BY Nwokedi Nworisara
How can a government voted in by its people refuse to pay teachers
salaries for 17 months ; refuse to pay pensioners for years? Something
must be wrong in our priority setting. Maybe some other things have
become more important than conscience.Or maybe life is no longer as
valuable as it was before. The Igbo culture used to prioritize life and
hard work ” Oruru rie; Omuru Zuo, that is to say He who works should
eat or he who delivers a baby should nurture it to maturity. The other
adage is “Ometere vuru” which defines the Igbo priority – justice . He
who soils his hands should bear the brunt. So how come that we now live
in societies where these molders of our conscience are not taken
seriously anymore even by our leaders.
This leads us to serious soul searching. Have the Igbos lost it? Have we
begun a descent down the part of death in place of life? This should not
be acceptable.
How did we get here? What should be done to remedy the situation? How
does it affect life and existence in Igboland? These are patient
questions we should research and stress in our Nzuko or meetings.
Nothing is beyond the Igboman to control and overcome as soon as
awareness of it becomes self evident.
Let us review our past and trace our journey down to this day to
understand where we stepped out of our usual cultural harmony and what
has been the consequences
The Igbo nation although made of many dialects have managed to remain
united by virtue of their internal harmony arising from commonly shared
values; the most important of which is life.
In essence abomination is literally defined as taking of life,
especially that of fellow Igbos. Even at the time when intertribal wars
were happening there were treaties established between towns kingdoms
etc as to discourage the taking of life between Igbo kingdoms. So many
tribal practices abhore killing of people. Most of those ostracized from
Igboland are because of shedding of fellow Igbo blood. No matter how you
kill people,whether through rituals or through denial of rights,
kidnapping , refusal to pay wages etc it is the same. Such a person is
sent away to an unknown land just after the boundary of the kingdom
concerned. Those people are declared no longer Igbos! Some of them of
course were sent to distant ‘Mbammiri’ often seen as uninhabitable
places in those days and they often retain their language or adulterate
it after many generations.
So the point being made here is that any Igboman who commits or spills
blood of fellow Igbo is ostracized and no longer an Igboman. In modern
times this separation exists even if not physical. Those who commit
murder whether known or undiscovered have a rendezvous with the Igbo
soil often the most potent decider of justice. So in essence these
people are not Igbos and even when saddled with leadership in modern
palance are no longer Igbos and therefore cannot lead igbos!!
But such people within this category who have not been physically
separated can receive forgiveness if they confess and may be required to
go through traditional restitution. Those who fail to publicly confess
will not be allowed to exit this earth until they do so.
But where danger exist is when such people continue unrepentant of these
deeds and even spread the punishment to their foot soldiers who are also
tied with them as if these people actually committed the atrocities. In
the olden days such people are not allowed to present kola to a
gathering because they were seen as unclean and if they do then people
are advised not to chew them.
It is the same with money or yam or gifts. Any one who accepts them
shares in their punishment whether you realize it or not. Now is the
explanation of the numerous deaths inflicted in Igboland of late since
these barriers established by our forefathers are now breached by modern
political or socio cultural organisations. Today everyone can present
kola to the elders or children alike simply because he or she made some
money! Indeed these money bags are always full of gifts to these less
fortunate undiscerning people who help them share their spiritual
burdens at every point. If Igbos will be circumspect henceforth in
receiving gifts or sharing kolanut then there will be drastic reduction
in untimely passing of people and the Igbo culture will move away from
burials to more forward looking events like Egbeji, iri- ji , Ila-
oso,Uma -Nwa, iru- Uba, Igboto mma ,ilu- Nwanyi etc.
In the same vein we can easily change the tragetory of our life to
positive life we used to live if we can return to our original values in
many aspects of life.
For instance ” Igbo Enweze”
This was how we lived before. It made it possible for us to survive the
war because our unity of purpose saved many lives . Unfortunately those
who did not want us to survive armed with power and many servants of
their course became our law makers. They reasoned that if they can turn
this phase upside down then they can disunite the Igbos and ensure that
disharmony would reign amongst kinsmen and women. So they showed the
seeds through their own whom we thought were our own . They called it
autonomous Community !! We did not need them to give us Eze but they did
and left in it’s trail conflict within the communities. In a short while
every community had Ezeship struggles and deaths widened it’s grip on
our people. And when the Eze passes on then bigger trouble because the
law expects a rotation of the kingship. So if there were communities
not previously affected by the earlier tussle they will join willy
nilly.
My people have you ever seen where the pyramid of power decided by our
forefathers are turned upside down? Well that is what our not too
friendly competitors have reduced the Igbo nation so that internal
cohesion is destroyed because society direction is no longer forward
looking but in many directions at the same time.
So the igbo nation can hardly survive a conflict situation as was in the
last civil war.
It has taken the invader in igboland so many centuries to finally
reduce her to managable proportions. It started with the British
colonialists who used divide and rule but they never tampered so much
with the culture aside from discouraging those violent aspects of the
culture. The colonialists juggled with the existing paramount rulers by
allowing the contenders,the aggrieved to mount the saddle under the
same cultural arrangements. . After the civil war the military rulers
employed the same tactics. It was as if the conquering soldiers realized
later on that if culture was still intact then changes would be
minimal . So the coming pseudo military leaders or civilians fronted by
the military thought it was better to internally wound the sturbon
culture into fighting itself and so the autonomous community edict or is
it law was put in place to complete the job. Now you know how to be more
united and serve your purpose here without allowing your “leaders” to
lead you astray.
