tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26477746496421747692024-03-13T03:04:54.981+01:00IGBO - culture, traditions, historyEnyi oha Nd'Igbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00535527241722227905noreply@blogger.comBlogger149125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2647774649642174769.post-62131499366150582352023-04-27T19:50:00.000+02:002023-04-27T19:50:20.363+02:00The Osu in Igboland<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/iwXFip6Atg4?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
<o:TargetScreenSize>544x376</o:TargetScreenSize>
</o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves/>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:HyphenationZone>21</w:HyphenationZone>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>DE</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/>
<w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/>
<w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/>
<w:Word11KerningPairs/>
<w:CachedColBalance/>
</w:Compatibility>
<w:DoNotOptimizeForBrowser/>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
DefSemiHidden="true" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="267">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="59" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Normale Tabelle";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span lang="EN-US">The Osu In Igboland<span> </span></span></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span lang="EN-US"><span> </span>Some
people say the meaning of "Osu" in Igbo is slave; a bit like the Ohu
or even the Umeh. In fact these are wrong definitions. Ohu for instance is no slave
- he is an indentured servant. Strictly speaking, slavery does not exist in the
Igbo world, because there is nothing final to that relationship. For <em><span style="font-style: normal;">instance</span></em>, the Ohu can work themselves out
of their indenture; in manyinstannces, the Ohu may even become fully adopted into
the family to which it is indentured, after a particular ritual to ala, which confers
a ritual link -amadi - to the individual, who is then accorded all the rights
of the Diala. </span></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span lang="EN-US">But speaking specifically about the Osu - there were two phases:
in the first phase, the "Osu" was part of the complex priestly system
to the Igbo ritual world. It is not easy to go into detail in a very short
space, but the Igbo world was a highly spiritual system in which all the four
elements in nature were recreated and symbolized: Ala (Earth) Ogwugwu/ Ime muru
ochie/ Idemili (water) Agwu ( wind) Anyanwu ((Fire) Sun) </span></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span lang="EN-US">In a later phase, as a
result of a historical accident in which an Igbo tyrant and King (Amadi-oha)
tried to domesticate energy as an instrument of war and was blown skywards, the
Igbo instituted the rites of Amadi-Oha as a reminder against the use of force,
or the domestication of energy for deployment in war. Amadi-oha was an engineer,
and that is why, you have the symbolic piece of iron at every shrine of
Amadi-Oha. It was part of the covenant with Chukwu, and it was also the <em><span style="font-style: normal;">beginning</span></em> of the pacific idea in Odinala,
that the Igbo would never use such instruments of massive force which this
famous Igbo tyrant was attempting to produce, this experiment with
"ike" - energy/electricity. Amadi-oha, blown skywards and trapped
between the sky and the earth is supposed to remind us never to succumb to the
rule of one man or king or tyrant. The serpent of fire - the sign of Ogwugwu -
is said to guard Amadi-oha from returning with his fiery energy to earth. It is
also said, that whoever commits the high abomination on earth suffers the fate
which Amadi-Oha exemplifies, which is what gave rise to the myth that Amadi-Oha
is the earth's messenger in the event of alu. The Igbo had shrines to all these
forces in nature. Every community had the shrine of<br>
Ala, Ogwugwu, Agwu or Amadi-oha (which gradually replaced
"Ihu-Anyanwu").</span></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<br></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span lang="EN-US">The priests of these shrines were called Ezeala, EzeOgwuwgwu, Eze Amadioha, or EzeAgwu
- ndi "isi mmuo". Each had specific rituals and specific seasons all
connected with the movement of the nature; or with the celebrations, festivals,
or according to the covenants of each clan. There were traditionally in the Igbo
world, those who dedicate themselves, or are dedicated to the service of these
shrines: they were called Osu. It does not quite mean "slave." The
closest example of the function of the Osu in the traditional Igbo world is
what monks do in Catholic church or the in <em><span style="font-style: normal;">Buddhist</span></em>
temples. They chose a life of complete surrender to the deities. </span></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span lang="EN-US">Traditionally,
they were regarded highly. In fact, the names, Osuji, Osuagwu, Osuala, Nwosu,
etc; did not confer extraordinary negation; it was a declaration of piety. To
this day, many Igbo bear these names, and they are not "osu" in the
caste notion of the word. However, the second phase of the Osu system, when it
became endowed with increasing negative connotations was at the height of the
slave raids in the Igbo world in the 19th century. By this time, the Osu had
begun to be seen as largely a parasitic institution - they were immune from too
many things, they had the best portion of the land, they did not work - and
they became subjects of both envy and <em><span style="font-style: normal;">derision</span></em>
in a most difficult era in the Igbo world which demanded </span></i><span lang="EN-US"><em><span style="font-style: normal;">hard work</span></em></span><i><span lang="EN-US"> and enterprise for survival. At
the height of the slave raids, some very vulnerable people chose to dedicate themselves
to the service of deities, or were dedicated by their families to the altar, so
that they would become literally "untouchable." </span></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span lang="EN-US">In time, these group
morphed into isolation from the rest of the community, and became subjects of
both fear, envy and disdain. This was the state of affairs until missionaries
entered the Igbo world late in the 19th century. The first group of people to
be evangelized were the Osu, and the missionaries of course saw in their ritual
isolation, a condition akin to the Indian caste system, and propagated the
dubious picture of a ritually isolate, ritually ex-communicated caste
community, and gave the Osu the bad name that it bears today in Igboland. In
fact traditionally, there was no hereditary Osu. Aside from the fact that it contradicted
the Igbo view of the individual and the world, it also totally negated the very
principle of the ritual purity of those traditionally dedicated to the altar of
Mmuo. Osu in Igbo did not mean slave, and <span> </span>traditionally, it had no negative connotation;
it was in fact a privileged institution, until its desacralization both by evolving
political and economic reality and by the transformations in the ritual meaning
endowed upon it by Christianity.</span></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br></div>Enyi oha Nd'Igbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00535527241722227905noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2647774649642174769.post-55453163772900233222021-10-17T18:00:00.000+02:002021-10-17T18:00:45.457+02:00It is Ichafu not GeleBiko nu, Umu Nwanyi Igbo (Igbo women and ladies), it is Ichafu [Ichafu Isi] not Gele.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-orSIkRqO9Es/YWxGSigNJhI/AAAAAAAABi8/0Rx6e19ebAwQteCut4Zk1KeZgwmN-UtEQCLcBGAsYHQ/s225/images%2B%25282%2529.jpeg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="400" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-orSIkRqO9Es/YWxGSigNJhI/AAAAAAAABi8/0Rx6e19ebAwQteCut4Zk1KeZgwmN-UtEQCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/images%2B%25282%2529.jpeg"/></a></div>
Wherever this Gele expression was borrowed from is what I can not tell. It is already threatening to take over our identity. Please let Ichafu Isi dominate your tongue and everyday expression and do away with the alien word in order to preserve ihe eji mara anyi–our cultural identity.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TqLQbYUEvYI/YWxHTzy73cI/AAAAAAAABjE/i_EU_Y_r6vMqpsVGw8UF2CuwsX4V0Yp5QCLcBGAsYHQ/s244/images%2B%25285%2529.jpeg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" height="400" data-original-height="244" data-original-width="207" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TqLQbYUEvYI/YWxHTzy73cI/AAAAAAAABjE/i_EU_Y_r6vMqpsVGw8UF2CuwsX4V0Yp5QCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/images%2B%25285%2529.jpeg"/></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EVrtNvjZ1NU/YWxHr85yuyI/AAAAAAAABjM/aIJUUZyCDKQ8UaQlFxaKtjyAY78QhZi_gCLcBGAsYHQ/s251/images.jpeg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" height="400" data-original-height="251" data-original-width="201" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EVrtNvjZ1NU/YWxHr85yuyI/AAAAAAAABjM/aIJUUZyCDKQ8UaQlFxaKtjyAY78QhZi_gCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/images.jpeg"/></a></div>
Daalu nu.
Enyi oha Nd'Igbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00535527241722227905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2647774649642174769.post-71038347109829218262018-09-07T20:32:00.001+02:002018-09-07T20:34:04.945+02:00Osisi Nkwu<p dir="ltr"><i>This is Osisi Nkwu (Palm tree), nothing embedded in this tree is useless to the Igbos, every component of Osisi Nkwu is useful and most of them symbolic, it is regarded as tree of life and an economic tree, every aspect of it is lively, productive and useful, nothing goes to waste with Nkwu.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Just as Oji (Cola Nut) and Ji (Yam) are very significant and symbolic to the Igbo people, Nkwu tree (Palm tree) is equally very significant and symbolic to the Igbos. </i><br>
<i>While the yam is mostly associated with the men, Palm trees are mostly associated with women. Men farm their yam, women are known for cultivating the Palm tree.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Family and marriage institution are very important in the Igbo community, initiating and consummating marriage and wedding amongst the Igbos can be rigorous and goes in phases. But the Igbo ancestors carefully chose Nkwu (Palm tree) as a symbol of marriage and wedding </i><i>ritual</i><i>. </i><i>Hence</i><i> it’s called </i><i>Igba</i><i> </i><i>Nkwu</i><i> </i><i>Nwanyi</i><i> or </i><i>Ibu</i><i> </i><i>Mmanya</i><i> Nwanyi etc. They could’ve chose omu nkwu for the bride to hand over to the groom, or the igu nkwu or the nkporo nkwu, but they chose the Mmanya Nkwu. It comes from the inside, from the fabrics of the tree, signifying and symbolising the the inner self no one can reach but you. It is white, which signifies purity (Nkwu Ocha), above it all it is natural. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>So the act of a bride searching for the groom to offer a drink, is significant and the content of the iko (cup) is equally symbolic. I still stick with the choice of the Igbo ancestors for Mmanya Nkwu (Palm wine) because the bride is symbolically offering the groom, her purest form, her natural being, her innermost part, and together as husband and wife they will bloom and blossom like the Palm tree, their union will not know no waste, every component and aspect of their union and family shall be useful, resourceful and productive just as Osisi Nkwu is. </i></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-X4R7SkvbQck/W5LEOi-qeEI/AAAAAAAABXA/tyNsax7BeAwRCpapDPwQxXZkQCYLMXUzgCHMYCw/s1600/FB_IMG_1536344382144.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> <img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-X4R7SkvbQck/W5LEOi-qeEI/AAAAAAAABXA/tyNsax7BeAwRCpapDPwQxXZkQCYLMXUzgCHMYCw/s640/FB_IMG_1536344382144.jpg"> </a> </div>Enyi oha Nd'Igbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00535527241722227905noreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2647774649642174769.post-66607185367050659182018-05-18T17:37:00.000+02:002018-05-18T17:38:47.643+02:00The Concept of Evil in Igbo Thoughts<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>Introduction </b></span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<b> </b><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The problem of
evil remains the most potent attack on religion, especially on the
existence of God. In philosophical discourse, this problem is understood
as being a consequence of the contradictions involved in the infinite
characteristics of God such as being all-powerful, all-knowing and
all-loving. The problem of evil, which presupposes that the co-existence
of evil and God is unlikely or impossible, states that given the
reality of evil in the world, it is either the case that God does not
exist or there is an equally powerful force in charge of evil.</span></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There is no doubt that the problem of
evil has gained serious attention in Western philosophical and
theological discourses. However, in the African philosophical context,
the debate on the philosophical problem of evil is just emerging,
despite some uniquely interesting trends and perspectives within the
diverse cultural philosophies in Africa. For example, in Igbo philosophy, as well as in the Akan philosophical context, it is a
given that the problem of evil is a substantive philosophical problem
only within the Western conception of evil and that such a problem does
not hold much weight when situated within the African notion of evil. Thus far in the literature on the African perspectives on the problem
of evil, little is known on the real and possible similarities and
dissimilarities on the notion of evil in African cultures and whether or
not such an understanding allows for a solution of the philosophical
problem of evil either in the popularly known sense or in a new form.</span></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This writing is an attempt at such a comparative understanding of the
problem of evil in African cultural contexts. Such a philosophical
comparison is important for giving directions to cross-cultural
comparison of thoughts in African philosophy, which is yet in the
making. Beyond the immediate imports for the growth of African
philosophy, such comparison would avoid the false suppositions about a
general African viewpoint on a conceptual matter or belief, especially
as it concerns the notion of evil and the philosophical problem of evil
in bringing such philosophical comparison into focus, this text shall
focus its discussion on the Igbo viewpoints.</span></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>The Igbo notion of evil </b></span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span></i>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The metaphysical problem of evil, despite
being a perennial problem in Western philosophy, can be meaningfully
discussed within the Igbo cosmological thought. The Igbos have attempted
to discuss how the presence of evil can be reconciled with the
attributes of Chi-Ukwu (the ultimate spirit). Such an attempt has
divided Igbo philosophers into three major camps, namely: the Igbo
cosmological optimistic view; Personal God and destiny view; and middle
course view. The first view states that man is solely accountable for
the evil in the world; the second speaks of personal god and destiny,
while the final camp combines the two views together and includes some
spirits as responsible for the evil in the world. But it still begs the
question how all these can be explained in the face of an almighty and
benevolent God, Chi-Ukwu. We shall explain the three broad views briefly
and the conclusions that could be drawn there from.</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span></i>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>(a) </b><b>Igbo cosmological optimistic view </b></span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span></i>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">According to this view, God as ‘Okike’
(creator) is essentially good in himself and that his creation is
intrinsically good: evil is something external to it in the sense that
evil is the consequences of some moral evil committed by man. The
upholders of this view point to the myths of God’s withdrawal, proverbs
and other cultural expressions as traditional grounds for insisting on
this view. Nwala, for example, stated that:</span></i></div>
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span></i>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There is a belief in a created universe
which is controlled by creator, Chukwu-Okike. Man is in the centre of
this creation. He is endowed with freedom and its attendant
responsibility. There is belief in the unity among beings, belief in the
original cosmic (universal) harmony and order which unfortunately the
action of the human being upsets (in this case as in the Bible story the
woman starts confusion).<a href="https://philosophia-bg.com/archive/philosophia-102015/the-concept-of-evil-in-yoruba-and-igbo-thoughts-some-comparisons/#_ftn13" name="_ftnref13"></a></span></i></div>
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span></i>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">For the likes of Igbo scholars such as
Nwala, evil is the function of man himself, who is at the center of
God’s creation. Man is therefore responsible for every evil that happens
in this world because of his actions and mode of being in the Igbo
world. This view consolidates the African notion of evil that God can
never be the proximate cause of evil in the world. Although man is
responsible for the evil in the world, remotely, God causes it, not as
evil as such but in the sense that out of the good man causes, evil
comes as part of it. However, it has been argued that this view
dissociates God from the problem, clings to the assumptions of the
goodness of God and keeps quiet about the supposed power of God, which
He could have used to stop evil if he truly wanted it.</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span></i>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>(b) Personal god and destiny view </b></span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span></i>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">According to this view, evil is not
linked directly to man but with the personal god of each man. That
personal god chooses man’s destiny package at the moment the individual
is born into the world. This view states that each person’s personal god
and destiny are responsible and accountable for both avoidable and
unavoidable evils and mistakes in life. The belief here is that the
Supreme being assigns a personal god (Chi) to an individual, whose Chi
in turn brings to man all his good and sometimes bad fortunes as well as
poverty and sickness by choosing the destiny on which one’s lot depends
to such a degree that every good and bad thing are attributed to it and
also blamed for individual’s mistakes in life. To buttress this view,
they even point to names such as Nkechinyere (lot given by personal
god); Chibueze (personal god makes and unmakes one); Chibuoke (personal
makes one famous) etc. Some Igbo proverbs also support his view like
“Ebe onye dalu ka Chi ya kwatulu ya” which means “where a person falls
there his personal god pushed him down”.</span></i></div>
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span></i>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Despite the criticism of the ambiguity or
the equivocal nature of the concept of Chi, the traditional Igbo
believe that God does not commit evil against his creation. They also
believe that any misfortune or evil suffered by man is interpreted as
punishment for the misbehavior of man or his kin in his present or
previous life. This holds because the Igbos believe that the actions of
men have consequences whether in this life or the next and also not only
on those who commit them but on those who live after them. The
importance of this view lies in the fact that it “sees evil in the world
in such a way that it does not detract from the goodness and
omnipotence of the Divinity.”<a href="https://philosophia-bg.com/archive/philosophia-102015/the-concept-of-evil-in-yoruba-and-igbo-thoughts-some-comparisons/#_ftn14" name="_ftnref14"></a>
God in this view transcends the moral and the ontological orders and
understands Him as the ultimate source and guarantor without any of His
essential characteristics being compromised.</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span></i>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><b>(c) The middle course view </b></span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span></i>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">According to this view, personal god and
destiny of humans together with some other known and unknown spirits,
particularly some spirits who specialize in mischief making, are
originators of evil in the world. Many modern Igbo scholars support this
view and conceive evil in the world as being contingent upon the
actions of man and the spirits, once again absolving God of any
involvement or blame in the problem of evil. For Okafor, “the apparent
evil in the world and imperfection in the world are not intrinsic. They
are rather the negation of the perfect cosmic order usually caused by
the actions of men and of the spirits.”<a href="https://philosophia-bg.com/archive/philosophia-102015/the-concept-of-evil-in-yoruba-and-igbo-thoughts-some-comparisons/#_ftn15" name="_ftnref15"></a></span></i></div>
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span></i>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Edeh, on his own part, asserts that God
cannot be the proximate cause of evil and blamed man and the spirits for
the existence of evil. He said: “…..judging from our treatment of the
causes of evil… the three proximate causes of evil are the evil spirits,
the element gods and human beings.”<a href="https://philosophia-bg.com/archive/philosophia-102015/the-concept-of-evil-in-yoruba-and-igbo-thoughts-some-comparisons/#_ftn16" name="_ftnref16"></a></span></i></div>
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">
</span></i>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This view does not sacrifice or detract
from the goodness and omnipotence of God. God is still considered as the
Supreme Good, all-powerful and the cause of all things which are good
in themselves. The point here is that even if God is spoken of to be the
remote cause of evil in the sense that he created the proximate causes
of evil, but it must not be in the sense that he caused evil as such.
Rather it will be constructed in the sense that because of the good he
created, evil comes as a necessary part of it.</span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
Enyi oha Nd'Igbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00535527241722227905noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2647774649642174769.post-84485871697992980652017-09-09T21:39:00.001+02:002018-04-14T15:12:30.246+02:00They Were Called Ikuku or Wind -The Ekumeku Warriors<div dir="ltr">
<br />
<i>The strength and wonders of the Igbo society had terrified the colonial masters, for they had never imagined such tireless strength and resilience of a people whose communities sat around the Niger River. </i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>The fearful shock of the colonial masters had emanated from the fact that prior to invading the Igbo land, they had been given easy and free access into territories of other tribes in Nigeria they had taken over.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>The community men fought with might and charm. They had invoked at most times, the help of the spirits which enabled them to disappear and re-appear.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>This amazed and frightened the colonial invaders and they in their usual manner, gave the local warriors the name </i><i><b>"IKUKU/ WIND."</b></i><i> </i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>Unlike in other parts of Nigeria, the engine of British colonization faced especially, stiff resistance in the lower Niger. Since the mid 19th century, the Royal Niger Company, a nationalized British trading corporation, had been creeping slowly along the banks of the Niger, leaving in its wake a trail of deceit, humiliation, intimidation, and glaringly one-sided treaties. In 1870, after much conflict, Ndoni, a powerful Igbo-speaking trading kingdom and naval power whose formidable fleet of war canoes virtually controlled trade in the lower Niger, was conquered by the Royal Niger Company, forever tilting the balance of power in the region. By the 1880s, the British and their Christian missionaries had established a regional stronghold at Asaba.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>In the 1890s, radical local leaders, who had formerly held power in native politics, but had become disenfranchised in the new British-organized colonial structure secretly convened throughout the Anioma region (western Igboland) and shared their collective fears regarding the loss of their independence and the growing influence of European intruders. They organized a secret militia comprised of ordinary young men from all segments of society united in their hatred of Westerners, Christianity and European influences and laid the foundations for what would become an over twenty year struggle known as the Ekumeku Movement.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>The Ekumeku, or Silent Ones, united the western Igbo and allowed them to overcome the disadvantages of their fragmented political systems and operate with a single military muscle. Unlike a conventional war, the movement was mainly underground and was spearheaded by secret-society members who were experienced in law administration, war, and policing. Employing guerilla tactics, under the cover of darkness they attacked colonial officials and their local sympathizers, burned and destroyed colonial buildings and posts owned by the Royal Niger Company, and disappeared back into their forest hideouts by daybreak. The manner of impunity and ferociousness with which the Ekumeku operated struck fear in the minds of locals and Europeans alike, earning them the nickname Ikuku or Whirlwind.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>In 1898, the Ekumeku attacked Igbuzo (Ibusa), a town under British occupation, and forced the Royal Niger Company and its employees to flee back to their headquarters at Asaba. In various raids conducted around Asaba, which was not directly attacked because of its fortifications, countless numbers of missionaries, Europeans, and their African supporters were slain, and the movement grew in popularity as increasing numbers of young men swelled into its ranks. It was particularly difficult for the British to combat the Ekumeku mainly because of its faceless and discrete nature; since it had neither public representatives nor a physical headquarters, no no one could be arrested, blamed, or held responsible.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>In 1902, stirred into action by rumors of a fresh Ekumeku offensive, the British launched a preemptive strike and arrested dozens of local leaders, chiefs, and elders, who were suspected Ekumeku agents and razed numerous communities to the ground. In that same year, the Ekumeku were defeated at Ubulu Uku and over three hundred men were captured and sent to prisons in Calabar, where many committed suicide or died of disease. Of this number only five were said to have survived. By 1909, the Ekumeku had reorganized at Ogwashi Uku and liberated the town from British occupation. After months of siege, the town once again fell and the Ekumeku were once again dispelled. In the following decade, countless arrests, trials, and hangings eventually signalled the end of anti-colonial resistance in this region.</i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-1-1fhRca5sQ/WbRHuMYmiyI/AAAAAAAABTU/7MOEaSW1g-wyehlvKZhNvhJWaJBceKcNwCHMYCw/s1600/ikuku.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> <img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-1-1fhRca5sQ/WbRHuMYmiyI/AAAAAAAABTU/7MOEaSW1g-wyehlvKZhNvhJWaJBceKcNwCHMYCw/s640/ikuku.jpg" /> </a> </div>
Enyi oha Nd'Igbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00535527241722227905noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2647774649642174769.post-84637889085402890172017-05-23T16:03:00.001+02:002017-07-11T14:18:13.295+02:00Akwamozu, the traditional funeral rite performed in Igbo land<div dir="ltr">
<i>The </i><i>Igbos</i><i> strongly believe in life after physical death. Akwamozu is one of the ways we express that strong belief. Akwamozu can be said to be the Igbo traditional funeral rite performed when an Igbo adult person dies in order to facilitate a smooth transition of the departed soul into the ethereal world or the world beyond our physical senses – the other side of life.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>While Ili ozu (burial proper) is marked by sorrows and mourning, akwamozu is usually a feast to bid a departed soul “Safe trip” into the beyond.</i><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<img src="https://i2.wp.com/obindigbo.com.ng/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/traditional-funeral-rite-in-Igbo-land.jpg?resize=460%2C288" /><br />
<i></i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br />
<i>Traditionally, Igbos do not perform akwamozu rites for every deceased Igbo person. For instance, we don’t perform akwamozu rites when a child dies, because we believe the soul of that child has not yet unfolded on earth like that of an adult. This means, in Igbo cultural belief system, the soul of a child is predominantly still anchored in the beyond from where it came. The soul is unfolded and anchored within our physical world only when the child reaches full maturity on earth as either a man or a woman. Unless a soul attains that unfolding and anchorage can that soul be held responsibility for his or her deeds while on earth. Only on that condition can akwamozu rites become a necessity when an Igbo person is deceased.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>Other examples of categories of people we don’t honour with akwamozu when they die are; those who drowned in deep waters, those who died through suicide, and those marked as unrepentant evil persons while there were alive on earth. The corpse of those who die by any of those means are not buried but thrown into an evil forest.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>Like other aspects of Igbo culture, we do not perform the akwamozu rite the same way in all Igbo communities. Also, the akwamozu rite for a rich and great man is not the same for a pauper. However, today, let’s highlight those basic aspects of akwamozu that must be performed irrespective of the socio-economic status of the deceased person or, the community he/she hails from:</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<b><i>Planning:</i></b><br />
<i>Akwamozu is an expensive affair in Igbo land. For that reason, careful plan is designed by the </i><i>deceased’s</i><i> relative in order to gather items needed for the </i><i>akwamozu</i><i>.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<b><i>Announcement of Date:</i></b><br />
<i>This involves sending out messages to inform friends, in-laws, associates and well-wishers of the deceased that a date slated for the performance of akwamozu rites has been chosen and fixed. Obituary posters are produced and distributed as direct invitations to friends and well-wisher and the general public, but the use of obituary posters alone are not to be seen as sufficient for inviting people for akwamozu. Word-of-mouth invitation especially among neighbours or close friends is very important.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<b><i>Wake Keep:</i></b><br />
<i>The night preceding the date fixed for formal condolence visit to the deceased’s family is the wake keep night. A little feast is usually organized at the deceased person’s family compound. Several dance groups and masquerades are also invited to perform their acts and arts all through that night which </i><i>heralds</i><i> formal </i><i>condolence</i><i> visit.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<b><i>Formal Condolence visitation by In-laws, Friends, and Well-wishers:</i></b><br />
<i>On the day following the night of wake keep, as from around 10 am, visitor’s, in-laws, friends, well-wishers etc are all expected to come to the deceased’s family home with all manner of condolence gifts; cow, goat, local wrapper, drinks etc depending on the </i><i>socio-economic</i><i> status of the </i><i>deceased</i><i>.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<b><i>Akwamozu Proper:</i></b><br />
<i>Akwamozu proper is the chief traditional rite in Igbo funerals. It is a very significant rite, because it entails the making of a formal separation between the departed soul and people still leaving on earth. It is usually a small and private activity but a very spiritual and culturally important one. It is carried out on the 12th day or, 3 exact weeks (according to Igbo calendar) after the day of formal condolence visitation by friends, in-laws, and well-wishers.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>Culled from odindigbo page.</i></div>
Enyi oha Nd'Igbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00535527241722227905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2647774649642174769.post-30159577172599609012017-05-21T19:15:00.001+02:002017-05-21T19:24:26.137+02:00ODE TO EKUMEKU: BATTLE CRIES OF MY CONSCIENCE<p dir="ltr"><br>
<img src="http://nigeriaworld.com/images/alpha/e.gif"><i></i><i>kumeku, you are my father! If not for you, I would have been a miscreant</i><br>
<i>Anu a na-agba egbe, o na-eri nri. How do I translate your substance?</i><br>
<i>Unbothered by exhortations of the timid; unencumbered by scheming of the compromised. You were there when things were revealed to me. You inspired me, you encouraged me, you force-fed me the tales of days gone by. When I wavered, you egged me on. When I tired, you replenished my spirit. When I stumbled, you aided my fortitude.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Ekumeku, you are my father! If not for you, I would have been a wasteland.</i><br>
<i>Nnukwu mmanwu anaghi efe onwu. How can I explain your essence?</i><br>
<i>The children of yesterday's abomination have become the soldiers of today's misfortune. Steeped in the mania of vituperative melancholy; assaulting the bastions of decorous sobriety. You it was, who beseeched me when in doubt, who berated me when I cowered. Reinforcing the self-evident truths that my myopia had failed to register, you guaranteed my allegiance to the struggle for a revamped reality, amidst the wretchedness of my society.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Ekumeku, you are my father! If not for you, I would have been a bastard.</i><br>
<i>Nnukwu mmiri gburu Enyi. How should I transcribe your greatness? </i><br>
<i>The upheaval that has suffused our society finds expression in the misery that maligns our honor. The dregs and scum reign as plenipotentiaries, while vampires and impostors traduce our efforts. You it was, who buoyed my optimism, even when I was faced by the threats of harm to body and soul. When I was thirsty, you sated me. When I was weary, you relieved me.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Ekumeku, you are my father! If not for you, I would have been a leper.</i><br>
<i>Ikenga gburu Efi. How can I articulate your inspiration?</i><br>
<i>The nuisance, who was made an outcast, has become the truth that guides our convictions. The "demons" of our forefathers' quintessence, were cast out and consigned to obscurity. The civilization that Dr. Bekee brought to our foremothers has so far corrupted our existence. Rattled and caged in the amnesia of history, we will reclaim our history as the gospel of our redemption.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Ekumeku, you are my father! If not for you, I would have been a vagabond.</i><br>
<i>Alusi na-agba mgba. How do I recount your magnetism?</i><br>
<i>When the shrine was desecrated, when the elders were put in chains, when fully-bearded grown men were shaved bare and canned in public while naked; you it was who revived us. When the proselytizers came a' wooing, when their brethren came a' warring, when the sandal kicked our ancestors in the buttocks, when the jackboot stepped on our necks not too long after. You it was who appeased the oracle, who pacified their wrath.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Ekumeku, you are my father! If not for you, I would have been an orphan.</i><br>
<i>Ichie na-akpu uzu. How should I interpret your vision?</i><br>
<i>When we were banished from the boundaries of enlightenment, when we had been despoiled by the wicked; you it was who healed our mutilations. When the children looked up and saw their father's nakedness. When the village priestess was raped by the village idiot, and when their "love-child" became the Warrant Chief. Alu! Tufia! You maintained my sanity, implored me to plan and map-out my strategy. You admonished me to wait till I was stronger, till I was in a position to exterminate this sacrilege.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Ekumeku, you are my father! If not for you, I would have been a quisling.</i><br>
