Network Group Moves To Bell The Cat In Imo, The Eastern Heartland By Kelechi Abonuyo

Has anyone ever imagined about twenty-million people, including their vehicles, passing through a narrowband road of about thirty metres in just a matter of days? The traffic and the strife?

It would be like a cow passing through the eye of a needle. The Niger Bridge, alias Onitsha Head Bridge, is the eye of Igbo Mainland in Nigeria, although a small percentage of Igbo people pass by air and through other flanks around south-south Nigeria.

Many think that Christmas celebration is the only reason Igbo people of eastern Nigeria migrate en masse to Igboland during the month of December. Christmas is for Igbo children. Igbo men always come down to tidy the knots of Igbo women’s deliberations in August meeting before. While the ‘‘children’’ celebrate and gallivant, the real men hold forth behind the scene. They tidy up, authenticate and give purpose to life.

They do these in their Family, Village and Town Union meetings, where the deliberate on human affairs and encrypt their resolutions on how to make man and society better. Thereafter, they go about doing well. This is Igboman.

In the eighth month of the year, there is annual home-coming for the home and abroad Town Hall meeting of the Igbo womenfolk from around the world. They initiate developmental projects, settle disputes in their courts and draw road maps. This is Igbo woman; this is everything. Anything besides these is mere appendage, ‘‘children’s affair’’, which, of course, fizzles with Christmas celebration.

Talking about Igbo mainland, let’s talk about Imo State, which styles itself as the Igbo Heartland, which is about the worst of all, in terms of democratic good governance key performance indicators, in Igbo mainland.

Interestingly, Oliver de Coque, in 1976, like a prophet, had already sang about the current affairs in Imo State. In one of his albums, Identity, he referred to sundry matters as experienced in Imo nowadays. Using himself as a reference, heavily bearded Oliver said, ‘‘sometimes I dress like boyoyo; sometimes I dress like chief or king. I get beard. My beard is by nature; music is my talent. That’s my identity.’’

The lyrics, while they recommend that one discovers one’s talent and excel in it, mock those with ‘‘funny-funny identity’’, those who can’t identify their talent and so dabble into wrong spheres of life; namely, politics, leadership and human and material management on a scale as large as a State. The lyrics mock the wealthy – particularly the ‘‘wolves in sheep’s clothing’’ who find political leadership as a further breakthrough, a leeway, in life. In whatever direction one beams one’s searchlight in Imo State government today, guess what one sees? Funny-funny identity!

I can confidently bet all that is part of my earthly life that, as you are reading this piece – like right now, traffic is building at Head Bridge, and God’s own people, travellers as well as home-loving people – men, women and children, in their different human forms and experience, are finding access into Igbo Mainland, from Niger Bridge, into the city of Onitsha, in the first instance. Their aim is one thing, and one thing only! Stock taking. This is no joke. It is happening right now, in real time.

The year 2016 hasn’t been particularly a wonderful one for many, although this assertion is relative, from person to person, family to family and community to community, which are the very core formation of Igbo society. The economic recession in Nigeria seems to have crunched many to a point as never seen before in living memory or since record began. It seems a major about-turn to people’s bright future. But resilience means that Igbo people, who live in and out and concern themselves about Imo State, have been able to ask themselves some relevant questions. And this is the better part of the year, 2016.

Once upon a time, drawing from the fine story from the animal kingdom, members of the ‘‘tigrous’’ Cat family took it upon themselves to prey on the rest of members of the community, especially Mice family. And there were total anarchy, doom and possible extinction of most species. Hunger and starvation, infrastructural decay and insecurity were rife. Not even pension for their seniors, who worked, tired and retired, even if in arrears. In the midst of scare resources, the Cats manoeuvred politically, squandered common wealth and plotted to perpetuate themselves in power with their kind.

Whereas there was ‘‘mourning and weeping and gnashing of teeth’’ in the kingdom, the Cats threw caution to the wind and then relaxed into oblivion. If you asked me, I would say, that’s ‘‘funny-funny identity’’ really. And so there was pandemonium. In one of the many summits organised, members of the kingdom discussed how best to checkmate the predator Cats, who defile ‘‘animal right charter’’. Suggestions were wide ranging, but none was soluble.

It was even suggested that outright war or demonstrations or giant traps were solutions. Since the Cats were tigrous by nature, it was finally agreed that a ‘‘giant bell’’, made of brass, should be hung on the Cats, such that, as they sprawled and preyed on others, members of the kingdom would spot and sort them out or ‘‘duck’’. Then substitute the human kingdom into the satirical animal kingdom, and the answer is Imo State. Agreed!

Then here comes the perennial question, which has bedevilled all generations. Who will bell the Cat?

The resilience in the present circumstances has been positive. A group of patriotic Imolites has agreed to ‘‘bell the cat’’. Imo Network group, ING, of which I am a proud member, which has branches in the UK, Germany, South Africa, Gambia and Zimbabwe, has established very strong presence in Lagos, Port Harcourt and Abuja. Owerri, the Imo State capital, is the home.

If indeed one has an eagle’s eye fixated at that narrowband Niger Bridge, one will surely see a long column of home-loving people with the identity of ING. Imo Network Group has attracted professional and passionate Imolites – men and women, from all walks of life like a piece of magnet attracts iron filings.

And here comes the big deal. On the 30^th of December, 2016, a generation of Imolites will gather in the state capital, specifically at Dreamland Hotels and Casinos, located at the World Bank Project area of the city, to walk its talk, to give it a bite, to have an impassioned têtê-á-têtê, so we all can have respite, so we all can start to enjoy democratic good governance, quality and credible leadership, for today and for tomorrow, from the local government councils to the state level. And there will be, henceforth, a formidable platform for news, views and reviews on credible leadership, on accountability for our commonwealth – our collective patrimony.

In this summit, one of our own, Dr Walter Ofonagoro, will pilot the affairs of men and women, together with some of his finest type. In present day Nigeria, Dr Ofonagoro is like Arithmetic. If you don’t know arithmetic, or heard for the sake of it, then you are history.

And so, whether from the stifling head bridge in Onitsha or by air or through the flanks that you pass through into the Igbo mainland, the catch phrase in this yuletide is: Igwebuike, which expresses and harnesses the enormous strength in unity, even in diversity. Chi-aboola means the dawn of a new and bright future.

As we celebrate the incarnation of the Word, in the form of the Infant Jesus, may the word that kinsmen share at ING summit enrich us for the greater good. Eventually Christmas is for Igbo men and women as well. Indeed Christmas has come to bless the earth.

Merry Christmas!