How Igbos Can Save Their Culture And Unite For A Common Purpose.

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.