<i>Ebubedike gburu Agu. O di ofele? How do I personify your struggle?</i><br>
<i>When pestilence bestrode the land like the proverbial colossus, when a psychological famine defiled the populace, when mental castration became the mantra of the new elite. When nouveau riche became an excuse for deflowering our norms and customs, when civilization and development became euphemisms for disemboweling our society, and when societal suicide became a culture to be embraced. You dissuaded me from capitulating to inducements; you prevented me from crossing over to the aisle of mediocrities.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Ekumeku, you are my father! If not for you, I would have been an assassin.</i><br>
<i>Aka eji eje agha. How do I reclaim your life-force? </i><br>
<i>When I was courted by the emissaries of the new reality, when I was threatened with the fate that befell martyrs before me, and when debauchery had become the accepted etiquette. You reinforced my better judgments, you prevailed on me to defer to informed reasoning, and you compelled me to beware of injustice.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Ekumeku, you are my father! If not for you, I would have been a victim.</i><br>
<i>Anyanwu na-enye ndu isi. How do I deliver your sermon?</i><br>
<i>When men of timber and caliber were replaced by the minions of rascals and urchins, when night and day were preempted by rampant trials and stagnating tribulation throughout the land. When salivating hordes of mystical parasites had foreshadowed our attempts at restitution, when rascality was given free reign and impunity was given a seat at the head of the table. When incestuous transgressions were waved off as juvenile peccadilloes, when rationality was substituted by accelerated repugnancy, and when the hand of the grim reaper reached into every hamlet and every home. You it was who made me indomitable, you it was who strengthened my steel. You it is who toughened my grit. On those forgotten nights and on those lonely back roads, chased away from the avenues of expediency, you it was who cushioned my feet.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Ekumeku, you are my father! If not for you, I would have been an imbecile</i><br>
<i>Onu ora anaghi atu onwu egwu. How do I persevere in dispersing your message?</i><br>
<i>When the hounds of hell were let loose into our society; upturning, violating, vandalizing, and deracinating everything in sight, you it was who calmed our apprehensions. When my spirits and intellect were retreating under duress, maligned and vilified by the ascendance of criminality in our society; you it was who refreshed my intelligence. And now that the final countdown has begun apace, now that the charades of history have been revealed for what they are; now is the time for me to make my stand. With my back against the wall, and with the vicissitudes of fortune staring me in the face, I will stick to my charge and be slain (if need be) defending the rights of decency.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Ekumeku, you are my father! Ekumeku, you are my father! Ekumeku, you are my father! How many times have I called you? Go back to the beginning and count; 13 times over shall you smite their offspring, 13 times over shall you expunge their existence, 13 times over shall you strike them with Amadioha's thunder and lightning. 13 times over shall you do what? What did you say? Come again… 13 years shall we wait for redemption? Mba nu! No! Eziokwu bu ndu! But what can I do? If you say so, I will comply.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Ekumeku, you are my father! If not for you, I would be lost; if not for you, I would be mad; if not for you, I would be a living dead. That which the Haitians call a zombie, living yet dead, dead yet living, in a suspended state of arrested development. Mentally retarded and psychologically emaciated, intellectually maligned and philosophically stunted, morally challenged and emotionally malnourished. This, Ekumeku, this farce I cannot stand. You are my right hand and you are my left fist, with you at my side and behind me and within my soul, I will press on till I slay evil's perpetuators and ignominy's perpetrators. The man can't die in the face of tyranny. For it is ordained, he has a date with destiny. Ekumeku, you are my father!</i><br></p><p dir="ltr"><i>By </i><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(0, 41, 0); font-family: "trebuchet ms", photo, Georgia, "Times New Roman"; font-size: x-large; text-align: -webkit-center;">Chukwuemeka Uche Onuora</span></p>
Enyi oha Nd'Igbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00535527241722227905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2647774649642174769.post-70938434115541782672017-05-21T18:29:00.001+02:002017-05-21T18:34:27.957+02:00The ‘Ekumeku War’
1883-1914
<p dir="ltr"><br>
<img src="https://thebiafran-files-wordpress-com.cdn.ampproject.org/ii/w680/s/thebiafran.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/f5937-images2b2528992529.jpg?w=640&h=395"><a href="https://thebiafran.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/f5937-images2b2528992529.jpg"><i></i></a></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The Ekumeku [Ekwuna Okwu – secrecy] Movement consisted of a series of uprisings against the rising power of the Royal Niger Company of the British Empire in the Anioma communities of the Western Igboland. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The British penetration of what is now known as Nigeria met with various forms of resistance throughout the country. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>In the south, the British had to fight many wars, in particular the wars against the Ijebu (a Yoruba group) in 1892, the Aro of Eastern Igboland in 1901–1902, and from 1883–1914, the Anioma.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>HISTORY</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Opposition was strong in Anioma land where a series of wars were waged against the British. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The Ekumeku, who were well organised and whose leaders were joined in secrecy oaths, effectively utilised guerrilla tactics to attack the British. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Their forces, which were drawn from thousands of Anioma youth from all parts of Anioma land, created many problems for the British, but the British used forceful tactics and heavy armaments (destroying homes, farms, and roads) to prevail. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The Ekumeku, however, became a great source of Anioma nationalism.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The Ekumeku Movement is unique in Anioma history for two reasons. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>First, the length of time the movement endured, comprising Military campaigns over a period of thirty one years. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Secondly it is the outstanding example in Anioma Civilization of an attempt to unite previously disunited states to resist the colonial army. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>You have seen that one crucial reason for Anioma defeat was the great discrepancy of scale between the average Anioma community and the colonial army. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The British decided on a preemptive strike, and in December 1902 sent a powerful expedition which systematically destroyed a number of towns and imprisoned their leaders. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>This, it was assumed, was the end of the Ekumeku..”the Ekumeku and other secret societies have been completely broken”.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>In 1904, the Ekumeku rose again. This time the changed their tactics, mistakenly, it would seem in retrospect, abandoning the united guerilla warfare of 1898 for the individual defence of each town. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The last act of the Eureka drama began in late 1909. The occasion was a succession dispute in Ogwashi-Uku. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>One of the claimants, Nzekwe, the son of the last Obi, feared that the British would deprive him of his throne, and decided to fight for his inheritance.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>On 2 November 1909, the British sent an expedition to Ogwashi-Uku but they failed in the expedition. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The British perceived, in the whole Asaba hinterland, a sympathy with the Ekumeku, and a disposition to throw off government authority. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>In 1911, there was a final round-up of Ekumeku leaders in various towns that was followed, once more, by imprisonments.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The acting lieutenant-governor of the southern provinces sent an agitated telegram to Lagos: “Whole country is above area…is the state of rebellion.” </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Reinforcements arrived from Lokoja, and the British proceeded to a confrontation at Akegbe. We quote both the contemporary British accounts of the battle at Nkwo market.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>THE WAR</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>With the invasion of Ndoni in 1870 and bombardment of Onicha-Ado (Onitsha) on 2 November 1897, the stage was set for the Ekumeku war that engulfed the whole of Anioma. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The Royal Niger Company (RNC) commandered by Major Festing engaged Ibusa in 1898, and in 1904 it was the people of Owa/Ukwunzu against the British in a war that W. E. B. Crawford Coupland requested for more arms to crush the western Anioma communities. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Owa would once again engage the British in 1906 in battle that S. O. Crewe lost his own life. On 2 November 1909, it was finally the turn of Ogwashi-Ukwu who matched the British. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>In this war the British sustained many casualties with the death of H. C. Chapman.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>AFTERMATH</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Although the Ekumeku failed in 1914, but the western Anioma treasure their memory as imperishable legacy. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Heroes included Dunkwu Isus of Onicha-Olona, Nwabuzo Iyogolo of Ogwashi-Ukwu, Awuno Ugbo, Obi of Akumazi, Agbambu Oshue of Igbuzo, Idabor of Issele-Ukwu, Ochei Aghaeze of Onicha-Olona, Abuzu of Idumuje-Unor, Idegwu Otokpoike of Ubulu-Ukwu are still remembered in Anioma land. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The Ekumeku War is one of the most vigorous campaign of opposition to the British empire and inspired later rebellions such as the Mau Mau of Kenya.</i></p>
Enyi oha Nd'Igbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00535527241722227905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2647774649642174769.post-15428730068172706072017-05-17T14:21:00.002+02:002021-10-18T19:31:58.860+02:00Nke Onye Chiri Ya Zaa!(On Igbo Titles)<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-trHsShTZPeQ/YW2vZDvn7sI/AAAAAAAABjU/np2Yy0wyxYMppu_Z5apQrMlh2Qju7p0aACLcBGAsYHQ/s325/igbo_title.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="216" data-original-width="325" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-trHsShTZPeQ/YW2vZDvn7sI/AAAAAAAABjU/np2Yy0wyxYMppu_Z5apQrMlh2Qju7p0aACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/igbo_title.jpg"/></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br /><br />
<div dir="ltr">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><i>To the uninitiated, Ndigbo are a show-off race, what with their big titles and ceremonies but such allegations are far from the truth. Ndigbo are proud and traditional people and so are other races, but in the case of Ndigbo not even the ‘civilisation’ brought by the Whiteman as depicted in Chinua Achebe’s </i><i>Things Fall Apart</i><b><i> </i></b><i> could rob them of their Omenani. Agreed the Whiteman may have desecrated the land and committed alu upon alu in Alaigbo but Ndigbo as a people have always produced several Okonkwos who have ensured that the flames enkindled by their ancestors never burn out.</i></span></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">While some may say that tradition is gradually disappearing in some areas or aspects of Igbo culture, it is still thriving in several others especially in the taking and bearing of titles. Sometimes titles are given, and taken to reflect the character of the title bearer or holder. In some other cases the titles are just symbolic, and become a mere symbol of greeting during social interactions. In typical Igbo communities, people are not known, called or greeted by their names but rather by their titles. Some of these titles are self explanatory, but majority require hard thinking to fully decode their meanings, but still each title signifies something or else it becomes a mere nickname.</span></i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">The titles are a deep reflection, and an extension of another aspect of Igbo culture, that of speaking in parables or communicating with proverbs. Just like the proverbs which are not expected to be translated else as Ndigbo would say, it would be deemed that the bride price paid on behalf of the mothers of the persons requiring translation of the proverb is in vain. The meanings of titles are not meant to be interpreted either by the title bearers, especially to fellow Ndigbo. An exception of the rule may be applied if the persons/people requiring interpretation are non-Igbos.</span></i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">In Igbo land, titles could be either assumed without any ceremony or fuss, or taken through elaborate feasting and fulfilment of other conditions. Hence Ndigbo would often say that there are titles and there are titles whenever they wish to mock an Ofeke who they feel has not merited the huge or bogus title he or she bears.</span></i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">The average Igbo man by tradition is expected to have a title, either given to him by his father or one that he assumes and takes up himself. However, there are titles that one can only bear after going through some traditional rituals and practices such as Nze na Ozo, Ichie, chieftaincy or other Igbo traditional titles. Any one who successfully goes through the stipulated processes would have been considered to be fully initiated, and his peers will no longer have any inhibition in giving him the traditional Igbo 3 – back hand slap and hand shake (ina ito) - a social greeting ritual that is reserved only for the initiated.</span></i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">During formal title taking events, the titles are symbolised through sticking a feather or feathers in red caps (red capped chiefs) and then placed on the recipients head, by hand beads (Iga) made out of elephant tusks or by a piece of woven thread tied to the title takers ankles (ata). Title holders may also be presented with a specially carved working stick (Mkpo), or a metal staff (Oji) in addition to a fan made out of animal skin (Akupe) with the person’s name and title engraved on it. Women receive thick arm bracelets carved out of elephant tusks (Odu).</span></i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">It is customary to hear Ndigbo making expressions such as Ichi zu lu echi zu; such people (the initiated) are accorded more respect within their communities and have more opinion in traditional matters including traditional marriages etc.They may also have a say during land disputes, especially if such a community has no constituted Ojiani group.During feasts and other ceremonies, the fully initiated title holders are rewarded with extra portions of thighs of goat or tubers of yam and other items, and their food which must include pounded yam and soup stocked with anu mkpo and azu mkpo are usually prepared separately by umu nwanyi di ocha.</span></i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Although there is no general expectation for people to formalise their titles, there is however a class system within the Igbo cultural system. More respect and honour are accorded to those who have formalised their titles. The act of formalising one’s title is indeed not something for weak hearts and requires some elaborate preparation which culminates in series of events. The title holder will be expected to fulfil certain conditions including feasting his Umunna, Umuada, initiated title holders and other relevant stakeholder groups in the community .</span></i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">In the olden days, such feasts will cost lots of cowries, manilas, and shells. It would require regular trips to the village market where the cowries will be exchanged for goats, tubers of yams, jars of nkwuenu and other food items. Depending on the title being taken, it may sometimes involve wrestling with (killing) a lion or any other task that may be assigned by the custodians of Omenani. Fable has it that bearers of the Ogbuagu title, Maverick politician Francis Arthur Nzeribe’s title, would normally be expected to have either wrestled with a lion, or killed one with a spear, they would then peel the dead animals’ skin which would be dried and hung in the title holder’s Obi as evidence. Many would have lost their lives during this process but for those that succeed, the honour and respect they receive afterwards makes it worth it as their stories are told far and wide. In the end, such people are applauded and congratulated by all, including the initiated and non-initiated for as Ndigbo would say Odiro Ofele.</span></i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Some titles are also hereditary, passed on from generation to generation, in such cases while all the male children born to a family may be addressed commonly by such titles by which their father or grandfather was known, in the long term it is only the eldest male child that eventually retains the title. Preference in this instance always goes to the first born son. The younger siblings will be expected whenever they can, to assume or take their own titles.</span></i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">In Igbo land, there is no compulsion by any native law or custom for men or women to bear titles; however any one who does not may find himself being the odd person during age grade, community or village square meetings, and during other community festivals and events where people are only addressed by their titles.</span></i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">The culture of titles in Igbo land has often been chided by certain commentators who call it a craze, but in fairness there is really nothing wrong with it. By doing it, Ndigbo are only trying to uphold their tradition, just like other cultures would in other ways. On the subject of titles in Alaigbo, Charles Ikechukwu Okoli, an Awka indigene who goes by the traditional title of Nwa Ezeoku says that it is good that the Ndigbo have carried on with the practice, “Perhaps an aspect of this that Ndigbo should look at is in the abuse of titles, which sometimes sees less deserving members of the society being rewarded with big titles. Such practices usually send the wrong signals to the younger generation”, he concludes.</span></i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Some Igbo titles offer a mirror or parody into life, especially when the titles are juxtaposed with the personal circumstances of the bearers. A few ones come into mind here especially titles that suggest that the bearers are people of great financial and material means but in reality they may not be, examples include such grandiose titles such as Udu ako mmiri, Aku n’ata ka si, Okpata ozuo oha, Akuluouno, Ide ji ogwugwu, Ono n’ikpo aku, Ide, Eselu enu ego, Eze ego, etc.</span></i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Titles can also be restraining tools, for example, I have found that my title Ezeudo has on several occasions served to restrain me from acting when provoked, it serves as a reminder to me always to ‘watch it’, else I will be ridiculing myself, title and culture.</span></i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">I know a man who goes by the title of Ome mgbe oji, in retrospect I think that the title is quite befitting, a very clever chap he is as his title forecloses any expectations relatives may have of him for financial assistance, he would make promises but with a clause that the promises can only be fulfilled whenever it is possible, a smart title indeed. </span></i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">There are also absurd cases, for example when known charlatans or cowards in the community bear titles that are too big for them such as Ochi agha, Ekwueme, Dike ana agbara izu, Aka gbajiri igwe, Dike eji eje mba. In some other cases, some titles may be considered off-putting in an increasingly modern Igbo society which has largely embraced Christianity, such titles connote the impression of idol worship for example titles such as Agbara ahuru gbuo okuko, Alusi n’ejere onye nwe ya ozi, Eze Udene, etc. </span></i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">As with men, so also with women, there is no evidence of discrimination against women in the Igbo culture with regards to title taking; in fact the women are holding their own and giving the men a run for their titles. They do have their class system as certain titles can only be taken by the initiated, usually into the much revered and influential Iyom society. If you are an Igbo woman looking for a title, perhaps the following may get you thinking; Oso di eme, Agbala nwanyi, Oche eze, Mkpulu nma, Nwanyi gbue efi, Asa mpete, Nwanyi ma uche di ya, Ugogbe, Ola edo, Ada eji eje mba, etc. </span></i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Interestingly, men and women do not normally bare similar titles in Alaigbo as they would some Igbo names such as Uche, Ngozi, Chinyere, Chika and Udodiri which are unisex names, but it does seem from the sound of some Igbo traditional titles, that both the women and the men already know which titles they could bear and which is exclusive to the opposite gender.</span></i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Ndigbo are also very accommodating and have been known to show their appreciations of friendships and beneficial relationships with other races through the bestowing of honourary titles, some Igbo in-laws are known to have bagged titles such as Nwanne di n’mba.</span></i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Afa otutu will continue to play prominent roles in the cultural and social lives of Ndigbo, and no matter who you are; Onye Igbo, Ogo, or enyi Ndigbo – Zaa kwa nke ichiri!</span></i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">By Uche Nworah</span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">
<span lang="en-gb">* * * * *</span></div>
<div align="center" style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">
<table border="0" id="table4" style="width: 70%px;"><tbody>
<tr><td><div align="center" class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-GB"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><i>Article Word Glossary</i></span></span></b></div>
<div align="justify" class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Alu</b> – Sacrilege or abomination </i></span></div>
<div align="justify" class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Afa otutu</b> - Title</i></span></div>
<div align="justify" class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Alaigbo</b> – Igbo land</i></span></div>
<div align="justify" class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Alusi n’ejere onye nwe ya ozi </b>– The deity that does the bidding of its owner </i></span></div>
<div align="justify" class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Agbara ahuru gbuo okuko</b> - The deity that triggers the killing of a hen (n allusion to a person’s supposed ‘great’ standing in the society)</i></span></div>
<div align="justify" class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Agbala nwanyi</b> – An elegant and powerful woman</i></span></div>
<div align="justify" class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Ada eji eje mba</b> – A daughter/woman that can be relied on in far and near places.</i></span></div>
<div align="justify" class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Asa mpete</b> – A beauty</i></span></div>
<div align="justify" class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Akuluouno</b> – Only repatriated wealth are safe.</i></span></div>
<div align="justify" class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Aku n’ata ka si</b> – A ‘money-miss-road’ (one in possession of excess wealth)</i></span></div>
<div align="justify" class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Aka gbajiri igwe</b> – the strong hand that bends the iron</i></span></div>
<div align="justify" class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Dike eji eje mba</b> – A warrior that could be taken on journeys to other lands (one who is to be trusted, brave and courageous)</i></span></div>
<div align="justify" class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Dike ana agbara izu</b> – A brave man and warrior that enemies conspire against</i></span></div>
<div align="justify" class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Ezeudo</b> – King of peace or someone that makes/likes peace. </i></span></div>
<div align="justify" class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Ekwueme </b>- One whose word is his bond (‘talk-and-do’ in popular parlance)</i></span></div>
<div align="justify" class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Eze Udene</b> – The king vulture (Vultures supposedly signify bad omens in Alaigbo)</i></span></div>
<div align="justify" class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Eselu enu ego</b> – The Literary meaning is to peel off a slice from a cash bundle or pile, but is actually an allusion to the fact that what the title bearer is spending is still ‘chicken change’ to his overall worth.</i></span></div>
<div align="justify" class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Eze ego</b>- King of money (this title is no longer popular in Alaigbo since the death of Victor Okafor, an alleged 419 kingpin who made the name very notorious)</i></span></div>
<div align="justify" class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Ichi zu lu echi zu</b> – You are fully initiated.</i></span></div>
<div align="justify" class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Ide ji ogwugwu</b> – Wealthy stronghold </i></span></div>
<div align="justify" class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Ide</b> – wealthy person</i></span></div>
<div align="justify" class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Ichie</b> – a revered title for elderly men in the community</i></span></div>
<div align="justify" class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Ina ito </b>– A special form of greeting in Alaigbo, requiring 3 back hand slaps and a hand shake. The uninitiated are not expected to be greeted in this manner.</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Iyom</b> – A revered society of women requiring initiation.</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Omenani</b> – Culture or tradition </i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Obi</b> – A small outpost in a compound usually used in receiving visitors.</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Ola edo</b> – This means gold but is used to adulate the tile holder as being precious. </i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Ogbuagu</b> - A traditional title. The literary meaning is killer of lion. </i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Okpata ozuo oha</b> – A person who extends his wealth to others. </i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Ome mgbe oji</b> – He who does, or helps out when he is able to</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Ojiani</b> – Overseers of community lands and traditional holders of title deeds, they have the last say in land disputes in most Igbo communities and were very powerful in the days when there were no law courts. </i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Odiro Ofele </b>– It is not easy at all (no mean feat)</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Oso di eme</b> – The husband’s helper</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Oche eze</b> – The throne of royalty</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Ofeke</b> – A wayward person</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Ochi agha</b> – Battle commander</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Ono n’ikpo aku</b> – He who dwells in wealth</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Mkpulu nma</b> – Epitome of beauty </i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Nwanyi ma uche di ya</b> – A loyal woman who knows and respects her husband’s heart desires and wishes</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Nze na Ozo</b> – A highly revered ancient Igbo traditional society </i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Ndigbo</b> - Igbo people</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Nwa Ezeoku</b> – A child from a wealthy man/family</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Nwanyi</b> – Women</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Nka ona adi</b> – The rightful place (Things never cease to be where they belong)</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Nkwuenu</b> – Undiluted Palm wine (known as ‘Upwine’ in local popular parlance)</i></span></div>
<div align="justify" class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Nwanyi gbue efi </b>– The literary translation means a woman that has killed a cow (or caused one to be killed), because cows are expensive in the old days, women who achieve such feat are very much revered. In modern usage, it means a woman of mean.</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Nwanne di n’mba</b> – The relative in a foreign land</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Nke onye chiri, ya zaa</b> – May each answer to his/her title</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Umunna</b> – Kindred relatives </i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Ugogbe</b> – Mirror</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Udu ako mmiri </b>– The earthen pot that is always full of water</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Umuada </b>– Women born within a particular community or kindred</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Anu Mkpo</b> - Dried roasted meat</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Azu Mkpo</b> – Dried roasted fish</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Umu nwanyi di ocha </b>– (Clean women) Women who are not in their menstrual cycle </i></span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
Enyi oha Nd'Igbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00535527241722227905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2647774649642174769.post-71763454612616508302017-05-14T00:33:00.001+02:002017-05-14T00:35:14.817+02:00CHI IN IGBO COSMOLOGY<p dir="ltr"><i>CHI IN IGBO </i><u><i>COSMOLOGY</i></u><i> </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>There are two clearly distinct meanings of the word chi in Igbo. The first is often translated as god, guardian angel, personal spirit, soul, spirit-double etc. the second meaning is day or daylight but it most commonly used for those transitional periods between day and night or night and day. Thus we speak of chi ofufo meaning daybreak and chi ojiji, nightfall. We also have the word mgbachi for that most potent hour of noon that splits the day in two, a time favoured in folklore by itinerant spirits and feared by children.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>I am chiefly concerned here with the first meaning of chi, a concept so central in Igbo psychology and yet so elusive and enigmatic. The great variety of words and phrases which has been put forward at different times by different people as translations of this concept attests to its great complexity and lends additional force to the famous plea of Dr. J. B. Danquah that we pay one another’s gods the compliment of calling them by their proper name.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>In a general way we may visualize a person’s chi as his other identity in spiritland – his spirit being complementing his terrestrial human being; for nothing can stand alone, there must always be another thing standing beside it.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Without an understanding of the nature of chi one could not begin to make sense of the Igbo world-view; and yet no study of it exists that could even be called preliminary. What I am </i><i><u>attempting</u></i><i> here is not to fill that gap but to draw attention to it in a manner appropriate to one whose primary love is literature and not religion, philosophy or linguistics. I will not even touch upon such tantalizing speculations as what happens to a person’s chi when the person dies, and its shrine is destroyed. Does it retreat completely back to it old home? And finally what happens at the man’s reincarnation?</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>But before we embark on a consideration of the nature and implication of this concept which is so powerful in Igbo religion and thought let us examine briefly what connection there may be between it and the other meaning of chi. For a long time I was convinced that there couldn’t possibly be any relationship between chi (spirit being) and chi (daylight) except as two words that just happened to sound alike. But one day I stumbled on the very important information that among the Igbo of Akwa a man who arrived at the point in his life when he needs to set up a shrine to his chi will invite a priest to perform a ritual of bringing down the spirit from the face of the sun at daybreak. Thereafter it is represented physically in the man’s compound until the day of his death when the shrine must be destroyed.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The implication of this is that a person’s chi normally resides with the sun, bringer of daylight, or at least passes through it to visit the world. Which itself may have an even profounder implication for it is well known in Igbo cosmology that the Supreme Deity, Chukwu Himself, is in close communion with the sun. But more on that later. Since Igbo people did not construct a rigid and closely argued system of thought to explain the universe and the place of man in it, preferring the metaphor of myth and poetry, anyone seeking an insight into their world must seek it along their own way. Some of these ways are folks-tales, proverbs, proper names, rituals and festivals. There is of course the ‘scientific’ way as well – the tape-recorded interview with old people. Unfortunately it is often more impressive than useful. The old people who have the information we seek will not often bare their hearts to any passer-by. They will give answers, and true answers too. But there is truth and there is truth. To get to the inner truth will often require more time than the recording interviewer can give – it may require a whole lifetime. In any case no one talks naturally into a strange box of tricks!</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>It is important to stress what I said earlier: the central place in Igbo thought of the notion of duality. Wherever Something stands, Something Else will stand beside it. Nothing is absolute. I am the truth, the way and the life would be called blasphemous or simply absurd for is it not well known that a man may worship Ogwugwu to perfection and yet be killed by Udo? The world in which we live has its double and counterpart in the realm of spirits. A man lives here and his chi there. Indeed the human being is only one half (and the weaker half at that) of a person. There is a complementary spirit being, chi. (The word spirit though useful does create serious problems of its own, however, for it is used to describe many different orders to non-human being.) Thus the abode of chi may be confused with ani mmo where the dead who encounter no obstacles in their passage go to live. But ani mmo is thought to be not above like the realm of chi, but below, inside the earth. Considerable confusion and obscurity darken the picture at this point because there is a sense in which the two supernatural worlds are both seen as parallel to the land of the living. In an early anthropogical study of the Igbo Major A. G. Leonard at the opening of this century reported the following account from one of his Igbo informants:</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>We Ibo look forward to the next world as being much the same as this… We picture life there to be exactly as it is in this world. The ground there is just the same as it is here, the earth is similar. There are forests and hills and valleys with rivers flowing and roads leading from one town to another . . . People in spiritland have their ordinary occupations, the farmer his farm.