In 
�the �1985 Ahiajoku Lecture, Prof. Nwabueze wrote:
�
I believe that tribal or cultural associations fulfill
a useful societal role. They are not really a danger to the unity of the
country. On the contrary, they do provide strong support for the Nigerian
unity. They may have exerted pressures on government on behalf of their
respective groups, but such pressures would be there and have indeed continued
without the tribal unions.� It seems
rather ironical that the military rulers who proscribed tribal unions for their
role in sponsoring and promoting ethnic interests and conflicts in the
political days should, without: the prompting of the tribal unions, have fallen
easy victims to the pressures of the very same ethnic interests. We should
certainly eschew tribalism, but we cannot abolish the tribe any more than we
can abolish our individual existence.�
Any idea, writes Arthur Lewis, that one can make different peoples into
a nation by suppressing the religious or tribal or regional or other
affiliations to which they themselves attach the highest political significance
is simply a non-starter. National loyalty cannot immediately supplant tribal
loyalty; it has to be built on top of tribal loyalty by creating a system in
which all the tribes feel that there is room for self-expression.
I cannot agree more with him.
Paul Odili goes on in his
reporting on the Inside Story of Aka Ikenga-Ohanaeze
Retreat by saying that:
It was a loaded programme,
which tasked everyone including the organizers, and the audience. Time
management was an uphill challenge, and this led to adjustment of the programme to accommodate emerging reality. However, despite
the tight regime the organizers were forced to run, salient issues came up that
would be helpful to the Igbo nation. Significantly, one of the observations
that caught popular imagination was the suggestion by Prof. Angulu
Onwuejiogwu, an historian and anthropologist that the
disarray in the Igbo polity began in 1910, when the British invaded the Igbo
nation and dismantled the Umunna system. He said the
destruction of Umunna system scattered everybody, and
thus created a void in the Igbo society, which has not been filled. He
recommended that one of the ways out of the Igbo problem was to reconstitute
the Umunna system.
Reported he:
Speaker after speaker lamented the state of Igbo
nation, at the same time agreeing that the lot of Igbo people today is far
short of what they are capable of achieving, if they get their acts together.
Some speakers canvassed the importance of reexamination of Igbo value system;
the reconstitution of the Umunna system, ( a council
of elders in small hamlets of Igbo nation) the imperativeness of accepting the
authority of responsible and organized leadership, and discarding the syndrome
of Igbo Enwe Eze (Igbo(s)
do not have kings), or the so-called republican strain which enthrones
individualistic pursuits, and undermines the collective will of the people;
they need to embrace education, especially science and technical education,
which the Igbo(s) have a natural flair for; the need to redevelop
infrastructure in the Igbo nation. In short, ideas poured in from almost every
speaker.
He goes on to say that:
As Retreats go the structure of the Asaba talks show the conveners had a basket full of issues
they wish people to make inputs on. They had as the Theme of first plenary
session: Reconciliation and Consolidation, with Chief Fortune Ebie as Chairman. This was followed by a discussion on
Institutions, leaders, Networking, Visioning, Persona
and, thereafter, a paper by Prof. Pat Utomi, on Ndigbo in Search of Strategy.�������������
Aka Ikenga
will have to develop the stomach temerity for the fight. But it should not be
left to them alone. It is a battle for everybody � man and woman � especially
the elite. Political base and connections are necessary for this kind of
strategy. But will the Igbo learn not to follow a political party for the
economic gains but for the ideals and sustainable programmes
it proffers?�� �
Underground
Cultural Organizations Preferred by Government to Open Activities?
Prof. Nwabueze says:
the
Igbos are among the most adversely affected by the proscriptions. The tribal
unions of some of the other groups have continued to function, not openly, of
course. The Igbos cannot take such chances without running the risk of being
branded as subversives. There is a Leader of the Yorubas
publicly so styled and acknowledged. The Hausa/Fulanis
acknowledge the leadership and authority of the Sultan of Sokoto,
at any rate in matters of religion, but religion happens indisputably to be the
most critical single factor in Nigerian government and politics. The Igbos have no leader of any kind, religious or otherwise. They are
left to drift without proper direction and guidance. Chinua
Achebe is right when he says that the real problem
with the Igbo since Independence is precisely the absence of the kind of central
leadership which their competitors presume for them. This lack has left them
open to self-seeking, opportunistic leaders who offered them no help at all in
coping with a new Nigeria, in which individual progress would no longer depend
on the rules set by a fairly impartial colonial umpire. We need a Leader of the
Igbos, preferably a non-politician, to direct and guide our people in the
context of the government and politics of contemporary Nigeria.
