According to our report, Ken Okolugbo, the media aide to the Senate President, has stirred public discussion after declaring that some people from Ndokwa and Ukwuani in Delta State who claim they are not Igbos are “living in self-denial.”
Speaking during an interview on Arise TV, Okolugbo traced the historical roots of the group, explaining that during the Bendel era they were referred to as Western Igbo, later known as Midwest Igbo, and eventually as Delta Igbo. He added that the term Ika is simply a variation that originated from the word Igbo.
In his words, “Some of my brothers from the Ndokwa and Ukwuani axis who insist we are not Igbos are living in self-denial.”
According to our findings, Okolugbo also revealed that he helped publish a historical manuscript written by his late father, Very Reverend Professor Okolubo, titled The History of the Oshimili-Ukwuani People of the Niger Delta. The elder Okolubo had only published a section on Christianity before his death, but his son completed and released the full work in 2004.
The book’s findings, he said, were later confirmed by Professor Ebiegberi Joe Alagoa, a respected Nigerian historian, who affirmed that the Ndokwa and Ukwuani people have Igbo origins, though with traces of Edo and Igala migrants who later settled among them.
Despite these mixed roots, Okolugbo maintained that the language, traditions, and cultural practices of the Ndokwa West, Ndokwa East, Ukwuani, and Anioma communities all point clearly to a common Igbo identity.
He concluded that denying this shared heritage only weakens the historical unity of the region.
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