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>This ‘spiritland’ where dead ancestors recreate a life comparable to their earthly existence is not only parallel to the human world but is also similar and physically contiguous with it for there is constant coming and going between them in the endless traffic of life, death and reincarnation. The masked spirits who often grace human rituals and ceremonies with their presence are representative visitors from this underworld and are said to emerge from their subterranean home through ant-holes. At least that is the story as told to the uninitiated. To those who know, however, the masked ‘spirits’ are only symbolic ancestors. But this knowledge does not in any way diminish their validity or the awesomeness of their presence.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>These ancestral spirits which may be personified by man are, however, of a very different order from chi and so is their place of abode. There is a story of how a proud wrestler, having thrown every challenger in the world, decides to go and wrestle in the world of spirits. There he also throws challenger after challenger, including many multiple-headed ones – so great was his prowess. At last there is no one left to fight. But the wrestler refuses to leave. The spirits beg him to go; his companion praise-singer on the flute pleads with him. But it is all in vain. There must be somebody left; surely the famed land of spirits can do better than this, he said. Again everyone begs him to collect his laurels and go but again he refuses. Finally his own chi appears, reluctant, thin as a rope. The wrestler laughs at this miserable-looking contender and moves forward contemptuously to knock him down whereupon the other lifts him clear off the ground with his little finger and smashes him to death.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>This cautionary tale is concerned mainly, I think, with setting a limit to man’s aspiration. The limit is not the sky; it is somewhere much closer to earth. A sensible man will turn round at the frontiers of absolutism and head for home again. There is, however, around the story as well a vague intimation that the place where chi inhabits is forbidden to man in a way that ani mmo; the abode of his dead fathers, does not appear to be. For we have, at least, a description of the landscape of ani mmo; nothing comparable exists for the territory of chi.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>There is another cautionary tale about chi, this time involving the little bird, nza, who ate and drank somewhat more than was good for him and in a fit of recklessness which inebriation alone would explain taunted his chi to come and get him if he could. Whereupon a hawk swooped down from clear sky and carried him away. Which shows the foolishness of counting on chi’s remoteness, for chi need not come in person or act directly but may use one’s enemy who is close by.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The story of the headstrong wrestler in addition to all the other things it tells us makes also important point that man’s chi does have special hold over him such as no other powers can muster. This is why, for instance, it can dispense with the physical endowments and terrors of the multiple-headed spirits. This special power that chi has over its man (or the man’s special vulnerability to his chi) is further exemplified in a proverb: ‘No matter how many divinities sit together to plot a man’s ruin it will come to nothing unless his chi is there among them.’ Clearly chi has unprecedented veto powers over man’s destiny.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>But power so complete, even in the hands of chi, is abhorrent to the Igbo imagination. Therefore the makers of proverb went to work again, as it were, to create others that would set a limit to its exercise. Hence the well-known Onye kwe chie ekwe. If a man agrees his chi agrees. And so the initiative, or some of it at least, is returned to man.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>If you want to know how life has treated an Igbo man, a good place to look is the name his children bear. His hopes, his fears, his joys and sorrows; his grievances against his fellows, or complaints about the way he has been used by fortune; even straight historical records, are all there. And because chi is so central to Igbo thought we will also find much about it in proper names – more, I think, than from any other single source.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Chika (chi is supreme); Chibuzo (chi is in front); Nebechi (look to chi) are only a few examples of the large number of names that show the general primacy of chi over mankind. Chinwuba asserts chi’s special responsibility for increase and prosperity; Chinwendu its power over life and Chikadibia over health. A man who suffers from false accusations or calumnies heaped on him by his fellow may call his child Chiebonam (may chi not accuse me) meaning that the moral justification which chi can give is what counts in the end. It is, however, unusual to link chi in this way with moral sanction, a responsibility that belongs normally to Ani, the Earth Goddess and proper source of moral law – a fact recognized in the name Aniebonam which is analogous to Chiebonam.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The Igbo believe that a man receives his gifts or talents, his character – indeed his portion in life generally – before he comes into the world. It seems there is an element of choice available to him at that point; and that his chi presides over bargaining. Hence the saying Obu etu nya na chie si kwu, which we often hear when a man’s misfortune is somehow beyond comprehension and so can only be attributable to an agreement he himself must have entered into, at the beginning, alone with his chi, for there is a fundamental justice in the universe and nothing so terrible can happen to a person for which he is not somehow responsible. A few other names suggest this role of chi as the great dealer out of gifts: Nkechinyelu and Chijioke, for example.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>As we have seen the Igbo believe that when a man says yes his chi will also agree; but not always. Sometimes a man may struggle with all his power and say yes most emphatically and yet nothing he attempts will succeed. Quite simply the Igbo say of such a man: Chie ekwero, his chi does not agree. Now, this could means one of two things: either the man has a particularly intransigent chi or else it is the man himself attempting too late to alter that primordial bargain he had willingly struck with his chi, saying yes now when his first unalterable word had been no, forgetting that ‘the first word gets to Chukwu’s house’.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>But of course the idea of an intransigent chi does exist in Igbo: ajo chi, literally ‘bad chi’. We must remember, however, when we hear that a man has a bad chi that we are talking about his fortune rather than his character. A man of impeccable character may yet have a bad chi so that nothing he puts his hand to will work out right. Chi is therefore more concerned with success or failure than with righteousness and wickedness. Which is not to say that it is totally indifferent to morality. For we should know by now that nothing is totally anything in Igbo thinking; everything is a question of measure and degree. We have already seen in the name Chienonam that chi shares a little of the moral concerns of Ani, the earth goddess. But in addition there is a hint of moral attribution of chi in the way the Igbo sometimes explain differences in human character. For maximum dramatization they pick two brothers who are dissimilar in character: one good, the other bad. And they say: ofu nne n’amu, ma ofu chi adeke, a very neat and tight statement which can only be approximately interpreted as: one mother gives birth, different chi create.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>This statement apart from reiterating the idea of ‘one man, one chi’ goes further to introduce the fundamental notion of chi as creator which is of the utmost importance: a man does not only have his own chi but is created by it and no two people, not even blood brothers, it seems, are created by the same chi. What we know of chi can thus be summed up as follows: every person has an individual chi who created him, its natural home is somewhere in the region of the sun but it may be induced to visit an earthly shrine; a person’s fortunes in life are controlled more or less completely by chi. (Perhaps this is a good place to point out that there are many minor – and occasionally even major- divergences of perception about chi from different parts of Igbo land so that one can at best only follow what appears to be the dominant and persistent concepts. For example, although communities exist which assert categorically that chi lives with Chukwu, in most places such closeness can only be deducted indirectly.)</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>There are many names and sayings in Igbo which confirm the creative role of chi. When we name a child Chiekezie we imply that chi has restored a certain balance by that particular creation, or has at last apportioned share equitably. Of a man unattractive or deficient in character we might say: chi ya kegbulu ya ekegbu. Here again there are two possible interpretations to our statement: either the man in question was created badly or else was cheated of his full share of things. Or both interpretations may even be intended; for what else is creation but the imparting of distinguishing characteristics and bestowing of gifts? Certainly the Igbo language by having the same root-word ke for create and share does encourage this notion.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The idea of individualism is sometimes traced to the Christian principle that God created all men and consequently every one of them is presumed worthy in His sight. The Igbo do better than that. They postulate the concept of every man as both a unique creation and the work of a unique creator. Which is as far as individualism and uniqueness can possibly go! And we should naturally expect such a cosmogony to have far-reaching consequences in the psychology and institutions of the people. This is not the place, however, to go into that. But we should at least notice in passing the fierce egalitarianism (less charitable people would have other names for it, of course) which was such a marked feature of Igbo political organization, and may justifiably speculate on its possible derivation from this concept of every man’s original and absolute uniqueness. An American anthropologist who studied the Igbo community of Onitsha in recent years called his book The King in Every Man.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>All this might lead one to think that among the Igbo the individual would be supreme, totally free and existentially alone. But the Igbo are unlikely to concede to the individual an absolutism they deny even chi. The obvious curtailment of a man’s power to walk alone and do as he will is provided by another potent force – the will of his community. For wherever something stands, no matter what, something Else will stand beside it. No man however great can win judgment against all people.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>We must now turn to the all-important relationship between chi and Chi Ukwu, one of the names by which the Supreme Deity is known in Igbo. The most obvious link is the name itself. Chi Ukwu (or simply, Chukwu) means literally Great Chi. Thus whatever chi may be it does seem to partake of the nature of the Supreme God. Another link is provided by the sun, bringer of daylight. As we saw earlier, among the Igbo of Awka a man’s chi may be invoked to descend from the solar realm. As it happens, the Igbo also see the sun as an agent of Chukwu to whom it is said to bear those rare sacrifices offered as man’s last desperate resort. It would seem then that wherever the abode of Chukwu happens to be in the heavens it cannot be distant from the place of chi.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>In Yoruba cosmology the Supreme God, Olodumare (one of whose title is, incidentally, Owner of the Sun) sent the god, Obatala, on a mission of creation to make man. The Igbo are not so specific about Chukwu’s role in the creation of man, but may be suggesting a similar delegation of power by Supreme Overlord to a lesser divinity except that in their case every act of creation is the work of a separate and individual agent, chi, a personified and unique manifestation of the creative essence.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Still further west, the Akan of Ghana believe in a Moon Goddess whom they call Ngame, Mother of the World who gives a ‘soul’ to every human being at birth by shooting lunar rays into him. The Igbo, seemingly more reticent about such profound events may yet be hinting at a comparable cosmic relationship between their chi and solar rays. This would explain the invocation of chi from the face of the sun at the consecration of its shrine and account also for the second meaning of the word: daylight. And, of course, the Igbo being patrilineal (as anthropologist tell us) where the Akan are matrilineal a preference by them for the sun over the moon would be completely in character!</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The significance of the sun in Igbo religion though subtle and unobtrusive is nonetheless undeniable and may even be called pervasive. If we are to believe the New Larousse Encyclopaedia of Mythology it seems that two-times-two-times-two is everywhere the sun’s mystical figure (just as three-times-three is the moon’s). Certainly the Igbo have a lot of use for fours and eights. The basic unit their calendar is the four-day ‘small’ week and an eight-day ‘great’ week; the circumcision of their male child takes place on the eight day after which it is accounted a human being; they compute largeness in units of four hundred, nnu, etc., etc.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The exact relationship between the Supreme God (Chukwu), the sun and chi in Igbo cosmology will probably never be (and perhaps was intended not to be) unraveled. But if Chukwu means literally Great chi one is almost tempted to borrow the words of Christian dogma and speak of chi as being of the same ‘substance’ as and ‘proceeding’ from Chukwu. Or is chi an infinitesimal manifestation of Chukwu’s infinite essence given to each of us separately and uniquely, a single ray from the sun’s boundless radiance? Or does Chukwu have a separate existence as ruler over a community of chi, countless as the stars and as endless in their disparate identities, holding anarchy at bay with His will?</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>One last word about Chineke which we have come to interpret as ‘God who creates’ and use as an alternative name for Chukwu. If our interpretation and use were supported by Igbo language and religious tradition the role of Chukwu as the creator would be established and the activity of chi in their multiplicity relegated to the status of mere figures of speech. Unfortunately the early missionaries who appropriated Chineke as the Creator-God of Christianity acted a little hastily, unaware that the Igbo language capable of treachery to hasty users on account of its tonality. (The story of the white preacher who kept saying that God had great buttocks when he meant strength may be apocryphal, but it makes an important point.)</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Chineke consists of three words: chi na eke. In assigning a meaning to it the crucial word is na which itself has three possible meanings. Let us examine in turn and seen what it does to Chineke:</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>(a)  Said with high tone na means who or which. Chineke will then mean ‘chi which creates’;</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>(b)  Said with low tone na can mean the auxiliary verb does, in which case Chineke will mean ‘chi does create’; and finally</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>(c)   Again said with low tone na can mean the conjunctive and.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Here something fundamental changes because eke is no longer a verb but a noun. Chineke then becomes ‘chi and eke’. The early missionaries by putting the wrong tone on that little word na escorted a two-headed, pagan god into their holy of holies!</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Now what are the grounds for making such a terrible assertion? Quite simply I have looked at traditional Igbo usage. But before I give the examples that will make clear let us take a quick look eke, this mysterious second member of the duality. What is it? I do not know for certain, but it does seem to have more or less the same attributes as chi; also it is sometimes called aka.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>We have already referred to the common name Chinwuba (chi has increase) earlier on. Another version of this name is Ekejiuba (Eke hold increase). We have also mentioned the name Nebechi (look to chi). Now, there is also Lemeke (Leweke) which would appear to be exactly the same name except that eke occurs instead of chi. It is interesting to note that the chi versions of these name occurs more in the northern and western parts of Igbo  land while eke names tend to occur more in the southern and eastern parts.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Let us turn for a moment from proper names to other sayings in which chi and eke are yoked together. If you want to curse a man in the most thorough fashion you curse his chi and his eke (or aka). That really takes care of him!</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>There is also the well-known little anecdote about the hen. Someone once asked her why it was that from daybreak to sunset she was always scratching the ground for food; was she never satisfied? To which she replied: ‘You see, my dear fellow, when I wake up in the morning I begin to look for food for my chi. When I am through with that I must then find some for my eke. By the time I finish with that too it is already sunset and I haven’t catered for myself!’</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>From the foregoing it would appear that chi and eke are very closely related deities, perhaps the same god in a twofold manifestation, such as male or female; or the duality may have come into being for the purpose of bringing two dialectical tributaries of Igbo into liturgical union. This last is particularly attractive because there exists a small number of similar ‘double-headed’ phrases each comprising two words and the conjunctive, both words being of identical meaning but drawn from two basic dialectical areas. Used in this conjunction the words immediately introduce the element of totality into their ordinary meaning. Thus ikwu na ibe stands for the entire community of kinsmen and women; ogbo na uke for the militant and aggressive band of spirit adversaries; okwu na uka for endless wrangling; nta na imo for odds and ends, etc. If indeed chi na eke should turn out to belong to this group of phrases the idea of using it to curse a man absolutely would then make a lot of sense! Which might be bad news indeed for the Christian Church in Igbo land. But it may surely draw consolation from the fact that the book of the Old Testament itself, in all its glory and dignity, ends ‘with a curse’!</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Far be it from me, however, to suggest that Chineke should be dropped at this late hour as an alternative name for Chukwu. That would be futile pedantry; for whatever doubts we may entertain about its antecedents it has certainly served generations of Christians and non-Christians in Igbo land in contemplating the nature of the all-distant Supreme Deity, whose role in the world is shrouded in mystery and metaphor. The attraction of Chineke for the early evangelists must have been its seeming lack of ambiguity on the all-important question of creation. They needed a ‘God who creates’ and Chineke stood ready at hand. But Igbo traditional thought in its own way and style did recognize Chukwu as the Supreme Creator speculating only on the modalities, on how He accomplished the work and through what agencies and intermediaries. As we have seen He appears to work through chi to create man. Similarly there are numerous suggestion in Igbo lore of Him working with man to make the world – or rather to enhance its habitability, for the work of creation was not ended in one monumental effort but goes on still, Chukwu and man talking things over at critical moments, sometimes agreeing, sometimes not. Two examples will suffice:</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>When Death first came into the world men sent a messenger to Chukwu to beg him to remove the terrible scourge. Although He was disposed to consider the matter the first request that actually got through to Him from mankind was the wrong one and once He had granted it there was no way it could be altered.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>In a study of Igbo people published in 1913 Northcote Thomas recorded the following story about Ezenri, that fascinating priest/king whose spiritual pre-eminence was acknowledge over considerable parts of Igbo land:</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Ezenri and Ezadama came from heaven and rested on an ant heap; all was water Cuku (Chukwu) asked who was sitting there and they answered ‘We are the kings of Nri and Adama’, thereupon Cuku and the kings talked. After some conversation Cuku gave them each a piece of yam; yams were at that time unknown to man, for human beings walked in the bush like animals. . . .</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Later Chukwu tells Ezenri how to plant and tend the yam but Ezenri complains that the ground is too wet; and Chukwu advises him to send Awka people – workers in iron – to blow on the earth with their bellows and make it dry.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>There is a very strong suggestion here and also in the story about the coming of death that at crucial cosmological moments Chukwu will discuss His universe with man. The moment of man’s first awareness of implications of death was such a time; but so also was the great turning point when man ceased wandering in the bush and became a settled agriculturist calling upon craft of the blacksmith to effect this momentous transition.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>And finally, at the root of it all lies that very belief we have already seen: a belief in the fundamental worth and independence of every man and of his right to speak on matters of concern to him and, flowing from it, a rejection of any form absolutism which might endanger those values. It is not surprising that the Igbo held discussion and consensus as the highest ideals of the political process. This made them ‘argumentative’ and difficult to rule. But how could they suspend for the convenience of a ruler limitations which they impose even on their gods. For as we have seen a man may talk and bargain even with his chi at the moment of his creation. And what was more, Chukwu Himself in all His power and glory did not make the world by fiat. He held conservation with mankind; he held conversation with mankind; he talked with those archetypal men of Nri and Adama and even enlisted their good offices to make the earth firm and productive.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>https://www.facebook.com/groups/theigbopeople/permalink/2000330503552186/</i></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-yuRi6T6tXj0/WReKIRcIdoI/AAAAAAAABRk/7PD3XXeFXMshQIQvjrXXc-T4ywp0u5_dACHM/s1600/FB_IMG_1494714853223.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> <img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-yuRi6T6tXj0/WReKIRcIdoI/AAAAAAAABRk/7PD3XXeFXMshQIQvjrXXc-T4ywp0u5_dACHM/s640/FB_IMG_1494714853223.jpg"> </a> </div>Enyi oha Nd'Igbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00535527241722227905noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2647774649642174769.post-67416585655813314142017-05-09T20:46:00.001+02:002017-05-09T20:59:43.698+02:00U.S. Classified Files Reveal Untold Story Of Ojukwu, Biafra By Americans, Others
<p dir="ltr"><b><i>U.S. Classified Files Reveal Untold Story Of Ojukwu, Biafra By Americans, Others</i></b></p>
<p dir="ltr"><img src="https://therepublicannews.files.wordpress.com/2017/03/ojukwuinspectsbiafraguardhonourlarge.jpg?w=600&h=362"><i></i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Biafran Head of State, LT. Col. Odumegwu Ojukwu inspects guard of honour</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i> </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><b><b><i>Secret American diplomatic dispatches, spread over 21,000 pages, provide previously unknown information about the Nigerian Civil War</i></b></b></p>
<p dir="ltr"><b><i>E</i></b><i>arly in the morning of 1 July 1967, Nigeria’s young head of state, Colonel Yakubu Gowon, was feeling uneasy in his office at the Supreme Headquarters, Dodan Barracks in Lagos. The unease was a result of his being ceaselessly pressured to authorize a military invasion of the breakaway Republic of Biafra.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Thirty officers had been recalled from courses abroad. Trains and truck convoys, bearing fuel, supplies and men, were still leaving Kano and Kaduna for the south of River Benue.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Colonel Mohammed Shuwa of the First Area Command had moved his command headquarters southwards and set it up in Makurdi. The 2nd Battalion was already headquartered in Adikpo. Schools and private homes had been commandeered for the use of Major Sule Apollo and his 4th Battalion in Oturkpo. They were itching for action. The same day, Major B.M. Usman “a member of the intimate northern group around Gowon” told the American defense attaché: “I do not know what in hell he is waiting for; the boys are all ready to go. They are only waiting on his word.”</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Members of the Supreme Military Council, who had been meeting twice daily, were waiting for his word. The whole nation was waiting. Biafra, which was on high alert, was also waiting.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>On 27 June 1967, Cyprian Ekwensi, famous writer and Biafra’s Director of Information Service, through the Voice of Biafra (formerly Enugu Radio), urged Biafrans to be prepared for an invasion on June 29 since “Northerners have often struck on 29th day of the month.” He was alluding to the day northern officers, led by Major T.Y. Danjuma, seized Gowon’s predecessor, Major- General Aguiyi-Ironsi, and killed him in a forest outside Ibadan.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Gowon, then 31, had been running the affairs of 57million Nigerians for 10 months. It had not been easy. Chief Obafemi Awolowo, his 58-year old trusted deputy and adviser, was with Okoi Arikpo and Philip Asiodu, permanent secretaries of the ministries of External Affairs and Trade and Industries respectively.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>They were preparing to put the noose on the neck of the Anglo-Dutch oil giant, Shell-BP, which had frozen royalty payments due to the Federation Account on 1 June 1967 and had offered to pay the Biafran government £250,000.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Lieutenant Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu, Biafran leader, had ordered all oil companies to start paying all royalties to Enugu because they were operating in a new country or risk heavy penalties.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><b><i>Ojukwu: Sworn in as Head of State of Biafra</i></b></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Specifically, he demanded a minimum of £2million from Shell-BP. The Federal Government had imposed an economic blockade on Biafra. It entailed barring all merchant vessels and sea tankers from sailing to and from Koko, Warri, Sapele, Escravos, Bonny, Port Harcourt, Calabar ports, which Ojukwu had declared part and parcel of Biafra.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Biafra controlled the land on which the oil installations sat; the Nigerian government controlled the coastal entrance and exit to those lands. Shell-BP was confused as to whose order should be obeyed. Sir David Hunt, the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, told his American counterpart after the meeting with the Nigerian delegation: “Awolowo is very firmly in control of Ministry of Finance and he is giving Stanley Gray, Shell’s General Manager and other experts from London a very difficult time for the past three days.” They persuaded Awolowo to accept a deal that would favour the Nigerian government and, at the same time, would predispose oil workers and the £150million investment to danger in the hands of Biafran military forces. Awolowo refused, arguing that anything short of the status quo was recognition of Biafra and concession to the rebels. As for security of investments and personnel, he argued that once royalties were paid, the Nigerian government would have the capacity to fund whatever action it would take on the rebels and Shell-BP’s investments would be safe.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Gowon paced to the large outdated map of the country by the door to his office. When he asked Awolowo to come and join his government, Awolowo said he would accept only if Gowon did something about the dominance of North over the rest of the nation. A month before, Gowon had broken up the North into six states, but the map by the door still showed the old Nigeria, with an imposing North at the top. He ran his finger around the boundaries of Biafra and asked himself: “How can I authorize an invasion of my own people?” He knew what it meant to be resented. He was not the most senior officer in the army. He was not a Muslim Hausa or Fulani from Kano, Kaduna or Sokoto. He was a Christian from one of the small minorities that dot the North and yet, events had promoted him to the position of the Head of State and Commander-in-Chief–to the chagrin of many northern officers, politicians, and emirs.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>He knew the Igbo were resented in the North for succeeding where indigenes had failed. His Igbo lover, Edith Ike, told him her life was threatened twice in Lagos since she returned from the North in March.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>According to the secret US document of 1 July 1967, Edith’s parents, having lived in the North for 30 years, where she too was born, had fled back to the East in October 1966 because of that year’s massacre of the Igbo. Not 30,000 but around 7,000 were killed, according to the American documents. Donald Patterson of the Political Section and Tom Smith of the Economic Section travelled from the US Embassy in Lagos to the North after the pogrom. “The Sabon-Garis were ghost towns, deserted, with the detritus of people, who had fled rapidly, left behind. Most Northerners we talked to had no apologies for what had happened to the Ibos, for the pogrom that had killed so many. There were exceptions, but in general, there was no remorse and the feeling was one of good riddance.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>“One day, our Hausa gardener attacked and tried to beat up our Ibo cook. We fired the gardener, but not long afterwards, the cook left for the East,” said Patterson.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Earlier that week, Gowon called the West German Ambassador in Lagos. The Germans were eager to be in the good graces of the Gowon administration. A war loomed. And in wars, buildings, roads, bridges, and other infrastructure are destroyed. These would need rebuilding. The contract for the 2nd Mainland Bridge (later called Eko Bridge) was signed two years earlier by the Ambassador, CEO of Julius Berger Tiefbau AG and Shehu Shagari, Federal Commissioner for Works and Survey. That was Julius Berger’s first contract in Nigeria. It was due for completion in less than two years and they wanted more bilateral cooperation. The ambassador assured Gowon over the phone that he had taken care of all the details and guaranteed the safety of Edith, the nation’s “First Girlfriend”.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>On the evening of 30 June, just before her departure on a commercial airline, Edith told the American Defense Attaché Standish Brooks, and his wife, Gail, that she actually wanted to go to the UK or USA, but Jack, as she affectionately called Gowon, insisted that she could be exposed to danger in either of the two countries. Germany, he reasoned, would be safer.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>To Major B.M. Usman and other northern officers around Gowon, who had attributed his slow response to the secession to the fact that his girlfriend was Igbo and that her parents were resettled in the East, it was such a huge relief that at the Supreme Military Council meeting of 3 July 1967, Gowon authorized the long awaited military campaign.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Edith had safely landed in West Germany. Gowon told the gathering: “Gentlemen, we are going to crush the rebellion, but note that we are going after the rebels, not the Ibos.” The military action, which was to become the Nigerian Civil War or the Biafran War or Operation Unicord, as it was coded in military circles, officially started on 6 July 1967 at 5 a.m.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The North was minded to use the war as a tool to reassert its dominance of national affairs. Mallam Kagu, Damboa, Regional Editor of the Morning Post, told the American consul in Kaduna: “No one should kid himself that this is a fight between the East and the rest of Nigeria. It is a fight between the North and the Ibo.” He added that the rebels would be flushed out of Enugu within six weeks. Lt. Colonel Hassan Katsina went further to say with the level of enthusiasm among the soldiers; it would be a matter of “only hours before Ojukwu and his men were rounded up”.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The northern section of the Nigerian military was the best equipped in the country. To ensure the region’s continued dominance, the British assigned most of the army and air force resources to the North. It was only the Navy’s they could not transfer. All the elite military schools were there. The headquarters of the infantry and artillery corps were there. Kaduna alone was home to the headquarters of the 1st Division of the Nigerian Army, Defense Industries Corporation of Nigeria (Army Depot), Air Force Training School and, Nigerian Defence Academy.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Maitama Sule, Minister of Mines and Power in 1966, once told the story of how Muhammadu Ribadu, his counterpart in Defence Ministry, went to the Nigerian Military School, Zaria, and the British Commandant of the school told him many of the students could not continue because they failed woefully. When Ribadu thumbed through the list, Sule said, it was a Mohammed, an Ibrahim, a Yusuf or an Abdullahi. “You don’t know what you are doing and because of this you cannot continue to head the school,” an irate Ribadu was said to have told the commandant.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Shehu Musa Yar’Adua was one of the students for whom the commandant was sacked. “You can see what Yar’Adua later became in life. He became the vice president. This is the power of forward planning,” Sule declared.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Unknown to the forward planners, according to the US documents, Ojukwu had been meticulously preparing for war as early as October 1966, after the second round of massacre in the North. He had stopped the Eastern share of revenues that were supposed to accrue to the Federation Account. By 30 April 1967, he had recalled all Igbos serving in Nigeria embassies and foreign missions and those that heeded his call were placed on the payroll of the government of Eastern Region. The 77,000 square kilometres of the Republic of Biafra–a mere 8 per cent of the size of Nigeria–was already divided into 20 provinces, with leaders selected for each. They had their own judiciary, legislative councils, ministries and ambassadors. Alouette helicopters and a B26 bomber were procured from the French Air Force through a Luxemburg trading company. Hank Warton, the German-American arms dealer, had been flying in Czech and Israeli arms via Spain and Portugal since October 1966. The military hardware, they could not get, they seized. A DC3 and a Fokker F27 were seized from the Nigerian Air Force in April. NNS Ibadan, a Nigerian Navy Seaward Defence Boat (SDB) that docked in Calabar Port, was quickly made Biafran.