Dr. Philip Njemanze is an illustrious son of Owerri. He is many things rolled into one but what is known commonly to many is that he is a medical practitioner of repute, a human rights activist, a scientist and author. In his latest book, Njemanze veered into the turf you will expect to find professors of history doing uncommon thing and stirring the hornet net. In his book titled: Igbo the Mediators of Yahweh, Culture of life Vol. 1, he raised a number of issues that would pass for controversy insisting that the Igbos are the real progenitors of creation.
In this interview Njemanze maintained that no white man was on earth when the Igbo’s existed adding that Igbos ruled England up till 1600. He also said that Igbos created the entire civilization and argued that all the biblical stories about Jesus happened in Owerri. He insists that every claim he made can be proven. It is an interesting read. Enjoy yourself.
Doc, you have a new book titled‘Igbo the Mediators of Yahweh, Culture of life Vol.1’’. What is the message that you are trying to push across?
The simple message is that Jesus wu onye Owerri (Jesus is an Owerri man). He is an Igbo man, he was born here, he grew up here, he worked here and all the scriptures of the New Testament and the works of Christ took place here in Owerri. The Bible itself in the New Testament was written here in Owerri.
This sounds strange and controversial when related to what we already know. The Bible we are reading is a creation of the white man. King James of Britain we understand wrote a version. Are there proofs to what you have just said?
Yes, of course. It is a bit surprising that in the public domain the knowledge about genetics is not quite wide spread. The genetics is conclusive and has been proven that Igbo people are the oldest people on earth. We have the L1 gene. The Eve, the first mother of all is L0. Igbos is the oldest of God’s creation. They are 150,000 to 240,000 thousand years on earth. They created the entire human civilization, the entire language. The only language that was on earth for almost 100,000 years was Igbo. This is already well known and established and there is no argument about this among scientists in genetics. It is well known that Igbo is L1. The L2 people are the Nilotic people who lived along the Nile. In Igbo this means ‘Mmiri niile’ the entire waters. Those people are the Southern Sudanese. Then the L3 are every other black people you know. They are only 70,000-100,000 years. Every white man you see is 6000-7000 years in existence. The Asiatic people, a few of them, clusters are around 12,000 years. So the white people were not even here. No white man was on earth when we were building the pyramids in Egypt, when we were building civilization, when we built electricity. Most of these things happened before the white man came up, evolved from the mutation of L3 genes. This is scientifically well known.
So if this is the case how come we the Igbos are so much relegated to the background? If we had championed civilization and built the Pyramids, how come our language is not the first and we are colonized by the English which is the international language of the world?
Yes. Remember the words of God. The words of God are eternal. ‘’The first shall be the last’’ He warned them. He warned the Jews-‘nde ji uwa’, that is ‘the people in-charge of the world’, the Igbos. He warned them to follow ‘My commandments’, if you don’t the first shall become the last and since they did not listen the first has become the last. English is more of Igbo. We ruled England up to the 1600. All the Kings of England until the two last families, the family of Williams and Windsor, every other King of England was Igbo. In fact, it is even known that the last King of England is Igbo and was called King George Stewart – the merry boy king of England’ – nga ala n’ide meaning the isolated land by the riverside. It is not a taboo it is just that our people are not aware. This town where I am Jerusalem meaning ‘’Iyi erusalam’’. This is the beginning of civilization. We know that for sure. We are not guessing. We know that the walls of Jerusalem are there. I revealed them in the book. All the demarcations where the Solomon’s temple is, where the palaces of David is, that is ‘Di wu edo’,(the man who is fair) the first King of Owerri, Solomon is Isi elo ama ana, the King that thinks wisely for the land. They know that we are the people that developed human civilization but this has been covered. Now, we are bringing it out again. Now, we want every Igbo person to have a copy of the book to open their eyes so they can become aware. We are just wallowing in poverty and ignorance. Do you know that Owerri today is worth 30 billion US dollars every year, which is the entire Nigerian budget that is lost in Owerri every year?
The figure is in terms of what?
In terms of tourism, because we know all the tourist sites. We know the entire holy places, they are all in Owerri. So why are we in this poverty? It is because of ignorance. Now light has come and we have the books.
Outside the genetical proof which other evidence do you have to support all these claims of yours which are very controversial. If you are taken to task can you practically prove them convincingly?
