If Amadioha were to be alive, he would have summoned our elders himself. His government is point and kill. No flinging about. It would have been fierce but profoundly easier. Justice and truth would have been supernaturally imported. The scenery of Igbo culture and landscape used to be ornamented with the flora of justice, truth and armistice. The Igbo closeness to the greenery that holds the cusp of our rustic ecology derives from our longing for natural quietude and edenic identity. Deforestation and gradual movement into western forms of shelter have become prevalent in Igbo land. Our terrestrial advancement is proceeding to abrasive mutilation of fauna and folklore. Gradually, as we urbanise, the sooner we misplace our visions, our etiologic construction and ethical solidity. Every no-nonsense aspect of our community is fast corroding. Today, are we not tired of the disappearances of justice, peace, and ethos in Igbo institutions and region?
The ragamuffination of every aspect of Igbo culture, the upsurge of westernisation in the minds of our people, the massive sexualisation of our women; they, the proudly promiscuous cannot ever stand on the market square of our precolonial villages; the attendant defeat of brotherhood and its aesthetic significance in our traditions, push me to constantly reflect on the subjects of hope and survival for the Igboman in the 22nd century. When Igbo women are lost to western recklessness, tell me how the men could be trained to be strong. Just tell me. It will be most unbecoming of this generation not to question the roots of our hatred for us and the link between this retrogressive disgust and our lust for western culture. The reputation of Igbo cultural drama, Igbo cultural dance, Igbo cultural education, Igbo cultural groups, Igbo cultural symbols, orature, and the invocation of truth and justice are now bygone. Sad. Is this generational splodge not terrifying for the future of our tribe?
Suddenly, our children do not have communal play grounds, and our teenagers do not play anymore under the moon. Our children and adults now play on the computer, unwholesomely roboticised, thus losing so much of real-time communal bond. Today, our young peoples have been tossed away from Igbo language and our folklore societies. Our stories are buried under Amadioha’s sepulchre. The present day mother can hardly remember singing any traditional melodies to her children, the painful death of the Lullaby, and the pieces of tradition that beautify our mythologies are vastly dissipating under our comfy alliance with western civilisations. Our mothers are now ardent offenders, pimps, and taboo-mongers. Our mothers now insult the elders and call men fools in the public. Men have become womanish and a gender so fragile and unable to lead. How can weak men manage our world fraught with a cesspit of principalities and powers?
Our daughters are now sold for money in Igbo land. Our dead relatives are buried with borrowed resources in our very presence. Our traditional rulers are bought every now and then. Our traditional elders have been so enmeshed with ritualism and evil that the problems this generation of Igbos are facing can clearly be solved by addressing their life-threatening black mysticism. Our daughters are raped daily by our men. We now sell our babies to unknown women and men. Unfortunately, there is no response from Amadioha. Has the power of thunder died naturally? Today, instead, evil prestidigitators who disguise as our elders use thunder to attack the innocent, kill them and throw them into the local River. Amadioha, the god of thunder, has no authority to any further extent. Formerly, Amadioha used to strike whenever men and women desecrate the land. When elders lie, they die for it. When elders take other people’s land, they quench mysteriously. The actions of our elders today, from Ohaneze to the village elders, in their refusal to condemn evil customs such as subjecting widows to marry who they do not wish, blatantly demonstrate they are malevolent as our ugly-bladed new-found customs. Unfortunately, celebrities like Genevieve Nnaji, Nkem Owoh, Pete Edochie have remained dumb. Religious leaders have also remained deaf. Political office holders have been crippled by the lust for money. Rochas in APC, Peter Obi in PDP, APGA deserted. Other gods, Ikenga, Agwu and Ogbunabali have become so dead. Is our silence as youths at this point not a huge generational criminality?
In the days of our great-grand fathers, around the last part of the 20th century, women who abuse their children or the elders are cursed. An elder who touches a widow, or tries to molest her becomes a potentially dead man. A brother who dupes another is execrable to Amadioha. Youths and Umuada will always arise and condemn evil collectively. People believed in the power of justice and were very careful of their actions. Things were not that shattered. It was abomination for men to have any sexual relationship with men; no single king has the right to carry the wealth of the people; no woman leaves her child for a maid; no son is ignorant of the culture and language of the people; women were taught to cook, sing, serve, farm, swim and dance; and men have their duties including to be strong enough to work, wrestle, fight, protect and provide for their wives, children and maids. Karma was not asleep in our minds. Today, things are never the same again. Why should kings be buried with human heads? A sister can kill another sister just for the sake of a man. Ignorant of the karma of such action. Elders do not care whether our sisters marry or not, they still maintain the high dowries. Our elders also do not care to consult us. They go ahead to sell our desires for money to the ruling government. This is because we are not agitating. Today, our laws and mores have neither authority nor value anymore. Should we continue to watch? We do not speak Igbo, our beloved language anymore. We do not care about our brothers and sisters any longer. We do not even want to bother about the future of our children in this nation. Today, we somewhat celebrate the death of Amadioha and Igbo culture supremacy. It is now freedom for all. Freedom to do as you wish in a culture that was once revered with integrity and moral supremacy. Has our model not become the western culture?
This humiliation is enough. Today, a whole lot has to stop. A son kills his own 70 year old mother and uses her for ritual, today. Titles meant for integrity are traded for money. Our votes have been bought by other tribes in power, in broad day light. Other tribes no longer recognise us. Awkwardly, unlike the Ijaw with their militants, Yoruba with their OPC and Hausa/ Fulani tribes with their Boko Haram, our youths are so passive and naïve. No agitation. No representation. Most, strangers in other climes, frustrated and always butchered at the beck and call of their wicked hosts. Many of them are captives in Asia, Europe and America. Yet our elders say or do nothing. The government just instituted a National Conference without recognising what our struggle has been; the longing to be on our own. That conference is a humiliation of the Igbo struggle. I wonder how our elders sold everything including that Universal Human Right to wish to remain on our own as some European nations such as Scotland who are on the threshold of nationhood. What does unity unnegotiable mean? We cannot survive like this. We have to summon our elders to a Regional Conference. We need to re-address the relevance of our social and cultural matters as well as our position in Nigeria. It is time to say no to this obvious treachery by our elders. We, this generation of young Igbos, are a generation constantly displaced by our elders. The prevalent politics of our position in Nigeria is massively detrimental to our future. Can a round peg go into a square hole without damages? Why are the Igbo youths so complacent and pilloried at this time? Let us pull out from this hole. Now or never!
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