The Igbo people of Nigeria

The Igbo people lived in the area that is between cross river,Benin, Igala, and Niger Delta city states. Igbo people are divided into five cultural groups, these are:

• Western or Riverain
• Northern or Awka
• Owerri
• Cross River, and
• Ogoja Igbo.

It should be noted that, none of these groups were politically oriented, therefore none of them cooperated with each other. However, despite the cultural differences there are certain features and festivities that is common to all the groups.

And Igbo people respected their elders deeply, All leadership came from the elders. They had a common belief that birth did not grant privilege to any man. Igbo people are egalitarian societies, they emphasised competition like in sports e.g. Wrestling. Although people are born the same, but every man is free to rise provided he stand out with his contribution to the clan or by acquiring wealth or both. Igbo people of are one of the most beautiful and attractive people in the modern Nigeria.

The Igbo judicial system lacked set of rules. For example a man can with an individual who aggrieved him, but if the settlement failed the man may ask one of his village elders to intervene and solve the case. There was no appeal against the decision of the elders even if the decision was wrong.

Form of government or political system
Igbo people had a kind of segmentary political system. Segmentary political system is the one in which there’s no a central government, in African countries during the pre-colonial era a central government was headed by single person usually a king or Queen, Sultan or almami e.t.c. In segmentary government all the small groups are ballance to be equal to each other by the ties of clanship, marriage, or religion. The segmentary type of government is common to other West African societies like Tallentire of Ghana, Tiv of Nigeria, Konkomba of Togo etc.
The Cross River clans of Igbo and Ibibio were famous for their secret societies, these secret societies had secrete rituals which they believed gave them powers from the gods.
There was an Oracle system for the settling of dispute between clans when there was not a clear evidence of who was at fault. A dispute between two villages might be referred to these Oracles.