We really don’t want to believe what we read the respected Ooni of Ife said about the Igbo and OJI (kolanut)
It’s possible his points were misrepresented.
But for public awareness and proper information, there are species of OJI.
And among them is the one the Igbo celebrate – OJI IGBO.
EMPHASIS: The kola Igbo revere is precisely OJI IGBO (kola acuminata or kola atrophora)
It should be emphasised that in real Igbo traditional events, apart from political visits, only Oji Igbo is acceptable by the Igbo for the known performances.
It’s lobes are in multiples, some of them having as many as 7 lobes when the skin is removed or the cola is broken as we say it.
If it comes in 4 loves, we cherish it as complete in line with the 4 days of the Igbo week. In fact, any number of lobes has a meaning. When the lobes are 7, we interpret it as a perfect number and abundance.
However, many of us came to this world seeing kola trees even in the living yards and backhouse gardens of our native Igbo towns. I had a childhood friend his father’s means of livelihood was almost the cultivation of kola. We used to climb the kola trees as kids to harvest the pods for him.
In the markets of Edda, my hometown, it’s common to see oji harvested by the natives sold there. It used to be so abundant that traders came from Aba and other nearby cities to buy oji from our markets, especially the Afo market.
The reason we have the kola we call Oji Igbo is because it is indigenous to us.
We also know the other kola cultivated by the Yoruba that are bigger and mainly in two large lobes (cola nitida)
We commonly call them OJI GWORO or Oji Awusa. Even though the Yoruba cultivate them, the traders we know with selling them in Igbo land are the northerners we commonly and generally refer to as Hausa (Awusa)
Vegetation wise, the Yoruba and Igbo occupy and have the same rainforest vegetation and there is hardly any plant that survives in Yoruba land that won’t naturally be seen in Igbo land and vice versa.
Even cocoa plants and beans Yoruba has the large reputation of cultivating is also cultivated in Igbo land, but at a smaller measure. My own late father had cocoa plantations I was told he cultivated in the very early 1960s before I was born.
Regarding kola and Igbo, it’s like saying that because the Igbo and Eastern Nigeria made fortunes from palm produce, that the Yoruba hasn’t palm trees. That’s not correct.
We have kola and many parts of Igbo land cultivate Oji Igbo, that’s why we use it for traditional rites and commensalism.
It’s like the yam, we celebrate yam because it’s indigenous. A people hardly adopt a foreign item as a major article of their indigenous culture like the Igbo with Oji.
We celebrate Oji (OJI IGBO) precisely because it’s indigenous to the Igbo world and existence.
Thanks to tech and our people, even on the internet, a simple search for OJI IGBO images pops out the real kolanut Igbo celebrates, not just any kola