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu, who was supposed to be in Enugu in prison for his role in 1966 coup, joined in training recruits in Abakaliki. Foreign mercenaries were training indoctrinated old people, young men and teenagers recruited as NCOs [Non-commissioned Officers] in jungle warfare, bomb making, mortar and other artillery firing. Ojukwu, through speeches, town hall meetings, market square performances and radio broadcasts, succeeded in convincing his people that their destiny was death or a separate state. All his performances in Ghana that culminated in the Aburi Accord of January 1967, or discussions with the Awolowo-led National Conciliation Committee five months later, turned out to be ruse.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The underground war preparations, the secret arms stockpiles openly manifested themselves as Ojukwu’s stubborn refusal to accept offers or concessions during these peace meetings.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>But the Biafrans knew that their vulnerable line was along Ogoja, Ikom, Calabar, Port Harcourt, and Yenogoa. Support from the six million people making up the Eastern minorities was very much unsure. The minorities viewed their leaders in Biafra high command as traitors. And without the minorities, Biafra would be landlocked and most likely, unviable as a state. More so, their vast oil and gas resources were the reason they contemplated secession in the first place. The Biafra high command believed that if there was going to be any troop incursion from there, they are going to be transported through ship. They already had a B26 bomber to deal fire to Nigeria’s only transport ship, NNS Lokoja, anytime it approached the Biafran coastline.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The Biafrans also knew that Gowon wanted to respect the neutrality of Midwest and not invade through Niger Bridge, which would have driven the people of the Midwest into waiting Biafran hands. But if Gowon changed his mind and there was a general mobilization of the two battalions of the federal troops there, they had trustworthy men there that would alert Enugu. And if that failed, according to the US documents, the Niger Bridge had been mined using “explosives with metal covering across the roadbed at second pier out from the eastern side”.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The Biafrans also knew that the Yoruba, who were sworn enemies of the Northern hegemony, would never join the North militarily or politically against the Biafrans. When Gowon vouched to “crush the rebellion,” progressive Yoruba intellectuals deplored the language. Professor Hezekiah Oluwasanmi, Vice Chancellor of University of Ife, described the use of the word as unfortunate. Justice Kayode Eso of the Western Court of Appeal said: “Crushing the East was not the way to make Nigeria one.”</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Mr. Strong, the American consul in Ibadan, whom they had been speaking to, confidentially wrote: “As intellectuals and modernizers, they see the conflict in terms of continuing determination of conservative North to dominate the more advanced South and they expressed fear that once North subdues East, it will seek to assert outright dominance over the West. The centre of trouble might then swing back to the West, where it all started.”</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The Biafrans understood, therefore, that their strongest defence perimeter would be along Nsukka, Obudu, Gakem and Nyonya in Ogoja province, where they share border with the North. That was where they concentrated. On 8 July after three days of fighting, only four Biafran troops were dead and nine wounded in Obudu, while up to 100 Nigerian troops were dead, according to the Irish Embassy official, Eamon O’tuathail, who visited the Catholic Mission Hospital in Obudu. He said: “Forty five (45) of the dead had already been buried and the villagers were seen carrying the heads of the remaining around town.” In June before fighting started, Ojukwu charged on Biafra Radio: “Each Biafran soldier should bring back ten or twenty Hausa heads.”</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>At Nyanya, Nigerian troops attempted to seize the bridge linking Obudu and Ogoja, but were beaten back by the Biafran troops on 7 July at 1400hrs. According to the New York Times’ Lloyd Garrison’s dispatch of 8 July: “The Biafran Air Force–a lone B-26 fighter bomber–flew sorties from Enugu today, bombing and strafing enemy columns. Asked what damage it had inflicted, its European pilot replied: “Frankly, I don’t know. But we made a lot of smoke. Hundreds of Enugu pedestrians waved and cheered each time the plane returned from a mission and swooped low over the city buzzing Ogui Avenue.”</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Tunde Akingbade of the Daily Times, who was returning from the frontlines, said the first Nigerian battalion in Ogoja area was “almost completely wiped out by a combination of mines and electrical devices (Ogbunigwe)”.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>In the first few weeks of the war, the Biafrans were clearly on top. “Enugu is very calm,” the confidential cable of 13 July 1967 noted. “Ojukwu is dining with Field Commanders in State House tonight.”</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>On the federal side, confusion reigned. They had grossly underestimated Biafran capabilities. “Gowon and his immediate military advisers believe they can carry out a successful operation putting their trust in the superiority of the Hausa soldier,” the British High Commissioner, Sir David Hunt, told his American counterpart on 31 May 1967. He said further: “A northern incursion would be hastily mounted, ill-conceived and more in the nature of a foray.”</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Even the Nigerian infantry, which advanced as far as Obolo on Oturkpo-Nsukka Road, was easily repelled. It ran out of ammunition. At the Supreme Headquarters in Lagos, they were accusing Shuwa, the commander, of not sending enough information about what was going on. Shuwa counter-accused that he was not getting enough and timely orders. Requests for ammunition and hardware procurement were chaotically coming to the Federal Armament Board from different units, not collectively from the central command.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Major S.A. Alao, acting commander of Nigerian Air Force (after George Kurubo defected to Biafran High Command) together with the German adviser, Lieutenant Colonel Karl Shipp, had travelled to many European cities to buy jets. They were unsuccessful. Gowon had written to the American president for arms. The State Department declined military assistance to either side. Gowon replied that he was not requesting for assistance, but a right to buy arms from the American market. That too was rejected.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The CIA had predicted a victory for Ojukwu, but American diplomatic and consular corps in Nigeria predicted victory for the Federal side and concluded that a united Nigeria served American interests better than the one without the Eastern Region. Two conflicting conclusions from an important department and a useful agency. The American government chose to be neutral. Dean Rusk, America’s Secretary of State said: “America is not in a position to take action as Nigeria is an area under British influence.”</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The British on the other hand were foot-dragging. At the insistence of Awolowo, “the acting prime minister” as he was called in diplomatic circles, Gowon approached the Soviet Union.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>According to a secret cable (dated 24/08/67) sent by Dr. Martin Hillenbrand, American Ambassador in East Germany, to his counterpart in Lagos, MCK Ajuluchukwu, Ojukwu’s special envoy, met Soviet Ambassador to Nigeria, Alexandr Romanov, in Moscow in June 1967. Romanov said that for USSR to recognize Biafra and supply it arms, the latter had to nationalize the oil industry. Ojukwu refused, saying that he had no money to reimburse the oil companies and that Biafrans did not have the expertise to run the oil installations.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>A month later, Anthony Enahoro, the Federal Commissioner for Information and Labour, went to Moscow, signed a cultural agreement with Moscow and promised to nationalize the oil industry, including its allied industries once they got arms to recapture them from the Biafrans. Within days, 15 MiGs arrived in sections in Ikeja and Kano airports, awaiting assemblage. There was no nationalization.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Meanwhile, buoyed by the confidence from early success, the Biafrans went on the offensive. Their B26 (one of the six originally intended for use against the Nigerian Navy) was fitted with multiple canon and 50mm calibre machine gun mounts. It conducted bombing raids on Makurdi airfield, Kano and Kaduna. Luckily for Nigeria, the two transport DC3s had gone to Lagos to get more reserve mortar and 106-artillery ammo. In Kano, there were no fatalities, only a slight damage to the wing of a commercial plane.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Kaduna, however, was not that lucky. On 10 August 1967, the B26 dropped bombs on Kaduna airbase, damaging many buildings and the main hangar. The German consulate in Kaduna confirmed that a German citizen, a Dornier technician tasked with maintaining Nigerian military planes, was killed and two others injured.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>A week later, the senior traffic control officer, A.O. Amaku, was arrested for sabotage. He was accused of failing to shut off the airport’s homing device, thus giving the Biafran plane navigational assistance. His British assistant, Mr. Palfrey, was similarly suspected. He resigned and immediately returned to the UK. However, Major Obada, the airbase commanding officer and an Urhobo from the Midwest, strongly defended the accused.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The daring bomb raid provoked many more Northern civilians to run to the nearest army base and enlist to fight.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>According to a report by US Ambassador Elbert Matthews, cabled to Washington on 3 July 1967, unidentified men tried to bomb the police headquarters in Lagos on the night of 2 July. They attempted to drive an automobile into the compound, but the guards did not open the gate. They packed the car across the street near a small house opposite a petrol station. Leaving the car, the men fled and within seconds, an explosion took place. The house was demolished and all its occupants killed, but the petrol station was unaffected. Eleven people, including some of the guards at the police headquarters, were injured.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Two hours later, a second explosion, from explosives in a car parked by a petrol station, rocked Yaba. This time, the station caught fire. The ambassador remarked: “It is possible this is a start of campaign of terrorism…public reactions could further jeopardize safety of Ibos in Lagos.” And sure it did.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>A Lagos resident, who visited the police headquarters after the attack, told the Australian ambassador “Ibos must be killed.”</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>There was panic all over Lagos. Anti-Igbo riots broke out. Northern soldiers at the 2nd Battalion Barracks in Ikeja used the opportunity to launch a mini-version of the previous year’s torture and massacre of the Igbo in the North. On 7 July 1967, Lagos State governor, Lieutenant Colonel Mobolaji Johnson, condemned the bombing in a radio broadcast. “A good number of Igbos in Lagos is innocent and loyal to the federal government. It is only fair that they be allowed to go about their business unmolested so long as they abide by the law and are not agents and evildoers,” Johnson said.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>He called for Lagosians to join civil defence units and for Easterners to come and register with the police.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Meanwhile, the corpses of troops and soldiers wounded in Yahe, Wakande, Obudu and Gakem that arrived Kaduna by train on 11 July 1967 sparked enormous interest in enlistment and volunteering. Recruitment centres were established in Ibadan, Enugu, Lagos and Kano. But it was at the Kano centre, headquarters of the 4th Battalion of the Nigerian Regiment that generated the biggest number of recruits. According to the US confidential cable of 17 July 1967, 20,000 of these were veterans, who had been recruited to fight on the British side in Burma. The Burma veterans marched angrily to the recruitment offices to replace those that had been killed or injured. Around 7,000 were accepted. Of these, 5,000 were immediately sent to the frontline. They said they needed no training; only guns.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>As they advanced, towards the outskirts of Ikem, 4km southeast of Nsukka, when mortal fires from the Biafran artillery landed close by, inexperienced recruits ducked for cover behind their transport columns out of fear and incompetence in bush warfare. Not these Burma veterans. Damboa, the Regional Editor of the Morning Post, was embedded with some of these veterans under the command of Major Shande, formerly of the 5th Battalion, Kano, which Ojukwu commanded in 1963.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>One day, at about 2a.m, Biafran forces began firing from the jungle in the hope of drawing a return fire if the enemy was ahead. “But the veterans were too smart and began to creep towards the source of firing. After some time, the Biafran troops began to advance thinking that there were no federal troops ahead since there was no return of fire. They walked straight into the pointing guns of these veterans, their fingers squeezed the triggers,” said Damboa to a US Consulate officer named Arp.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>These veterans were shooting at innocent Igbo civilians, too. Damboa further told Arp, when he came back from the frontlines on 17 September 1967, that “federal troops were shooting most Ibo civilians on sight, including women and children except for women with babies in their arms. Initially they observed the rules laid down by Gowon on the treatment of civilians. Then, after the takeover of the Midwest, they heard stories that Ibo soldiers had killed all the northerners they found residing in the Midwest. Since that time, Federal troops have been shooting Ibo civilians on sight,” added Damboa.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><b><i>The Midwest Invasion</i></b></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Something was happening to Biafran soldiers, which the Federal troops observed but could not explain. Indeed, the fortunes of the Federal troops were improving. Colonel Benjamin Adekunle’s 3rd Marine Commando had landed on 25 July 1967 at Bonny Island, establishing a heavy presence of federal forces in the creeks. Two L29 Delfins fighter jets from Czechoslovakia (NAF 401 and NAF 402) were at the Ikeja Airport and battle ready.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Five more, on board Polish vessel Krakow, were a week away from the Apapa Ports. Major Lal, an ammunition ordnance officer seconded from the Indian Army to Nigeria, had arrived from Eastern Europe, where he had gone to acquire information necessary to utilize Czech aerial ordnance. Sections of 15 Soviet MiG bombers hidden in NAF hangars were being assembled by 40 Russian technicians lodging in Central Hotel, Kano. Bruce Brent of Mobil Oil was flying jet oil to Kano to fuel these bombers. Captain N.O. Sandburg of Nigerian Airlines had flown in seven pilots, who had previously done mercenary work in South Africa and Congo, to fly the MiGs. Names, birthdates and passport numbers of 26 Russians, who were to serve as military advisors had been passed to Edwin Ogbu, Permanent Secretary, External Affairs Ministry. They were in Western Europe awaiting a direct flight to Lagos.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>But George Kurubo, the Federal Air Force Chief of Staff, who had earlier joined the Biafran high command, had defected back to the fold and had been sent to Moscow as ambassador to facilitate the flow of more arms from the Soviets.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Lt. Colonel Oluwole Rotimi, Quartermaster-General of the Nigerian Army, went to western Europe with a fat chequebook.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>What followed was the arrival of Norwegian ship, Hoegh Bell, bearing 2,000 cases of ammunition; and British ship, Perang, which discharged its own 2000 cases of ammunition. A German ship Suderholm also arrived. Those in charge of it claimed she was in Apapa to offload gypsum. But the US defense attaché reported that it was carrying “300 tonnes of 60mm and 90mm ammo.” The Ghanaian vessel, Sakumo Lagoon, was already in Lome, heading to Apapa to discharge its own ammo. A cache of 1,000 automatic fabriquenationale rifles had arrived Lagos by air on 8 August 1967 from the UK.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Speaking secretly to UK Defence Attaché, Lt. Colonel Ikwue said he too had gone to the German Defence Firm, Merex, to buy ammunition: 106mm US recoilless rifles at $86 per round; 84mm ammo for the Carl Gustav recoilless rifles at $72 per round; 105mm HEAT- High Explosive Anti-Tank warheads at $47 per round. Ikwue also bought three English Electra Canberra, eight Mark II Bombers at $105,000 each, 15 Sabre MK VI-T33 Jets at $100,000 each.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>With all of these, Awolowo, rejected Hassan Katsina’s request for funding of 55, 000 more rifles for new recruits. However, he agreed once Gowon intervened and assured him it was not a request inspired by fraudulent intentions.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Federal troops had captured Nsukka, 56km from Enugu. Over 200 non-Igbo Biafran policemen had fled across the Mamfe border into Cameroun. In Ogoja, the Ishibori, Mbube and other non-Igbo Biafrans welcomed the federal troops after driving out the Biafran troops in a fierce battle.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The Biafrans blew up the bridge over the Ayim River at Mfume as they retreated.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The momentum was with the Federal side, but they knew their victories were not only because of their military superiority. At critical stages of battle, even when the Biafrans were clearly winning, they suddenly withdrew. An instance was on 15 July 1967, to the west of Nsukka on the route to Obolo. According to a conversation Colonel J.R. Akahan, Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff, had with British Defence Advisor, the Nigerian infantry companies of the 4th Battalion, totally unaware of the presence of the 8th Battalion of the Biafran army, were buried under a hail of bullets and mortar.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Yet, the Biafran forces began to retreat. This enabled the remnants of the federal infantry company to regroup and successfully counter-attack. Even more senior Biafran commanders that should have been aware that the area had come under federal control were driving into the arms of the federal side. Nzeogwu and Tome Bigger (Ojukwu’s half-brother) were victims of the mysterious happening. Ojukwu initially put this down to breakdown of communication in the chain of command. During a special announcement over Biafran radio on 15 July 1967, Ojukwu said: “Yesterday, a special attack, which would have completely sealed the doom of enemy troops in the Nsukka sector of the northern front, was ruthlessly sabotaged by a mysterious order from the army high command…Our valiant troops were treacherously exposed to enemy flanks.”</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>At 9.30p.m on 8 August 1967, Biafran forces invaded the Midwest. In the recollection of Major (Dr.) Albert Nwazu Okonkwo, military administrator of Midwest, made available in confidence through an American teacher living in Asaba to Clinton Olson, Deputy Chief of Mission in Lagos on 1 November 1967, it was known by 4 August 1967 in Asaba that the Midwest, West and Lagos would soon be invaded.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>On 5 August, Ojukwu had warned the Midwest government, headed by Colonel David Ejoor, that if northern troops were allowed to stay in the Midwest, the region would become a battleground. Many Midwestern officers knew of the plans; some of them had gone to Biafra earlier to help in the preparations. Lt Col. Nwawo, Commander of the Fourth Area Command at Benin, was probably aware. Lt Col. Okwechime, according to the document, certainly knew of it. Lt Col. Nwajei did not know and was never trusted by the anti-Lagos elements in the Midwest. “After the Biafran takeover, Nwajei was sent back to his village of Ibusa, where he was said to be engaged in repainting his home until just the arrival of Nigerian troops in the area,” disclosed the document.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Major Albert Okonkwo, later appointed military administrator, did not know in advance. Lieutenant (later Major) Joseph Isichei and Lieutenant Colonel Chukwurah were not informed in advance. “Major Samuel Ogbemudia participated in the invasion, properly by prior agreement,” the document stated.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>That night of 8 August, Biafran army units blazed across the Onitsha Bridge and disarmed the Asaba garrison that was then stationed at St Peter’s Teachers’ Training College. Then they went on to the Catering Rest House, where Midwest officers were living, and disarmed the officers. The only exception was Major Asama, the local commander, who escaped and drove to Agbor at about 22.30hrs.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>There were no casualties except for one officer with a gunshot wound in the leg. The invading force drove to Agbor, where it split into three columns. One column drove northwards towards Auchi and Aghenebode. A second column went to Warri and Sapele.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>“The main force led by Victor Banjo was supposed to drive on to Benin and capture Ijebu-Ode, reach Ibadan on 9 August, reach Ikeja near Lagos by 10 August, setting up a blockade there to seal off the capital city,” the document quoted Okonkwo as saying.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>However, this main column stopped in Agbor for six hours, reaching Benin at dawn. There was no real resistance in Benin, where no civilian was killed. The main column left Benin for Ijebu-Ode early in the afternoon. It stopped at Ore, just at the Western Region’s border.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>According to US Defense Attaché report, three weeks before, Ejoor informed the Supreme Headquarters that he had information that Ojukwu was planning to send soldiers in mufti to conquer the Midwest. So, the 3rd Battalion, which was heading towards the Okene – Idah route to join the 1st Division on the Nsukka frontline, was ordered to stop at Owo. The first Recce Squadron from Ibadan, which had already reached Okene, was reassigned to take care of any surprise in the Midwest. By the time Lagos heard of the invasion, this squadron was quickly upgraded from company strength to a battalion, with troops of Shuwa’s 1st Division across the river, and another battalion was stationed at Idah to hold a defensive alignment against any Biafran surprise from Auchi.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Upon receiving the telephone call from Major Asama about the Biafran invasion at Asaba, Ejoor hurriedly left his wife and children at the State House, went to his friend, Dr Albert Okonkwo at Benin Hospital to borrow his car. He then sought asylum in the home of Catholic Bishop of Benin, Patrick Kelly.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>In his first radio address to the people of Midwest on 9 August 1967, Banjo said Ejoor was safe and “efforts were being made to enlist his continued service in Midwest and in Nigeria.” Ejoor stayed in the seminary next door to the bishop’s house for almost two weeks, receiving visitors including Banjo, Colonels Nwawo and Nwajei, Major (Dr.) Okonkwo, who were trying to persuade him to make a speech supporting the new administration.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Ejoor refused. He was told that he was free to go wherever he wished without molestation. Not trusting what they might do, he went back to Isoko his native area, where he remained till federal forces captured it on 22 September 1967.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Before Banjo knew the full score, he met with Mr. Bell, UK Deputy High Commissioner, the evening of Benin invasion. Bell summarized his and Banjo’s words as:</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>a. There were no fatal casualties though some were wounded.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>b. Ejoor and two senior officers were not in Benin when Eastern troops arrived. Bell had firm impression that they had been warned about the day’s event.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>c. All the Midwest is now under the control of combined East/Midwest forces.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>d. East was asked to cooperate by certain Midwest officers because an invasion of the Midwest by the North was imminent.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>e. That he does not agree with Ojukwu on the separate existence of Biafra. He is convinced that a united Nigeria is essential.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>f. Bell said he saw only three officers at the army headquarters: one was a Midwestern medical officer (Major Okoko). All others were Easterners.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Meanwhile when Banjo made the first radio address, he announced the impending appointment of a military administrator, but there was considerable difficulty among the Biafran and Midwestern leaders in selecting a suitable man.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>First choice was to be someone from the Ishan or Afemai areas. Someone from the Delta was next, preferably an Ika-Igbo. However, the stalemate continued until Ojukwu intervened and selected Albert Okonkwo. Ojukwu knew Okonkwo only by reputation.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Okonkwo had certain things that recommended him. First, he had an American wife, which cut the family/tribe relationship problem of those times in half. Second, he was considered to be politically “sterile,” having been in the US for 13 years and was not associated with any political party or faction. Third, he was commissioned a captain in the medical corps on 2 October 1965 and just made a Major on 22 June 1967. The implication was that he was not tainted by army politics. He was also very pro-Biafra.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>As soon as Okonkwo became military administrator, Banjo was recalled to Enugu to explain the failure of the military campaign. During his absence, the Midwest Administration was established (an Advisory Council and an Administrative Council). Banjo succeeded in convincing Biafran leaders in Enugu that his halt at Ore had been dictated by military expediency. He then returned to the Midwest front. Banjo informed Okonkwo of the military situation through Major Isichei, Chief of Staff of the Midwest. Isichei later commented that he had noticed that Banjo’s headquarters staff never discussed plans or operations in his presence. Through Isichei, Banjo told Okonkwo that Auchi had been lost after a fierce battle when, in fact, it was not defended at all.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Suspicions began to thicken around Banjo. Okonkwo, in a confidential statement made available to the Americans, said he also noticed that Banjo obtained money by requisition from him for materials, food and officers salaries’, thus drawing on the Midwest treasury. On 19 September, when Okonkwo telephoned Enugu, he discovered from the Biafran Army HQ that Banjo was simultaneously drawing funds from Biafra for all these supplies. Okonkwo sent Major Isichei to arrest Banjo for embezzlement, but they found that he had already left Benin and had left orders for all Midwest and Biafran soldiers to fall back to Agbor.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Okonkwo ordered his Midwest government to move from Benin to Asaba, which it did that day. The seat of the government was behind the textile factory, in homes once inhabited by expatriates. In August, Okonkwo tape-recorded five broadcasts to be used when possible. Those included the Declaration of Independence and the Proclamation of the Republic of Benin, as well as a decree setting up a Benin Central Bank, a Benin University, etc. The Republic of Benin Proclamation was delayed while the consent of the Oba of Benin was sought. Finally, just when the Oba had been convinced that the Republic was “best for his people,” the actions of Banjo were discovered and the Midwest seemed about to be lost, or at least Benin was undefended. Okonkwo went ahead with the broadcast early on 20 September 1967 in order to record for history that the Midwest was separate from Biafra. It was the last act of his government in Benin.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Early afternoon on 9 August, Banjo’s main force left Benin for Ijebu-Ode. It was composed of both Biafran and Midwest units. Midwest troops, who were mostly Igbo, had joined the “liberation army”. Commanding the Midwest forces with Banjo was Major Samuel Ogbemudia, who had been nursing the idea of defection. When the troops reached Ore and halted, Ogbemudia disappeared to later rejoin the Nigerian Army. Lt. Col Bisalla, acting Chief of Army Staff, confirmed that Ogbemudia, in the morning of 9 August, telephoned him precisely at 7:20am to inform him of the “trouble in Benin.”</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>According to Standish Brooks, the US Defense Attaché, Ogbemudia was the first Nigerian officer to attend American Military School’s counterinsurgency course in Fort Bragg, 1961. Brooks said after his arrival in Lagos on 9 September 1967, Ogbemudia said: “He escaped with a small group of non-Ibo troops from the Benin garrison and have been waging a guerrilla warfare against Eastern units. Having run out of ammo, he made his way back to Lagos.”</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Army Headquarters believed him and Brooks’ report further stated: “Ogbemudia would be sent to the headquarters of Second Division in Auchi to assist in operational planning because of his intimate knowledge of the Midwest area and his recent experience in the Midwest under Eastern control.”</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>From 20 September onwards, the Midwest and Biafran Army began to fall apart. The 17th Battalion in Ikom mutinied and fled. So did the 12th and 16th Battalion in the Midwest.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>In the evening of 22 September, the Midwest paymaster, Col. Morah, from Eze near Onicha Olona, offered an American expatriate in Asaba £3, 000 if the American would arrange for Morah to get $5,000 upon his arrival in the United States. This would have been a profit of about $3, 400 to the American. The offer was refused. Later on September 25, Morah disappeared with £33, 000, the document said. This was the time six NAF planes went on reconnaissance and reported back to the Defence Headquarters that they had noticed “heavy movements of civilians over the bridge from Asaba to Onitsha,” but did not have the details. On 27 September, Okonkwo called a meeting of all Midwest civil servants, where he said if the Nigerian Army reached Agbor, he would close the Onitsha Bridge. He would not let the civil servants abandon the population of Asaba to the inevitable massacre when the Federal Army reached the town. The people of Asaba knew by this time of the killings of Igbos in Benin when the federal forces reached it on 20 September. Everyone assumed that it would happen in Asaba.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>From 20 September, there were no Biafran soldiers stationed west of Umunede, east of Agbor.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>On 1 October, Midwest commanders in Umunede and Igueben, south of Ubiaja on the Auchi-Agbor Road, fled from their positions. Their Biafran subordinates promptly retreated. Constant streams of retreating Biafran and Midwest troops filed through Asaba on 2 and 3 October. The Biafrans were usually mounted in vehicles, while the Midwesterners had to walk. The attitude of the Biafran soldiers and officers was that they would not fight for the Midwest if the Midwest Army did not want to fight. In Asaba on 2 October, the elders and chiefs met to consider sending a delegation to the approaching Nigerian Army to surrender the town and ask for protection in return for help in finding and capturing Biafran soldiers in the town. Cadet Uchei, who brought soldiers to stop the delegation with death threats, thwarted this effort. At this time, some 35 non-Igbos were rounded up and given shelter at St. Patrick’s College, Asaba.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Twice, Cadet Uchei brought soldiers to kill the refugees and arrest the Americans in charge of the school. On the first occasion, Lt. Christian Ogbulo, ADC to Okonkwo, stopped the attempt. Cadet Williams from Ogwashi-Uku brought soldiers to rescue only the Americans from Uchei’s second attempt. Also on 2 October, Col. Chukwurah, who had been the commanding officer at Agbor, came to Asaba and told the Midwest Army HQ staff that he had overthrown Okonkwo and he was now military governor of the Midwest. Chukwurah fled across the bridge to Biafra before nightfall.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Only two of the officers of the Midwest Army were known not to have fled from battle during the campaign: Major Joe Isichei (who was a Lieutenant on August 9) and Lt-Col. Joe Achuzia. Gathering a few soldiers, they attempted to shoot their way out. Okwechime was seen in Onitsha at this time; he had been wounded. By the evening of 2 October, the Midwest Army was completely dissolved.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>From 6 a.m on 4 October, machine gun-and mortar fire was heard near Asaba, but the direction was uncertain. It was later discovered that the firing came from Asaba-Isele-Uku Road. At about 1p.m, as the staff members of St. Patrick’s College were leaving the dining room, the first mortar shell landed on the school football field. Mortar shelling continued until dusk. Federal troops reached the northern edge of the campus, along the Asaba-Agbor Road, at about 5p.m. By noon of 5 October, there were six battalions lining up on the road in front of the college, according to Captain Johnson, who was third in command of the 71st Battalion. By the evening of 6 October, Federal forces held the road all the way into the Catholic Mission, two miles inside Asaba. Biafran resistance west of the Niger was over.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Major Alani Akinrinade commanded the 71st Battalion. (Akinrinade in a clarification, said his command was the 6th Brigade and truly he was in Asaba at this time.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>His second in command was a Tiv officer, older than Alani. The men of this battalion were mostly Yoruba and Tiv, with some Delta (Ijaw) men. “Most spoke English. They were disciplined, courageous and polite,” the American report stated.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Captain Johnson ordered the Americans to leave Asaba by the morning of 6 October. The reason was understood to be that the 71st Battalion was unable to guarantee their safety from the “second wave” of federal soldiers, known as “the Sweepers” coming behind. “The Sweepers” were only briefly observed, but they wore long hair, had “cross-hatching tribal marks on both cheeks” and apparently willing to live up to their reputation as “exterminators.” According to secret cables sent from American embassies in Niger and Chad to the Embassy and consulates in Nigeria, thousands of Nigeriens and Chadians crossed the border to enlist for the war.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Ten trucks of Nigerien soldiers were seen being transported for service in the Nigerian Army from Gusau to Kaduna and over 2,000 more waiting on Niger-Nigeria border for transportation to Kaduna. The secret document went on: “1,000 Chadian soldiers passed through Maiduguri en route Kaduna. These mercenary soldiers constituted the “Sweepers.” The captured American teachers aptly observed that there were soldiers regarded as fighting soldiers and there were other units that came behind to conduct mass exterminations.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Major Alani, it was understood, was trying to get as many civilians as possible into the bush before the sweepers could arrive.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>On the 5 October, when they came, a lieutenant attempted to arrest the American teachers at St. Patrick’s College and their non-Igbo refugees, who had hidden from retreating but still vicious Biafran troops.