Henry Okoroafor - New York, USA
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Email: peckerso@hotmail.com
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Recently, there have been calls from various schools of thought for the sovereignty of Igboland. It has even echoed louder since the passing of Dim Chukwuemeka Odimegwu Ojukwu. The groups sounding the gong include Mobilization for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), Ohaneze Ndigbo and others. They are entitled to their rights of free speech/expression and organization, provided to everyone by the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria
The idea of Igbo sovereign nation in itself is mouth watering,
considering the benefits enjoyed by most small nation states such as Kuwait,
Iran, Saudi Arabia and many more with abundant natural resources like us.
According to Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) factsheet, Nigeria as a country
is number 32 in world ranking by square kilometers, with 923, 768 and
comparative area slightly twice the size of the state of California, USA. The
estimated population by July 2012 is 170,123,740 and the demographic layout is
as follows: Hausa and Fulani 29%, Yoruba 21%, Igbo (Ibo) 18%, Ijaw 10%, Kanuri
4%, Ibibio 3.5%, and Tiv 2.5%.
Right now you may be wondering why the statistical brouhaha? I put
up these figures just to provide you with an insight into how the Igbos will
square off as an independent nation whenever that happens. What this means as
you may already know is that 18% of the current Nigerian population (Igbo) will
have full ownership and control of only about 20% of the total amount of
natural resources in the country. I might be a little rusty in my math skills,
but this translates to a population of 30, 622, 273.2 taking in less than $11.2
billion out of the current $56 billion total annual oil revenue.
Look closely, we are talking of dollars in this case. Although
this sounds like a lot of revenue and with this much money coming from oil
alone, the Igbos could smile all the way to the bank. But that is just one
factor, which is also likely to bring our political “Robin Hoods” out of the
woodworks. Supporters and pundits of the sovereign state of Igboland have for
so long presented their arguments on economic grounds, with special emphasis on
oil, which we only own a very small percentage of. This is where I have a hard
time buying what they are selling and I am not the only one in this free
market, shopping for better deals. Having said this, we are now doing ourselves
a disservice by merely assuming that we can make due as a sovereign nation
state just on oil availability. At a mere mention of our own country or nation,
all eyes turn to the oilfields of Ohaji, Egbema, Uguta areas as if that is all
we are worth as a people.
It is true that nobody has conclusively traced our origin down to
the first Igbo man or woman yet, but one undeniable fact about us as a people
is that our heightened sense of survival is unmatched with any other group of
people or earth. It was this factor and many more, along with Ojukwu’s selfless
and patriotic instincts that almost made Biafra a sovereign nation some forty
plus years ago. Can we still boast of that today? I cannot speak
authoritatively on the experiences of the Igbos during the Nigeria-Biafra civil
war since I was born almost at the end of it. However, according to my father
whose experience and commitment to the fight led him to name me Ogueri, the
Igbos before and during that time were united, dedicated, loving and very
honest people, with a great sense of family and brotherhood, and most
importantly, they were very creative and hardworking. He also told me to always
proudly lay claim to my Igbo heritage with all the natural rights and
privileges as well as the minor artificial inhibitions it bestows on me. This
is the premise within which I draw my analysis.
We have continued to completely ignore the fact that current Igbo
generation is on a steady slide down the culture slope, to the point of
reluctance even to claim their identity. In Nigeria, it is only an Igbo man
that can willingly give his children Yoruba or Hausa names even when he does
not know the meaning of such names. It is only an Igbo man that swears up the
heavens to be a “Lagosian” in an effort to jettison his heritage even when his name
is Emeka Ike and he freely accepts Igbo chieftaincy title. A friend of mine who
teaches Igbo language in the department of linguistics at a Nigerian University
told me he was going to acquire another graduate degree in a different area of
studies. He lamented that he has a burning passion for teaching Igbo language,
but lately, the number of student enrollment into the program has drastically
dwindled. I honestly shared in my friend’s pain. But here is the kicker; he has
two children who neither understand nor speak Igbo language. They only speak
English. Prominent Igbo men and women; our high and mighty speak of Igbo
language and culture to their children as without any relevance or value. So I
ask who are we trying to impress and what are we trying to prove? This tight
chick, stiff upper-lip attitude of the rich and powerful only shows how
disillusioned some have become in the pursuit of so called class and status.