He continues:
I believe that tribal or cultural associations
fulfill a useful societal role. They are not really a danger to the unity of
the country. On the contrary, they do provide strong support for the Nigerian
unity. They may have exerted pressures on government on behalf of their respective
groups, but such pressures would be there and have indeed continued without the
tribal unions. It seems rather ironical that the military rulers who proscribed
tribal unions for their role in sponsoring and promoting ethnic interests and
conflicts in the political days should, without: the prompting of the tribal
unions, have fallen easy victims to the pressures of the very same ethnic
interests. We should certainly eschew tribalism, but we cannot abolish the
tribe any more than we can abolish our individual existence. �Any idea,'"
writes Arthur Lewis, �that one can make different peoples into a nation by
suppressing the religious or tribal or regional or other affiliations to which
they themselves attach the highest political significance is simply a non-starter.
National loyalty cannot immediately supplant tribal loyalty; it has to be built
on top of tribal loyalty by creating a system in which all the tribes feel that
there is room for self-expression.
Now, that the Aka Ikenga Ndi Igbo Organization has been formed, will
the new Organization be allowed by the Government to exist and to pursue its
aims and objectives?
Preservation of Customary
Practices: Which Ones and for What Purposes?
While Aka Ikenga and Ohaneze are thinking about the
advancement of Igbo Language, Igbo Leadership and the future of the Igbo
Nation, I would suggest that they also make it part of their Agenda to think of
reforming or abrogating some of the Omenana
practices of Ndi Igbo. Most of these practices that require reformation or
abrogation are the ones that discriminate, oppress and subjugate women and
children and relegate them to inferior statuses and shipment overseas for slave
labour and sex trade. Some of such practices are:
�������
Marriage Practices, such as: Child Marriage; Polygamy; Bride Price;��
������� Female
Circumcision or Female Genital Cutting and Mutilation (FGM);�
������� Punitive
Widowhood Practices;
�������
Disinheritance of Women � Wives and Daughters, and especially widows;
������� Gender
Differences and Discriminations � Preference for the Boy-child;
������� Religion:
Idol Worship; Shrine Practices; Juju/Magical/Mystical Practices;�
������� Osu and Oru
Caste Systems and their Stigma;
������� Trafficking
of human beings � especially boys and girls;
��� ����Traditional Taboos Against
Women and the Girl-child; Etc.
From the International Organizations to here at home, the
diehard traditionalists insist that their traditions and customary practices
should be left alone for them. They say this stance is for the preservation of
ethnic originality and identity, no matter how obnoxious the practices are.
They regret the destruction of some of the practices by the European
Missionaries and colonialists. While looking forward to new positions of
leadership in Nigeria and within the Igbo Nation,
should it not be said that most of the traditional and customary practices of
Ndi Igbo in their Omenana do not
belong to the 21st Century and the forthcoming dispensation? Is the
visualization of the promoters of the preservation of Igbo customary practices
of say, Religion, that the adherents of Native religions will continue to
remain that way with their generations; or that there will come a time when the
present worshippers would die off and everybody else would have converted to
Christianity? In that case, what was preserved will only serve as history and
for the Archives?
