The President-General of Ekpulambo Mgbowo Autonomous Community, Chief Collins Onyekachi Okelu, in this interview, he sits for a no-holds-barred, culture-based chat with Humphrey Onyima of Leadership SCORECARD on the fading cultural values of his people and the efforts being made to keep them alive.
Before the coming of autonomous communities, what was the kingship structure in Mgbowo like?
Mgbowo, just like many other communities in Igboland, is republican in nature. Her people believe in the power of cooperative intervention and not in the power of a single person to control them. Hence, they come together to collectively solve their problems as they arise.
Before the slave trade, the people organised themselves to work. It was more like a cooperative. If you needed help in your farm, everyone helped out and, after that, they moved on to another’s farm – for example. It was the power of team work.
However, with the interaction of people, leadership became necessary. But we are not very good at taking orders, they said. The people detest one man to make laws and impose it on them. During the era of slave trade (the people were not slave-traders but agents of the slave traders), most of the agents were from Aro and they moved into the hinterlands to get slaves for the traders, before shipping them off to Western shores. With this, the Aros began to get some of our people to become leaders and, if you did not obey these leaders (warrant chiefs), you could be sold. They found out that it was difficult to get one person to control the Igbo society. The warrant chiefs were vicious and committed a lot of crimes against the people (with the threat of being sold hanging over the people). After the abolition of the slave trade, the warrant chiefs became very unpopular and the people insisted on choosing their own leaders.
The first election to choose leaders for Mgbowo was between Igwe N.L Ukah and Chief Lawrence Ezeh (popularly known as ‘Eze IV’ who was the fourth in his lineage to lead the people), who is my father-in-law. The people (there are five communities in Mgbowo and none of them was autonomous) rejected it and insisted on electing the new leader. Election was conducted and Ukah won to become the first ‘Igwe’. Our leaders were called ‘Eze’. After we democratically elected him, the name changed. The ‘ezes’ were quiet vicious over here and, with the coming of democracy, no one associated that name with anything good, so we changed it to ‘Igwe’. If you ask me, we are still learning the ropes on that. We are republican in nature; we do not know how to respect the Igwe, pay homage to him, abide by laws which emanate from his cabinet etc. We still expect the Igwe to not only be a custodian of the culture but to have a lot of money and share to everyone; rather than cooperate with him to bring about development. After the demise of Igwe Ukah, we ran into a situation in which the tussle for leadership put our community into dire straits and, for the first time, blood was shed by the warring factions in Mgbowo. It set us back more than 20 years (and that is me just being conservative) but, as God has ordered, we have picked up the pieces and are forging ahead. The coronation ceremony slated for December 22, 2018, is proof of that.
The emergence of autonomous communities was a political creation by a former governor of Enugu State, Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani. My people misunderstood it. Unity is our hallmark, something we do not joke with. When the term came up, people saw it as a division, one that would affect our unity. This was the fault of the young people (who did not get enough information before acting) and the elders (who did not mind giving the youths enough education on the subject). No one wants to hear about the division of Mgbowo.
In politics, we multiply when divided but, in the real sense, we fall apart when divided. See the contradiction? That is where the communication gap manifested. That said, even if every family is made an ‘autonomous community’ today, we can still bring ourselves together as Mgbowo people, regardless of what village you are coming from. What they do not know is that this will give us the opportunity to partake and get our fair share of what the government wants to send our way – in the form of development. Government is beginning to realise that there are communities that need intervention and the more communities you have, the more attention you’ll get. If you decide to stick together as one community, you will lose out. In my community, Mgbowo, we have two autonomous communities, we have two igwes and, if they are being paid, they will be paid differently, not as one. If they are giving out contracts for development, they will give for two communities. If they are distributing vehicles to traditional rulers, they will send two to Mgbowo. If they are constructing primary schools, they will construct two in Mgbowo, one for each autonomous community.
As a politician, I was pushing for seven autonomous communities. Till now, I know many people did not like that because they did not understand, but, in the end, we got two. I wanted every village to be an autonomous community, because they all have vast portions of land. We must ensure that information, which is power, must be used to empower the people. They know that they are wallowing in poverty, because they do not have education or information.
The Igwe Ekpulambo Mgbowo will be crowned on December 22, 2018. What preparation is the state government making and what role does it hope to play in that celebration?
I happen to be a member of the Igwe’s cabinet and have information on how things are developing on that front, by virtue of my office. We do not want to create a lacuna where the Igwe is acting alone or does not know what we are doing. Whatever we discuss with the Igwe, I will come tell my people to gauge their feelings and degree of acceptance.
Absolutely, the government has a role to play. We are going to showcase what we have. We will bring anyone we can to Mgbowo that day to come witness what we have and see why we are yearning for government’s presence/assistance.
Upon my election, I looked at the hall in which I was elected and I was downcast. I promised my people a befitting civic centre. Not just a hall; but one with offices, skill acquisition centres and all other facilities. We expect that the government and individuals will pitch in to help us get that.