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Captain Johnson quickly summoned Major Alani. The lieutenant claimed to be acting for a “Major Jordane,” but a check proved this as false. Alani sent the lieutenant and his men away and posted a guard to the school until the staff and refugees left Asaba. There were too many civilians to be executed that Captain Paul Ogbebor and his men were asked to get rid of a group of several hundred Asaba citizens rounded up on 7 October. Not wanting to risk insubordination, he marched the contingent into the bush, told the people to run and had his men fire harmlessly into the ground. Eyewitness accounts confirmed that he performed the same life-saving deception in Ogwashi-Uku.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>However, other civilian contingents the sweepers rounded up were shot behind the Catholic Mission and their bodies thrown into the Niger River. This incident and many others were reported to Colonel Arthur Halligan, the US military attaché in Nigeria at that time, the document concluded.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>At night on 19 September, Banjo was arrested in Agbor. He was court martialed in Enugu three days later. Okonkwo participated in the court-martial and Ojukwu was present too. Banjo was found guilty, together with Emmanuel Ifeajuna (“the man from Ilaah who shot Abubakar” –the Prime Minister), Phillip Alale and Sam Agbam.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Bob Barnard, American consul in Enugu, said Ojukwu told him that he ordered the killing of Banjo, Ifeajuna, Alale and Agbam because they had planned to oust him from office, oust Gowon as well and install Awolowo as Prime Minister. The American military attaché, Arthur Halligan and Brooks, the Defense Attaché who had some prior intimation of the coup cabled the Defense Intelligence Agency in Washington 3 August 1967 that “in the long run, Njoku will unseat Ojukwu.”</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Ojukwu told Barnard: “The plotters intended to take Brigadier Hillary Njoku, the head of Biafran Army into custody and bring him to the State House under heavy armed guard ostensibly to demand of him that Njoku be relieved of command on the grounds of incompetence.” They had been behind the withdrawal of troops and reverses of prior Biafran victories. He continued: “Once inside the State House, Njoku’s guards would be used against him. Ifeajuna would then declare himself acting Governor and offer ceasefire on Gowon’s terms. Banjo would go to the West and replace Brigadier Yinka Adebayo, the military governor of Western Region. Next, Gowon would be removed and Awolowo declared Prime Minister of Reunited Federation…Victor Banjo, Ifeajuna and others kept in touch with co-conspirators in Lagos via British Deputy High Commission’s facilities in Benin.”</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>When the American consul asked Ojukwu for evidence, Ojukwu replied: “Banjo is a very meticulous man who kept records and notes of everything he did. The mistake of the plotters was they talked too much, their moves too conspicuous and they made notes. As a result, the conspirators came under surveillance from the early stages of the plot’s existence. Their plans then became known and confirmed by subsequent events.”</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>In a separate document, Clint Olson, American Deputy Chief of Mission wrote: “Much of the information recounted came from Major (Dr.) Okonkwo. Banjo freely admitted in his testimony that a group of Yorubas on both sides of the battle were plotting together to take over Lagos and Enugu governments and unite Nigeria under Chief Awolowo. Gowon, Ojukwu, and Okonkwo were to be eliminated; Gowon was to have been killed by Yoruba officers in the Federal Army.”</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The document stated further: “When arrested on the night of 19 – 20th September, Banjo offered no resistance because he said then it was too late to stop the affair and the plot was already in motion. His role, Banjo said, was already accomplished. As far as is known, Banjo died without revealing the names of his collaborators in Lagos.”</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Before Banjo got to Enugu after his arrest, Okonkwo had telephoned Gowon to warn him of a threat to his life. Okonkwo said he was afraid that the assassination of Gowon would prevent the Heads of State Mission of the Organization of African Unity from coming to Nigeria. The OAU mission held the best hope of resolving the war, Okonkwo believed.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Whether Ojukwu knew of or agreed with Okonkwo’s warning to Gowon was not known. However according to the American Olson, roadblocks appeared in many places in Lagos and were severely enforced. They were removed after about 48 hours as mysteriously as they had appeared.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Gowon, in an exclusive interview with New Nigeria after Banjo revealed himself as the head of an invading army, said he once met Banjo and Ojukwu in 1965 during the crisis that followed the 1964 parliamentary elections. They were discussing the merits of the army taking over governance.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Meanwhile on 10th August 1967, at 9:25pm NNS Lokoja, (Nigeria’s only landing craft) left Lagos again with supplies to reinforce the activities of Adekunle’s 3Marine Commandos(3MCDS). Two weeks before, she had taken two battalions – the first consignment of the 35,000 men strong Division to Bonny. The Biafran Navy comprised speedboats, tug boats, barges commandeered from the oil companies and canoes and rafts of fishermen.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>NNS Ibadan a Second World War British navy Seaward Defence Boat with a 40/60mm Bofors anti-aircraft forehead that could hardly fire three rounds without jamming was the command ship of this Navy. She was proudly rechristened BNS Biafra. Commander Winifred Anuku, head of the Biafran Navy had mapped out a plan to arm an old dilapidated dredging ship with hidden artilleries and several companies in its well and deck fittings. Seeing it was old and non-military, one of the NNS enforcing the blockade would be confident to approach her and interrogate her, they reckoned. Then they would quickly open fire on the upper deck of the Nigerian ship, over power her and walk her to their Naval Dockyard in Port Harcourt as the new Biafran sea jewel. Three days in sea, no NNS approached. Lt Cdr P.J. Odu the commander of this planned piracy reported back to Anuku: “no enemy ship sighted 20miles offshore.” He then dismissed the naval blockade as “propaganda to convince friendly countries from sending shipments of arms.” When James Parker, the UK Deputy High Commissioner stationed in Enugu and Bob Barnard, his American counterpart met Ojukwu and asked him about the rumoured invasion from the sea, Ojukwu simply spread his teeth surrounded by his bushy beard. “He laughed at the thought that the Nigerian Navy could enforce a blockade of Biafran ports or mount amphibious on Biafran coasts with its winding creeks and primordial mangrove swamp running twenty miles inland,” Barnard wrote. “He said he doesn’t know where the Nigerian naval vessels go when they depart Lagos but they are not, repeat, not patrolling off the coast of Biafra.”</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Unknown to the Biafrans, NNS Penelope the command ship of the Nigerian Navy had been summoned with all her sisters including the five taking turns to enforce the blockade to the Naval Dockyard in Apapa. By 1800hrs on 18th July 1967, they were all there. Also assembled were three merchant vessels from the Nigerian National Shipping Line, King Jaja, Oranyan, Bode Thomas and later Oduduwa and Warigi from Farrell Lines. They were there to rehearse a joint Army and Navy amphibious operation which was later variously described as “masterpiece in the history of warfare in Africa, ”“the first of its kind by any 3rd world country,” “the African version of Omaha Beach landings that turned the tide of the Second World War.”</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>By the 25th July, the invasion to stamp Federal boots on the Niger Delta and close in on Biafra from the south was launched. The three Seaward Defence Boats(SDBs) NNS Ogoja, Benin, Enugu, proceeded into Bonny river channel while NNS Nigeria, a frigate, stood on the high seas guarding NNS Lokoja with its human cargo. Because of her longer range 4 inch battery, Nigeria was still able to provide support for the operational objectives of the three SDBs ahead. NNS Ogoja the largest of the SDB spotted BNS Biafra heading downstream. She quickly sheared away from the convoy to engaged her. Once Biafra came within her range, Ogoja volleyed thunderous shots in rapid successions and Biafra replied feebly and its Bofors guns kept on jamming after three shots. Akin Aduwo commanding Ogoja and P.J. Odu commanding Biafra were colleagues and very good friends for years and the war had made them reached a point where one must destroy the other for the greater glory of his country.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>While the engineers were fixing this jam, Biafra was trying to quickly manoeuvre round in a tight circle so that it won’t be in a broadsides range with Ogoja hence becoming a turkey shoot. Then she got stuck in the shallow end of the river. Adunwo depressed his guns, fired low at the stern to jam the engines and propellers. That ensured Biafra was going nowhere again. His friend and his crew quickly deserted the ship and escaped into the swamps. The tow tug boat Abdul Maliki later came to tow BNS Biafra back to Naval Dockyard in Lagos where it was rechristened NNS Ibadan. Ogoja returned to join Benin and Enugu never realising that the fight between friends, the desertion of Biafra, its rechristening in Lagos would be the metaphor for the 30 months civil war.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The heavy fire from Enugu, Benin and Ogoja so thoroughly subdued the Biafran defensive positions on Bonny Island that resistance to the NNS Lokoja’s troop landings were too scattered to make an impact. Not only was this D Company under the Biafran 8th Battalion of Port Harcourt too small to defend Bonny, they went on offensive when the ships were not within range, hence easily giving away their stations. Hence Federal SDBs didn’t have to recourse to indiscriminate shelling to subdue the island which may have affected the oil installations and refinery jetties. US Defence Attaché’s noted in his secret report of 27th July 1967, Gowon, was “overjoyed” when Adekunle reported that Bonny had been taken with “no damage to the oil installations.” All the 16 storage tanks with their 3.9 million crude oil were intact. Quickly, they consolidated their positions on both sides of the river channel and by mid-morning 5th August, Dawes Island which controls river channels leading to Okrika were in Adekunle’s hands.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>On the 10th of August, Adekunle received report from Supreme Headquarters that a whole Biafran Brigade had crossed the Niger Bridge and they had split in Agbor. Some battalions were heading northwards towards Auchi and Agenebode, some were heading westwards to Benin and more pertinently to him, some were heading southwards to Warri and Sapele. So the 3MCDs made immediate plans to respond to this Biafran surprise. First Adekunle knew that this Biafran invasion may be a tactical objective whose overall mission imperative was the recapture of Bonny. Biafran Navy Headquarters in Port Harcourt cannot feel safe knowing that a Nigerian brigade was stationed 35km away at Bonny. What Adekunle did was to quickly redeploy the 7th and 32nd battalions to the Forcados and Escravos creeks 166 nautical miles away to contain any advance of Biafran troops to the creeks. The 8th battalion proceeded to hold a defensive alignment with Port Harcourt.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Major Abubakar’s 9th Battalion left to hold Bonny Island and perform rear operations. The NNS that were bringing in supplies, equipment, personnel were re-routed 166 nautical miles back to Forcados and Escravos. The Nigerian national line cargo vessel, Oranyan which on the 8th of August had departed from Lagos and arrived in Bonny with supplies, equipment and some personnel was ordered unload at the village of Sobolo-Obotobo which is northwest of Forcados. At 6:30am on the 11th of August, NNS Enugu had left Bonny River and was on recce in Escravos River in case there were militarised speedboats, tugs or barges lurking somewhere. None. At 9am, NNS Lokoja disgorged two additional rifle companies at Escravos and they quickly established defensive positions there. On the 13th of August, MV Bode Thomas added more supplies, equipment and personnel reinforcements. The build-up continued.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>To the annoyance of Adekunle who arguably was the most successful war commanders in Nigeria’s military history, a new Division was created and called 2nd Division headed by Lt Col Murtala Muhammad while his own formation despite the success of his mission so far was not upgraded to a Divisional strength. With the addition of 31st and 33rd Battalion, he was upgraded to 3rd Marine Commando Division. Muhammad’s 2nd comprised three brigades 4th, 5th, 6th Brigades commanded by Lt Cols Godwin Ally, Francis Aisida, Alani Akinrinade. Their mission imperative was to rout the Biafran forces from the Midwest by invading from the West, Northwest and North.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Ally’s 4th Brigade (which was to be later commanded by Major Ibrahim Taiwo CO of the 10th Battalion because a sniper fire hit Ally in the chest in Asaba and almost killed him) was on the Ore, Ofosu, Okitipupa sector holding a defensive alignment against Banjo’s advance. Akinrinade’s 6th Brigade was tasked with Owo-Akure sector and Aisida’s 5th was the command Brigade in Okene with Auchi, Ubiaja being their strategic objectives and Benin, Agbor, and Asaba being their operational objectives. All the brigade commanders were waiting for a sign. In his report of 24th August 1967, Standish Brooks, US defence Attaché wrote: “Murtala Muhammad does not want to fight a piecemeal campaign without a series of logical and successive objectives being assigned and without reasonable capabilities to achieve the objectives at hand.” Bisalla, the Chief of Staff(Army) said of Murtala, I know him “when he starts he wants to go all the way to the River[Niger] before he even thinks of stopping.” But he needed the sign first and his brigade commanders were waiting too. Tick-tock.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Besides the military communication units, the army headquarters in Lagos, at times used the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation to transmit information to all the divisional headquarters and brigade commanders. It could be done during radio programmes, news bulletins or radio jingles. They public heard these secret codes but they thought they were part of the show. But on the 20th of September 1967, at 8 o’clock in the morning NBC broadcast the sign the field commanders had been waiting for. “The frogs are swimming; the frogs are swimming.” The CIA’s Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS)monitored and recorded key signals, statements and speech about the war from every radio station in Nigeria, Biafra and neighbouring countries. And they shared them with American Diplomatic/Consular units, CICSTRIKE (Commander In Chief STRIKE – Swift Tactical Response In Every Known Environment), ACSI (Assistant Chief of Staff, Intelligence), CINCMEAFSA(Commander in Chief Middle East/South Asia and Africa South of the Sahara) and DIA (Defence Intelligence Agency). Standish Brooks, their Attaché posted to Nigeria analysed The frogs are swimming intelligence thus: “this informed the 2nd Division and the guerrilla bands operating in various areas of the Midwest that elements of Adekunle’s 3rd Division are already ashore from the Escravos/Forcados creeks.”</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Hastily marshalled Midwestern militias had been dealing fires to the Biafran occupiers. It was reported that Urhobo, Ijaw and Itsekiri swimmers were diving underwater and organising surprising attacks on Biafran units and formations along the Ethiope River. In Benin too they reminded themselves they were the city of Ovonramwen Nogbaisi and these Biafran forces were the latest version of the British expedition forces of the 19th century. And so rapidly, young men were organising themselves as into deadly underground resistance groups, old people who could not fight were contributing money and their dane guns; young women like Moremi were reported to be offering their bodies to get close to these Biafran forces and poison their food. The Midwest must be made inhospitable for Biafran agenda.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The frogs are swimming. Adekunle and his 3MCDOs left their Escravos base at 3am and they were blazing towards their objectives on speedboats. The boats held a platoon of 26 troops and the ones that carried a Land Rover each could only take 12 soldiers. With NNS Enugu providing the operational support, seven hours later, they had secured the ports of Koko and Sapele. They forked into two columns: One headed towards Warri and by 22nd of September, they had captured the Warri port and the ECN power station in Ughelli. The frogs are swimming. The other column headed northeast to Agbor on Sapele/Agbor Road. And a northern column from the 6th Brigade of the 2nd Division was heading south east to Agbor too via Ehor-Agbor Road. The following day, 26th of September 1967, Agbor fell. To keep up the momentum, Lagos send in 5000 German G3 7.62 rifles to be issued to marine commandoes. The riverine operation of the 3MCDs was billed to be defining in its ruthless efficiency because the federal government wanted to use it especially to send a message to the oil companies suspending royalty payments who their boss was: Nigeria or Biafra. The American secret cable of 3rd July stated that Shell-BP was convinced that “Biafra was here to stay and that Ojukwu would be kind to the company.”</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The 2nd Division too had been moving rapidly on its objectives. The frogs are swimming. After the fall of Ubiaja, Muhammad divided the new 8th Brigade reassigned from the 5th Brigade into two columns. As of the night of 21st September 1967, a column was at the village of Ekpon 20km away from Agbor on Uromi-Agbor Road. The other column was at that time was in the village of Ebu blazing towards Asaba which was 40km away. Elements of the 6th brigade were at Okeze village heading towards Agbor after capturing Benin. In seven days, Ore, Benin, Agbor, Asaba, Kwale, Warri, Sapele fell; Ojukwu fled.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The 3MCDs were asked to pull back from Agbor and Kwale and the Ethiope River was made into the interdivisional boundary with the 2nd Division. On 29th September at 1550hrs, CIA’s Foreign Broadcast Information Service recorded Adekunle on Benin Radio warning Midwesterners: “not to take advantage of the presence of federal troops to engage in looting, murder, and other criminalities.” Addressing the people of Warri, western Ishekiri, Agbor, he warned against using soldiers to achieve “personal vendettas.” Adekunle reminded his listeners that “he has powers to impose martial law in coastal areas but does not wish to do so.” He then signed himself off as General Officer Commanding Nigerian Coastal Sector.” It wasn’t only Adekunle made Colonel after the successful Bonny Island landing that promoted himself again without the approval of Lagos. On 21st of September, Murtala Mohammed went on the same Benin Radio, as monitored by the CIA, to “officially confirm the complete liberation of the Midwestern state except Agbor and Asaba” as the GOC of the second division when he was only a lieutenant Colonel. He then announced “on behalf of the head of the Federal military government” the appointment of “Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Ogbemudia as the temporary administrator.” Gowon and the federal executive council were reported to have been “shocked” but they “regularised the appointment since Ogbemudia was the most appropriate for the job.” Another document titled Military Campaign in the Midwest recorded “Ogbemudia’s father is of mixed Benin-Ika extraction, as his home village near Agbor is inhabited by a tribally mixed people. Ogbemudia’s mother is ‘pure Ibo’ from the East.”</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Later in the evening, Ogbemudia came to radio to address the people. The CIA was listening too. He asked all workers to resume work on the morning of September 22 and voided all the appointments and promotions made by the Biafran regime. He asked the people not to “pay back Ibos in their own coin” and announced the the lifting of the curfew imposed by the Biafran regime. However, he advised people to keep indoors after 10:00pm “to allow the federal troops to complete the operation of mopping few relining stragglers.” But why after 10pm in the night?</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>On Wednesday 20 September 1967, federal troops opened a barrage of fire on a Catholic Convent in Benin City. There was only one nun there and she managed to escape with a few injuries. The soldiers subsequently said they were told by the local people that some Igbos were hiding behind the convent and so the opened fire on anything that moved. Furthermore, while Bishop Patrick Kelly was giving spiritual comfort to one Igbo civilian who was badly wounded, some soldiers approached him, enquired whether he was yet dead. When the Bishop said he was still alive, they promptly killed him. The bishop made a report to the Irish ambassador who subsequently gave Gowon and the American ambassador too.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The cold-blooded massacres in Midwest were not monopolised by the federal troops only. In a confidential report of 15 October 1967 recorded that, “as the Biafrans retreated from Benin to Agbor, they killed all the men, women and children they could find who were not Igbos. The town of Abudu, one of the larger places between Agbor and Benin lost virtually of its population with the exception of a small proportion that fled into the bush.” The British expatriate teacher, Anthony Charles Stephens was killed there when he refused to surrender his car to the retreating Biafran forces. Father Coleman an Irish SSMA priest said before Biafran troops left Agbor “without a fight” they killed off most of “non-Ibo men, women and children.”</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>In general, the American confidential report stated, non-Igbo Midwesterners were very anti-Biafran throughout the occupation. Many of them hid Northerners in their houses for weeks away from the Biafran troops who set out to kill them. The document continued: “Nearly all rejoiced when federal troops came in. The only town that was an exception was Ehor where even after the federal troops arrived, the local populace was protecting the Igbo soldiers and tried to confuse the federal troops.” However in Benin, there was no intention to confuse at all; “the civilians were busy pointing out the Ibos.” So the federal troops set up “two big camps to serve as safe havens in a school for the Ibos. The women and children were taken there,” the report said. But the men? Sam Idah, the director of the Benin Cemetery on Ifon Road told the American diplomats that day (21/09/67), 24 hours after the federal troops arrived 1,258 bodies have been buried there. “Trucks from the ministry of work and transport and from Benin development council were used to haul the corpses to the open pits.” Rev Rooney a Catholic Missionary with Benin Public Service said “a total of 989 civilians had been killed that day in the city.”</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Ambassador Elbert Mathews noted that “with the capture of the Midwest and the fall of the Biafran capital within days, the Federal Government senses eventual military victories and was in no mood for outside criticisms.” And so the massacres went on unchecked. Their report in the international media encouraged some diplomatic recognition for Biafra and arms shipments which prolonged the war for another 27 months. (Oblong Media)</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><br></p>
Enyi oha Nd'Igbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00535527241722227905noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2647774649642174769.post-36358942539937017872017-05-07T22:29:00.001+02:002017-05-08T11:46:04.190+02:00The Igbo age grade system<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vCdh73jd5wU/WRA-S5zK8oI/AAAAAAAABRU/PN9efW-RfyoHvTJvUw07oSzmNsJ-v7eQQCLcB/s1600/00301617%2B021c005f352749508926bab7c6998ba9%2Barc614x376%2Bw614%2Bus1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="195" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vCdh73jd5wU/WRA-S5zK8oI/AAAAAAAABRU/PN9efW-RfyoHvTJvUw07oSzmNsJ-v7eQQCLcB/s320/00301617%2B021c005f352749508926bab7c6998ba9%2Barc614x376%2Bw614%2Bus1.jpg" width="320" /></a></i></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>The age grade system has long been in existence in Igboland, and has been recognized and used by Igbo traditional leaders to champion causes for the social, cultural, political, infrastructural and economic development of communities.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>The main objective of this article is to get the Igbo youths, to become accustomed to Igbo culture and tradition as well as the role, which they play in community development through the age grade system. In fact, this piece is written to motivate the younger generation to actively participate in community development.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>Age grades are groups of persons who, according to societal norms and values, are regarded as people of the same age. But, they do vary from one community to the other. For instance, they go by several names such as OtuOgbo, NdeUke or NdeEbiri according to the community where they are practiced.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>In some communities, persons within a specific period of three, four or even five years age bracket form an age grade. Each age grade is given a special name that helps define its position in the community, relative to other age grades.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>In some communities, they are gender segregated while in others, like in Obinwanne Age Grade in Atani-Arochukwu, they are mixed (men and women). But each age grade is clearly distinguished from one another.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>However, as years pass by, the younger groups ascend the ladder and takeover the older age grades.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>According to Ugiagbe and Uguagbe (2015), “The Igbo of Eastern Nigeria, for example, have a culture of segmenting into different age grades which can be likened to teams in management and platoons in war games”</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>Among the members of these different age grades can be found those with different roles which enable them to act as teams.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>Generally, age grades serve as avenues for social interaction among members and, more importantly, as agents of community development.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>In some communities, entry into an age grade, often gender separated, is usually marked by an initiation rite which may be the crowning of a long and complex preparation.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>In the pre-colonial period, the newly formed age grades had to prove themselves for maturity by defending the community against hostile neighbours or enemies.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>Members of each age grade are meant to know one another fairly well, to choose leaders among their members, to meet regularly to discuss issues of mutual or communal interest, to willingly help one another and defend the community when the need arises.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>Despite the onslaught of modernization, industrialization and urbanization, the roles of age grades in Igbo land remain significant and impactful chiefly as a symbol of unity that is; unity among members.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>Some of the roles of age grades play in Igbo land include: maintaining security of lives and property, enforcement of law and order, developers/executors of community initiatives and projects, crime control which is a growing area of need in many communities today, conflict resolution within the age grade/within the entire community, and community warfare in both physical and spiritual affairs.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>Other roles of age-grades include; serving as agents of change and modernization and sophistication; role models and community conscience; educators and socializing agents; managers of projects; advocates of best practices; power balance in community initiatives; providing voice and support to the poor and the disadvantaged; enforcers of ancestral wishes and protectors of cultural values and norms; power balance in community initiatives; and pulling the community ahead and ensuring good value orientation.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>Where there is unrest, high level of criminalities and social dislocations in communities, the age grades are trusted and called upon to bring about sanity.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>In any Igbo community where there is unrest, high level of criminality and social dislocations, the first question to ask is “Where are the age grades?”</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>Imagine what would be the situation of many Igbo communities if our ancestors did not come up with this social engineering mechanism called age grades.</i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Enyi oha Nd'Igbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00535527241722227905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2647774649642174769.post-52595189818752254182017-05-06T20:22:00.001+02:002017-05-06T20:27:20.352+02:00The cost of burial ceremonies in Igboland<p dir="ltr"><i>Sitting with </i><i>both</i><i> hands </i><i>neatly</i><i> </i><i>tucked</i><i> in between his laps, a foot tapping to what his mind thought, and a </i><i>teary-eye</i><i> </i><i>staring</i><i> into space as though </i><i>seeking</i><i> the last traces of hope, </i><i>Ibe</i><i> </i><i>Iheanacho</i><i> let out with a voice obviously </i><i>couched</i><i> with </i><i>anguish</i><i>, "God, please don't let my mother die! I cannot </i><i>afford</i><i> her burial </i><i>rites</i><i> now."</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Ibe</i><i> is a </i><i>petty</i><i> </i><i>trader</i><i> with a </i><i>titled</i><i> mother. The woman, who </i><i>suffers</i><i> from </i><i>diabetics</i><i>, and had just </i><i>suffered</i><i> a second stroke attack that left her </i><i>paralyzed</i><i> and highly sick. Seeing his </i><i>position</i><i> and hearing his </i><i>outcry</i><i>, one would have thought that his heart was rent in </i><i>sympathy</i><i> for his </i><i>ailing</i><i> mother and not the </i><i>underlying</i><i> financial </i><i>implications</i><i> of the possible aftermath.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Sadly</i><i>, he is not alone in this </i><i>disposition</i><i> to an </i><i>ailing</i><i> loved one. </i><i>Amaechi</i><i> </i><i>Uzokwe</i><i>, a business man, had </i><i>threatened</i><i> his brothers saying that, "I will run away and abandon all of you, should papa fail to recover from this </i><i>illness</i><i> and die as a result. I don't have even </i><i>N1.00</i><i> for his burial </i><i>rites</i><i>."</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The </i><i>dispositions</i><i> of the above mentioned people, leave much to imagine. One, what really is the immediate or intermediate cause of the "</i><i>heaviness</i><i> of heart" or "deep sense of </i><i>loss</i><i>" that </i><i>precedes</i><i> the "with </i><i>gratitude</i><i> to God </i><i>almighty</i><i>" one finds </i><i>legibly</i><i> written in posters of various sizes and colours </i><i>announcing</i><i> the death of a loved one? Two, is it really a heavy heart </i><i>arising</i><i> from losing the dead or the financial costs that will be directly or </i><i>indirectly</i><i> involved in giving the departed a </i><i>befitting</i><i> funeral? Three, along what lines </i><i>does</i><i> one begin to define a </i><i>befitting</i><i> burial?</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>In </i><i>Igbo</i><i> </i><i>land</i><i>, burial </i><i>rites</i><i> </i><i>vary</i><i> from one community to another as even within the same cultural zone, burial </i><i>ceremonies</i><i> are not </i><i>uniform</i><i>. However, the fundamental issue is that be it in </i><i>Abia</i><i>, </i><i>Anambra</i><i>, </i><i>Ebonyi</i><i>, </i><i>Enugu</i><i> or Imo State, the cost of a burial ceremony is becoming high as the </i><i>bereaved</i><i> spend </i><i>fortunes</i><i> to give a </i><i>befitting</i><i> burial to the dead. Thus, for some people, despite the fact that the whole essence of a burial is to </i><i>commit</i><i> the dead to mother earth, and even </i><i>coupled</i><i> with the </i><i>biblical</i><i> </i><i>injunction</i><i> to "let the dead </i><i>bury</i><i> the dead," various activities and </i><i>communal</i><i> </i><i>rites</i><i> (</i><i>Omenala</i><i>) seem to have made the actual burial secondary.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>However, </i><i>regardless</i><i> of the laid out procedures and requirements for the performance of </i><i>obsequies</i><i>, the level of honour </i><i>varies</i><i> and is dependent on the background, title, gender, relationship within the family and circumstances of death. Though this </i><i>does</i><i> not, however, change or alter the standard requirements, this is the </i><i>plight</i><i> of </i><i>Ibe</i><i> and </i><i>Amaechi</i><i>. Though they do not have the financial strength to meet up with these </i><i>demands</i><i>, </i><i>necessity</i><i> is laid upon them to do so.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>In </i><i>Ibe</i><i> </i><i>Ihenacho's</i><i> village and its </i><i>neighbouring</i><i> communities in Imo State, you cannot even tell the </i><i>kinsmen</i><i> of a </i><i>deceased</i><i> woman that their daughter is dead. It will be </i><i>assumed</i><i> that you killed her. You only send word to her people, telling them that </i><i>she</i><i> is seriously </i><i>ill</i><i> and they should send someone to come join send her to a good hospital.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>After seeing for themselves that </i><i>she</i><i> is dead, her children and </i><i>members</i><i> of their family will go at various times, in groups of male and female, with </i><i>assorted</i><i> </i><i>types</i><i> of drinks, food, </i><i>kolanuts</i><i> and all the </i><i>stipulated</i><i> items to </i><i>inform</i><i> their </i><i>maternal</i><i> relatives officially of their </i><i>mother's</i><i> death (though they are already aware). This is usually before any </i><i>other</i><i> </i><i>rite</i><i> can be performed and even the burial itself.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Ndi</i><i> </i><i>ogo-</i><i> </i><i>in-laws</i><i> especially </i><i>sons-in-law</i><i>, are usually also </i><i>compulsorily</i><i> required to contribute and to a large extent finance the burial. The husband of the first daughter, the </i><i>ada</i><i> usually </i><i>pays</i><i> the highest. In </i><i>Umuezearole</i><i> in </i><i>Onitsha</i><i>, </i><i>Anambra</i><i> State, for instance, the husband of the first daughter of a </i><i>titled</i><i> man, the </i><i>ozo</i><i> title in this case, is required to present N1, 000,000 to the group to </i><i>inform</i><i> them of their </i><i>colleague's</i><i> death before any further arrangement can even be made towards the burial.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>In some cases especially in </i><i>Njaba</i><i>, </i><i>Isu</i><i> and </i><i>Orlu</i><i> Local Government Areas of Imo State for instance, they may be required to present a cow and </i><i>other</i><i> items </i><i>stipulated</i><i> by the community. In parts of </i><i>Mbano</i><i>, Imo State, there is usually what is called </i><i>iha</i><i> </i><i>akwa</i><i> </i><i>wherein</i><i> </i><i>in-laws</i><i> of the </i><i>deceased</i><i> give gifts of various </i><i>types</i><i> of choice </i><i>wrappers</i><i> that are </i><i>customarily</i><i> presented to their </i><i>sister-in-law</i><i>, who is the daughter of the </i><i>deceased</i><i> as well as </i><i>other</i><i> female </i><i>mourners</i><i> in the compound of the </i><i>deceased</i><i>. And this is not usually without the aim of </i><i>wanting</i><i> to make them show how much they value the dead.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Further </i><i>investigations</i><i> revealed that in some parts of </i><i>Nsukka</i><i> in </i><i>Enugu</i><i> State, horses and native cows are used for burial </i><i>ceremonies</i><i> to earn the traditional title "</i><i>Ogbuzuru</i><i>", meaning the </i><i>person</i><i> has killed everything expected of him as far as burial </i><i>rituals</i><i> are concerned. Each horse cost over N70,000.00 while cow is between N120,000.00 depending on the size.