Do they see it that Nigerian women and the girl-child, Ndi
Igbo inclusive, will remain in this state of oppression and subjugation and
loss of their fundamental human rights forever? This is a situation in which
normal, natural evolution has not made the smallest dent in the discrimination
and suppression of women all these centuries. This is in a generation when
women are heading the Governments of some other nations of the world and
leading their peoples. This stance of preservation should be given a second
thought as Igbo women are now awake and up and doing in objecting to the
servile conditions in which the customary practices place them. Are the preservers
talking about these things merely to keep in form and for scholarship and
intellectual exercise? Do they not think that Ndi Igbo should reform, from
inside out, for the new age? Ndi Igbo should not leave the ancient to drag the
modern to the mud. It is not enough for one to say that these things do not
happen in his or her house. Probably not, but they do happen. They do happen
inside and outsider the homes, in the neighbourhoods, communities and in the
open society. Therefore, they do happen on daily basis and should be
everybody�s business and concern for better life and living. We shall deal with
these and such other subject matters later.�
The
Relevance of Native Attires For Igbo Identity and Survival
Alongside the proper and constant use of the Igbo language
are other cultural practices, such as the wearing of native dresses and serving
of the native foods. But some people think they are promoting, propagating and
preserving the Igbo culture by wearing the so-called native dress while not speaking
the language at all as the occasion calls for, or while murdering the language
by diluting and adulterating it with English. Ndi Igbo have done excellently
well in fashioning out what we know today as the native or cultural attire of:
Long Jumper or Long Shirt and Trouser and Cap for men; and Akwa Omuma na Ntukwasi na
Ichavu for women. These outfits have been very
well thought out, designed, fashioned out and streamlined. Women have done
wonders with their own attire in modifying and updating it for today�s slim-fit
world. It is only when they try to dress like the other ethnic nationals in
their attires, like the Yoruba in their Agbada for men and the Buba na Iro for
women or like the Hausa in their big Toga that Ndi Igbo find themselves in
trouble with the bulkiness. For one thing, those other outfits are much too
bulky and lacking in slimmer-fitting for today�s modern looks. However, native
dresses without the language is like a white-washed sepulcher with rotten
bodies in it or the keeping of a cup clean on the outside while the inside is
filthy.��
Chieftaincy
Regalia: The Way they Look and Where they Come From
Chinua
Achebe�s remarks on the present situation regarding
chieftainship in Igboland seem to me most apt and worthy of our attention. He
says:
The bankrupt state of Igbo leadership, he says, is
best illustrated in the alacrity with which they have jettisoned their
traditional republicanism in favour of mushroom
kingships. From having no kings in their recent past the Igbo swung round to set
an all-time record of four hundred kings in Imo and four hundred in Anambra!
And most of them are traders in their stalls by day and monarchs at night; city
dwellers five days a week and traditional village rulers on Saturdays and
Sundays! They adopt traditional robes from every land, including, I am told,
the ceremonial regalia of the Lord Mayor of London!
Also some of the official costumes or regalia of the
chieftains and Ndi Igwe, which go by the name of native dress or attire are not
native at all. For instance, what Professor B. Nwabueze
described in his 1985 Ahiajoku Lecture, quoting Chinua
Achebe�s Things Fall Apart, also reinforces the
notion that Ndi Igbo have gone a long way in their departure from what could be
acceptable and described as Igbo native dress and regalia. He said:
Chinua
Achebe�s remarks on the present situation regarding
chieftainship in Igboland seem to me most apt and worthy of our attention: The
bankrupt state of Igbo leadership, he says, is best illustrated in the alacrity
with which they have jettisoned their traditional republicanism in favour of mushroom kingships. From having no kings in their
recent past the Igbo swung round to set an all-time record of four hundred
kings in Imo and four hundred in Anambra! And most of them are traders in their
stalls by day five days a week and monarchs at night and traditional village
rulers on Saturdays and Sundays! They adopt traditional robes from every land.
Some of them in an effort to be different and
impressive have designed some outlandish head-gears for themselves, which look
like the head of a miniature Ijele Masquerade. Of course, in as much as allowance has to
be made for the demands of modernity, it should not be carried to the
ridiculous extent of getting to the sublime. While it is important to exhibit
and preserve the mode or what could be called Igbo native-dressing, it should
be borne in mind that Ndi Igbo have lost their original mode of dressing, which
could be recaptured by redesigning and adopted as additional to what is in use
now. It should also be borne in mind that in as much as anybody could wear the
dress or any dress, not everybody could speak the language, which should go
with the dress. After all, complete strangers come to Igbo land and are
presented with some of the so-called native dresses, without their learning or