We can practically identify every bit of information. When we tell you that Solomon’s temple is at the Assumpta Catholic Cathedral we will show you exact spot where it is. We can bring ground penetrating radar and show you the location where it is at 9 metres. We can tell you that Nworie, ‘Nwa Orie’’, the river of the Son of Almighty God is the Sea of Galilee, ‘’Ogo lie elu’’, district on height. We will show you that Amakohia is, ‘Ama-ako-ohia’’ the wisdom that is told by the bush side. We tell you that Akwakuma is Akwa is a bridge, it was on there that Christ would stand on it and talk. They called it Akwa a ko ama, the bridge on which you stand to recite wisdom. We tell you that Ubomiri or Ubu-mmiri is actually the place where they threw in the net, Ubummiri. When they threw the net it was so full with fishes they couldn’t pull it out. When they left the net that place became Ubu mmiri because that is what it is meant for. So we know exactly all the archaeological sites. We know where they are and we can prove it to anybody who wants to see it and we can actually raise the artefacts, we know the four walls of Jerusalem and where they are. We can show people this is where this thing is. As for the archaeology we know. The problem we have is lack of governance. There is no governance because this is something governance should take charge of and roll with.
This book of over 500 pages with the in-depth findings shows it must be the result of long years of research efforts.
How long did it take you to do the book?
Yes it actually took me 20 years to do the research that went into this book. The major thing is that I knew the genetic information and the challenge becomes to trace out the archaeology, to trace out the ethno-linguistic linkages and the history behind each and every one of them. So it needed tracing going back to the archives, it needed decoding of the ancient Igbo writing ‘Nsibiri’ as well as decoding the hieroglyphics. The hieroglyphics almost took five years to decode before we could understand how to read it. Igbos has almost 60 forms of writing. There is the Igbo Colourimetric writing where we write with colours. There is Igbo numerology where we write with numbers. There is the Igbo object form writing where we write with objects. So Igbos has all forms of writing. The English took only one form of writing-then the script form of Igbo and made it into their language.
Are you saying that English originated from Igbo?
Every word in English is Igbo. It is just Igbo action verbs most of the time. Let me give you an example. Ukwu is leg in Igbo. You will ask what the relationship is. ‘Ukwu eji a ligo, ligo, l-g, then they vowelized it leg’’
Was this work your entire effort or you have others who worked with you?
The people who made contributions for example are my father. He had a lot of archives of the history of our family and of our area. He talked to a lot of people right from 1956 when he came back from overseas. He talked to a lot of people and these people told him about what happened. When I was doing this research I had to rely upon those materials in order to get the history of some of the sites that are around here. Basically that is the kind of information that I could gather.
What actually inspired you into digging deep to exhume these strange but controversial historical finds which you called the culture of life?
There are two major aspects of it. The question that is scientific I know. I am a Professor of Medicine so I know exactly that the scientific information does not conform to the white man’s story. It is not possible. They were not here when all these things were happening and they were claiming to be here. So we know that genetically, scientifically it is impossible for the white man to be a Jew because when the Jews, the first of God’s creation, ‘’nde ji uwa’’ were here, that the ancient Jews built up, the white man was not in existence, so he couldn’t have been a Jew. It is not possible. All the things he is claiming are not things that belong to him scientifically. There is no way that he can prove it.
So when you said that the white man was not here how did they come in contact with the Igbos whom they corrupted their culture drawing from your statements? How did they become the owners of the language, and the other things and we got relegated to the background?
What happened was that Igbo people ruled the whole of the world. England, ‘nga ala n’ide’, Ireland, ‘Ire ala n’ide’ – tongue-like land by the riverside, Wales, ‘Owa ala Ose’ channel lands at the riverside, Scotland, ‘Esekota ala n’ide’ ‘small joined lands by the river’, Germany, ‘Ugo ora ama na Ya, the district of the indigenous people of God, ‘nde itilisi oke ana’-Italy, ‘nde Chi ani’-China the people of God, ‘nde Emerikota’-America ‘united people’. All over the world, Igbos ruled. That is why they used the word, ‘nde ji uwa’ (Jews). But what happened was that there was a Kagan empire, this Kagan empire or Kazaria as was called in the ancient times, an empire which was the most powerful in the world and it was actually ran by the people you call Aguleri – agu ala Eri meaning the land of brave people of the Ancient of Days. So they had the white people who lived with them, the white Kazars, and the black Kazars were the leaders of the society and so when in a war, the black Kazars were overthrown and sacked, the while Kazars took over their religion, their language and what they could make out. This was how white Judaism started. These people were from Turkey. However, later on because the Igbo people had conquered Germany dealt with the rebellion that was coming from Germany, years later, when Hitler came to power he said where were those people who conquered Germany. They said those people are now answering Jews and are everywhere. He now started pouncing on the white Jews and killing them. That was the origin of the holocaust but the holocaust was what they did to the Igbos, ‘Oholo oku a si e ti osa’, the hole of fire they commanded they should put the people in. People were burnt on crosses and sent out of Europe. White people overthrew us and we came here ‘Oke nna’’-Canaan, the place God promised us and this place is called ‘I zara eli’ or Israel and we built the great empire of Israel and here in Owerri we have the capital, ‘Iyi erusala m’ (evil should not touch me)-Jerusalem. The first King of Jerusalem was ‘Di wu edo’-David and he was the first King from the series of ‘nde ji isi eze’-the sons’ of Jesse.