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>In </i><i>Ozalla</i><i> community in </i><i>Igbo-etiti</i><i> Local Government Area of </i><i>Enugu</i><i> State, </i><i>sympathizers</i><i> who pay </i><i>condolences</i><i> to the </i><i>bereaved</i><i> family stock different </i><i>denominations</i><i> of </i><i>both</i><i> foreign and local </i><i>currencies</i><i> on dry stick of </i><i>palm</i><i> </i><i>fronds</i><i> and present them as gifts.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>In </i><i>Nkanu</i><i> </i><i>land</i><i>, </i><i>masquerades</i><i> </i><i>entertain</i><i> the people </i><i>during</i><i> burial </i><i>ceremonies</i><i> with each group trying to </i><i>outwit</i><i> the </i><i>other</i><i> to draw attention of the audience at the occasion. Sometimes, a member of the </i><i>troupe</i><i> </i><i>climbs</i><i> a </i><i>palm</i><i> tree with bare hands, apparently to show how </i><i>gallant</i><i> he is.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Burial </i><i>ceremonies</i><i> in </i><i>Igbo</i><i> </i><i>land</i><i> are usually a </i><i>colourful</i><i> and </i><i>communal</i><i> </i><i>fanfare</i><i>. </i><i>Hence</i><i> whenever and wherever an </i><i>Igbo</i><i> male or female dies especially adults, he or </i><i>she</i><i> is usually taken back to the village for burial. This no doubt </i><i>witnesses</i><i> a mass </i><i>exodus</i><i> to the village. </i><i>Indigenes</i><i> of the town, in various states and regions, are usually </i><i>represented</i><i> at the burial ceremony depending on the </i><i>distance</i><i>; so long the </i><i>deceased</i><i> was a member of the town </i><i>union</i><i>. These </i><i>members</i><i> also lend a helping </i><i>hand</i><i> in the preparation of food items and the cost of </i><i>footing</i><i> the burial where necessary.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>During</i><i> the ceremony proper, guests seat under </i><i>canopies</i><i> and </i><i>sheds</i><i> to indicate first of all, the families of the various </i><i>in-laws</i><i>, </i><i>kinsmen</i><i>, </i><i>maternal</i><i> relatives, </i><i>indigenes</i><i> of the town and </i><i>other</i><i> classes of guests, according to the wish of the chief </i><i>mourner</i><i>.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Expectedly</i><i>, the chief </i><i>mourner</i><i> and his </i><i>siblings</i><i> as well as the </i><i>in-laws</i><i> </i><i>organise</i><i> food, </i><i>assorted</i><i> drinks, and traditional dance as well as live musical </i><i>band</i><i> depending on the financial strength of the host to receive the people who will come to the occasion.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>According to their </i><i>seating</i><i> arrangement, food and drinks are served. In </i><i>Njaba</i><i>, </i><i>Isu</i><i> and </i><i>Orlu</i><i> local government areas, it was </i><i>gathered</i><i> that the feeding arrangement at the ceremony is usually never complete without </i><i>fufu</i><i> and any native soup being served.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>It was </i><i>gathered</i><i> that in some instances, the chief </i><i>mourner</i><i> and his family, spend money in two ways Christian burial </i><i>rites</i><i> always </i><i>precedes</i><i> the traditional </i><i>rites</i><i> </i><i>consequently</i><i> </i><i>doubling</i><i> the budget for the entire burial ceremony.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>And prior to the burial ceremony, the quantity of items such as the number of </i><i>kegs</i><i> of </i><i>palm</i><i> wine, </i><i>brewed</i><i> drinks, </i><i>tubers</i><i> of </i><i>yams</i><i>, </i><i>goats</i><i>, </i><i>fowls</i><i> and cows to be used for the event are read out to the chief </i><i>mourner</i><i> to avoid </i><i>embarrassment</i><i> on the day of the ceremony.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Interestingly</i><i>, all of the costs and items </i><i>enumerated</i><i> by the </i><i>kinsmen</i><i> or </i><i>clan</i><i> for the burial of the </i><i>deceased</i><i>, do not include </i><i>other</i><i> </i><i>compulsory</i><i> items like </i><i>caskets</i><i>, the services of the </i><i>undertakers</i><i>, payment for the </i><i>morgue</i><i> where the body is kept until burial, and the </i><i>hiring</i><i> of funeral </i><i>parlour</i><i> among others.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Investigations</i><i> by Saturday Tribune shows that the average 6 by 4 </i><i>casket</i><i> cost about N70, 000 while the average </i><i>morgue</i><i> will charge at least N10, 000, (with a certificate of death), to keep the body for two weeks before counting extra charges. There is no </i><i>gainsaying</i><i> that these </i><i>amounts</i><i> are probably beyond the reach of the average </i><i>Igbo</i><i> man.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>It is even worse when the </i><i>deceased</i><i> (</i><i>females</i><i> especially) was not </i><i>duly</i><i> married according to traditional </i><i>rites</i><i> before death. In this case, the husband is usually made to perform the traditional marriage </i><i>rites</i><i>, including the payment of bride price to the full as part of the burial </i><i>rites</i><i> before actual burial can take place. Of course, this </i><i>eventual</i><i> burial </i><i>does</i><i> not disregard the full rites that guide it.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Thus, just like in the past when the hike in bride price came under sharp criticisms prompting the defunct Eastern Region under Late Owelle of Onitsha, Dr Nnmadi Azikiwe, to pass a law pegging bride price in Igbo land to enable Igbo youths marry at the right age, the high cost of burial seems to have become another emerging social problem in the region. Some have even argued that if the trend remains unchecked, burial ceremonies will be solely reserved for the rich that can afford the cost.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>But authorities appear not to be perturbed by the nagging issue as investigation revealed that no state or local government area in the South-East, has any customary or state legislative law pegging the cost of burial ceremonies.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>A top government official in the office of Chieftancy Matters in Enugu State, who preferred to remain anonymous, said even if there was law reducing the cost of burial in Igbo land, it will die a natural death like the one passed into law by the late Azikiwe's regime.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Mazi Sam Onwudiwe, a trader, who said he lived in Awka, told Saturday Tribune in Enugu that the high cost of burial was more pronounced in Anambra State because of their robust economic power, stressing that huge sums of money is spent by mourners in the areas like Awka, Nnewi and a host of others. "Go there and see things for yourself. The kinds of wine, gifts you will see on display. It is traditional burial but a lot of money is involved, buying of cows notwithstanding," he added.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Against the above backdrop, saying that burial ceremony is expensive in almost every part of the Southeast geo-political zone, is stating the obvious. Many of the bereaved persons often go into huge debts in order to give their dead the stipulated befitting burial and this poses another question; where does one begin to draw the line between befitting burials and bankruptcy?</i></p>
Enyi oha Nd'Igbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00535527241722227905noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2647774649642174769.post-19706575884252755222017-04-29T18:30:00.001+02:002017-04-29T18:30:44.891+02:00The Slave Trade Revisited
-
Trust, Pawnship, and Atlantic History
<p dir="ltr"><i>The Slave Trade Revisited </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Trust, Pawnship, and Atlantic History </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>EFIKS ARE IBIBIOS </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Emmanuel Usanga Amah Jones  </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>"Although the evidence is more patchy, the pattern of local merchant participation in the slave trade at Old Calabar appears to have mirrored that at British ports. A few Old Calabar merchant families, descended from the original Ibibio-speaking settlers but ADOPTING a new ethnic name, Efik, dominated the African side of the trade."</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>AT OLD CALABAR, as Latham has shown, credit, and the mechanisms for guaranteeing that credit arrangements were honored, depended on "trust," as credit between European firms and African suppliers was known in the eighteenth and</i><br>
<i>nineteenth centuries.22 Goods were advanced to "trusted" merchants in the river towns of the Niger Delta and Cross River estuary. These goods in turn were sent to interior markets controlled by slave traders from Aro Chukwu, whose dispersed settlements in the interior gained control of the slave trade in much of Igbo and Ibibio country in the course of the eighteenth century. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Aro merchants in effect "bulked" slaves at their monthly fairs at Bende and Uburu for re-export to the coast, almost always through Bonny, </i><i>Elem</i><i> </i><i>Kalabari</i><i>, or Old </i><i>Calabar</i><i>, depending on</i> <i>the line of credit. </i><br>
<i>For Old Calabar, slaves were often sent to Itu on the Cross River, from where they were transferred downriver. Unlike Bonny and Elem Kalabari, however, merchants at Old Calabar </i><i>traded</i><i> directly with </i><i>Ibibio</i><i> country</i><br>
<i>and with </i><i>Cameroons</i><i>.</i><br>
<i>Whether through commercial arrangements with the Aro network or with other merchants, the delivery of slaves liquidated debts that stretched into the interior. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Liverpool and Bristol </i><i>merchants</i><i> had no direct access to</i> <i>Aro traders and other inland sources of slaves, but they could, and indeed actively sought to, establish good relations with coastal merchants, protecting their investments through institutional arrangements that could be enforced in these towns and apparently through similar means into the interior. It is probably not a coincidence that the great expansion in slave exports from the Bight of Biafra occurred at the same time as the consolidation of the Aro commercial "diaspora."</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>At any time in the second half of the eighteenth century, a limited number of Liverpool and Bristol firms dominated particular ports in the Bight of Biafra. Probably no more than fifteen or so commercial houses were operating at any one</i><br>
<i>time, with usually twice as many from Liverpool as Bristol. At Old Calabar, partnerships headed by William Whaley and Edward Forbes of Liverpool and James Laroche of Bristol controlled much of the early trade in the 1740s and 1750s.</i><br>
<i>William Davenport, who has left some of the most detailed accounts for the eighteenth-century trade, was a major Liverpool trader from 1757 to 1784 and perhaps the largest single British trader at Old Calabar in the period 1768-1774.25</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Davenport had been </i><i>apprenticed</i><i> to </i><i>Whaley</i><i> in the 1740s, and the </i><i>Whaley</i><i> Davenport connection with Old Calabar was to continue into the 1770s and beyond through other Liverpool merchants. By 1785-1795, Liverpool merchants John,</i><br>
<i>James, and William Gregson and Thomas and William Earle and Bristol merchant James Rogers were the leading traders to the port. Members of the Earle family had earlier been partners with Davenport, and the Earles continued to trade into the early nineteenth century. Moreover, another continuity in the concentration of commercial knowledge of trade at the port is evident in the close association of Sir James Laroche, member of Parliament and nephew of the Bristol merchant of the 1750s, with James Rogers, at least before Rogers went bankrupt in 1793.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Although the evidence is more patchy, the pattern of local merchant participation in the slave trade at Old Calabar appears to have mirrored that at British ports. A few Old Calabar merchant families, descended from the original Ibibio-speaking settlers but adopting a new ethnic name, Efik, dominated the African side of the trade. For most of the seventeenth century, when the scale of the slave trade was</i><br>
<i>not very large, the principal settlement was at Creek Town (Obio Oko), but other wards or "towns" were founded, the most important of which were Old Town (Obutong), Duke Town (Atakpa or New Town), and Henshaw Town. By the end of the seventeenth century, Old Town, where the Robin family was dominant, appears to have emerged as the leading commercial ward, and it remained so until the middle of the eighteenth century. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Old Town was located on the Calabar River downstream from Creek Town and was therefore in a better location to serve slave ships. Another trader active in the 1690s, Ephraim Duke, may have been the founder of the Duke family, which was initially resident at Creek Town but which established its ward, New Town or Duke Town, a few kilometers downstream from Old Town, apparently in 1748, and became a serious rival to Old Town as the slave trade expanded.26</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>By the last third of the century, there were at least thirty local traders at Old Calabar who were active in the slave trade; they are mentioned in a diary kept by Antera Duke (Ntiero Edem Efiom), fragments of which have survived for 1785-1788. As many as half of these merchants were supplying slaves to British ships in the late 1760s, and each was associated with one of the Old Calabar wards. Prominent among them were Eyo Nsa of Creek Town, Tommy Henshaw of Henshaw Town, and Egbo Young, Antera Duke, and Edem Ekpo and his son,</i><br>
<i>Edem Efiam (both known as Duke Ephraim) of Duke Town.29 Moreover, several of those active in 1785-1788 remained involved in slaving beyond 1800.  </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>When Edem Ekpo died in 1786, his son not only took his commercial name, Duke Ephraim, but also continued the business. Indeed, the continuity in names is one indication that merchants were succeeded by their descendants.</i><br>
<i>It appears, then, that a few trading houses controlled slave exports from Old Calabar between 1750 and 1807, just as a relatively small number of Bristol and Liverpool merchants and their agents or ship </i><i>captains</i><i> </i><i>tended</i><i> to </i><i>dominate</i><i> European trade with the port.</i><br>
<i>In this respect, at least, slave trading activities and credit relations at Old Calabar may have become embedded in social relations.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>More specifically, they may have come to resemble a situation described by Mark Granovetter in which agents had recurrent dealings with each other and might be assumed to rely on their past record of dealings to determine whether "a particular</i><br>
<i>other</i><i> may be expected to deal honestly." It is important, therefore, to try to assess the degree to which trust permeated commercial relations at Old Calabar after 1740.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i><a href="http:/equianosworld.tubmaninstitute.ca/sites/equianosworld.tubmaninstitute.ca/files/Lovejoy%20and%20Richardson%20Trust%20Pawnship%20Atlantic%20History.pdf">http:/equianosworld.tubmaninstitute.ca/sites/equianosworld.tubmaninstitute.ca/files/Lovejoy%20and%20Richardson%20Trust%20Pawnship%20Atlantic%20History.pdf </a></i></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-WKhjpJXNZWk/WQS_hzB933I/AAAAAAAABQg/dshwWFMc0ggyb4mJDGeYN_R0bJShsTHyACHM/s1600/FB_IMG_1493482758911.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> <img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-WKhjpJXNZWk/WQS_hzB933I/AAAAAAAABQg/dshwWFMc0ggyb4mJDGeYN_R0bJShsTHyACHM/s640/FB_IMG_1493482758911.jpg"> </a> </div>Enyi oha Nd'Igbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00535527241722227905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2647774649642174769.post-34121571859934055892017-04-29T10:37:00.001+02:002017-04-29T10:44:18.600+02:00Ikperikpe Ogu - Ohafia war dance<p dir="ltr"><i>"The Flesh Melts"</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>"Kpah-kpah-kpa kpah-kpah-kpa kpah-kpah-kpa..." the sharp clicking of bamboo slats cuts through the din of the crowd gathered for the burial of an eminent chief. The hot midday air is heavy with red dust raised by hundreds of feet: dust mixed with the rich aroma of sweat and the fragrant vapor rising from large pots of palm wine. Several young, robust men in short, coarsely woven blue loincloths begin to move into the center of the large clearing in front of the village meetinghouse. Their muscular arms are draped with the long white hair of ram's manes, and on their heads are "leopard caps," each pierced with an eagle feather. They move with confidence and pride, but their leader seems even more imposing. Balanced on his head is a brightly painted board upon which human heads sculpted of wood are displayed. The heads also are flanked with ram's mane and wear leopard caps-okpu agụ. The commons is crowded with people of all ages, some talking, greeting, laughing, others maneuvering to find a good place from which to view the dancers. The dance leader, holding a small palm shoot in his mouth and a short flared cutlass in his right hand, stares fixedly ahead as he dances with short deliberate steps.</i><br>
<i>Three percussionists sit on a wooden bench defining one edge of the dance space. With casual concentration they tap out the heartbeat of the dance with bamboo slat instruments known as akwatankwa. A drummer begins to play an ikperikpe ọgụ (war drum). It is not a dance rhythm, but drum language that is echoed by the opu, the antelope horn played by one of the dancers. The voice of the drum calls:</i></p>
<p dir="ltr">"<i>Everyone should come forth!</i><br>
<i>Those in the bush come out!</i><br>
<i>Those on the road come out!</i><br>
<i>The day is charged!"</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>An old man, dressed in a faded wrap-cloth of Indian madras, sits on a nearby stool and begins to shout: "Utugokoko kwe nụ!" and a response resounds from the crowd: "huh!" He shouts again, "Akanu kwenụ!! ... Ohafia kwe nụ!! ... Igbo kwe nụ!! ... Nigeria kwe nụ! ..." and each time the crowd responds with urgent approval. Then the old man begins to sing the legend of Elibe Aja, the story of a brave hunter who kills a leopardess that is terrorizing the neighboring Aro people only to eventually meet his own end trying to stop a wild boar from destroying farms in Amuru. The music is fast, driving, insistent. The dancers in the circle are joined by other men, some mature, some mere boys. Each moves his feet in a rapid sidestepping pattern. They roll their shoulders in tight circles flexing their chests. Gradually, deliberately, the tempo builds. As the pace of the music increases the pectoral flexing accelerates. The men's chests pulsate with rippling undulations. This phenomenon is called ọfụfụ. As Joseph Agara put it, "when the music takes fire, the flesh melts.""</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>– John C. McCall (2000). Dancing Histories: Heuristic Ethnography with the Ohafia Igbo. University of Michigan Press. </i><i>pp</i><i>. 53–54. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Video: </i><i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75dksZNvGJA ">https</a></i><i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75dksZNvGJA ">://</a></i><i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75dksZNvGJA ">www.youtube.com</a></i><i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75dksZNvGJA ">/watch?v=75dksZNvGJA</a></i> </p>
Enyi oha Nd'Igbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00535527241722227905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2647774649642174769.post-37136369755276940842017-04-27T12:17:00.001+02:002017-04-27T12:21:32.394+02:00Taking a female chieftaincy title in Igbo land
<p dir="ltr"><i>Taking a female chieftaincy title in Igbo land used to be a practice exclusively reserved for wealthy, married, and elderly women. But these days, age is no longer a criteria as younger women with sound education, success in politics or business, and high corporate achievements are allowed to  take up female chieftaincy titles.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>When a woman wants to take up a female chieftaincy title in Igbo land, she must buy several items such as coco-yams, kola-nuts,  pepper etc which she must take, in addition to a substantial amount of money, to the league of female chiefs in her husband’s community informing them of her desire to join them. This initial expression of desire to become a female chief must be done through the leader of the league of female chiefs in the community.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The leader of the league of female chiefs in the community summons a meeting of the league, and during the meeting, the items and money brought by the aspirant is shared and distributed among members of the group according to hierarchy </i><b><i>(which means that leaders will receive a slightly higher portion than others</i></b><i>) after they have certified her worthy of taking up a female chieftaincy title in line with the peculiar traditional standard operational in that particular community.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>At such a meeting, the aspirant for the female chieftaincy title will take charge of providing and assortment of drinks for refreshment. After this initial meeting, the aspirant will sponsor a second meeting, and provide more items – tubers of yam, bags of salt, drinks, etc for distribution to members of the league of female chiefs. The reason for the stringent screening and presentation of gift items before a woman can take up a female chieftaincy title in Igbo land is to ensure she has the financial and material means to cater for other less privileged women, children and orphans when times become hard in the community.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>If any female aspirant can prove herself worthy of this high calling, she can then be given the right to take up a female chieftaincy title in her husband’s community. This implies she will receive the right to assume a new name that fits her nature and how she wants the community to perceive her.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Afterwards, private activities are performed by the aspirant and other female chiefs before she is publicly presented to the public through a formal ceremony.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>During the formal presentation of the new female chief to the public, she is expected to perform a majestic dance in public twice, with other female chiefs of the community who received portions of the gift she brought to their league singing and dancing behind her to show their support and solidarity.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Who sponsors the public presentation ceremony? It is the new female chief that does so.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>From that day of the public presentation, the new female chieftaincy title holder in Igbo land is expected to support, help, and promote the efforts of the male chiefs towards ensuring the survival and progress of their community.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Most  wealthy men in Igbo land, when taking up chieftaincy titles for themselves in their various communities also sponsor their wives for a female chieftaincy title too. In the end, male chiefs in Igbo land feel proud when they and their wives are addressed </i><b><i>“Chief and Chief Mrs…”</i></b><i>in public.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><a href="http://obindigbo.com.ng/igbo-culture/"><i>Igbo culture</i></a><i> recognizes women as equal entities to men but of a different specie. That is why female chiefs are equally celebrated and respected in Igbo land.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Finally, despite the perceived equalities Igbo culture holds for men and women, female chieftaincy title holders cannot partake in traditional activities reserved for men such as breaking of kola-nuts, going for war, climbing palm trees, performing masquerades etc. So, also are male chiefs forbidden from meddling in activities and functions exclusively reserved for females.</i></p>
Enyi oha Nd'Igbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00535527241722227905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2647774649642174769.post-15823265007625780812017-04-27T12:06:00.001+02:002018-07-22T16:34:17.733+02:00The cultural beauty and dignity Igbos lost to British colonization
<p dir="ltr"> <i> By </i><i>Obindigbo</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Before the </i><i>incursion</i><i> of </i><i>Europeans</i><i> (British colonialist) into Igbo land, we naturally cultivated and practiced customs and traditions that were adapted to our own soil, our own climate and our own blood. </i><i>The Igbo customs and traditions</i><i> we developed helped us, at that time, to actualize our fullest potentials as a people. They were what every Igbo man or woman was known for.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Igbos thought with one mind, we spoke with one voice, and performed diverse but similar deeds through the common customs and traditions we shared amongst us. We were held as one by Omenaala (the Igbo traditional religion). We flourished and enjoyed the true beauty and progress our minds and souls attained.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>But things changed in the 19th-century when British colonization effort in Sub-saharan Africa spread to Igbo land and increased the encounters between us and other ethnicities near the Niger River. </i><u><i>We</i></u><i> proved decisive and enthusiastic in our embrace of British colonization, because the increased encounters between us and </i><i>other</i><i> </i><i>ethnicities</i><i> </i><i>boosted</i><i> our commercial activities.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>But then, during the colonization of our land, It was not only commercial activities that the British expressed strong interest in. They were also interested in our administrative system and religious lives. While we enjoyed the wealth and power that came to our people through the colonization process, the religious imperialism the colonialist engineered upon our collective psyche was not-so-good.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>At first, the British missionaries penetrated the hinterlands of the Igbo nation, and established all sort of church denominations each with a handful of ardent followers and converts. The churches struggled for a footing in our traditional society which was, at that time, bounded by strong age-long traditions, taboos, and expectations. As a result of that early struggle of the churches, the European missionaries aimed at yanking off the cultural traditions and customs of Ndigbo with a view to supplanting it with both logical and illogical church doctrines and rituals.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The British missionaries were clever. They came quietly and peaceably into Igbo land – our land – with the Christian religion. We, the Igbos, were amused at their “foolishness” and allowed them to stay. But not-so-long afterwards, the European missionaries put a knife on the things that held us together (our revered Igbo culture and traditions), and yanked off as many of them as hindered their ulterior motives, which made the centre of our cultural existence no longer able to hold together as one, and things indeed fell apart for all of us. This same idea was echoed in Chinua Achebe’s classic novel; “Things Fall Apart.”</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The missionaries won over our brothers to their side through evangelism and indulgence, and ever since, the Igbo nation could no longer act like one. Omenaala was fought hard and fast by the colonialists who used both schools and churches as effective platforms for socially controlling and Influencing the minds of our people and twisting it to support their whims and caprices.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Following that “negative” success engineered by the missionaries against our cultural psyche, the God-willed beauty of our Igbo nation became a mighty pipe-dream. As long as the leaders of our people try to force upon us foreign clothing, and foreign architectural styles in the illusion that this makes for the progress of the Igbo people, our cultural and spiritual beauty and dignity will remain lost. Imitation is not uplifting.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>I am reminding those of us that argue that we’re in the information age and as such, the media has shrunken the world into a global village, know nit today that there is no personal cultural achievement for Igbo people in the uniformity of the world through copying other cultures at the expense of our own.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The Igbo nation can only progress through the upward development of what culture, customs, traditions, and language we already possess. In so doing, we can find and regain the beauty and dignity of our culture which was lost through the not-so-noble efforts of the missionaries during the colonial era. We can never achieve that by adopting a culture and religion that is borrowed. Taking something over is not progress, for progress shows itself in the improvement of what already exists.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Let me conclude by saying once again that true progress for our people – the Igbo people – lies solely in the development of our own culture which is naturally adapted to the Igbo soil, Igbo climate, and Igbo blood. We must all become indigenous in the purest sense of the word, if we ever wish to develop our cultural and spiritual beings as well as expect help from Chukwu.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>To be rooted in our native soil and all its nuances is a basic condition, and it, alone, guarantees that we can regain the cultural beauty and dignity we’ve lost to British colonialism. If we ever succeed in achieving that, we can expect only peace, unity, robust health, strength, beauty, and spiritual maturity for our people.</i></p>
Enyi oha Nd'Igbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00535527241722227905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2647774649642174769.post-49245895387436642152017-04-27T11:57:00.001+02:002017-04-28T08:51:50.339+02:00Understanding the Igbo family life and structure
<p dir="ltr"><i>Family is a very important institution in the lives of Igbo people. All relationships, according to Igbo culture, emanates from the family. Every child birthed in any family begins to learn about human relationships from within the family.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Our collective view of the family unit, as people of Igbo extraction, is quite different from the views of the Western world. To Americans and Europeans, family basically implies one father, one mother, and their biological or adopted children. But, if we observe closely what is implied when Igbo people talk about family, we’ll see that, to our people, family refers to a group of people living under one household who may or may not even be related by blood or marriage.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>It is in a family setting as described above that we, Igbos, differ so much from Westerners but not-so-much from other African tribes.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>In understanding Igbo family life and structure, we have to take into consideration three (3) Kinds of family settings common in Igboland as follows:</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i><b>Family </b></i><i><b>Setting</b></i><i><b> with Only One Mother:</b></i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>This kind of family structure found in Igboland consists mainly of father, one mother, children, dependants, and relatives. Some 50 years ago, it was quite rare to find this kind of family setting among our people living in the geographical area designated as South-East Nigeria.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i><b>Family </b></i><i><b>Setting</b></i><i><b> with Multiple Mothers:</b></i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Polygamy is part of Igbo culture, and is well accepted and acknowledged by our people as a man’s legitimate right, if he so chooses to have multiple women as mothers in his household. One key feature of this kind of family setting is recurrent quarrels and undue competition among the mothers within the household as each mother typically cooks her own meals and maintains her offspring without undue interference from others.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i><b>Extended Family </b></i><i><b>Setting</b></i><i><b>:</b></i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>We, Igbos, are mainly known for this kind of family set-up in which father, mother or mothers, children, in-laws, from both sides, friends, and other relatives all live together as one household.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i><b>Reasons Why Igbo People Prefer the Extended Family Setting</b></i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The extended family is like a pillar of support for each member of the household as some members may be not-so-rich, widowed, orphaned etc as the case may be. The popular Igbo saying; “Igwe bu Ike” (Multitude is power) was coined to reflect the high value we place on the extended family setting.It helps the upbringing of children as their training is not merely confined to the limits of the knowledge and experiences of their biological parents.It reduces the financial burden and woes of the elderly members of the household as both the young and old jointly work together to make money and pay bills or put food on the table for every member of the family.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i><b>Some Challenges Associated with Igbo Extended Family Setting</b></i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>It makes the financial burden of a few members of the household heavier as every other member’s needs also become theirs.It could make some members of the extended family household lazy, because some will not develop their abilities or increase their effort in life, because they have their hopes of survival hinged on the success of well-to-do members of the extended family household.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i><b>Responsibilities of Various Family Members According to Igbo Culture and Tradition</b></i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i><b>Father:</b></i><br>
<i>The father represents and speaks on behalf of the family in public forums. It is his responsibility to cultivate, grow, and develop the family wealth and resources. He serves as the family priest and spiritual leader and teacher of </i><i>Igbo culture </i><i><u>and</u></i><i> traditions</i><i> to members of his household. It is the fathers’ responsibility to lead by example, correct deviant members of the family when they go wrong, and provide for the needs of his household.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i><b>Mother:</b></i><br>
<i>It is the mother’s responsibility to inspire and fuel the father with ideas to move the household forward towards progress and development. It is expected of her to preserve the family wealth and resources. It rests on the mother’s shoulders to set and uphold standards of morality and purity in the family. She has to make the household homely and comfortable for every member of the family including occasional visitors. Finally, it is her duty to love the father of the house, cook his meals, and maintain the cleanliness of the home.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i><b>Children and other Dependants:</b></i><br>
<i>According to Igbo culture and tradition, children and dependants are expected to serve and remain under the mentorship of father and/or mother only on the condition that they know what they are doing and are not bad influence on the children or dependants. Male children and dependants are supposed to be 100% under the mentorship of the father, while female ones are supposed to be 100% under the mentorship of the mother.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i> </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Written by Dunu Okigbo</i></p>
Enyi oha Nd'Igbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00535527241722227905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2647774649642174769.post-45201888043674499972017-04-23T17:21:00.001+02:002017-04-23T17:57:36.938+02:00Ritual Aesthetics of Mbaise – Igbo Funeral through Eshe Performance art<p dir="ltr"><b><i>Ritual Aesthetics of Mbaise – Igbo Funeral through Eshe Performance </i></b><u><b><i>art</i></b></u></p>