speaking one word of the language. Very often, they don those attires and
photographs of them are taken for a show. If they are taught any words and
expressions in the language, they very soon forget them as soon as they turn
their backs. Of course they never have the need or courage to wear those
outfits again at any occasion.�
Whichever way one looks at it the substance and the
very essence of an Igbo person is the language. It is very obvious that, at the
rate the Igbo elite is keeping themselves and their descendants from learning
and speaking, that they would eventually, sooner than later, be lost to the
Igbo nation. Within a few decades, when the generations of these parents at
home and abroad, who learned to speak Igbo at home from their own parents and
families would subside, there would be a very big vacuum of Igbo language
speakers. Probably, only then would the reality dawn on the elite that their
generations are as much lost to the Igbo nation as those who were made to leave
home centuries ago. Their generations may bear the Igbo names, some Anglisized of
course, but would not be embodying the substance and essence of the Igbo person
� the Igbo Language.�
Importance of Igbo
Foods In the Preservation of the Culture
There is no denying the fact that the native foods of a
people are a very important aspect in the preservation of their culture. One
cannot say that they are just as important as the language because they communicate
without the language and can be improvised. However, even those who neglect to
speak the language, rave about the native foods. There is no denying the fact
that those who have developed or acquired the taste for the foods crave for
them as much as one is thirsty for cold water. Some of them try to teach their
children to learn to eat the foods and to wish for them, which is highly
commendable. It should be the same for the use of the language.���
Earlier on, the proper ingredients and the staple food
stuffs for the dishes were not available in the Diaspora, and people had to
improvise. But now, African Food Stores are all over the place and the supplies
are available. People cook and eat to their hearts� content. But one thing is
still lacking: there are no public eating places serving Nigerian or Igbo
meals. Other nationalities in the U.S. have them. No doubt, Ndi Igbo go
to patronize them. But no body has had the courage to start one for Nigerian or
Igbo foods. Friends ask why there is no such place where people can go to savour Nigerian or Igbo dishes. There are delicious
Nigerian and Igbo dishes and probably be one of them could stand out and we
will be known for it, just as the Chinese is known for Chinese Fried Rice;
Mexico for Mexican Chili; Italy for Italian Pasta and Pizza, etc. Probably, Ndi
Igbo would become known for Ove Onugbu ma obu ove Ora na Nli
osusu ( Bitterleaf Soup
or Ora vegetable Soup and pounded foo
foo) Ove Egwusi na Nli Ji; (Egwusi
Soup) and Pounded Yam foo foo); or Ove Ogbono na Okro na Nli
Oka (Corn flour Foo-foo);
or Fresh Fish or Goat Meat Pepper Soup; or Ugba na Okpoloko;
or Aku na Ukwa (Roasted Breadfruit with Palm-kernels); or Ukwa Oka (Breadfruit
Meal with Maize) or Ove Ukwa
Breadfruit Meal (Casserole)with Smoked Meat, fish and Vegetables; or Ji na jioko� arulu aru na
mmanu na ukpaka, etc (Boiled or Roasted Yam and Plantain with
Palm-oil and Ukpaka, etc; orOsikapa na ove osikapa (Rice
and Stew) or Jollof Rice with Plantain; etc?
The Government will not do this for us. What the
Government can do is to make the export of more of the food items possible, in
addition to what is already allowed. But private enterprise must take over from
there. Some of the fear is that our people may not patronize such an eating
place or take their friends there. If they do not patronize the place, the
entrepreneur will face losses. Now, who will bell the cat for the sake of
promoting Igbo culture?��
Igbo
Youth Neglect Formal Education and Rush to Get-Rich-Quick�
From the lead paper presenter Prof. Barth
Nnaji,
came a wide ranging submission on the state of Igbo nation, and the strategy to
get the race out of the morass it has fallen into. Of importance, however, is
his contribution on reviving education, Nnaji said:
We need to set a higher standard for students at all levels in our region.
Primary school graduates should be able to read, write, add, subtract, and
speak grammatically correct English, and Igbo where possible. The high school
graduates should be capable of algebra, trigonometry, essay writing, poems and
typing.
They should have good working knowledge of general
science. University graduates should be a developing economic sub-group of Nigeria. What is stopping us from
adopting UNN, UNIZIK and FUTO or others as centres of
excellence for the production of first class doctors, engineers, and business
graduates. What does it take for a few of our people to band together to adopt
a particular faculty, or even a department to transform it into first class programme.
While appreciating the need for higher standards in
Education, Ndi Igbo had better look around to find out what has happened to
their lead and proliferation in basic Education, which Prof. Nwabueze, in his 1985 Ahiajoku Lecture described thus:�
The most outstanding quality of the Igbo is his
innate receptivity to new ideas and adaptability to change which, under the
stimulus of Christianity and western education imported into Nigeria by the modern government, readily triggered in him
an obsessive desire for self-improvement and modernity through education.