There is this consciousness among the Igbos that they are from the Jews. From your book and what you are saying, you are reversing that claim to say that the Igbos is the real Jews?
Yes.
What effort have you made since the publication to bring it into public focus to the point of getting the Igbos knows the real issues at stake?
Yes I am doing my best and that is why I am talking to you as an individual and we need more people, more scholars come into this and know the correct Igbo. What you are reading today is not the correct Igbo. All the Igbo cities, their names are wrong. Onitsha what does that mean, nothing. The correct meaning is ‘Ani otu ocha’, the land of white sands, because when you are going to Lagos by bus and you are seeing on the left white sands, on the right white sands as you cross the river. It is because of the white sand that floods the place that it is called such. That is what you call the Antioch in the Bible. That is how the word came about, they just took the consonants and vowelized it wrongly. You see Owerri doesn’t mean anything; it is ‘Owe Eri’ leader from time immemorial depicting the title of David, Di wu edu. You hear of Ihiala that is ‘Ihe ala’ where light sparked from surround and then the person you call Saul fell and the voice said ‘Saa olu’. Almost all cities in Igbo land are wrongly called. Emekuku, there is nothing like that, it means ‘E zuo onu emekoo ukwu’, that is Zion in the Bible. That is where you had the great temple. Before the new Temple was built here in Owerri the old temple was just at Okitankwo which does not mean anything. The correct thing is ‘Aku otu nkwo’-the riverside of baptism, where they had the baptism of John, ‘Juo aha nna’. When you get to Emekuku you see a place they call Azaregbelu, it is ‘Azara egbe elu’ a place of ascension to heaven, the hill of ascension and on the other side you will see nkwo Emeke, which is ‘nkwo eme eke’-the baptism of regeneration of John.
Is there any academic work or any work from any source that draws close similarity to your work as to make a comparison? Have Professors of history commented on your work?
Good. This is quite interesting. Actually, I was a guest lecturer at the Agbogidi Lecture that was held at the Igbo Institute, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The Obi of Onitsha was also there. The book was well received. Every Igbo that listens to this gets stunned just as they were. Same thing happened at Awka where I was the guest lecturer at the Institute of African Studies which brought together all the Professors in History and Languages in that conference and it was also very well received. The problem is not that Igbo scholars are not receiving the book very well but the challenge is that they will now have to go and change everything that they have learnt on which they have acquired their doctorate degrees. It will require a systemic change. It is even a task that goes beyond our own environment because we really have to change everything. That is just the truth and it is not just one or two persons work. It is going to involve a whole legionnaire of people. Unfortunately for us we don’t have the governance structure to make this happen. Once we have a governance structure that makes real sense in terms of bringing in people together in form of institutes, holding seminars and conferences we will now be able to do things and turn things around and prove it to the world. The financial benefits are huge. In fact, many people in the world know that what they are saying is not true. Academicians know this. In fact, my white friends whom I attended school together, some of them have since become professors in different spheres know this, because when they read this they know that it is not possible for whites to have been there in the first place.
The entire work to me appears controversial and has the tendency of antagonising you with the Church or rather Christianity because like you said this amounts to changing in the minds of people what they already know. You are a strong Catholic faithful and there is so much Catholic content. So how are you going to handle this?
Yes I am a very strong Catholic but many people do not know this. Before I said this the Pope had already said so. Pope Paul the Sixth was the person who had already told them that they were telling lies that the present Jerusalem was the ancient City of Jerusalem. In fact, he even told people claiming to be Jews that they are not Jews (Rev 2:9, 3:9). That was why when the Catholic Church wanted to make him a Saint (though canonised now) before then anytime they call him up all the people claiming to be Jews will go out demonstrating, that he is anti-Semitic. Why? It is because the Pope said that they are not saying the truth. He was a great intellectual. The Pope at the level of the Catholic Church at the Papacy was already saying this. Pope Urban the same thing. He told them when the Knights of St. John wanted to go and fight for Jerusalem when the Turks invaded it, he told them not to waste their time because there is nothing to fight for, and it is a fake place. The people also now know that Jerusalem is a fake place.
What you are saying in reverse is that the pilgrimage many of us are making to Jerusalem as Christians is deceptive and fake?
It should not be there in the first place. It is a hoax. It is not the ancient city of Jerusalem. If you want to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem come to Owerri that is where the ancient city of Jerusalem is.