The present paper is a study of the origins, features and significance of the Nwagu Aneke Igbo Syllabary (otherwise known as the Umuleri Igbo Script), one of the thirty or so indigenous systems of writing that(re-)emerged during the colonial period as a medium for challenging alien cultural values and for the re-assertion of the superiority of African spiritual and moral traditions and of the thought-patterns which lie behind them. Purportedly invented by a one-time prosperous land-owner and diviner, the late Ogbuevi Nwagu Aneke of the village of Umuleri in the Anambra Local Government Area of Anambra State of South-Eastern Nigeria, the focus of the present paper falls on the mechanics of the script itself, and on one of the numerous potential values of studying it, namely the possibilities and problems of developing it as a medium for alternative literacy in African languages.