Decades of years ago, some of our ancestors (Igbos) willingly drowned themselves in the historic “Igbo Landing.” This act by our ancestors is seen by many as an act of bravery and mass resistance against slavery.

The group of Igbos who were taken as slaves by the European slave traders revolted against the Europeans in the slave ship, and took control of their ship, rather than submitted to slavery, they drowned themselves and the rest is history.

According to history, as they were drowning, they were singing in Igbo (Mmụọ mmiri du anyị bia, mmụọ mmiri ga-edu anyi laa), a song that translates to: "The water spirit brought us. The water spirit will take us home.

According to Igbo oral tradition, his reign started in 1043 and ended in 1089 when he died.

 

In 1959, his grave was unearthed by British Archaeologist, Charles Thurstan Shaw (1914–2013) who discovered a burial chamber with remains adorned in robes, bronze crown, sceptre, staff and breast-plates adorned with precious stones that were evidence of a sophisticated Igbo civilisation from the year 948 A.D.

  The Kingdom of Nri (Igbo: Ọ̀ràézè Ǹrì) was a medieval polity located in what is now Nigeria. The kingdom existed as a sphere of religious and political influence over a third of Igboland, and was administered by a priest-king called an Eze Nri. The Eze Nri managed trade and diplomacy on behalf of the Nri people, a subgroup of the Igbo-speaking people, and possessed divine authority in religious matters.