Are you saying that the government has no major role to play on the coronation?
Besides giving the Igwe the official sceptre of office and certificate of recognition, we are applying for the N5million grant which can be replicated after we have used the one we have judiciously. Our budget is quite huge, so we are sourcing for funds to get a number of things done. Besides that, I do not know how government will take part in the coronation.
What is the significance of the coronation?
You see, if you do not know where the rain started beating you, you will not know where it dries up. The people are the culture and their identity is their culture. Sadly, because of where we find ourselves today – religion, politics, vices etc – we are throwing away the things we are known for. We are aiming to revive it all on that day and that is a good thing. There is so much going extinct in my community today and we cannot stand by and watch that happen. We have to bequeath to the coming generation what our ancestors left to us.
‘Aboenyinya’ is a type of music that is only played by my people. Nowhere else in the world [is it played]. My father played that and I saw it. It is going extinct. ‘Ikoro’, ‘Ikpa’, ‘ogeshi’ and many others are virtually dying. There are lots of things and ceremonies which the new generation knows nothing about or their significance. I witnessed ‘Iroshi’ and ‘ichuejaho’ ( the only deity women are allowed to go serve on a particular day) but nobody knows about them today. They are gradually going extinct.
People do not know why we are called ‘ogara uzo atutu’ (meaning walking on the road and refusing to pay tithe/tax). As an Mgbowo person, you do not pay tax when using the road, because you are protected/immune from that. Nobody can extract anything from you by unlawful means, because you are empowered to anywhere you choose to bring good things home, without obstruction. ‘Ikeji’ is not just eating yams and drinking wine. It has a lot of significance.
Are you saying that the coronation of the Igwe will witness a renaissance of Mgbowo’s cultural values?
Absolutely and we will bring our friends from far and near. We will tell our younger ones our relationship with ‘Mgbidi’ and ‘Ugbo’. We will tell our friends why we do not marry Aro people. The young ones need to know why. If we fail to tell our stories who will do that for us? That is exactly part of what we will be doing that day.
We are talking about our young people and the things they need to know. How can we tie the coronation to what we expect in the general elections of 2019?
If we trust our leaders, we should know the direction we must move in during the elections, the values we want to see them exhibit and the best person to deliver that. Any politician (regardless of party) who looks down on us, we will use the only power we have (our permanent voter’s card) to throw the person out. I will influence that.
Back in the day and even till this day, communities round and about Mgbowo dreaded us – both for our leadership, stance on issues and academic prowess. We cannot back down now, just because of some kind of funny politics.
We want government to project good things and we will work in synergy with government to better our lives.
If our young people are glavanised and know the roles they should play, they should take the baton from the elders and if they are led aright, they should know how to move to sustain the gains our forefathers bequeathed to us. If they go astray, the communities will be destroyed and old ways forgotten.
As for the elders, absolutely good leadership begats good followership. In my case, transparency and accountability are my watch-word. If I am doing what I am supposed to do, giving my best, you have no reason to go the other way. You will attract my wrath.
We’ve got so much in store for the young people. We will try all we can to give them something doing (that is why I talked about the skills’ acquisition centre), but if they fall short of the law, we will apply the law. This is why we must educate them, so that they can make the choice themselves from a point of information and not ignorance.
Before you emerged the president-general of Ekpulambo Mgbowo, you must have come through the ranks. Take us on a brief trip down the path through which you emerged.
Before I emerged the president-general of Ekpulambo Mgbowo, I have been very active in mobilising, sensitising and improving the welfare of my community. I started far back, when I was a very young person, with an organisation called Umuekwe. That is where the young people are galvanised to maintain peace and order in the community. I led my group back then.
After then, I went to Canada for further studies, but returned to pick up from where I left off. I did not lose my zeal to help my people. I became a child of circumstance; thanks to my ideas, I was instantly elected the president of the youths in Amata Mgbowo. It was quite eventful; because I introduced transparency in administration and financial accountability (the youth wing generated more money than the parent body). We instituted discipline to the core and brought back our old glory – respect for elders and the community. We shunned crimes and took laws into our hands (by disciplining erring youths). After that, I did not feel comfortable working for the government, so I decided to run my own farms. The land tenure system would not let me get a big enough land, so I had to go to Uzo-Uwanni in Nsukka Senatorial Zone, where I spent a great part of my life cultivating rice, yam, maize, cassava. We went on to form an association and I am the president of graduate-farmers.
We brought innovation into agriculture, thanks to our education. We have got other peasant farmers to toe our line and learn a few things from us.
Again, the opportunity arose for me to answer the clarion call of my people. They asked me to make my intention to be the president-general of Ekpulambo Mgbowo known. It is a familiar terrain for me and, after I applied, some contestants lost interest and I was on my way to getting appointed, but I did not want anyone to take the glory of ‘appointing’ me, so I insisted on votes. I got 170 votes and the others got nothing. That was how I was elected into the office of the president-general.
