March 29, 2024
Text of a speech made by a true son of Ana Igbo at the IGWEBUIKE SOLIDARITY MINI CONVENTION, organised by the IGBO UNION DUBLIN-IRELAND on the 17th of March 2013.

 

Protocols……….. I will try to use the little time available to talk about the Imperative of Igbo Unity the lack of which is one of the challenges faced by our generation.

Frantz Fanon it was who said that ‘’every generation must out of relative obscurity discover its mission, fulfil it or betray it’’.

This seemingly innocuous quote from Franz Fanon’s book ‘The wretched of the earth’ has weighty implications when viewed through the prism of today’s topic. We can construe Fanon’s exhortation to be an indictment of sorts on our generation. We have lost track of our mission and totally abdicated the responsibilities conferred on us by our forebears. Our much-touted republicanism has unfortunately, been interpreted to mean the elevation of the individual to the detriment of the collective. Nothing could be further from the truth. This trajectory has however, resulted in the massive erosion of our value system and the enthronement of a thought process largely influenced by our contamination by the lucre-fuelled politics of Nigeria.

 To successfully navigate the cause and effects of our collective downward spiral, certain questions readily come to mind: What has happened to ndi Igbo? Where has it left us? What does it portend for future generations? What can we do about it? To attempt an answer of the foregoing, I invite us on a brief trip down memory lane.

Ndi Igbo, throughout and beyond documented history had been set apart as a unique and very gifted people. We excelled in whatever we did; had a value system deeply entrenched in morality and sustained by social solidarity. The Igbo’s of yesteryears evolved a system whereby the community had a stake in the welfare of each and everyone. It was commonplace for communities to fund the education of its members within and outside the shores of Nigeria to any level. The good of one was considered the good of all.

In addition, through the platform of town development unions, the Igbo communities of old contributed money to build civic centres for the provision of social amenities. Co-operatives were set-up to provide soft loans and technical training for members of the communities. We were well on our way to evolving a modern welfarist society in the mould of present day Scandinavian countries- who are reputed to be the best in all indices of human development. However, that was before the wheels came off our truck and we got bogged down in the mire of selfishness and individualism and became contaminated by the Nigerian political climate. The aforementioned way of life, bears the inimitable trademark of the ethos, unity and solidarity that defined the Igbo’s of the past.

The Republicanism, sense of purpose and gravitas of ndi Igbo ensured we always fielded our best eleven. It was that same spirit, which propelled and elevated us to our zenith, creating legends like Nnamdi Azikiwe. Zik rose to become the most prominent leader of the first republic, winning more popular votes in the elections- over half a million more than his closest rivals, the northern people’s congress (NPC )The NCNC also won the second highest number of parliamentary seats. So much so that if not for the lopsided concessions given to the north that gave them more seats, Nnamdi Azikiwe would have been the undisputed winner of the First Republic elections. He was also Nigeria’s first Senate President. Jaja Wachukwu, an Igbo man, was the first speaker of the Nigerian House of Representatives and the First Foreign affairs and Commonwealth Relations Minister. The first Nigeria indigenous Permanent Secretary-the highest placed Nigerian civil servant was another Igbo man, Sir. Francis Nwokedi. First indigenous Vice chancellor of a Nigerian University was Prof Kenneth Onwuka Dike an Igbo man. An Igbo man, Prof. Chinua Achebe, is the foremost African writer of all time. His book ‘Things Fall Apart’, published in 1958, is arguably Africa’s bestselling novel, published in over 50 different languages and is on the TIME 100 BEST ENGLISH-LANGUAGE NOVELS. 1923-2005. The first Vice chancellor of the University of Lagos (UNILAG) Professor Eni Njoku was also an Igbo man. First indigenous commander of Nigeria Army was an Igbo man, Aguiyi Ironsi. The First president of the Nigeria stock exchange, Sir Louis Odumegwu Ojukwu-who himself was a Knight of the British Empire-onye Igbo. The first Premier of the Mid West, Dr Dennis Osadebe-onye Igbo. The first African to win gold at the Commonwealth games ( 1954), Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna-onye Igbo. First Indigenous Nigeria University, the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) was built by the then Eastern Region government. First state University in Nigeria, Anambra State University of Technology (now UNIZIK).

The pre-eminence and achievements of these sterling individuals, coupled with the courage and resilience of the illiterate Aba women traders, who engaged in the first open revolt against the British colonialists in 1929 starts to tell the story of the Igbo spirit. Do we stop there? What of the Biafran army, that to date, remains the greatest testament to the unity, fraternity and resilience of the Igbo spirit? Mainland Europe, comprising France, Belgium, Holland, Poland etc in the course of WW2, succumbed to the German army in less than four months; it took the might of the Nigerian armed forces, with British and Russian support, all of three years to subdue a poorly trained, poorly equipped and UNPAID Biafran army, under the inspired leadership of General Odumegwu Ojukwu!!! These achievements are because of our hitherto exceptional unity and solidarity and are an indicator of the potentials of the indomitable Igbo spirit.

