By Jimanze Ego-Alowes
Nkwerre is one of the many towns that make up Imo State. It is even more importantly, a few of the towns/citizens who played substantially in the history of the Igbo prior and during the white colonizers days. See A History of the Igbo People by Elizabeth Isichei.
Genuinely, they have been generally one happy people. That is to say there was a minimum of rancor between the four Ofo kindred/quarters that make up Nkwerre. They, it appears, had a way of settling their constitutional and political disputes without much rancor- like most Igbo.
Like with all sustainable judicial or administrative system, what you had and still have in Nkwerre was as simple as it was complicated. Like it is with most Igbo land it is based on ofo na ogu. Perhaps, it is a pity that Igbo scholars have failed to inquire richly into what ofo na ogu is. Wrongly, most Igbo thinkers suppose, Ofo na Ogu is a relic from our forefathers. It is not. Understood properly, ofo na ogu is a living model, perhaps one of the best invented by man to live in harmony, sustainably.
Nothing throws up this error of Igbo and Nkwerre people wanting to live outside the lore of ofo na ogu, than the crisis than the crisis that has befallen Nkwerre community.
As we write there is not Nkwerre as we know it and may never be. So what is the genesis. Please, we plead that Igbo take out time to read through this. This is because the matter is not peculiar to Nkwerre, it is about going, gone, universal among the Igbo nation. The greater detail on the matter may be found in my book, NIGERIA: THE UNREPORTED GENOCIDE AGAINST THE IGBO: THE GENERALS MURTALA MOHAMMED-OLUSEGUN OBASANJO DIKTATS.
Now, what happened is that before the white colonizers came, Nkwerre like most Igbo, was a city state was founded as a confederation. For Nkwerre they are the famous ofo quarters/kindred. The proof of this is that to be a titled man in Nkwerre, you are processed only through your ofo quarter. However, the founder fathers so instituted it that once one is gone through the process of being titled in his ofo quarters, he is to be universally recognized in all quarters.
For all practical purposes, Nkwerre like most Igbo towns were run like a democratic order before the white man came. The white man, to lower the cost of colonialism, appointed the so called Warrant Chiefs. However about 1950-1959, the various city states of Ndi Igbo land, for example Akwa Etiti, Awka, Nkwerre appointed replacement chiefs to run things. That is the history of people appointed/elected traditional rulers in most of Igbo land.
The key fact, is that it was the various development unions of the Igbo City states that appointed those kings. And it was made abundantly clear that the kings were perfunctory and were dictated to by the development unions. Then it was not prominent men that were appointed. Of course the most prominent and successful men were in the various towns, trading and working. So they scanned for lowly income workers to ”go home” and become Ezes. Of course between the 1960 and 1966 the traditional stool was in decline. For instance, the north and the southwest canvassed for a house of traditional chiefs, but the east never did. Practically, the chiefs were of no real consequence.
However, during the reign of Generals Murtala Mohammed/Olusegun Obasanjo, herein termed 2GMOs, a deliberate policy of cultural genocide or ethnocide, was piped into the Igbo society. They passed a cruel and criminal diktat that all Igbo towns must have chiefs, by fire by force. And these chiefs were to be catered for, by the government.
So, the newly minted or remade Ezes became free agents, pushing and pulling for power. As expected, according to the ethnocidal purposes of the 2GMOs, Igbo was culturally mongrelized, that is genocided. In other words, those who are traditional rulers in Igbo land today are paid agents of cultural genocide against their own people. Of course it doesn’t matter if they are conscious or cuckooed agencies. The important things is that they are self-elect agents of cultural genocide against the Igbo. Quite frankly, our investigations reveal that many of the Ezes are not aware of these facts. However, ignorance is not a plea before history. The fact is that, if they didn’t know they should have consulted their superiors who know.
In other words, what the 2GMOs diktat was purposed as a total destruction of Ndi Igbo and Igbo land from inside. It is similar to what the Spaniards did to overcome and conquer and wipe out Spanish America. The Spaniards just weaponized their diseases.
The point, is that it is with this background that one may understand what is really going on in Nkwerre. The town has been split into 3 autonomous communities.
Truth of the matter is that the heritage Eze was a victim, perhaps unknowing, of the 2GMOs ethnocidal poison. It is apparent he sought more powers than was technically due to him. He really wanted, it appears to reign like a king in full powers.
Examples abound, but just these two will suffice. Under his watch he balkanized the constituent villages of the ofo quarters, without rhyme or sense. For instance, it is stated that he swapped the near sacred seniority order of the villages. That is if village A has been the elder of village B, he rearranged things according to his own ”wisdom.” When there were accusations of ”deals” as to this ”anti-ofo na ogo and immoral order of seniority, an explainer sympathetic to him said that certain villages etc. applied late. The truth is that these things were just his own ”fixes and fixtures.”
Second in appointing senior chiefs, he appointed it in a skewed order. For instance, of the four quarters two were not represented as high chiefs. This is a desecration of ofo na ogu, of the confederal arrangement upon which Nkwerre sustainable democratic order was founded. The irony is that if he had agreed to run shop under the Nkwerre Aborigines Union, the error of playing by whims and caprices would been avoided and or corrected. But feeling full of the powers of the 2GMOs he dragged Nkwerre he set up a fire that has diminished his throne into near nothingness.
Perhaps, 2020 was the year of his nemesis. Two of the parties he had issues with found themselves key anchors of the Senator Hope Uzodinma administration. For the two, it was a piece and they scored. All the rest is history. There are now three Nkwerre towns as purposed by the 2GMOs.
Before we say anything further, let us put it on record that if the 2GMOs ever wanted development and modernity for Nigeria they would have acted otherwise. They should have, using their jackboots dictatorship, abolished the Emirate and Oba systems in their North and Southwest, and the vestiges of it in the East. Modernity is dictated in terms of equality of citizens. Not to waste to much space we recommend any persons in doubt to read my book: NIGERIA THE UNREPORTED GENOCIDE…. Thus, their failures to so do betrays their ethnocidal designs on Ndi Igbo. The point is that it is their post war, self-detonating scio-nuclear bombs that is blowing Igbo apart. Alas, many of us who are from Nkwerre stayed deluded it won’t get to us. However, I foresaw this future a thousand days and more ago. Please read the book: NIGERIA THE UNREPORTED GENOCIDE….
Now, part of this self-detonation bomb is for Nkwerre and much of Igbo city states. It has led them to telling lies against their destiny and future. For instance one was alarmed to read of Nkwerre and several Igbo city states and its citizens describing their cities as ancient kingdoms. And it was all in an attempt to legitimized the GMOs diktat and prosper the careers of the 2GMOs made in hell Ezes. For instance I have seen fairly reasonable men who should have know styling Nkwerre an ancient kingdom. Could spinelessness and duplicity come this far? The irony is that democracy is a higher, a more productive etc. order than monarchy. And then we the fact of ancient kingdom is a loutish lie.
Finally, for outsiders, Nkwerre wu college oyoyo o, is a saying popular amongst Nkwerre people. Ordinarily, it means Nkwerre, as most societies, is a college, a learning machine. The oyoyo o however, suggests that there is never an end to the many surprises of the learning/education. That is, oyoyo o admonishes that even if you possess the ofo, you must tie it up with ogu, you must operate on ofo na ogu. That is sustainability is built on you never know it all. This fact is illustrated by the saying and personal name, common in Nkwerre, Ogu-wu-nka.