07/09/2025
I hat€ Abakaliki people. I cannot even rent my house for an Abakaliki person.
Abakaliki people are the fulanis of igboland, this is what most igbo people say. But why is nobody talking about why Abakaliki people are much more hated in igboland? Why are they seen as the Fulanis of the igbo people?
Why do we turn our own blood into a punch line?
This is not because of dominance or power, but because they are treated like foreigners. Unwanted, even mocked within their own homeland.
Oo nwa Abakaliki, is what most people say I insult thier fellow igbo person.
You call them dirty,
Call them Bush people,
You refuse your daughter's hand in marriage to them.
But let me ask you, what makes an Abakaliki man, less igbo than an Awka man?
Why is it ok to scream IGBOAMAKA with your chest, yet your heart secretly believes that Ebonyi , is not part of that pride?
This is not a story of one people being hated, but a story of a people we have refused to love. And the stigma didn't just start today.
Long before Ebonyi became a state, it's people, mostly from Abakaliki were seen as the hands that tilled the land.
The carriers of goods, the ones who served while others sat.
Because they worked the soil.
Because they walked bare footed in the markets.
They were marked!
Marked as low class,
Marked as dirty.
In schools, they were bullied.
In churches, they were whispered about.
In families, marriage to an Ebonyi son was seen as a disgrace.
But, we never stopped for one day to ask, how we learned this hate.
And maybe, this is the most dangerous thing.
How natural it feels to mock them.
They say the white man enslaved us. But tell me, what is much worse than being enslaved, by your own brother's perception of you?
Igbo people fought the civil war together.
But after the war, they left the Abakaliki man behind.
While others rebuilt, he was left with the dust of his hands.
While others migrated abroad, he was mocked for still carrying firewood.
We reduced their existence to a stereotype, a slut, a shame.
Abakaliki, not a place, but an insult.
Let me shock you.
This insult is only in the eyes of those who forgot their root.
Here is the part of the story you were not told.
Abakaliki is rising!
In the very land we once mocked, flyovers now stretch like bridges of defiance.
Ebonyi, now boasts one of the fastest rising growing city in the east.
From the international market, to the rice mill.
From the universities to Tech innovations.
Abakaliki is no longer begging to belong.
They are reclaiming what has always been theirs.
And the people, are no longer hiding their accents
They are no longer apologising for their origin.
They have realised that the dust on their feet, was never shame.
It was the evidence of a people, who never stopped working.
We cannot claim Igbo pride, while rejecting part of our own.
If the Abakaliki man Is igbo, and He is, then every insult thrown at him, is a collective insult to our identity.
If we must move forward as a people, we must first look back and ask for forgiveness.
Forgiveness for the jokes.
Forgiveness for the names.
Forgiveness for the silence.
Because healing begins the moment agree that the problem is US.
I remember one time when I finished secondary school. I went for a job interview. And after submitting my application, they called me for an interview. And during the interview, I did well.
And the interviewer said that I am very lucky. That the only reason he is giving me the job, not minding that I did extremely well was because I am not from Abakaliki .
This is a real life stereotype.
So I ask you again,
Why is no body talking about this?
If you ever looked down on them, be honest, this is a real life problem, and we must face it collectively as Igbo people.
©King Ezeh
Admin Awkuzu