The contamination of the Igbo spirit started post civil war with the Nigerian government’s unwritten policy of marginalization against ndi Igbo. They (the Nigerian government) sacrificed merit on the altar of mediocrity and nepotism. However, this posture of the Nigerian government did not deter us. We retained the spirit and resilience that defined us as Igbo’s, resulting in a period exponential industrial growth, from the end of the hostilities to the end of the Zikist era. It was also in this period that the market cities of Onitsha and Aba reached their peak as International markets with people coming from as far as Gabon, Burkina Faso, Cameroun to trade.

As previously stated, before the end of the Zikist era, ndi Igbo personified unity, integrity and selflessness. The outlook of our leaders was always universal. The ‘Zikist’ generation soon gave way, at the end of the second republic, to a mongrel group of Igbo sellouts. These charlatans created a culture of self-serving leadership without a care for the well-being of the generality of ndi Igbo, leading to an erosion and degradation of our entire society. It is not surprising that Igbo states are now stagnated, and in some cases severely retarded-development wise.

 Unfortunately, these individuals and their acolytes, bereft of ideology and direction, still wield political power in Igboland. According to Kenneth Galbraith, ‘all great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time’. Can we say the same of our leaders? The departure of our leaders from these well-trodden paths of unity and selfless service has spawned a generation that now perceives mediocrity and corruption as a way of life. The results of the ineptitude of our leaders and their penchant for self-aggrandizement are there for all to see. Poverty is endemic; Unemployment is rife; our educational system is in tatters, and social chaos is the new normal.

 Where do we now run? To whom do we turn? APGA that came with so much promise and hype, and stood the chance of replicating the successes of the NCNC, is now balkanised along the lines of self serving interests; thereby losing its influence and direction. Ohaneze Nigeria itself, which had the potential of living up to its billing as the single uniting force of ndi Igbo all over the world, cannot even speak for itself not to talk of ndi Igbo as a group. It is now a launch pad for individuals seeking political relevance and personal enrichment.

Today, ndi Igbo are situated at a serious moral, economic and social crossroads; but as Frantz Fanon said, ‘’each generation must out of relative obscurity discover its mission, fulfil it or betray it’’. The greatest challenge which the present generation of ndi Igbo faces, which we have discovered and which we must not betray, is that we must rekindle our core value of integrity, social solidarity and cohesion. Those values that have served us so well in the past, remain the key to unlocking our massive potentials in economic, technological development, prosperity, accountability and social stability.

For the sake of clarity, my call for unity is not to mean the absence of, or condemnation of divergent opinions. Multiplicity of Igbo groups or organisations is not fatal to the advancement of our homeland. My call is rather, a call for us to UPHOLD and invigorate that bond that holds us all together, for even in our differences, we can find common grounds for cooperation. We have to harmonise our various approaches to the development and advancement of ana Igbo and therefrom derive a formidable and workable blue print that will restore ana Igbo to its pride of place.

I make bold to say that not all hope is lost. In our local community in Ireland, people like Kelechi Onwumere-incumbent President of the Igbo Union Dublin and his team; people like Glen Ene, the erstwhile President of the Igbo Union Dublin; Mr. George Enyoazu, who founded the first Igbo organisation in Ireland-Nwannedinamba Dundalk-and is an indefatigable campaigner for Igbo fraternity; people like Akp. Chinedu Nwobu, the Secretary General of the Igbo Council of Europe-an Igbo Development and strategic planning Organisation based in the Republic of Ireland www.igbocouncilofeurope.org; people like Mr. Val Obidegwu, a tireless champion of Igbo culture and tradition, and all those other dedicated Igbo ambassadors propelling the different Igbo groups across Ireland, inspires hope that the lofty heights reached by our erstwhile leaders are attainable in our time.

Our generation must rise above the self- centred politics and individualism that has practically crippled us. We must eschew rancour and division. We must embrace and propagate the twin virtues of unity and fraternity, for therein lies our strength. Therein lies our future. If we do not speak up and act out against the rapacious denigration of our heritage and values, we are as guilty as those that brought us to where we are, and we deny ourselves the moral platform to point fingers. I rest my pen on the following quote by Edmund Burke ‘’People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors’.

 

Thank you and God bless ana Igbo!

Eche I Chidume Esq.

echechidume@aequusattorneys.com

 

 

 

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