Before British conquest, there was no single Igbo state. The region consisted of thousands of autonomous villages and village groups. People first identified with their lineage, village or clan; they might call neighbouring peoples “Igbo” — a word that could mean outsiders or people of the forest — while not applying the word to themselves.
The broader sense of being “Igbo” grew through colonial administration, the creation of the Eastern Region, urban migration and, above all, the existential threats of the 20th century. The pogroms of 1966 and the Biafran war forged a shared political identity out of communities that were culturally related but politically distinct.
Identity here is both ancient and recent: ancient in its customs, recent in its shared name and shared destiny.
Editorial synthesis