The History of the OLUKUMI people in #Nigeria

Aim

To help raise funds for publishing a Book on the OLUKUMiS (an indigenous community) and assist in preserving their heritage and history

Project aim

To help raise funds for publishing a Book on the OLUKUMiS (an indigenous community) and assist in preserving their heritage and history

About the project

This project aims to raise enough funds to publish the Book on the OLUKUMiS (an indigenous African community) which will help in preserving their heritage and history.

The Olukumis, or people of Odiani clan in Aniocha North Local Government Area of Delta State, Nigeria, are are small indigenous community which comprise eight communities that are said to have historically emigrated from the Akoko area of Yorubaland during the wars which raged in that part of pre-colonial Africa during the 18th century.

They are unique in every sense. Surrounded by predominantly Ibo-speaking tribes, they speak a variant of the Yoruba language, which surprising is yet to be subsumed by those of their dominant neighbours. How they came to inhabit their present abode has been a subject of varied folklores. One of these concludes that when the OLUKUMiS arrived at their present place of domicile in the Far North of present-day Delta State, the Edo (Ancient Benin) émigrés and Ibos from the East of the River Niger had been on ground for a minimum of three centuries. Unable to communicate with the hostile people all around them, they courtesied all and sundry who they came into contact with "OLUKUMi", a word in the Akoko dialect of Yoruba language which means "my friend".

Further evidence has emerged to dispute this variation of their history. There is documentary evidence to suggest that the OLUKUMiS occupied their present abode long before their Ibo speaking neighbours (including  the Asabas) arrived the vicinity.

However, to this day, the variant of Yoruba language spoken by these people is called Olukumi by neighbouring communities!

Due to the small size of this unique community and the threat of its culture and heritage being submerged into that of its dominant neighbours,the need to preserve its culture through published material has arisen so as to ensure that accounts of knowledgeable indigenes are preserved before they all pass away. Prior to now, the history had been transferred through oral means from Elders to their children.

The writer, Chief G B Nkemnacho, has over the past forty years, put pen to paper and documented the history of his people (the OLUKUMIS) as told by earlier generations. As has been said severally, no one can tell a history better than the people who actually lived through it.

We are grateful, as a community, for the interest which you have expressed by visiting this site. Any assistance you render will facilitate the publishing of this Book and preserve this fading heritage and history for posterity. Thank you!

This project closed unsuccessfully on 15th April 2015