Selection of Leaders In Igbo Nation - A Sactred Responsibility

Selection of Leaders In Igbo Nation - A Sactred Responsibility

Selection of Leaders In Igbo Nation - A Sactred Responsibility

By / Trending Posts / Tuesday, 20 August 2019 10:07

The Igbo nation takes the issue of leadership in her communities seriously as much as we experience in today’s modern democratic societies. This is so because of the belief that the welfare of her people is dependent to a very large extent on the quality of the men and women entrusted with leadership roles. Nobody is therefore allowed to take up a community leadership position except the person is found worthy in character and commitment to the goals of the community. 


Leaders must therefore be true sons of the soil to guarantee their patriotism. Strangers are on no account considered fit to serve. In order to ensure that care in the selection of leaders is not compromised, appointment is usually restricted to the ruling families in most communities who most of the times double as the spiritual heads in such communities. Even within the ruling families, it is not all members of the family that qualify to take up leadership roles. Most recently, in Imo State of Nigeria, the most senior member of a royal family was bypassed in the appointment of a traditional leader position in favour of his younger brother because the community found him unfit for the royal stool on account of his poor character. It is also the belief of the Igbos that leaders of deviant behaviours will inevitably incur the wrath of the Most High God (Obasi di n’elu) on the community and so those of impure spiritual or social descent are never allowed to preside over the affairs of a typical Igbo community. Because Leaders in Igbo nation, understand the sanctity of their roles, they are usually careful that justice is not miscarried; that social amenities are not diverted, and that equity reigns in the administration of the community. Under the leadership of such upright men and women, bribery has no place; corruption is never thought of; and stealing and other social ills attract maximum punishment of banishment from the community. But unfortunately, the reverse is now the case in many communities in Igbo land with the rapid and deplorable decay in community values and ethos driven by the agents of neo-colonialism thrown up at the end of the civil crises in Nigeria in Igbo speaking areas of Nigeria.

Understandably, the crises that erupted in many Igbo communities at the end of the civil war could be explained by the imposition of those that were not supposed to occupy traditional positions on such communities. On the political platform, Administrators and Governors with strange missions were appointed to administer Igbo land. When by sheer providence a true and dynamic Igbo son was appointed Governor of Imo State of Nigeria, he was quickly redeployed when it dawned on the neo-colonialists that the young Navy Officer, Ndubuisi Kanu, was not ready to play to the instructions to the powers that be not to initiate viable development projects in the State. He was most wickedly replaced by a true neo-colonialist agent who ensured that his brilliant programmes for Governor Kanu were killed prematurely.  As if that was not enough, the same tendency has continued into the Democratic dispensation. Igbos are not allowed to select their leaders in the few states grudgingly allocated to them in the Federation of Nigeria after being lumped together for so long as East Central State; their votes have never really counted. All that they have had are stooges of the neo-colonialists with no programmes of grass root development. Even political ministers of Igbo descent have not proved better not to mention the local government administrators. Until recently, when the courts of law turned the election results of some states in the South-East, notably Anambra State and the consequent break down of the stranglehold of political god fatherism in other parts of Igboland, there was little or no sign of infrastructural development. Today, Governor Peter Obi of Anambra State, the only real case where we could say that our votes counted, is proving that good governance, as was demonstrated by our past leaders chosen on sound Igbo values, is not yet extinct. Enugu State is now really working under Governor Chime. Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers State is not left out as P.H. is now witnessing infrastructural development wonders. All others are busy creating conditions that encourage joblessness and the attendant ills of unemployment in Igbo land because our votes never counted in their elections; they are strangers that got into positions of authority unscrupulously. Contrary to what happens in the Western world, no one dares his or voice in complaint against any of them without being labelled an enemy. Workers with families to care for are owed their salaries for months; a condition considered a sacrilege in a traditional Igbo society. Things have indeed fallen apart in Igbo land for the second time and the spirit of Chinua Achebe’s Okonkwo must be once again in anguish. Umu Igbo feel very betrayed by these internal enemies working for our external aggressors who have sworn that the Igbo nation must never rise again to the pre-Igbo Union days.

Will the trend ever change, one is compelled to ask. I am optimistic that things will still change for better, if the Igbos will come together and insist that strangers will cease to be in control of power in the Igbo nation as was the case in the post Independence days. Men and women of proven integrity and with true love for our land are not scarce. They abound and we must ‘shine our eyes well’ to elect them in positions of power come 2011. They must be patriotic men and women, in the likes of Peter Obi, who will selflessly fight for the restoration of the dignity of the Igbo nation. Leaders who will resist the type of high level deception that was tried on the contract for the rebuilding of the Niger Bridge as was revealed recently by Governor Peter Obi. We must all say No!  to the agents of the neo-colonialists in our midst who want to perpetuate the pitiable psychology of the Igbos as strangers in Nigeria simply as result of the perceived central involvement of the Igbos in the Nigerian civil crises. Strangers and leaders who are sterile of any good intention for our people must be resisted in the entire Igbo nation. We have had enough of this rubbish.

{Written by Dimgba Okoji pendingexpress  permission to publish}

 

 

 

 

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Mazi Ogbonna

Mazi Ogbonna

CEO Mother Tongue Academy

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