leave, the other groups would not make a whimper.
As I round up I contribute the following: a people [who are one people], know who they are(are knowledgeable about their history and culture), and can thus navigate into the future with clarity would easily have an agenda, a manifesto, and a roadmap if impulses that make the afore-mentioned necessary come up.
Our job here should be easy because there seems to be a growing trend, a general realization and agreement that we are in trouble, in our families, in Igboland, in Nigeria, and I add everywhere-else.
Another little illustration may be helpful.
I must be careful so that I do not begin to write a book. During the last elections at least two calls were made for Igbos to be exterminated, even though no Igbo was vying for any really important position. If similar calls were made for Ijaw, or Yoruba or Fulani to be exterminated, it won’t be so worrying. But as the calls made were just for the Igbos to be killed, and from history its only the Igbos that have suffered genocide in Nigeria, I guess that we can agree that there is trouble. And expediently move with speed.
Dalu nu.

Remy talks about Igbo land tenure laws and customs...

Jenny, in Igbo culture women own land the following ways: lets begin with the family/ancestral land...which is shared among all the sons of the family...and this includes the females who chose to remain unmarried....each son owns his share with his wife/wives and children. I hope you know that in the traditional Igbo society, every nearly adult was married...so there was almost no chance for anybody not to benefit from the family estate......the sons directly, and their sisters through their husbands who are sons in other families.....and should an Igbo girl remain unmarried and decide never to marry, she gets a share of the family land....but should she eventually marry, she relinguishes what she got to her brothers....because she acquires a portion of the land through her marriage...husband...reading carefully one would notice that some other customs, traditions, etc, are intertwined with the land laws of the Igbos. Sharing family property among brothers is contentious enough, and will even become worse when their brothers in law join the fray though their sisters who are their wives...one can only understand some of these things with careful study and when one divests oneself of feelings behind the statement expressed by Jenny....One made by our primitive forefathers which cannot be changed because it's only against women not men or one genuinely made for our greater posterity?

REFUTING FALSEHOOD AGAINST JEWS

JUDE IK IGBOANUGO: A Speech made by Netenyahu Israel PM. I quote…” We are not obliged even the least to try to prove to anybody and to the blacks and Arabs that we are superior people. We have demonstrated that to the blacks and Arabs in 1001 ways. The State of Israel that we know of today has not been created by wishful thinking. We have created it at the expenses of intelligence, sweat and blood………We do not pretend like other whites that we like the blacks. The fact that, blacks and Arabs look like human beings and act like human beings do not necessarily make them sensible human beings. Hedgehogs are not porcupines and lizards are not crocodiles because they look alike. If God had wanted us to be equal to the blacks and Arabs, he would have created us all of a uniform colour and intellect. But he created us differently: Whites, Blacks, Yellow, Rulers and the ruled. Intellectually, we are superior to the Blacks and Arabs; that has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt over the years. I believe that a Jew is honest, God fearing person, who has demonstrated practically the right way of being……By now every one of us has seen it practically that the Blacks and Arabs cannot rule themselves. Give them guns and they will kill each other. They are good in nothing else but making noise, dancing, marrying many wives and indulging in sex. Let us all accept that the Blackman is a symbol of poverty, mental inferiority, laziness and emotional incompetence. Isn’t it plausible? Therefore that the Whiteman is created to rule the Blackman……And here is a creature (Blackman) that lacks foresight….. The average Black does not plan his life beyond a year”.
- Nathanyahu

This is for those of us who will want to believe that Abraham is their father or that Igbos or any black race are from the Jewish descendants. Nobody regards the black race; Netanyahu spoke not his mind but the minds of all the Jews, the westerners, the Arabs. Yes, the Arabs - to the Arabs black man is Abed meaning a slave. They too wonder why a black man can be a Muslim. When can we claim our originality? When can we stop worshiping foreign gods? Chuba Okadigbo of the blessed memory said that "it is an irony for one to dessert where he is wanted and be going to where he is not wanted.

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  Obi Mark My brother you have said it all. Ithank you for this information. onye were nti nuru..

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  Jude Anyigbo This man Netanyahu is a pig!

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  Uloma Uche-Enyinnia The part of planning beats me. Not even with the campaign opportunity did we come up with a good plan.

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  Jude Ik Igboanugo Sake Jude Anyigbo he's a loud pig speaking the mind of others. Calling him a pig will not wish our problem a way. I recommend that you read the JEWISH PHENOMENON by Steven Silbiger. What we need is to look at the speech and start ordering our acts. Truth they said is bitter!

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  Obi Mark we need start acting like people who understand what our problem is. My people let us all start ordering our acts.

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  Ilona Toks Frank Chairman link to this please. I know the guy is a war monger but this is too extreme..

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  Jude Anyigbo Thanks bro, will sure look for the Jewish Phenomenon book.