Now that we are on this language and culture thing, let me key you
in on some facts you may not know. While our society’s elite denounces our
language and showcase their family monolingual shortcomings as the new evidence
of upper-class, the rest of the world is buying into multi-linguistic abilities
as the only way to get ahead in the current global dispensation. For example,
the United States Department of Defense pays its service members (Military
personnel) $300.00 a month for speaking any of the three major Nigerian
Languages; Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba. So if a service member speaks two Nigerian
languages, he or she gets $600.00 a month and for all three, the member gets
$900.00 in addition to whatever their monthly salary and allowances are. I am
not making this up because I have been receiving this monthly payment for Igbo
language since January 2008.
Just like Aristotle, Socrates, Rene Descartes, Emmanuel Kant and
the rest, our forefathers by all standards were great philosophers too. They
provided us with answers and guiding principles through which we can attain
healthy living as a group of people. They firmly instructed us that “Eziokwu bu
ndu” (Truth is life), “Umunna bu ike” (There is strenght in community), “Eziaha
ka ego” (A good name is greater than money) and that “Ihe ewetara na akuku ite
na ala na akuku onu” (That which is acquired through the wrong means only goes
into the wrong things). In the days of my grandfather, the Igbos lived as if
they were genetically wired to cling onto these principles because their lives
depended on them. Today the reverse is the case. The point in all this is that;
yes we have the right to a collective struggle in an effort to better the lot
of our people; yes we deserve more than what we are getting from the current
arrangement and yes we have to start from somewhere to make our case. However
we also have to retrace our roadmap towards this struggle if we are gunning for
a bang.
The pursuit of sovereignty strictly on economic factors will only
set the stage for a total defilement of everything our forefathers believed in,
perfected and handed to us. These were the principles that have guided our
culture and people for several centuries. They were the same principles that
held the Igbos together before and during the trying times (Civil war). But
now, these same principles seem to have almost eluded us by our own design. It
might seem insignificant a factor, but the danger in living without cultural
inclination for any society or group of people is that after a while, the sense
of collective endeavor dies in everyone. Life becomes everyman for himself, which
is a recipe for disaster. As late Pope John Paul II put it “The great danger
for family life, in the midst of any society whose idols are pleasure, comfort
and independence, lies in the fact that people close their hearts and become
selfish" Unfortunately, judging from how we have been behaving in the past
few years, we might have arrived at that point or on a steady cruise towards a
socio-political “Drive-by-shooting”. As Fatima Dike a renowned South African
Poet, playwright and actor said, "Your culture is your past, your culture
is your future. Without the past, you have no future and without culture, you
have nothing”.
Through our culture, we used to find expressions in our
agriculture, intellectual reasoning, moral values, dresses, kinship, marriages,
languages and even food. Through our culture, we had the ability to modify our
thoughts, actions and reactions which made us highly distinguishable from other
societies. We used to express ourselves in customs, beliefs, social norms and
religion just as we did during the Nigeria-Biafra civil war.
When the dust of fake lifestyle, lies, looting, tyranny and
borrowed hybrid Western norms as well as the “dollar and pounds speak”
mentality settles, we will be judged by our capacity to learn and transmit our
language, culture and identity in their purity to future generations just as
they were given to us. Since our toolkit for the pursuit of sovereignty is in a
deficiency of essential elements or factors, it might be beneficial for us to
return to innocence and begin to reign in our cultural norms. We need to
re-evaluate how we were able to accomplish so much as a group in the time of
our great grandfathers. Before we start wagging our fingers at those holding
our bread, we need to be honest to ourselves to know that our house is on fire.
Until we reaffirm who we are and conduct a full assessment of what we believe
in, we might not be able to stand tall and demand what rightfully belongs to us
as one people, after all “Ana esi na ulo mara mma puo na ama.” (To look good in
public, one must first look good at home).
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