Western education was the stepping stone to employment and political power. It
opened a whole new vista of opportunities for the acquisition of wealth in
commerce and industry. The Igbos were quick in
grasping the value of western education. The drive for education thus became
the driving force in the Igbo society. A whole community would team up to build
a community school and finance its courses, to institute a scholarship scheme
for its sons and daughters, and even to establish a secondary school or
college. A parent would slave and deny himself all comforts in life in order to
send his child to school; his ambition was to make good in his child what he
himself lacked. He might be a peasant farmer, a poor illiterate or
semi-literate carpenter or blacksmith, but his dream was to live to see his son
become a clerk or even a lawyer, doctor or engineer. And once successfully
trained, the child accepted it as a family obligation to train his brothers and
sisters. (All this co-operative effort and sense of family obligation have now
virtually been sup-planted by excessive individualism and self-centeredness.
Paul Odili continues in his
reporting:
How is this apparent contradiction between
individualism and communitarism resolved?
Individualism provides the philosophical base for individual achievement and
the strive towards excellence, while communitarism
acts as a counterweight to the temptation so often abundant in selfish,
survivalist, individualistic, ascendancy-inspired activities (survival of the
fittest philosophy) to trample upon and possibly destroy others including
relatives and friends in the scramble to get to the top.
It is this essence of basic primary and secondary
education that has to be recaptured by Ndi Igbo. This initiative has been
abandoned in the education of boys to the craze for chasing money. The parent
who used to slave and deny himself all comforts in life in order to send his
child to school nowadays make that child drop out of school in order to go
money chasing. I was one of the people who presented Papers to the Seminar on:
The Causes of Low Enrolment of Boys in Schools in Anambra State And Remedies,
which was sponsored by UNIZIK in 1997. This
regrettable situation has enhanced the education, qualification of girls in the
professions and their opportunities for employment and advancement, but it is
not a healthy position as, I am sore, women would not want the monopoly. In
that Seminar, so many solutions and remedies were suggested for arresting the
deteriorating situation and bringing the people back to the path of rectitude,
including scholarship schemes and better employment opportunities.
The Reporting continues: There was even talk about how to
harness various resources of the zone. It was suggested that the home video
industry in Onitsha has over the years shown
tremendous growth and should be supported with financial and logistic support. Imo State was presented as having the best
corridor for oil and gas exploration that can help boost energy supply for the
zone. The Anioma
area was adjudged suitable for the information and communication technology
centre, a Nigerian type silicon valley�.
In some ways, the withdrawal of boys from school is borne
out of the observation by parents that the highly educated men do not go after
the rush for the acquisition of wealth as the not-so-well-educated do. The well
and highly educated, the elite, are satisfied with pen-pushing jobs, and the
scholarship of talking and writing, while the not-so-literate jump to Taiwan,
Japan and China to arrange and bring back goods of whatever description for
commerce and trading. Thereby, they acquire a great deal of wealth, sometimes
through methods that are not exactly orthodox or so ethical. The elite who are
salaried, therefore, find themselves trying to keep up with the material
standards set by the not-so-well-educated. The grammar school-type of Education
that the colonialists set up and fed the people with, in order to have a pool
of literate people from which to recruit their clerical servants, is partly to
blame. The result or effect is that the less educated demonstrate impatience
with the better educated and try to usurp or supplant the leadership positions
of the more educated. This they do by sheer brute and brash methods of doing
things and approaching matters, which are not so palatable. Therefore, there is
a sort of battle line drawn between the very well-educated and the not-so-well
educated in Igbo land.
The not-so-well educated rely mostly on commonsense to
deal with issues. Commonsense solutions alone are not always enough to deal
with certain issues. It is this brashness that the Igbo youths and parents see
and believe that it is succeeding, especially in business and money-making. But
they forget that the path and policies and products of the business companies
they follow for the money-making have been beaten and laid out by the well
educated. They also forget that the legacies of those companies will continue
to be carried on by the well-educated, otherwise the road for those companies
would be closed and also closed for them, their customers, for good.
For the above reasons, therefore, Ndi Igbo parents and
guardians will have to be persuaded that their boys, as much as the girls, will
have to go back to school and stay in school for as long as it takes to acquire
the necessary education up to a definite stage. This will have to happen so as
to come up with not only better informed commonsense solutions to problems but also,
in addition, with scientific ones. This will be in conjunction with the
etiquette, the grooming and the sophistication that go with formal education.
The answer for Aka Ikenga and Ohaneze to look for is what to do that will bring
back this state of affairs for Ndi Igbo, with immediate effect. It is only the
process of formal school education that carries the streaks of the civilization
that Ndi Igbo seek so much after.�
All
Rights Reserved.������������
Cite as: Oyibo Odinamadu on the Newspaper report of Aka Ikenga-Ohaneze Asaba Retreat 2004 Part Five.