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  Jude Ik Igboanugo Ilona Toks Frank do you know that the Ethiopian Jews who went back to Israel the Israeli hospitals refused to take their blood for their blood banks; they said that they'll not give their blood to Jews. So so many insults have been heaped on us but still we are yet to wake up and live. Everything about us we reject but go after everything foreign.

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  Maduike Chukwudi Jude can't believe this but will share it.

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  Olumide Adewale This beats me hollow. Even if the blacks, taken collectively, hv persistenty proven less in all abilities, this superior race posture and dress down is damn insulting.
  Could it be their grandfathers / grandmothers with their big mouths invited Adolf Hi...See More

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  Winifred Oruche What.!!!A leader of a country making such a speech about a race .It is not about Africa but all the black race. I am speechless and ashamed of this leader.

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  Olalere Babasola Please what is the source of this quote? Can you share the link?

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  Azuka Bartho Emeasoba Abey Nze Amalu, This speech is not different from President Botha's speech to his parliament in 1985 (google it) which I shared on this platform a month ago. We are still far from not being what they say we are. Think of it, Chairman

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  Jude Ik Igboanugo Aburo Olumide Adewale It's the same idiosyncrasy that made Hitler to go after the Jews and blacks. Hitler was from the Aryan race of Austria/Germany. This race believes that the are the most superior but the Jews were proving more superior so he went a...See More

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  Remy Ilona Netanyahu did not make this peech Mr Igboanugo. Dissociate yourself from this! By associating and peddling this you link yourself up with the forger.

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  Ernest Obidigbo His speech is segregatious and arrogantly. To some Jews they may like it, to Arabs insulting and provocative and cruelty. To the issue of lineage of others to Abraham had religious undertone through creation by God. Abraham is the father of all nations...See More

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  Godson Nkemjika Eze Obama should take note, he is representing the black people worldwide, Ojukwu regards this kind of speech as ' an excesses from a meglomaniac pimp'

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  Remy Ilona You see, people are not asking Mr Igboanugo for his sources...people are already jumping to the wrong conclusion that Netanyahu made a speech which was Botha's speech that anti-Semites souped up and are posting around as Netanyahu's speech.

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  Remy Ilona Mr Igboanugo where did you get this speech from? Give us your sources or delete this.

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  Jude Ik Igboanugo This is the link http://www.facebook.com/l.php... we should not really focus more on the authenticity of this speech; Botha of South Africa and other world leaders before now have chided the black race. Let's focus on HOW DO WE BECOME ORIGINAL. HOW DO WE STOP BEING THEIR STOOGES? What he said or did not say is not new!
  

  
  

  
  

  

  
  

  IMAGINE: Netanyahu, The Prime Minister Of Israel Insulting Us The Blacks - Politics...

  nairaland.com

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  Osita Agoms Speechless

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  Jude Ik Igboanugo This kind of speech or comment is not new about the black man. Let us look for solution and prove them wrong. Every day our every act gives credence to their speech and thinking

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  Remy Ilona Mr Igboanugo this is the speech you should peddle....http://www.southafrica.to/.../Hoax_PW_Botha_speech_1985.htm
  

  
  

  PW Botha - Hoax 1985 speech

  THE FOLLOWING is a speech made by former South African President P.W. Botha to his Cabinet. This reprint was written by David G. Mailu for the Sunday Times, a South African newspaper, dated August 18, 1985. "Pretoria has been made by the White mind for the White man. We are not obliged even the leas…

  southafrica.to

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  Ken Odibendi The question is; have we acted differently to disprove the Netanyahu mindset. Not at all. Instead, we have continued to act in such a mundane manner to further prove Netanyahu right. Check out mind boggling corruption, murders for political reasons, ba...See More

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  Remy Ilona And your views of the Ethiopian Jewish business is not accurate...you probably got your views from sources that are as skewed as the one you got this nonsense from.

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  Remy Ilona My take is, let us think straight first...Netanyahu or Jews do not see dark-skinned peoples as inferior...Then from there we can look at ourselves...from our tribes and ask if we are doing well....this lumping of different peoples, at different levels ...See More

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  Jude Ik Igboanugo Remy Ilona let us think and do something for as a man thinketh so he is and as a man continue to think so he shall remain. Let us think and grow. One thing I recommend for us all is to read history

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  Ray Ugba Morphy Prove otherwise! From Haiti to Liberia black could tries are A MESS! Getting angry about this won't change a thing even though I know that Netanyahu did not make this statement.

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  Remy Ilona Also, the Jew has historically not fought or harmed Africans. Please don't include Jews among Africa's enemies. Focus on our real enemies like bad governance, inferiority complex...otherwise why should you...Jude and I Remy bear non Igbo names, etc....

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  Remy Ilona So, Mr. Igboanugo please substitute your original post, with the one by Botha....I just finished checking...Netanyahu DID NOT MAKE THE SPEECH. Also open lines of communication with Ethiopian Jews. They see things differently from your perspective. Lets not weep louder than the 'bereaved'. Good day!

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