IGBOS OF NIGERIA, A ROYAL ADVISE FOR YOU!

The Obi of Onitsha-Nigeria, Igwe Alfred Achebe, Agbogidi of Onitsha-Ado, has advised Ndigbo of Nigeria, to reflect deeply and honestly on their direction as a people as it appears that the Igbo nation is steadily fragmenting and disintegrating.

According to the royal father, the Igbo people are chasing very narrow individual and sectional interests, while their counterparts in Nigeria are integrating and building alliances towards advancing their own common interest. This ugly phenomenon he noted, is manifested in every aspect of the Igbo man's life - in business, politics, church and the creation of autonomous communities and traditional rulers. Continuing His Royal Highness said that Ohanaeze Ndigbo appears to be losing its voice and convening power as an Igbo umbrella organization; noting that even the golden opportunity for the creation of a sixth state in the South-East is now tearing the Igbos apart as they, the Igbos have become so atomized that they are now almost irrelevant in the affairs of Nigeria.

Concluding, the Agbogidi emphasised that Igbos must urgently and seriously ponder wither they are going as a people in Nigeria, otherwise they might become completely isolated almost into a total irrelevancy. Icheoku says, speak on Obi of Onitsha nay Obi of Igboland, as you correctly articulated the unenviable doldrums into which the Igbo-man has put himself in today's Nigeria. It is so painful that they do not even realise the depth of the shit-hole they have dug for themselves by their complete lack of cohesiveness, lack of a common purpose and lack of one central voice that speaks for them as a people. It is regrettable that the Igbos of the era of Nnamdi Azikwe, M.I. Okpara, Akanu Ibiam, K.O. Mbadiwe, Dee Onunaka Mbakwe, Dennis Osadebey, Mbazulike Amechi, Osita Agwuna, are no more and the few other remaining leaders like CC Onoh, Charles Abangwu, Nwafor Orizu etc are of too weary bones now to continue to push the Igbo agenda forward and (Igbotically) patriotically.

Icheoku affirms that what is left today, is a disorganized, dysfunctional and confused people whose only stock-value now is how much money do I have or can I make? The Igbo man's mad chase of money has compromised the Igbo integrity so much that a few shekels of silver is all that the average Igbo Joe needs to sell his brother short. A nation where known criminals including 419 operators are made traditional rulers of communities with chieftaincy titles bought and sold from and by known traditionalists cannot survive muster. This unholy celebration of money in Igboland without any question as to the source is the knife that has cut deep in Igbo man's integrity. The Igbos, like the biblical Esau has sold their oneness for a pot of porridge and hence has been given a basement-position in Nigeria today, below even the Ijaw-man! It has been conclusively permuted by the other more astute component parts of Nigeria that the Igboman lacks unity of purpose and hence can do no harm; trust Icheoku, they are cashing in on that to further emasculate the Igbos.

Icheoku is afraid, the sink-hole where the Igbos now find themselves in Nigeria is so bottomless that, it may be very difficult for them to dig themselves out of it. It will take a Divine intervention or something so drastic to shake them to their existential-foundations, with the potential to obliterate them totally, for them to ever stand a fighting-chance again in Nigeria as a collective people in pursuit of one common objective. Like Jesus said, "it is finished" and Icheoku is afraid the Igbos of Nigeria brought this unto themselves by their "I" and not "We" line of pursuit and action in Nigeria! Igbos should start once again to "Kwenu`ing" and seriously mean it as a tree does not make a forest no matter the size. An army of people is always stronger than a person and the Igbo man should drive this truism into their skull for any prospective future in Nigeria.