“A person is said to be literate if he/she can read in his/her mother’s tongue, and write so that it could be read and understood by another person”-(United Nation) ABOUT THE PEOPLE: Armstrong (1995) define Igede as land, people and their language, hence it could be mentioned as Igede land, Igede people and Igede language. Igede land is situated in Benue State in the North Central Nigeria. Igede land has boundaries with the Tiv people to the North and North East. Idoma people (Otukpo, Akpa, Ufia and Izigbang) in the North West and West respectively. The area also shared common boundaries with Igbo of Ebonyi State to the South and Yala and Ukele people in the Cross River State to the South East. Apart from OJU and OBI Local Government, a substantial number of Igede people live in the present Gwer, Konshisha and Vandekiya Local Government areas of Benue State; and Yala and Bekwara Local Government of Cross River State. IGEDE LANGUAGE IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE. The beginning of the British effective administration in Igede area following the defeat of Ogbiloko the Igede warlord in 1928 saw the emergence of the form and pattern of Igede orthography. However, Igede language has three dialects arising from their point of entry into Igede area from other directions like Uwokwu, Ainu and Ito. The purest form appears to be the dialect spoken in the central district of Igede land. Igede language is known as “Igede” or “Myeeke” meaning “I speak” (A. Frampton, 1935:58). Some other basic traits of the language include its tonal and descriptive nature which involves indirectly going round and round to explain what one has to say. Duryll Forde (1970:141) had suggested that Igede language belongs to the “Kwa group” of African languages and closely associated with Idoma and Igbo languages as well as Yala in Cross River and more or less a resemblance of Yoruba as part of the larger “Kwa family”. What appear to have distinguished Igede language from the rest of the “Kwa Family” is that the neighboring groups exhibit three levels while Igede has four and not tied to any syntactical construction or phonetic environment. According to Forde, Igede also has “a host of plural nouns, distinguished by vowel prefixes from the singular.
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