Ikwo

Ikwo is one of the three great clans of the north-eastern Igbo, with Ezza and Izzi, in Ebonyi State. Its people are some six hundred thousand, they speak the Ikwo dialect, and Noyo is the ancestor they trace.

Ikwo, Ezza and Izzi come from one grandfather, Ekumenyi, and Ikwo's own line runs from Noyo. The clan is the third of the three great groups of the north-eastern Igbo, and its dialect is one of the three that give the area its speech.

The land is rich, and it has been worked for a very long time. Iron was smelted and cast in this part of Igboland over a thousand years ago, and the bronzes found at Igbo Ukwu belong to the same long craft tradition that made this country one of the early metal-working centres of West Africa.

Farming is what Ikwo does now — rice, yam and cassava — and the clan has produced governors, deputy governors, ambassadors and senators for the state and the country.