<p dir="ltr"><b><i>By MCPHILIPS NWACHUKWU</i></b></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Death among the Mbaise-Igbo of Nigeria like in other culture areas of Nigeria is a phenomenon that has deep symbolic implication between the living and the dead. Among Mbaise-Igbo, the occasion of death like the occasion of birth is celebrated with deep emotional attachment.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>However, the celebration of death, as a rite of passage to the metaphysical world, is more fundamentally accorded a heightened ritual elevation, especially to that deceased parent, who apart from having lived to a good old age, had also, lived a fruitful and well accomplished life, such that the impact of his spent life is felt not only by his family, but also, by the larger members of his community.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Having lived such a fulfilled life, coupled with the people's belief in ancestral power relation between the dead and living and, their fate in re-incarnation, the Mbaise- Igbo</i><br>
<i>consider it absolutely important to accord such a dead parent a proper burial, that is manifest in the elaborate burial rites culturally defined for such passages.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Among Mbaise-Igbo, a person is not yet buried in the proper burial sense until this elaborate burial ceremony popularly known as Okwukwu or ifu onu is carried out for him. Okwukwu as a final rite of passage for the dead Mbaise-Igbo aged parent involves an elaborate feasting and ritual processes.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Deriving from the peoples belief that an accomplished parent, whose children do not bury properly by carrying out the elaborate Okwukwu ceremony will not be accorded a place of honor among other ancestral parents in the here after, and consequently may turn violent against his family members; and especially against the eldest son of the family, who on the death of his father automatically becomes the ofo title holder of his family, the family of such deceased parent continues to live on the edge of life on daily basis, out of fear that some enemies of the deceased family may capitalize of this non performance of the proper burial rites for their father to invoking the spirit of dead parent to come and demand of such sacrificial rite, without which his children will be visited with unexplainable afflictions in the form of death, undiagonisable ailments and all forms of troubles as the case may be. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Okwukwu</i><i> ceremony in Mbaise</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Okwukwu, as a ritual feast is a very elaborate ceremony. It is a ceremony that smacks of showing off wealth. Death being a ritual journey that connects the families of the living and the dead; Okwukwu, therefore, involves the participation of all the family lineages of the deceased person, in whose honor the ritual ceremony takes place: It is a ceremony that involves the kinsmen of the dead person, his maternal home kinsmen, the umuda (family daughters married outside) and umu okele (children whose maternal homes are identified as the village of the </i><i>deceased</i><i> </i><i>person</i><i>.) </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>As one ceremony, which </i><i>affords</i><i> the </i><i>Mbaise-Igbo</i><i> a </i><i>meaningful</i><i> opportunity to dramatize all the mythical and superstitious belief systems that shape their world and spiritual imagination, okwukwu ceremony is </i><i>steeped</i><i> in a lot of religious </i><i>rituals</i><i>. </i><br>
<i>Among some of these beliefs is that a man must have lived to achieve all that he achieved in life or not, because of the strength of his mind and his hand (hard work) or lack of these, as the case may be. Based on this thinking, on the occasion of death and during the okwukwu ceremony, a deceased person, in whose honor, the ritual feast is called, is taken through a </i><i>ritual</i><i> ceremony of physical and spiritual empowerment. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Among the people, the </i><i>ritual</i><i> killing of dog </i><i>popularly</i><i> called iwa </i><i>nkita</i><i> </i><i>anya</i><i> or empowering of the eye, is carried out on an Eke market day preceding the Afo market day of the okwukwu ceremony. The ritual of iwa nkita anya is carried out by an appointed person through divination. This ritual executioner of this ritual rite must also be a man of strong will and bold personality. At the appointed day of the ritual, he is expected to go on a procession with other kinsmen of the deceased( umu nna) led by a convoy of other Okwukwu honorees with the dog tied to a rope trailing behind as they walk round the market square </i><i>amidst</i><i> fast </i><i>paced</i><i> </i><i>masculine</i><i> song of </i><i>egwu</i><i> </i><i>awuru</i><i> a kind of solidarity song accompanying that occasions such a ritual procession. After going round the square, the </i><i>divined</i><i> </i><i>ritual</i><i> killer of the dog of </i><i>iwa</i><i> </i><i>nkita</i><i> </i><i>anya</i><i> is expected to slash off the head of the dog at one cut of the knife amidst high tempo </i><i>egwu</i><i> </i><i>awuru</i><i> song </i><i>rendered</i><i> in this manner: </i><br>
<i>Owe </i><i>ghe</i><i> e </i><br>
<i>Aya</i><i> </i><i>ghe</i><i> he e </i><br>
<i>Owe </i><i>ghe</i><i> e </i><br>
<i>Aye </i><i>ghe</i><i> e. </i><br>
<i>This song, though onomatopoeic in nature, is structured to rhyme with the heroic action of the moment. The symbolic implication of iwa nkita anya ritual is that on re- incarnation, the deceased shall be reborn into the world of the living as a </i><i>bold</i><i>, </i><i>hardworking</i><i> and fearless character. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>It is important to state here that fear is seen as a weakness on the part of the man among the </i><i>Mbaise</i><i> people. The case of </i><i>Unoka</i><i>, </i><i>Okonkwo's</i><i> father in Things Fall Apart represents a classical attitude of the Mbaise-Igbo fears about fear and weakness on the part of man. And the only explanation that can be made about such a </i><i>tragic</i><i> personality would be that he was denied proper ritual rites of burial in his previous </i><i>incarnation</i><i>; and especially the right of </i><i>iwa</i><i> </i><i>Nkita</i><i> </i><i>anya</i><i>. </i><br>
<i>After the Nkita anya </i><i>ritual</i><i>, the next stage would be the </i><i>rite</i><i> of evule </i><i>obi</i><i> literarily meaning, killing of ram for the heart. This particular ceremony is not done for every body no matter what age the person may have attained. It is rather, a ritual of respect preserved for the deceased, who lived through a lot of pains and survived them all. The symbolism of this ritual is also buried in the animal used in the ritual, the ram, which on its own, is a very </i><i>stubborn</i><i> animal. A never say die, </i><i>kind</i><i> of animal. </i><br>
<i>A day before the burial, the oldest of the okele ( external grandson) to the family of deceased shall lead a procession of all the other okeles of the village in a carnival kind of procession round the village with their den guns slung on their shoulders </i><i>amidst</i><i> heroic songs of </i><i>egwu</i><i> </i><i>awuru</i><i>. As they go from one family to the other round the village singing egwu awuru, they are given presents in the form of money, drinks and agricultural products. In each of the family they are presented with gifts, the Okeles as a way of appreciation,congregate to pray for their host for his recognition and hospitality. </i><br>
<i>Among Mbaise-Igbo, the prayers of Ndi Okele are believed to have a very strong intercessionary power in the hands of the ancestors at the other plane of existence. Also, on the final day of the Okwukwu ceremony, Ndi okele also go on procession round the market. As they go round the market, they shoot their loaded den guns and through such actions, add </i><i>glamour</i><i> to the whole </i><i>ritual</i><i> </i><i>feasting</i><i>. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Before the Eshe musical performance, which embodies the entire poetics and dramatic essence of the ceremony, the Opara or first son of the deceased, on the day of Okwukwu, which usually takes place on the market day of the community of the deceased, will dress in his best: usually in the typical Igbo dress pattern, comprising of a George wrapper tied around the waist with a fitting isi agu, (Lion head spotting) jumper top and a red cap to match. He is accompanied in this task by other members of the Opara clime, (other first sons from other families, who have done the same burial rites for their fathers), on the market round ceremony. This movement to the market is very symbolic: apart from the fact that a cow, which is the high point of sacrificial object used for the ceremony is equally costumed with different feathers of birds of symbolic beauty and strength, the essence of the market round is to announce to the whole community, that so and so children of the late deceased person are burying their father properly. As the children go round the market in the company of other ndi opara, they are hailed and praised. Often, one would hear one elderly persons or other shout at the top of his voice: Opara mara mma (A son, who is handsome) and another will add: onye nwa liri bara uba (He, who is buried by his children is a wealthy man.) And soon, the whole remark would submerge into a song, usually taken over by the excited </i><i>carnival</i><i> </i><i>patrons</i><i> and supporters: </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>"</i><i>Onye</i><i> </i><i>nwa</i><i> </i><i>liri</i><i> bara aba" He, who is buried by children, is a </i><i>wealthy</i><i> man.</i><br>
<i> </i><br>
<i>"</i><i>Onye</i><i> </i><i>nwa</i><i> </i><i>liri</i><i> bara </i><i>eze</i><i>" He, who is buried by children is a king. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>"</i><i>Onye</i><i> </i><i>nwa</i><i> </i><i>liri</i><i> bara </i><i>aba</i><i>" He, who is buried by his children, is a </i><i>wealthy</i><i> man. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Having gone the market round with the costumed cow, amidst greetings, praises and canon gun shots; they return back to the house, where </i><i><u>the</u></i><i> traditional poetic-drama of traditional oration takes place. </i></p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-V1ky3y9hqlI/WPzOX6jvi7I/AAAAAAAABQQ/v_agyuag0Kw1XsAkNgS7hE_y2GchIbuaQCHM/s1600/Mcphilips480.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> <img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-V1ky3y9hqlI/WPzOX6jvi7I/AAAAAAAABQQ/v_agyuag0Kw1XsAkNgS7hE_y2GchIbuaQCHM/s640/Mcphilips480.jpg"> </a> </div>Enyi oha Nd'Igbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00535527241722227905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2647774649642174769.post-44829241167928823252017-04-06T14:17:00.001+02:002017-04-06T14:17:54.024+02:00Short History of Mbaise<p dir="ltr"><i>Mbaise</i><i> is an </i><i>amalgam</i><i> of </i><i>indigenous</i><i>, </i><i>autochthonous</i><i> </i><i>clans</i><i>, connected by </i><i>intermarriage</i><i>, and </i><i>situated</i><i> in </i><i>approximate</i><i> area the </i><i>heartland</i><i> of </i><i>Igboland</i><i>. It </i><i>occupies</i><i> an area of 404 square </i><i>kilometers</i><i>. The </i><i>quiddity</i><i> of </i><i>Mbaise</i><i> is that this </i><i>homogenous</i><i> group of more than 1000 persons per square </i><i>kilometer</i><i> is the most </i><i>densely</i><i> </i><i>populated</i><i> area in West Africa. The population of </i><i>Mbaise</i><i> as at 2006 was estimated to be 611,204 people (</i><i>Agulanna</i><i>, 2008).</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Until the advent of European </i><i>adventurers</i><i> into Nigeria, the main source of income in </i><i>Mbaise</i><i> was </i><i>subsistent</i><i> </i><i>agriculture</i><i>. In </i><i>Igboland</i><i>, no </i><i>centralized</i><i> political system </i><i>existed</i><i>. The system of government </i><i>depended</i><i> </i><i>largely</i><i> on </i><i>kinship</i><i> relations and shared custom. The village group was the highest level of </i><i>socio-political</i><i> organization with the </i><i>“Amala”</i><i> </i><i>exercising</i><i> all power (</i><i>Njoku</i><i> 2003). The weekly gathering of the male family </i><i>members</i><i> around the fresh </i><i>palm</i><i> wine </i><i>keg</i><i> (</i><i>“awuru-awu”</i><i> or </i><i>“manya-orie”</i><i>) </i><i>constituted</i><i> the forum for </i><i>discussing</i><i> matters. Recently, the </i><i>“Aladinma”</i><i> of the </i><i>autonomous</i><i> community exercise </i><i>judicial</i><i>, </i><i>legislative</i><i>, administrative and executive powers and functions. Typically, life at the </i><i>pre-colonial</i><i> time is better understood by reading “Things Fall Apart” by </i><i>Chinua</i><i> </i><i>Achebe</i><i>.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The </i><i>Aro</i><i> </i><i>Expeditionary</i><i> Force (British) moved through </i><i>Owerri</i><i> and </i><i>Mbaise</i><i> in 1902. When the British Colonial Administration was introduced in the Southern </i><i>Protectorate</i><i> of Nigeria, the government established a native court at </i><i>Nkwogwu</i><i> </i><i>Nguru</i><i> in 1905 and built a residence for the </i><i>Whiteman</i><i> there. Dr. Rogers Stewart who was </i><i>trespassing</i><i> </i><i>Mbaise</i><i> got killed and in 1906, the </i><i>“Ahiara</i><i> </i><i>Punitive</i><i> Expedition” led by Captains Brian Douglas and Harold Hastings started the </i><i>reprisal</i><i> </i><i>punitive</i><i> </i><i>massacre</i><i> of people in the area. In 1927, the Colonial Government introduced </i><i>taxation</i><i> using warrant </i><i>chiefs</i><i> and court </i><i>messengers</i><i> to collect the taxes. These colonial agents became corrupt and used taxes as tools of </i><i>oppression</i><i> and suppression. When the taxes were increased in 1929, it </i><i>triggered</i><i> the Women </i><i>Uprising</i><i> which </i><i>resulted</i><i> in the destruction of the native court at </i><i>Nkwogwu</i><i> and the </i><i>sacking</i><i> of the </i><i>Whiteman’s</i><i> residence. </i><i>Subsequently</i><i>, </i><i>other</i><i> </i><i>courts</i><i> were established at </i><i>Itu</i><i> for </i><i>Ezinihitte</i><i>; </i><i>Afor</i><i> </i><i>Enyiogugu</i><i> for </i><i>Agbaja</i><i>; </i><i>Obohia</i><i> for </i><i>Ekwerazu</i><i>; </i><i>Orie-Ahiara</i><i> for </i><i>Ahiara</i><i>; and </i><i>Uvuru</i><i> for </i><i>Oke-Uvuru</i><i>.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>On June 12 1941, </i><i>Mbaise</i><i> became a </i><i>federated</i><i> unit of five </i><i>clans</i><i>, </i><i>namely</i><i>, </i><i>Agbaja</i><i> (</i><i>Nguru</i><i>, </i><i>Okwuato</i><i>, </i><i>Enyiogugu</i><i>, </i><i>Obiangwu</i><i>, and </i><i>Umuohiagu</i><i>), </i><i>Ekwerazu</i><i>, </i><i>Ahiara</i><i>, </i><i>Ezinihitte</i><i>, and </i><i>Oke-Uvuru</i><i>. A common </i><i>treasury</i><i> was opened in </i><i>Enyiogugu</i><i> in 1942 and it was later </i><i>transferred</i><i> to </i><i>Aboh</i><i> in 1948. </i><i>Obiangwu</i><i> and </i><i>Umuohiagu</i><i> which were </i><i>constituent</i><i> parts of </i><i>Agbaja</i><i> </i><i>pulled</i><i> out in 1957 and joined </i><i>Ngor</i><i> </i><i>Okpala</i><i>. Unfortunately </i><i>Mbaise</i><i> was currently reduced to three local governments, </i><i>namely</i><i> </i><i>Ahiazu</i><i> (result of a merger of </i><i>Ahiara</i><i> and </i><i>Ekwerazu</i><i>), </i><i>Aboh-Mbaise</i><i> (</i><i>carving</i><i> out a part of </i><i>Ezinihitte</i><i> West and added to </i><i>Agbaja</i><i>), and </i><i>Ezinihitte</i><i>.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Between 1955 and 1958, </i><i>Mbaise</i><i> County Council under the </i><i>Chairmanship</i><i> of Honorable N. D. </i><i>Ukah</i><i> </i><i>initiated</i><i> two landmark development projects </i><i>namely</i><i> </i><i>Mbaise</i><i> Secondary School and </i><i>Mbaise</i><i> Joint Hospital (now General Hospital) </i><i>both</i><i> in </i><i>Aboh</i><i>. In 1954, Dr. Aaron </i><i>Ogbonna</i><i> who studied abroad became the first qualified medical doctor, returned home, and established the first private hospital in </i><i>Mbaise</i><i> in 1956. Prior to this time, any sick </i><i>person</i><i> who needed </i><i>western</i><i> medical attention either </i><i>went</i><i> to Holy </i><i>Rosary</i><i> Hospital, </i><i>Emekuku</i><i> </i><i>Owerri</i><i> or </i><i>Methodist</i><i> Hospital, </i><i>Amachara</i><i> in </i><i>Umuahia</i><i>.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Mbaise</i><i> people have always been very active in </i><i>Nigerian</i><i> politics. The sons and daughters have </i><i>rendered</i><i> services as Federal Ministers, State </i><i>Commissioners</i><i>, a Governor, </i><i>Governorship</i><i> </i><i>candidates</i><i>, a Federal </i><i>Vice-Presidential</i><i> candidate, and even a </i><i>Presidential</i><i> candidate. In 1946, long before Independence of Nigeria, Mr. </i><i>Jamike</i><i> </i><i>Iwunna</i><i>, who was </i><i>credited</i><i> for </i><i>suggesting</i><i> the name </i><i>“Mbaise”</i><i>, led an entourage of the late Dr. </i><i>Nnamdi</i><i> </i><i>Azikiwe</i><i> to </i><i>Mbaise</i><i> before the 1947 London </i><i>Constitutional</i><i> Conference. </i><i>Mbaise</i><i> has produced four Federal Government Ministers in the persons of Dr. Sylvester </i><i>Ugoh</i><i> (PhD Harvard Economic), Chief </i><i>I.D</i><i> </i><i>Nwoga</i><i> (Oxford), Professor Fabian. N. C. </i><i>Osuji</i><i> (PhD </i><i>Ibadan</i><i>), and Mrs. </i><i>Chinwe</i><i> </i><i>Obaji</i><i>. Several sons and daughters have served as honorable </i><i>commissioners</i><i> in Imo State governments. Dr. Sylvester </i><i>Ugoh</i><i> was selected as </i><i>Vice-Presidential</i><i> Candidate while Prof F. N. C. </i><i>Osuji</i><i> and Dr. Alex Obi </i><i>vied</i><i> as the </i><i>governorship</i><i> </i><i>candidates</i><i> of Imo State, and currently Dr. (Mrs.) Ada </i><i>Okwuonu</i><i> is the Deputy Governor. Chief Chinedu </i><i>Ezebuiro</i><i> </i><i>vied</i><i> for the </i><i>Presidency</i><i> of the Federal Republic of Nigeria under the </i><i>defunct</i><i> Social </i><i>Democratic</i><i> Party. Air Commodore Luke </i><i>Ochulor</i><i> (</i><i>Rtd</i><i>.) was the first Military Governor of Delta State. Chris </i><i>Anyanwu</i><i> is the first female </i><i>senator</i><i> in Imo State. Late Gaius </i><i>Anoka</i><i>, who </i><i>initiated</i><i> the annual </i><i>Pan-Igbo</i><i> </i><i>Ahiajoku</i><i> Lecture series, was the </i><i>Nigerian</i><i> High </i><i>Commissioner</i><i> to Sierra Leone.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Mbaise</i><i> people place a high premium on </i><i>education</i><i>. The </i><i>earliest</i><i> </i><i>missionary</i><i> and educational activities </i><i>commenced</i><i> in </i><i>Mbaise</i><i> about 1915. Today, there are several Catholic </i><i>Priests</i><i> and </i><i>Clergymen</i><i> of the </i><i>Anglican</i><i> </i><i>Communion</i><i> serving worldwide.</i><br>
<i>In 1934, an Irish nun established a </i><i>convent</i><i> in </i><i>Ogbor</i><i> </i><i>Nguru</i><i> that served </i><i>Orlu</i><i>, </i><i>Ikeduru</i><i>, </i><i>Okigwe</i><i> and </i><i>Obowo</i><i>. </i><i>Mbaise</i><i> daughters received early </i><i>education</i><i> at the Regina </i><i>Caeli</i><i> College, </i><i>Ogbor</i><i> </i><i>Nguru</i><i> and </i><i>attracted</i><i> </i><i>suitors</i><i> from all over the former Eastern Region of Nigeria and beyond. Despite the fact that </i><i>western</i><i> </i><i>education</i><i> arrived late relative to </i><i>other</i><i> parts of the country, </i><i>Mbaise</i><i> can </i><i>boast</i><i> of </i><i>countless</i><i> </i><i>professors</i><i>, </i><i>PhDs</i><i>, and different </i><i>specialty</i><i> </i><i>graduates</i><i>. These professionals are </i><i>contributing</i><i> to human development and progress all over the world. Some have served </i><i>exceptionally</i><i> well as </i><i>Pro-Chancellor</i><i> and Chairman of </i><i>Governing</i><i> </i><i>council</i><i> of the University of Nigeria </i><i>Nsukka</i><i>, as </i><i>Vice-Chancellor</i><i> of the Federal University of Technology, </i><i>Owerri</i><i>, the Madonna University, </i><i>Okija</i><i>, Deputy </i><i>Vice-Chancellor</i><i> of the (Old) Imo State University, as </i><i>Librarian</i><i> </i><i>FUTO</i><i>, and as Registrar of the University of Nigeria </i><i>Nsukka</i><i>.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Mbaise</i><i> </i><i>indigenes</i><i> have </i><i>contributed</i><i> in numerous areas of economic, educational, and social development of their country. Dr. Sylvester </i><i>Ugoh</i><i> was the first and only Governor of the Central Bank of the </i><i>defunct</i><i> Bank of Biafra. Dr. (Mrs.) Agatha </i><i>Ndugbu</i><i> (PhD, </i><i>OON</i><i>) a lawyer, </i><i>statistician</i><i>, and </i><i>economist</i><i> served as Imo State Head of Service. Famous legal </i><i>luminaries</i><i> Sir Mike </i><i>Ahamba</i><i>, Sir Bon </i><i>Nwakamma</i><i>, and Lucius </i><i>Nwosu</i><i> are among the first Senior </i><i>Advocates</i><i> of Nigeria in Imo State. Several others are serving as High Court </i><i>Judges</i><i> in Nigeria. The first lawyer from </i><i>Mbaise</i><i> Chief B. S. </i><i>Nzenwa</i><i> was called to the bar in 1959. From the military to the police forces, you will find at the top </i><i>echelon</i><i>, men and women from </i><i>Mbaise</i><i> in command </i><i>positions</i><i>.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>During</i><i> the 1967-1970 Nigeria – Biafra civil war, </i><i>Mbaise</i><i> played very strategic roles. A unit of the “Research and Production” (RAP) that </i><i>improvised</i><i> and </i><i>manufactured</i><i> various </i><i>scarce</i><i> </i><i>commodities</i><i> </i><i>during</i><i> the </i><i>blockade</i><i> was </i><i>positioned</i><i> in </i><i>Mbaise</i><i>. The Head of State of the </i><i>breakaway</i><i> Biafra, General </i><i>Odumegwu</i><i> </i><i>Ojukwu</i><i> launched the </i><i>Ahiara</i><i> Declaration, a </i><i>blueprint</i><i> for the political and economic development of the </i><i>beleaguered</i><i> Biafra at </i><i>Ahiara</i><i>. When </i><i>Mbaise</i><i>, where most </i><i>Igbo</i><i> people had taken refuge, was </i><i>overrun</i><i> by the Federal Armed Forces, the civil war </i><i>came</i><i> to an abrupt end.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Some cultural and traditional </i><i>ceremonies</i><i> have </i><i>survived</i><i> Western influence. The </i><i>Ahianjoku</i><i> festival dedicated to the </i><i>yam</i><i> </i><i>deity</i><i> </i><i>lasted</i><i> eight days. The New </i><i>Yam</i><i> Festival (</i><i>Iriji</i><i> </i><i>Mbaise</i><i>) introduced in 1946 is the </i><i>Christianized</i><i> modification of the </i><i>Ahianjoku</i><i> and it is fixed on 15th August every year. </i><i>“Oji</i><i> </i><i>Ezinihitte”</i><i> which </i><i>celebrates</i><i> the unity of the people of </i><i>Ezinihitte</i><i> </i><i>clan</i><i> </i><i>rotates</i><i> from the oldest community (</i><i>Oboama</i><i> na </i><i>Umunama</i><i>) to the </i><i>youngest</i><i> (</i><i>Onicha</i><i>). It is fixed on the first of January every year. </i><i>Anecdotal</i><i> evidence shows that the </i><i>clan</i><i> </i><i>revers</i><i> </i><i>Oriukwu</i><i> in </i><i>Umunama</i><i>, the market square where they believe the world was created. </i><i>“Itu</i><i> Aka” </i><i>Nguru</i><i> is also an annual event before the </i><i>farming</i><i> season which according to late Ambassador Gaius </i><i>Anoka</i><i> takes place to enable the people to better weather the new environment, new times and new challenges.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>One unique feature of </i><i>Mbaise</i><i> is the high </i><i>fecundity</i><i> among their women called </i><i>“eghu</i><i> </i><i>ukwu”</i><i>. To </i><i>qualify</i><i> to be a member of this </i><i>club</i><i>, a woman must have a minimum of ten children. There is no maximum and some women were known to have </i><i>given</i><i> birth to as many as 15 children (</i><i>Agulanna</i><i> 2008). You can tell the gender of a newborn from the song of joy </i><i>summoning</i><i> </i><i>“onye</i><i> ji ego </i><i>gba</i><i> </i><i>ngaa</i><i> </i><i>oo”</i><i> meaning </i><i>“whoever</i><i> has money hurry down here” for a girl. The </i><i>jubilant</i><i> chant </i><i>“onye</i><i> ji </i><i>egbe</i><i> </i><i>gba</i><i> </i><i>ngaa</i><i> </i><i>oo”</i><i> meaning </i><i>“whoever</i><i> has gun hurry down here” </i><i>heralds</i><i> the birth of a boy.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The local salad called </i><i>“ugba”</i><i> prepared in </i><i>Mbaise</i><i> has a special appeal when sold in the cities because of its special taste and </i><i>aroma</i><i>. </i><i>Similarly</i><i>, the local </i><i>raffia</i><i> </i><i>palm</i><i> wine </i><i>tapped</i><i> in </i><i>Mbaise</i><i> is sold out before others because of its </i><i>uniqueness</i><i>. In a traditional </i><i>setting</i><i>, these two go together like bread and butter.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Mbaise</i><i> culture is rich in music and dance appropriate for each social occasion. According to Professor </i><i>Nwoga</i><i> (1978), the peak of </i><i>Mbaise</i><i> cultural achievements is in its music and dance, in its song and </i><i>literary</i><i> skills. Every </i><i>form</i><i> of native </i><i>Igbo</i><i> dance ensemble is to be found in </i><i>Mbaise</i><i>; whether it has its base in the wood </i><i>xylophone</i><i>, </i><i>hand</i><i> piano, long drum, short drum, </i><i>slit</i><i> drum, pot, </i><i>gong</i><i>, </i><i>bamboo</i><i> </i><i>horn</i><i> or </i><i>calabash</i><i> </i><i>horn</i><i>. There are dances for </i><i>childbirth</i><i>, marriage, </i><i>funerals</i><i> of old men, </i><i>funerals</i><i> of old women, age group </i><i>celebrations</i><i>, </i><i>communal</i><i> labor, and </i><i>other</i><i> forms of group or social occasion (</i><i>Nwoga</i><i> 1978). </i><i>“Agbacha</i><i> </i><i>ekurunwa”</i><i> dance is performed at </i><i>childbirth</i><i> functions, while </i><i>“Alija”</i><i> and </i><i>“Ogbongelenge”</i><i> feature </i><i>during</i><i> marriage. </i><i>“Eseike”</i><i>, “Esse”, </i><i>Ekwerikwe</i><i> </i><i>mgba”</i><i> and </i><i>“Nkwa</i><i> Ike” are for death of old men. On the </i><i>other</i><i> </i><i>hand</i><i> </i><i>“Uko”</i><i> and </i><i>“Ekereavu”</i><i> are exclusive for death of old women. The </i><i>“Ekpe”</i><i> and </i><i>“Nkwa</i><i> </i><i>udu”</i><i> feature </i><i>during</i><i> the </i><i>“Iriji”</i><i> </i><i>Mbaise</i><i> and </i><i>“Itu</i><i> Aka” </i><i>Nguru</i><i>. A special mention must be made about </i><i>“Abigbo”</i><i>. According to Professor </i><i>Nwoga</i><i> who took one of the </i><i>“Abigbo”</i><i> groups to the USA in the 1980s, the music and dancers </i><i>philosophize</i><i>, </i><i>criticize</i><i>, </i><i>admonish</i><i> or praise in language expression which not only makes its point but also </i><i>pleases</i><i> while it hurts (</i><i>Nwoga</i><i> 1978). </i><i>“Abigbo”</i><i>, </i><i>“Agborogwu”</i><i> and </i><i>“Ogbongelenge”</i><i> are performed at the reception of </i><i>dignitaries</i><i>. </i><i>Mbaise</i><i> has produced many music legends but only few can be mentioned. Joseph </i><i>Onyenegecha</i><i> </i><i>Iwuchukwu</i><i> (</i><i>popularly</i><i> known as </i><i>JONEZ</i><i>) and Chief </i><i>Chrisogonus</i><i> </i><i>Ezebuiro</i><i> </i><i>Obinna</i><i>, aka (Dr. Sir Warrior) of Oriental Brothers International Band brought style and </i><i>zeal</i><i> into </i><i>highlife</i><i> music.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Many </i><i>Mbaise</i><i> sons and daughters are among the </i><i>celebrities</i><i> in </i><i>drama</i><i>, theatre and sports.</i><br>
<i>Before the advent of </i><i>Nollywood</i><i>, </i><i>Jegede</i><i>, the husband of </i><i>Akpeno</i><i> in the popular play </i><i>“Zebrudaya”</i><i> made his mark. Today, there are brand names such as </i><i>Kanayo</i><i> O. </i><i>Kanayo</i><i>, </i><i>Genevieve</i><i> </i><i>Nnaji</i><i>, and Rita Dominic </i><i>Nwaturuocha</i><i>. Others are Okey </i><i>Bakassi</i><i>, </i><i>Eucharia</i><i> </i><i>Anunobi</i><i>, Ben </i><i>Nwosu</i><i> (aka Papa Andy), </i><i>Chidi</i><i> </i><i>Chikere</i><i> and </i><i>Ms</i><i>. </i><i>Phina</i><i> Peters and many more celebrity actors and </i><i>actresses</i><i> of </i><i>Nigerian</i><i> movies. In sports, the first ever female Olympic gold </i><i>medalist</i><i> in Nigeria is </i><i>Chioma</i><i> </i><i>Ajunwa</i><i>. Several sons and daughters have played in the national football team – the Green Eagles and the female football team – The </i><i>Falcons</i><i>.</i></p>
Enyi oha Nd'Igbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00535527241722227905noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2647774649642174769.post-12807626478975034772017-03-12T14:04:00.001+01:002017-03-20T12:11:10.648+01:00Amazing Igbo folk tales <div dir="ltr">
<br />
<i>The Igbo people, is rich in culture, customs and traditions and one of the </i><i>tenets</i><i> that has </i><i>survived</i><i> the rage of civilization and </i><i>modernization</i><i> is the </i><i>art</i><i> of </i><i>storytelling</i><i>. Interesting and </i><i>educative</i><i> </i><i>folktales</i><i> which have been passed down from </i><i>generations</i><i> to </i><i>generations</i><i> from the </i><i>‘</i><i>ancestors’</i><i> are told to children in the bid to preserve the </i><i>norms</i><i> and culture of the tribe, </i><i>imbibe</i><i> good </i><i>morals</i><i> and </i><i>instill</i><i> the spirit of </i><i>communal</i><i> love </i><i>amongst</i><i> </i><i>members</i><i> of their society.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>These Igbo </i><i>folktales</i><i> which paint </i><i>colourful</i><i> pictures of spiritual life and traditional </i><i>aspirations</i><i> are </i><i>regarded</i><i> as </i><i>fictitious</i><i>, incredible, </i><i>mythical</i><i> and totally removed from real life </i><i>situations</i><i>. However, with </i><i>regards</i><i> to their functionality, these </i><i>folktales</i><i> </i><i>exhibit</i><i> elements of truth that translate into realism.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i><b>Obaledo</b></i><i> </i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>Usually </i><i>accompanied</i><i> with a song, this </i><i>folktale</i><i> tells of a young pretty girl who meets a great </i><i>misfortune</i><i> </i><i>due</i><i> to her defiance and decision to </i><i>disobey</i><i> her parents. Set in a time when demons and spirits </i><i>roamed</i><i> around villages, the girl called </i><i>“Obaledo”</i><i> was </i><i>instructed</i><i> by her parent before </i><i>embarking</i><i> on their trip, to remain within the </i><i>confines</i><i> of their home and eat just </i><i>yam</i><i> and snail when hungry. The parents asked that </i><i>she</i><i> </i><i>roast</i><i> the </i><i>yam</i><i> first before the snail, as the snail would eventually </i><i>quench</i><i> the fire. Unfortunately, the girl, being greedy and having a strong </i><i>lust</i><i> for meat, </i><i>roasted</i><i> the snail first and fire </i><i>went</i><i> off. Still hungry, </i><i>she</i><i> set out of her home, in </i><i>disobedience</i><i> to her parents, to get a </i><i>matchstick</i><i> from </i><i>neighbors</i><i>. On her way, </i><i>she</i><i> encounters a demon that </i><i>steals</i><i> her beauty and leaves her with his own </i><i>ugliness</i><i>.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i><b>The King’s Drum</b></i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>This story tells about a greedy tortoise who ends up </i><i>trapping</i><i> himself in his own greed. The tortoise, </i><i>envious</i><i> of a rich king who had a drum that would produce food and great wealth each time it was beaten, set a trap for the </i><i>king’s</i><i> wife, and when </i><i>she</i><i> </i><i>fell</i><i> for it, he </i><i>demanded</i><i> the drum as his only compensation. Unknown to him however, the drum only produced the luxury he has seen on certain conditions and was bound by a </i><i>juju</i><i>. Eventually, the tortoise and his children break the </i><i>juju</i><i> that was bound to the drum and instead of food and </i><i>riches</i><i>, each time he beat the drum, some men will emerge and </i><i>whip</i><i> him </i><i>thoroughly</i><i>. </i><i>Defeated</i><i>, the tortoise and his family made their home underneath the </i><i>prickly</i><i> tree, and according to the tale, that is the reason </i><i>tortoises</i><i> are always found living under the </i><i>prickly</i><i> </i><i>tie-tie</i><i> </i><i>palm</i><i>, as they have nowhere else to go to for food. </i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<b><i>The </i></b><b><i>disobedient</i></b><b><i> daughter who married a skull </i></b></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>This tale </i><i>narrates</i><i> the story of a </i><i>maiden</i><i> who was so pretty </i><i>she</i><i> had </i><i>suitor</i><i> from around the world. Unfortunately, </i><i>she</i><i> was very </i><i>picky</i><i> and was never satisfied with any of the offers. A demon from the spirit world in the </i><i>form</i><i> of a skull , </i><i>fell</i><i> in love with her and was determined to marry her. He </i><i>went</i><i> round villages collecting body parts and became extraordinary handsome. As expected, the </i><i>maiden</i><i> </i><i>fell</i><i> in love with him once </i><i>she</i><i> set her eyes on him and agreed to marry him. After the marriage, the demon took the </i><i>maiden</i><i> to the spirit world where </i><i>she</i><i> </i><i>suffered</i><i>. </i><i>She</i><i> was however very nice and helpful to the </i><i>demon’s</i><i> mother and in </i><i>appreciation</i><i> of her acts of </i><i>kindness</i><i>, the </i><i>demon’s</i><i> mother helped her escape and </i><i>sent</i><i> her back to her parents. On getting to her parents’ home, the father asked her to marry a friend of his, and </i><i>she</i><i> </i><i>willingly</i><i> </i><i>consented</i><i>, and lived with him for many years, and had many children.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<b><i>Why a Hawk </i></b><b><i>kills</i></b><b><i> </i></b><b><i>Chickens</i></b></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>More of a </i><i>fable</i><i> than a story, this tale tries to justify or give reason to why the </i><i>hawk</i><i> always attacks the chicken or </i><i>steals</i><i> the </i><i>hen’s</i><i> chicks. The story tells of a love story between the </i><i>hawk</i><i> and a pretty </i><i>hen</i><i> which was aborted by a desperate cock who was in love with the </i><i>hen</i><i>. After the </i><i>hawk</i><i> had paid the bride price of the </i><i>hen</i><i>, married her and taken her to the </i><i>land</i><i> of the Hawks, a desperate cock who </i><i>encountered</i><i> her </i><i>fell</i><i> in love with her and </i><i>crowed</i><i> </i><i>beautifully</i><i> when he </i><i>accosted</i><i> her. Unable to resist the sweet sound of the </i><i>crow</i><i>, </i><i>she</i><i> </i><i>absconds</i><i> her </i><i>husband’s</i><i> house and returns to the </i><i>land</i><i> of </i><i>fowls</i><i> with the cock. Angry and feeling </i><i>cheated</i><i>, the </i><i>hawk</i><i> </i><i>demanded</i><i> for a return of his </i><i>dowry</i><i> as it was the custom, but since the </i><i>hen’s</i><i> parents nor the cock could pay him back, they took the case to the king of animals who then </i><i>decreed</i><i> that the </i><i>hawk</i><i> could kill and eat any of the </i><i>cock’s</i><i> children whenever and wherever he found them as payment of his </i><i>dowry</i><i>, and, if the cock made any </i><i>complaint</i><i>, the king would not listen to him. And so from that time until now, whenever, a </i><i>hawk</i><i> sees a chicken he </i><i>swoops</i><i> down and carries it off in </i><i>part-payment</i><i> of his </i><i>dowry</i><i>.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<b><i>An Example of a Story That </i></b><b><i>Teaches</i></b><b><i> </i></b><b><i>Kindness</i></b><b><i>:</i></b><br />
<b><i> </i></b><i>
</i><br />
<i>Once upon a time there were two women married to one man. The elder was jealous of the
</i><br />
<i>younger. One day, the younger wife </i><i>came</i><i> back from the market and there was no water with
</i><br />
<i>which to prepare food for her baby so </i><i>she</i><i> took some water from the elder </i><i>wife’s</i><i>. When </i><i>she</i><i> told
</i><br />
<i>the elder wife that </i><i>she</i><i> took her water to prepare food for her child, </i><i>she</i><i> </i><i>insisted</i><i> that </i><i>she</i><i> gives her
</i><br />
<i>back her water </i><i>inspite</i><i> of her </i><i>pleadings</i><i>. Unfortunately, that was a day when no one goes to the
</i><br />
<i>stream because that was when ghosts </i><i>went</i><i> to the stream. Her co- wife knew that ghosts will kill
</i><br />
<i>her if </i><i>she</i><i> goes to the stream and </i><i>insisted</i><i> that </i><i>she</i><i> goes to get her water. The woman took her pot
</i><br />
<i>and left and on her way </i><i>she</i><i> was </i><i>confronted</i><i> by ghosts and </i><i>she</i><i> </i><i>pleaded</i><i> with them, told them her
</i><br />
<i>story and they let her pass. This happened many times until </i><i>she</i><i> got to the king of the ghosts who
</i><br />
<i>took pity on her, helped her get the water and also </i><i>gave</i><i> her a drum and asked her to choose </i><i>one.
