
The vagaries of history, but British colonisation and missionary evangelism especially, suppressed the natural growth and development of Igbo as a language and a medium of expression and communication.
Long after Nigeria and Ìgbò people received independence, our language never caught up with the modern world.
Today, Ìgbò is a threatened, if not endangered language because, no matter how many initiatives and meetings we attend to encourage people to speak Ìgbò, our language will never truly flourish until we write and read widely in Ìgbò.
Ńdébé pays homage to the old Nsibidi logographs, as well as Nwagu Aneke’s proto-script, but is a unique, original, but more importantly, functional creation.
Nsibidi, while beautiful and significant, is severely impractical as a daily writing script.
Multiple failed attempts have been made to adapt Nsibidi for modern use, and will continue to fail because Nsibidi suffers from major expressive limitations, and is better suited for decorative, symbolic, or religious purposes.
We have modern, busy lives.
We want to be able to write and read Ìgbò immediately.
Those limitations don’t scale.