</i><br />
<i>She</i><i> </i><i>chose</i><i> the </i><i>smallest</i><i> one and </i><i>she</i><i> was asked to break it when </i><i>she</i><i> </i><i>gets</i><i> home. When </i><i>she</i><i> got
</i><br />
<i>home and broke the drum, many good things </i><i>came</i><i> out. When her wicked mate saw these good
</i><br />
<i>things, </i><i>she</i><i> was </i><i>envious</i><i> and prepared to go to the stream to get her own </i><i>goodies</i><i>. When </i><i>she</i><i> was
</i><br />
<i>confronted</i><i> by the ghosts, </i><i>she</i><i> abused them and pushed them away. When </i><i>she</i><i> finally got to the
</i><br />
<i>king of the spirits, </i><i>she</i><i> </i><i>demanded</i><i> that </i><i>she</i><i> should be </i><i>given</i><i> all he </i><i>gave</i><i> to the younger wife. </i><i>She</i><i>
</i><br />
<i>was then </i><i>given</i><i> drums to select from and </i><i>she</i><i> selected the biggest one and when </i><i>she</i><i> got home and
</i><br />
<i>broke it, every bad thing including sickness and </i><i>reptiles</i><i> </i><i>attacked</i><i> her.</i></div>
Enyi oha Nd'Igbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00535527241722227905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2647774649642174769.post-72739250822073498372017-03-10T23:26:00.001+01:002017-03-20T12:25:04.935+01:00DIBIA OR NATIVE DOCTOR<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>DIBIA</i><i> OR NATIVE DOCTOR:</i></div>
</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>by C. O'Best</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><br /></i></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-PRVtcXMqZqQ/WMMoLaqULMI/AAAAAAAABPk/166gQlKsSi4/s320/FB_IMG_1489138760239.jpg" /></div>
<i><br /></i>
</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>Things our </i><i>generations</i><i> have lost </i><i>due</i><i> to white lies and </i><i>brainwashings</i><i>.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>A </i><i>DIBỊA</i><i> in Igbo African culture is a man or a woman with vast knowledge of nature and </i><i>spirituality</i><i>. In some cases they are called the wise ones, great ones, the eyes of the gods, or doctors which is the </i><i>literal</i><i> meaning of the word </i><i>DIBỊA</i><i> in Igbo language, ( native doctors).</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>In this knowledge, mostly people are </i><i>divinely</i><i> chosen to be a </i><i>DIBỊA</i><i>, and sometimes also can be learned by being around or serving as apprentice to a well rich in knowledge </i><i>DIBỊA</i><i>.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>There are several branches of being a </i><i>DIBỊA</i><i>, </i><i>hence</i><i> being a </i><i>DIBỊA</i><i> is a vast knowledge, and I mean as vast as when you say in English that someone is a doctor.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>For example in </i><i>western</i><i> world a doctor </i><i>defines</i><i> as follows.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>A teacher or a learned man.</i><br />
<i>A </i><i>person</i><i> who holds a </i><i>doctorate</i><i>.</i><br />
<i>A </i><i>physician</i><i> or surgeon.</i><br />
<i>A </i><i>person</i><i> licensed to practice any of the healing arts, as an </i><i>osteopath</i><i>, dentist, </i><i>veterinarian</i><i>, etc.</i><br />
<i>And this word doctor is said to be </i><i>originated</i><i> from an old Latin word of </i><i>doctore</i><i> which means a teacher, and in middle English as </i><i>doctor</i><i>, teacher, or learned man.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>So in Igbo African </i><i>setting</i><i>, </i><i>DIBỊA</i><i> being a vast field of knowledge includes (1) </i><i>DIBỊA</i><i> NGBỌRỌGWỤ NA </i><i>MKPA</i><i> AKWỤKWỌ which we call </i><i>herbalist</i><i> in English language.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>These are people that </i><i>specializes</i><i> in </i><i>discovering</i><i>, and </i><i>treating</i><i> </i><i>sicknesses</i><i> using roots, herbs and nature materials. All their goals are saving life.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>(2) EZEMMỤỌ, (CHIEF PRIEST OF AN ORACLE) They are also being referred to as the </i><i>mouthpiece</i><i> of gods.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>These are another set of people which we also refer to as </i><i>DIBỊA</i><i>. They serve as </i><i>mediators</i><i> between the people and the </i><i>oracles</i><i>. They </i><i>offer</i><i> </i><i>sacrifices</i><i> to the gods and the Oracle, and alert the leadership of the people when things are going bad in the society, </i><i>eg</i><i> when an </i><i>abominable</i><i> act is </i><i>perpetrated</i><i> neither in the secret or </i><i>openly</i><i>, so they are often called names like the voice of the gods or the eyes of the gods.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>(3) </i><i>DIBỊA</i><i> </i><i>OWUMMIRI</i><i> or the </i><i>mediator</i><i> between the water </i><i>goddesses</i><i> and man. These are special section of </i><i>DIBỊAs</i><i> </i><i>whos</i><i> works are often reaching out to the river </i><i>goddesses</i><i> and gods, helping people with issues </i><i>relating</i><i> to water spirits like ọgbanje and </i><i>iyiụwa</i><i> problems. They can </i><i>offer</i><i> </i><i>sacrifices</i><i>, and intermediate between the </i><i>person</i><i> </i><i>involved</i><i> and the spirits in </i><i>other</i><i> to bring solutions.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>(4) </i><i>DIBỊA</i><i> </i><i>MGBA</i><i> </i><i>AFA</i><i>, OR </i><i>MGBA</i><i> </i><i>NSI</i><i> which in English can be referred as </i><i>diviners</i><i>, </i><i>soothsayers</i><i>, fortune </i><i>tellers</i><i>, all kinds of </i><i>seers</i><i> etc. These are </i><i>specialists</i><i> in every spiritual </i><i>inquiries</i><i>. When you approach them for your problems all they do is consult the spirit of the </i><i>ancestors</i><i> which will reveal to them the root of the </i><i>problem</i><i> and what can be done for a permanent solution of it. Sometimes </i><i>due</i><i> to they have limited powers in </i><i>solving</i><i> problems, they might direct you to a higher power or can also go in your name and at the end the goal is to get the solution.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>(5) </i><i>DIBỊA</i><i> </i><i>NHA</i><i> </i><i>MMIRI</i><i> or rain doctors as English calls it.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>These I have mentioned so far are all in the fields of being a </i><i>DIBIA</i><i> (native doctors). Rain doctors are the people that </i><i>possesses</i><i> the power to control rain and winds. They can cause </i><i>wind</i><i> to blow, make it rain, and can also make it stop raining. They are the only people that </i><i>possess</i><i> the natural/ spiritual/scientific knowledge of doing this. </i><br />
<i>Sometime among them there are ones that only have the power to cause the </i><i>wind</i><i> to blow shifting </i><i>rainfall</i><i> from one direction to another or stop it from falling at a particular location at a particular time, (ịchụmmiri) and some can only make rain to </i><i>fall</i><i>, but can not control or stop rain from falling, (Ịhammiri) but there are ones that have the power to carry out </i><i>both</i><i> still. (NDỊ NA </i><i>ACHỤ</i><i> MA NA </i><i>AHAKWA</i><i> </i><i>MMIRI</i><i>)</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>In all these, like I mentioned earlier, mainly people are </i><i>divinely</i><i> chosen by the spirit to serve them on each various field, and one can also acquire this knowledge by staying close to a </i><i>DIBỊA</i><i> or serving as an apprentice to a </i><i>DIBỊA</i><i>.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>Though one </i><i>person</i><i> sometimes can </i><i>divinely</i><i> be blessed with all of this knowledge in one, but I want </i><i>us</i><i> to have this understanding that there are differences in them.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>There are some </i><i>DIBỊA</i><i> that can only give </i><i>medicines</i><i> and heal </i><i>sicknesses</i><i>, but can not </i><i>predict</i><i> anything, and such people are called for that purpose only.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>There are some that specialized in </i><i>predictions</i><i>, </i><i>fortune-telling</i><i> or any </i><i>kind</i><i> of </i><i>igba</i><i> </i><i>afa</i><i>, but they can not heal </i><i>sicknesses</i><i>.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>In rain </i><i>doctoring</i><i>, I know some rain doctors that can only bring rain down, but cannot stop or control the raining. And there are also some that have the power to control </i><i>both</i><i>.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>So in the </i><i>Igbo</i><i> African </i><i>setting</i><i> all this people are </i><i>recognised</i><i> in their various fields.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>This teaching becomes very important not for just to the ordinary people, but to those who are operating as </i><i>DIBỊAS</i><i> today in and around the society.</i><br />
<i>Because some few bad </i><i>eggs</i><i> have destroyed the </i><i>legacies</i><i> of our </i><i>ancestors</i><i> in this field.</i><br />
<i>People must be made to understand that being a </i><i>DIBỊA</i><i> is never a license to kill or to </i><i>perpetrate</i><i> all kinds of </i><i>atrocities</i><i> </i><i>thereby</i><i> </i><i>causing</i><i> pain and </i><i>sorrows</i><i> to the people. Rather being a </i><i>DIBỊA</i><i> is a call to save life, to heal, to teach and </i><i>uplift</i><i> the people.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>Yes I understand that anyone that </i><i>possesses</i><i> the knowledge of what saves, also must have the ideas of what </i><i>kills</i><i>, yes this is just about having the knowledge of </i><i>negativity</i><i> and </i><i>positivity</i><i>, but the right thing here is that you must be positive here </i><i>hence</i><i> life is involved. Because our people said that </i><i>okenye</i><i> </i><i>ekunyere</i><i> </i><i>nwa</i><i> ọsina </i><i>ezen'egbu</i><i> ya </i><i>marakwa</i><i> na </i><i>ekunyeghi</i><i> ya </i><i>nwa</i><i> ka </i><i>otagbue</i><i> </i><i>atagbue</i><i>. Lol. An adult who a baby is </i><i>given</i><i> to and </i><i>she</i><i> started </i><i>complaining</i><i> that </i><i>she</i><i> is having </i><i>toothache</i><i> should be </i><i>mindful</i><i> that the baby was </i><i>given</i><i> to her not to be bitten. This just a proverb.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>So they told you all the negative sides of African healing strategies and </i><i>DIBỊA</i><i>, but you never asked them the positive sides???</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>So you believe that </i><i>DIBỊAs</i><i> or native doctors are bad </i><i>due</i><i> to some </i><i>perceived</i><i> bad </i><i>eggs</i><i> </i><i>amongst</i><i> them that are often negative in their practice, but you have not asked your self who is responsible for creation of some deadly diseases like Ebola, </i><i>SARS</i><i>, </i><i>Lassa</i><i> fever, HIV and AIDS etc????</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>African </i><i>spirituality</i><i> is never an evil practice the way </i><i>western</i><i> </i><i>religion</i><i>, </i><i>western</i><i> </i><i>education</i><i>, Western media and some bad </i><i>eggs</i><i> </i><i>amongst</i><i> </i><i>us</i><i> has made it to look like, it is all about being positive and always </i><i>maintaining</i><i> positive vibrations.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>Before the </i><i>western</i><i> </i><i>psychiatric</i><i> treatment </i><i>came</i><i> to Africa, </i><i>Africans</i><i> have been </i><i>treating</i><i> </i><i>psychiatric</i><i> related cases including madness of all </i><i>sorts</i><i>.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>Before </i><i>western</i><i> ways of health care </i><i>came</i><i> to Africa, </i><i>Africans</i><i> have been </i><i>enjoying</i><i> good health, good </i><i>medications</i><i> through nature produces and </i><i>spirituality</i><i>.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>Every poison has its </i><i>antidote</i><i>, every sickness has cure in African ways of </i><i>healings</i><i>, every </i><i>problem</i><i> has </i><i>remedy</i><i>.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>It is time we as African children start looking back to what we have, in </i><i>other</i><i> to </i><i>use</i><i> it </i><i>positively</i><i> for our general good.</i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>Don't join those that </i><i>demoralises</i><i> and </i><i>dehumanizes</i><i> </i><i>us</i><i>, but join those that are building, </i><i>elevating</i><i> and continue to </i><i>uplift</i><i> </i><i>us</i><i>, because our people said that </i><i>ONYE</i><i> KPỌỌ ỌKỤ YA </i><i>NKPỌNKPỌ</i><i> NDỊ </i><i>MMADỤ</i><i> </i><i>EWERE</i><i> YA </i><i>WE'E</i><i> </i><i>KPOO</i><i> NTỤ. If you call your pot </i><i>scarab</i><i> people will </i><i>use</i><i> it to </i><i>park</i> <i>dirt's</i>. <br />
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Enyi oha Nd'Igbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00535527241722227905noreply@blogger.com97tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2647774649642174769.post-6262019586339834062017-02-11T21:43:00.001+01:002017-03-20T12:26:35.499+01:00OBI NWAKANMA - VISION OF A RENASCENT ONITSHA CITY<div dir="ltr">
<i>By </i><b><i>Okenwa</i></b><b><i> </i></b><b><i>Nwosu</i></b></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>It was the city that </i><i>drew</i><i> the great generation of </i><i>Igbo</i><i>, and indeed Southern </i><i>Nigerian</i><i> </i><i>modernists</i><i>. The city of the great </i><i>Zik</i><i>, whose statue still </i><i>adorns</i><i> an important historical site of the city; the city of Denis </i><i>Osadebe</i><i>, </i><i>Mbonu</i><i> </i><i>Ojike</i><i>, </i><i>Nwafor</i><i> </i><i>Orizu</i><i>, </i><i>Ikejiani</i><i>, Raymond </i><i>Amanze</i><i> </i><i>Njoku</i><i>, Pius </i><i>Okigbo</i><i>, Chike Obi, </i><i>Sylvanus</i><i> </i><i>Cookey</i><i>, </i><i>Birabi</i><i>, Ben </i><i>Enwonwu</i><i>, Cyprian </i><i>Ekwensi</i><i>, and too many others too numerous to mention. </i><br />
<i>It was the city, whose </i><i>centrality</i><i> in the evolution of modern </i><i>Nigerian</i><i> culture has been recorded </i><i>permanently</i><i> in Emmanuel </i><i>Obiechina’s</i><i> </i><i>canonical</i><i> study of the literature now called, </i><i>“Onitsha</i><i> Market Literature,” produced in the great </i><i>forges</i><i> of its little </i><i>presses</i><i>, much like the grub street, which basically </i><i>disseminated</i><i> the most significant </i><i>tradition</i><i> of city penny literature in that </i><i>march</i><i> towards the modern. </i><i>Onitsha</i><i> once had a great newspaper too: the </i><i>Nigerian</i><i> </i><i>Spokesman</i><i>, which </i><i>gave</i><i> this city its certain flavor. </i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>The city </i><i>exhibits</i><i> the marks of </i><i>dystopia</i><i>. Yet it is a city of possibilities, if only the </i><i>Anambra</i><i> state government, can think slightly out of the box and </i><i>commence</i><i> an ambitious City </i><i>redevelopment</i><i> plan, by bringing a number of things to bear: the </i><i>reconstitution</i><i> of </i><i>Onitsha</i><i> as a Metropolitan district with its own city government, and execution of a plan that would integrate </i><i>Ogidi</i><i>, </i><i>Obosi</i><i>, </i><i>Nnewi</i><i>, Oba, and the surrounding </i><i>districts</i><i>, as part of the </i><i>conurbation</i><i> of a new </i><i>Onitsha</i><i> Metropolitan District. </i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>This </i><i>metropolitan</i><i> authority should then think about raising property and </i><i>other</i><i> </i><i>municipal</i><i> taxes and begin the very clear process of </i><i>redesigning</i><i> and </i><i>rebuilding</i><i> </i><i>Onitsha</i><i> as a modern, 21st century city that should integrate the grandeur of its own history as the first </i><i>epicenter</i><i> of </i><i>Igbo</i><i> </i><i>modernity</i><i>, and promote that history as part of its culture and image, and its new offering. </i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>This is what great cities do. It should also work </i><i>inexorably</i><i> towards the development of its valuable water front into a great residential, business and culture district, with splendid private and public residential facilities, fine offices, great </i><i>restaurants</i><i>, galleries, </i><i>theatres</i><i>, well designed public </i><i>parks</i><i>, and such a place that would draw people to its profitable </i><i>use</i><i>, and that would </i><i>enrich</i><i> the city significantly; and in some ways, connect it to its </i><i>twin</i><i> city across the river, </i><i>Asaba</i><i>, for the benefit of </i><i>all.”</i><i> </i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i><b>Obi </b></i><i><b>Nwakanma</b></i><i> </i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>IF you asked most people today to go to </i><i>Aba</i><i> or </i><i>Onitsha</i><i> to </i><i>settle</i><i> and live, the first </i><i>impulse</i><i> would be to think that you are </i><i>placing</i><i> a curse on them. And I am totally serious. Young men and women, the most </i><i>productive</i><i> and active </i><i>catalysts</i><i> of city life, do not find any </i><i>incentives</i><i> to go to these once </i><i>thriving</i><i> cities of the East to </i><i>settle</i><i>, and live a full life. </i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>I once asked a friend of mine who grew up in </i><i>Onitsha</i><i>, and who now </i><i>teaches</i><i> at the University of Denver, Colorado, if he could ever think about living in </i><i>Onitsha</i><i> or raising his children in </i><i>Onitsha</i><i>, and his response to me was quite </i><i>frank</i><i>: “there is nothing for me in </i><i>Onitsha</i><i>!” he said. </i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>It was no longer even the city in which he grew up. The decay of a city like </i><i>Onitsha</i><i> is so </i><i>terrifying</i><i> that an encounter with </i><i>both</i><i> the image and reality of the city is </i><i>nightmarish</i><i> - a true </i><i>ghostly</i><i> </i><i>miasma</i><i> that is. </i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>Until you have felt and seen it, it is quite </i><i>unimaginable</i><i>. The </i><i>sludge</i><i> of human and industrial waste that runs on the public and private spaces; the sense of the </i><i>brokenness</i><i> of everything; the disorder in city planning; in code enforcement; in street planning; in the general ordering and layout of the city makes </i><i>Onitsha</i><i> today, one of the most </i><i>polluted</i><i> and certainly one of the most </i><i>ungainly</i><i> sites of human </i><i>habitation</i><i> anywhere on God’s earth. </i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>Yet </i><i>encrusted</i><i> in that pod of waste is a possible gem; a once well planned city which becomes only clear from the air, which has only been </i><i>distorted</i><i> by the </i><i>barbarous</i><i> rage of a most </i><i>philistine</i><i> generation for whom beauty and </i><i>civility</i><i> are alien values. </i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>Onitsha</i><i> still has some of the </i><i>finest</i><i> colonial architecture which are indeed great set pieces and which could just be </i><i>rehabbed</i><i> with a little imagination, care, and some respect for heritage. Yet also, </i><i>Onitsha</i><i> is </i><i>dotted</i><i> with some of the most </i><i>monstrous</i><i> forms of architecture, a </i><i>pretence</i><i> at the </i><i>high-rise</i><i> </i><i>apartments</i><i>, which give little room for aesthetics. The buildings are often </i><i>largely</i><i> </i><i>utilitarian</i><i>. </i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>They are most times </i><i>constructed</i><i> with little rhyme or reason, possibly inspired by the </i><i>competitiveness</i><i> of the </i><i>Onitsha</i><i> landlord who draws the design on the </i><i>sand</i><i>, and builds just to prove to everyone else that his “four </i><i>decking</i><i> is higher than </i><i>yours.”</i><i> </i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>The result in </i><i>Onitsha</i><i>, as one drives in, is a sense or an impression of a vast project – those low income, </i><i>box-like</i><i> </i><i>constructions</i><i> of </i><i>high-rise</i><i> </i><i>apartments</i><i> that dot the landscape of American urban </i><i>ghettoes</i><i> that are </i><i>infested</i><i> with drugs, </i><i>prostitution</i><i> and </i><i>poverty</i><i>. I have nothing, of course, against urban housing, but let it be built with respect for the people, with a sense of </i><i>spatiality</i><i>, with some </i><i>aesthetic</i><i> purpose. </i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>Onitsha’s</i><i> image </i><i>suffers</i><i> from its certain lack of awareness of its own history or importance. My early vision of </i><i>Onitsha</i><i> was shaped by an early encounter with </i><i>Chinua</i><i> </i><i>Achebe’s</i><i> </i><i>novella</i><i>, Chike and the River, a book I read in primary five. </i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>I also associated </i><i>Onitsha</i><i> with what one </i><i>imagined</i><i> to be the magnificent bridge across the Niger at </i><i>Onitsha</i><i>, which even now, remains as powerful as New </i><i>York’s</i><i> Brooklyn Bridge, as an authentic </i><i>symbol</i><i> of </i><i>Nigeria’s</i><i> entry into high technological </i><i>modernity</i><i>. </i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>The Brooklyn Bridge has been </i><i>celebrated</i><i> in the epic poetry of great American Romantic and </i><i>modernist</i><i> </i><i>poets</i><i> like Walt </i><i>Whitman</i><i> and Hart Crane, but not the bridge across the </i><i>lordly</i><i> Niger in </i><i>Onitsha</i><i>. </i><i>Onitsha</i><i> was for many years the cultural and commercial center of the East – something of the Boston of Southern Nigeria – with its place as the </i><i>epicentre</i><i> of Christian </i><i>missionary</i><i> movement into the </i><i>Igbo</i><i> </i><i>heartland</i><i>. </i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>For many years, it was the headquarters of the Church of the Niger. It was the city of </i><i>Basden</i><i> and the </i><i>Archbishop</i><i> Denis, as well as the Joseph </i><i>Shanahans</i><i>. Those icons of the Roman and the </i><i>Anglican</i><i> </i><i>churches</i><i>, who </i><i>ironically</i><i> were also figures of early </i><i>Igbo</i><i> </i><i>modernity</i><i> of the late 19th century. </i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>Onitsha</i><i> was the intellectual capital of Southern Nigeria, with its famous </i><i>parochial</i><i> schools, like the Christ the Kings College, the Catholic boarding school for boys, or the Denis Memorial Grammar School, the </i><i>Anglican</i><i> equivalent, or the Queen of the </i><i>Rosary</i><i> School, the Catholic boarding school for girls, or the famous St. Charles Teachers College, and so many pioneer schools that made </i><i>Onitsha</i><i> the gathering of the early </i><i>Igbo</i><i> towards cultural </i><i>modernity</i><i>. </i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>It was the city that </i><i>drew</i><i> the great generation of </i><i>Igbo</i><i>, and indeed Southern </i><i>Nigerian</i><i> </i><i>modernists</i><i>. The city of the great </i><i>Zik</i><i>, whose statue still </i><i>adorns</i><i> an important historical site of the city; the city of Denis </i><i>Osadebe</i><i>, </i><i>Mbonu</i><i> </i><i>Ojike</i><i>, </i><i>Nwafor</i><i> </i><i>Orizu</i><i>, </i><i>Ikejiani</i><i>, Raymond </i><i>Amanze</i><i> </i><i>Njoku</i><i>, Pius </i><i>Okigbo</i><i>, Chike Obi, </i><i>Sylvanus</i><i> </i><i>Cookey</i><i>, </i><i>Birabi</i><i>, Ben </i><i>Enwonwu</i><i>, Cyprian </i><i>Ekwensi</i><i>, and too many others too numerous to mention. </i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>It was the city, whose </i><i>centrality</i><i> in the evolution of modern </i><i>Nigerian</i><i> culture has been recorded </i><i>permanently</i><i> in Emmanuel </i><i>Obiechina’s</i><i> </i><i>canonical</i><i> study of the literature now called, </i><i>“Onitsha</i><i> Market Literature,” produced in the great </i><i>forges</i><i> of its little </i><i>presses</i><i>, much like the grub street, which basically </i><i>disseminated</i><i> the most significant </i><i>tradition</i><i> of city penny literature in that </i><i>march</i><i> towards the modern. </i><i>Onitsha</i><i> once had a great newspaper too: the </i><i>Nigerian</i><i> </i><i>Spokesman</i><i>, which </i><i>gave</i><i> this city its certain flavor. </i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>I could go on and on, but I hope the picture is clear, that from the time of the Saro and Caribbean middle class of </i><i>lawyers</i><i>, doctors, teachers, and so on, who first </i><i>constituted</i><i> the society and culture of </i><i>Onitsha</i><i>, of the </i><i>Onitsha</i><i> </i><i>Literary</i><i> Society, </i><i>funded</i><i> by a remarkable </i><i>whiteman</i><i> whose grave is still marked in one silent corner of the of the </i><i>Onitsha</i><i> city cemetery, to today, a city like </i><i>Onitsha</i><i> has </i><i>undergone</i><i> radical transformation. A </i><i>cultured</i><i> middle class seems </i><i>absent</i><i>. </i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>The city </i><i>exhibits</i><i> the marks of </i><i>dystopia</i><i>. Yet it is a city of possibilities, if only the </i><i>Anambra</i><i> state government, can think slightly out of the box and </i><i>commence</i><i> an ambitious City </i><i>redevelopment</i><i> plan, by bringing a number of things to bear: the </i><i>reconstitution</i><i> of </i><i>Onitsha</i><i> as a Metropolitan district with its own city government, and execution of a plan that would integrate </i><i>Ogidi</i><i>, </i><i>Obosi</i><i>, </i><i>Nnewi</i><i>, Oba, and the surrounding </i><i>districts</i><i>, as part of the </i><i>conurbation</i><i> of a new </i><i>Onitsha</i><i> Metropolitan District. </i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>This </i><i>metropolitan</i><i> authority should then think about raising property and </i><i>other</i><i> </i><i>municipal</i><i> taxes and begin the very clear process of </i><i>redesigning</i><i> and </i><i>rebuilding</i><i> </i><i>Onitsha</i><i> as a modern, 21st century city that should integrate the grandeur of its own history as the first </i><i>epicenter</i><i> of </i><i>Igbo</i><i> </i><i>modernity</i><i>, and promote that history as part of its culture and image, and its new offering. </i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>This is what great cities do. It should also work </i><i>inexorably</i><i> towards the development of its valuable water front into a great residential, business and culture district, with splendid private and public residential facilities, fine offices, great </i><i>restaurants</i><i>, galleries, </i><i>theatres</i><i>, well designed public </i><i>parks</i><i>, and such a place that would draw people to its profitable </i><i>use</i><i>, and that would </i><i>enrich</i><i> the city significantly; and in some ways, connect it to its </i><i>twin</i><i> city across the river, </i><i>Asaba</i><i>, for the benefit of all. </i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>This is the only way to </i><i>stimulate</i><i> growth and economic development on a scale that is </i><i>purposive</i><i> and significant. I have used </i><i>Onitsha</i><i> clearly as a foil even in my description of the </i><i>other</i><i> city, </i><i>Aba</i><i>. I have always said that one of the most important reflections of the </i><i>kind</i><i> of mindset that have destroyed once </i><i>well-made</i><i> cities like </i><i>Aba</i><i>, designed by Pius </i><i>Okigbo</i><i> as Development Officer in 1947, is in the destruction of the </i><i>Aba</i><i> </i><i>golf</i><i> course and its </i><i>parceling</i><i> off to </i><i>speculators</i><i> who </i><i>quickly</i><i> turned this once beautiful place into a </i><i>monstrous</i><i> space. </i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>Aba</i><i> and </i><i>Port-Harcourt</i><i> are also </i><i>inevitably</i><i> bound to shake hands and </i><i>rejoin</i><i> themselves at the hip, as it was once </i><i>conceived</i><i>, </i><i>sooner</i><i> than later. </i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>And so it is important for the authorities in those two cities to begin the process of joint planning and </i><i>remodeling</i><i>, including creating joint </i><i>sewer</i><i> </i><i>districts</i><i>, protected forest areas, river and lake recreation areas, that would link the </i><i>triad</i><i> development from </i><i>Owerri</i><i>, </i><i>Aba</i><i> and </i><i>Port-Harcourt</i><i>, starting at the </i><i>Owerrinta</i><i> Port, near </i><i>Okpala</i><i>. </i></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<i>But as it is, it seems like very little thinking is going on at a grand scale in government. These cities cannot recover their economic powers, if they do not attract the right </i><i>kind</i><i> of human energy. It is </i><i>imperative</i><i> therefore, to draw people back, with great schools, great city </i><i>hospitals</i><i>, great </i><i>museums</i><i> and galleries, and generally, great environments to live and </i><i>nurture</i><i> families in a healthy and sustainable way</i>.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-O1Zr4R0mcAs/WJ93h-5nFzI/AAAAAAAABPQ/HkC72X2A3cQ/s1600/Onitsha_environs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> <img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-O1Zr4R0mcAs/WJ93h-5nFzI/AAAAAAAABPQ/HkC72X2A3cQ/s640/Onitsha_environs.jpg" /> </a> </div>
Enyi oha Nd'Igbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00535527241722227905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2647774649642174769.post-5325757572112235202017-02-11T17:21:00.001+01:002017-02-11T17:24:07.054+01:00Igba Ndu in Igboland<p dir="ltr"><i>MAN naturally is a social animal that interacts as well as try to adapt to his environment. However because man's nature is influenced by his desires for survival, dominance and control over his environment, this leads to issues of conflict among them. Such conflicts could attain the dangerous dimension of taking of lives, physical and spiritual injuries or material destruction. This can be at individual or group levels or even to communal proportion. The need therefore for conflict resolution of these prevalent issues, to avoid destructions and mistrust among peoples, and which can be of a permanent basis, to ensure peace and security of lives and properties, gave rise to the concept of Igba ndu in Igboland. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>What is Igba Ndu </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The concept Igba ndu literarily means to bond life, Igba stands for bond or tie while ndu means life in Igbo language. However the concept of Igba ndu is better understood as a covenant between individuals or groups. The Igbos are predominantly associated with the Igba ndu, however other groups outside their boarders also have their own concept for covenant or oath taking. The Igbos are found in the south eastern and parts of the south-south geopolitical delineation of present day Nigeria and they are a very industrious, energetic, and enterprising people that speak the Igbo language. They are basically skilled in merchandising, and indulge in agriculture and other economic activities. By the nature of their activities and interactions, there is a high level of socio-economic interaction among them and even beyond their boarders, hence such interactions can and most times give room for mutual and peaceful co-existence as well as mistrust and conflict. Hence the need to institute an idea which can help sustain peaceful co-existence of a lasting time led to Igba ndu. This practice emanated not only out of fear of the unknown, especially with the knowledge that man is inherently wicked, hence to check on the wiles of men, covenants or Igba ndu is entered into to help safeguard the life and confidence of the parties that have entered into the agreement. Another reason for the Igba ndu is as a result of man's desire to maintain peace, orderliness and harmonious living among themselves, hence where such is existing there is the need to consolidate such harmony among peoples.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The concept of Igba ndu is tied to the knowledge of the existence of a supreme being or deities who are very powerful as to intervene in the affairs of men when they are invited and thus dispense justice to defaulters who break the covenant entered. For any Igba ndu to be potent, in most cases it is tied to a deity or god. In Igboland, there are many deities that are involved, depending on the people concerned. Prominent deities such as, Igwe ka ala, Amadioha, Ibinokpabi, Ahiajioku etc, are some of the deities called upon to witness such covenants. The parties to the covenant while swearing will pronounce punishments which the gods are to excise on the defaulters. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Types of Igba Ndu</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>There are different types of Igba Ndu just as we have different types of agreements among peoples. The types of Igba ndu can be known in terms of the number of people involved or the type of agreement entered into. For influence, there is Igba ndu that can exists between two individuals, within a family or between two different neighboring communities. Igba ndu can also exist between an individual and a deity. In Igba ndu issues involved range from love, disputes between individuals or communities, trading or business concerns to agreements with the gods for protection or favour by individuals or groups etc. in undertaking Igba ndu certain people are involved; apart from the people concerned, the gods or deities are invoked, the departed ancestors are also involved, elders especially titled men, native doctors or Oha dibias, as well as chief priest of the community, is dependent on the people type of Igba ndu to be entered.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>For instance where there is between lovers, only the two lovers and some times dibia are physically involved but the gods and ancestors are called upon as witnesses. Where the Igba ndu involves family or community a larger group of people mentioned are involved and the gods and the ancestors' role is to witness and dispense justice to defaulters or uphold the one that conforms to the covenant.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The dibias are to prepare the relevant concoction as well as make the necessary pronouncements/incantations that make the covenant potent. The chief priests invoke the gods and ancestors as well as participate in the preparation of necessary materials for the covenant ceremony. In some cases, the parties concerned are to come with their witness. These witnesses will attest to the facts of the covenant if anything should happen afterwards. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Objects needed for Igba Ndu </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>In understanding the Igba ndu, some items are required; these items are dependent on the type of Igba ndu. Such items as kola nut, palm wine, hot drink, ofo staff, blood, plantain stalk, cockrel, kaolin (nzu), fresh palm frond, snail, yam etc other none material objects and the incantation made by the priest or dibias, which can not be interpreted, it is privy to the dibias only. In the case of two lovers who want to undertake the Igba ndu, both partners can use a kolanut and dip it into their blood and then make a declaration as to their intention as well as what will befall anyone of them that breaks the covenant, they can call on a deity they believed in as witness, including their ancestors and Ala (the goddess of the earth). After which they eat the kolanut. In the event of a land dispute between either individuals or community the Igba ndu is more elaborate as the group concerned will invite witnesses, elders, the chief priest and dibias. In most cases, the covenant is administered in the shrine after the necessary items have been prepared and incantation made to invoke the ancestors and gods to witness it. In this type, the people concerned are to swear not to harm each other in any way either physically or spiritually any one who goes against the covenant the gods and ancestors will dispense justice. In other instance, a hole is dug and plantain stalk used to cross the hole, the people concerned will be made to cross the makeshift bridge, with a declaration that whosoever breaks the covenant will fall into the pit which signifies endless problems </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Essence of Igba Ndu in Igboland </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The role Igba ndu plays in Igbo society can be best appreciated from the axiom of social control. It is important as it tries to eliminate deep seated hatred and calm frayed nerves especially on issues concerning land disputes, and other communal or individual squabbles. The process of Igba ndu ensures that the parties to a dispute settle such disputes amicably without physical or spiritual attacks on each other. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Igba ndu is also very important as it strengthens the unity that exists between the individuals, groups or communities. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>It also plays the role of adjudication as it is the final processes of arbitration in which parties concerned, witnesses, ancestors and the gods are involved in the process of ensuring peaceful coexistence, hence when administered it becomes the final process of peaceful resolution as partied concerned have involved the spiritual world to adjudicate on their behalf. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Thus any default is punished by the gods. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Igba ndu checks the incidence of witch craft or spiritual or physical attacks, then puts a check to the activities of the wicked against the just in the society.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Penalties for default and the process of appeasement</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Igba ndu is a serious covenant that carries a very severe punishment on the defaulter. This punishment if not quickly addressed or appeased will result in a family or generational curse or stigma. A defaulter is known when mysterious occurrence begins to affect his life, such as death, infertility, sickness etc. the penalties for a defaulter is an outcome of the covenant entered into as well as the reaction of the deity in which the covenant is administered. In addition to this is the curse, which is also placed on the defaulter. The penalties also defer in terms of the type of Igba ndu entered into. For instance, in the case of two lovers, the penalty for defaulter, where one breaks the covenant and abandons the relationship could be either madness, barrenness, inability to hold down any relationship or even death. Igba ndu where a deity like the Amadioha is involved has a very disastrous penalty for the defaulter. This can either be stricken down by thunder, mysterious illness that defies medical solution etc. the process of appeasement by the defaulter is tedious, this is so as people will not want to associate with such a person for fear of reprisal attack on them from the gods. It is only when a clearance is gotten from the gods through divination on how to appease the deity and also on how to re integrate the person into the society before he or she is allowed access to people. The gods will determine the items for appeasement, which most times are enormous. It is the chief priest of the deity and the dibias that handle such appeasement rites. Also the person will do rites that will allow him access to people (oriko). In some societies, items of appeasement include, cockerel, palmwine, local bull, ram, tortoise, cowry, yam, palm oil etc. </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Igba Ndu in contemporary times </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The influence of religions has had its impact on the appreciation and promotion of our rich cultural attributes including Igba Ndu.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>However, there are some few who still believe in the efficacy and powers of our deities. These few have tenaciously held on to the cultural practice such as the Igba Ndu and other aspects of our cultures that recognize our deities in societal control. Though they are few but yet they have been able to ensure that these practices do not </i><i>fizzle</i><i> away into </i><i>oblivious</i><i>.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>By Alloysius Duru</i></p>
Enyi oha Nd'Igbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00535527241722227905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2647774649642174769.post-71613453150020136102016-11-14T14:45:00.001+01:002016-11-14T15:09:33.253+01:00BIAFRA STORIES - CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS <p dir="ltr"><i>Dear readers, </i></p><p dir="ltr">
<i>today I am coming to you with a request. Kindly support the talented writer Vivian with her wonderful and important project. </i><br>
<i>Below, </i><i>she</i><i> tells herself what it is about.</i><br></p>
<p dir="ltr"><u><b><i>BIAFRA STORIES - CALL FOR </i></b></u><u><b><i>SUBMISSIONS</i></b></u><u><b><i> </i></b></u></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>"My name is Vivian </i><i>Uchechi</i><i> </i><i>Ogbonna</i><i> and I am an emerging writer from Nigeria. I started writing in 2014 and some of my short stories and articles have been published in ‘Roses for Betty,’ an anthology of short stories by </i><i>Writivism</i><i> </i><i>Literary</i><i> Initiative, The New Black Magazine, Premium Times, Sahara </i><i>Reporters</i><i> and My Mind Snaps.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The </i><i>Nigeria-Biafra</i><i> war is a painful part of </i><i>Nigeria’s</i><i> history. The war ended </i><i>forty</i><i> six years </i><i>ago</i><i> but the memories and scars have </i><i>remained</i><i>, especially with those who </i><i>witnessed</i><i> it. As part of efforts to keep these memories alive, I am </i><i>compiling</i><i> fifty stories to mark the </i><i>fiftieth</i><i> anniversary of the declaration of Biafra in May, 2017.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i> </i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The idea for this project </i><i>came</i><i> to me because most written accounts about the war are the military </i><i>exploits</i><i> between the </i><i>Nigerian</i><i> and Biafra soldiers, such as which towns were captured and on which days. Few of them document the experiences of the </i><i>civilian</i><i> population – the men, women and children who became victims of the conflict. Those who were adults at the time are very </i><i>elderly</i><i> now and may not be alive for much longer, therefore losing their stories will be like losing our voice without the </i><i>chance</i><i> of finding it again. </i><br></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>The collection will feature, among </i><i>other</i><i> themes, stories about the wounded and the dead; about family </i><i>members</i><i> who were separated, perhaps forever; about those who </i><i>fell</i><i> in love, got married and started families; about the </i><i>severely</i><i> </i><i>malnourished</i><i> children who, against all odds, were </i><i>flown</i><i> out of Biafra for medical treatment; about families who </i><i>sheltered</i><i> strangers; about trade and commerce which was still </i><i>thriving</i><i> in </i><i>spite</i><i> of the fighting; about the </i><i>humanitarian</i><i> </i><i>organisations</i><i> that worked </i><i>tirelessly</i><i> to bring </i><i>succour</i><i> to a dying people. </i><br></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>This is not a political project about the </i><i>‘rightness’</i><i> or </i><i>‘wrongness</i><i>’</i><i> of the war. My intention is to paint a detailed, </i><i>well-rounded</i><i> picture of Biafra in the voices of those who lived through it. In doing so, I hope to </i><i>humanize</i><i> these men and women who may not have </i><i>fought</i><i> in the </i><i>trenches</i><i> but whose lives were changed </i><i>thereafter</i><i>.</i><br></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>If you and your family have borne your stories in your heart these past fifty years, and would like to share it with the world, this is a great opportunity to do so. Kindly send your stories to </i><a href="javascript:return"><i>BiafraStories@gmail.com</i></a><i>.</i></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Deadline for all </i><i>submissions</i><i> is December 31</i><sup><i>st</i></sup><i>, 2016. Phone numbers will be made available to people who wish to contribute.</i><br></p>
<p dir="ltr"><i>Thank you."</i><br>
</p>
Enyi oha Nd'Igbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00535527241722227905noreply@blogger.com0