THE IGBO AND THE SPIRIT OF GLOBALIZATION - Russell Bluejack

I had a very interesting interactive session with a true son of Ikwerre tribe yesterday.  To my bewilderment,  my discussant acquiesced that there is something fantastically unique about the Igbo people: they are as luxuriant  and generative as a wild plant. More than that,  he submitted further that their zestful disposition vis-a-vis the UNKNOWN compels them to demystify perceived  mysteries and cover territories.  Curiosity impelled  me prod on: I sought to know the underlying cause of the sojourns and jaunts of the Igboman.  Why is the average Igboman peripatetic?  Why is the Igboman a train always on the move?  Is his occupancy of territories destructive or enriching?  How different is the migration of the Igboman from the Fulani herdsmen? Does a single case of cataclysm resulting from the migration of the Igboman abound? At this point,  my discussant had to throw in the towel; he was desirous of the seemingly far-fetched answers to my puzzles.  I noticed  I had set a task for myself,  but knowing my Igbo people pretty well,  I was ready to unleash. 

First,  I excited my friend to incline a nod in the affirmative when I told him that the Igboman has the most industrious mind.  The Igboman has a very busy mind,  a place where thoughts strike the unseen walls of the mind every second.  His love for GLOBALIZATION is central to every business quest of his: the reason he migrates to places others desert.  To the Igboman, every place is a treasure yet to be harnessed; an environment yet to be occupied; a virgin business enclave yet to be explored.  The Igboman does not confine his CORPOREAL and SURREAL (physical and spiritual)  existence to his eastern boundaries,  for he is as EXTENSIVE as the depth of his thought.  He believes in the power of the mind and sees every part of the world as an inhabitable space,  since he believes God created the world and gave man charge to subdue it.  It is noteworthy,  however,  that the relationship between the Igboman and his discovered territory, unlike that of COLONIALISM,  breeds PROGRESS,  GROWTH,  and DEVELOPMENT.  The Igboman, as a sojourner,  arrives at a place, occupies it with permission of natives, and transforms it for good. As a people with the Midas Touch,  the Igbo have a knack for bettering the lot of regions they occupy. 

In furtherance of my quest to educate my friend on the convivial nature of the Igboman,  I had to say a word or two about Port Harcourt,  with reference to Ikokwu, Mile 1 and 2 markets,  Trans-Amadi Industrial Layout,  and the staccato of stores and shops  in the city.  Being an Ikwerre man,  those more impacted on by the globalizing propensity of the Igboman,  it was relatively  easy for me to bring him to terms with the inestimable development contact with the Igboman has delivered on the economy of the Obio-Akpor,  Ikwerre, and  Etche LGAs in Rivers State.  These areas,  according to him,  would have remained as forests were it not for the Igboman.  The markets and stores taken by these Igbo traders have become the mainstay of the various local government areas, since they generate income to both landlord communities and Rivers State Government. I am sure you know those to whom the demography  of traders swings.  My Ikwerre discussant took the time to explain how contact with the Igboman brought the evasive oomph (power) to his welfare,  as he was able to own a car,  build  a house of his own,  and raise a family  from the money that accrued to him from sale and rent of some properties to the Igboman.  Interestingly,  he told me that the Igboman that bought few percels of land from him ended up becoming a land merchant,  buying and selling  land in hectares afterwards, and he did not mince words in telling  me that there are a lot of Igbo that have fourished in business. He and I consensually agreed that the Igboman's corporeal and surreal interaction and interration with a place and people of his choosing leaves the latter postively impacted on.  My friend and I concluded that no true Rivers' person should feel different from/than a people  that have always been with us. He even told me that a lot of Ikwerre communities will cease to exist today without the Igbo.  Of course,  the Igboman's investments are the economic mainstay of some of these enclaves.  Who can dispute that assertion?

In recent times, the Igboman has so reached  out to the farthest ends of the world that it is often said that an Igbo-less environment is life-less.  His brotherly ties is not limited  to the East,  for he sees himself as an Igboman in Nigeria,  South Africa,  USA,  Britain etc.  His feeling of nationhood is global,  not local.  An Igboman does not have to be pinned down in Enugu,  Abia,  Anambra,  Ebonyi,  Rivers State etc in order to be Igbo.  To be true to type,  the Igboman has to project himself far and wide. He goes to a place,  establishes himself,  discovers his brother,  recognizes him,  and works with him to achieve set targets.  He is never afraid to break fallow grounds in business and,  surprisingly,  hardly  fails.  He goes everywhere because  he sees every human as his brother and every social milieu as inhabitable. His good nature enables him to acclamatize,  relate,  and socialize with ease.  His tact and smartness enable him to compete favourably with others and bring home the bacon,  for he seldom says "Never!" His globalized outlook forecloses the feasibility  of seeing any human as his enemy - the reason he is found in the extreme North owning properties. The Igboman sees himself as an inextricable member of UNIVERSAL brotherhood,  and that is why there will never be a dearth of Igbo sons and daughters anywhere on earth.  The Igboman does not leave his place of birth because it cannot contain him; he leaves because it cannot contain THE CONTENTS OF HIS ENTREPRENEURIAL MIND.  The mind of the Igboman is too elastic to be confined to any particular geographical location. 

So globalized are the Igbo that even their quest for self-determinism extends to those with whom they share cultural  and religious affinity.  Their inclusion of sister regions is occasioned by a feeling  of brotherhood devoid of geographical boundaries.  For the Igboman,  it takes more than consanguinity (relationship by birth) for someone to be called BROTHER.  His mind is so large and refined that anyone with whom he shares worldview,  values, culture,  and religion is a brother.  His use of "nwanne" breaks the borders of his eastern region to embrace those that accommodate and relate  to him. The "nwanne" (my brother/sister) of the Igboman is wider in scope than that found in other groups.  Here in Rivers State,  we have several dimensions of "nwanne": "Nyewe-Eli" for Ikwerre;  "inumboro" and "Imunabo" for Nkoro and Bonny et al,  all of which are RELATIVE  in acceptation (meaning).  For instance,  the Ikwerre man sees you as brother only when there is nothing to be shared in his community.  You cease to be his brother when the community is allotting land and money to indigenes,  for that is when he will exhume your root. The globalized stance of the Igboman is buttressed by the discord  in the agitation for self-determinism.

WHILE THE IGBOMAN FEELS HE NEEDS HIS BROTHERS IN NIGER DELTA TO ACTUALIZE HIS DREAM,  SOME NIGER DELTANS HAVE CONCEIVED A SELF-DETERMINISM THAT EXCLUDES THE IGBOMAN.  Can you see the difference?  Do you see why the Igboman will always  remain  adorable and loved?  As a young man,  I was told  all sorts of spurious tales about the Igboman,  especially of things he did during and after the Civil War.  Today,  however,  having heard from  eggheads and resource persons,  having read a lot about the mendacity  of some historical accounts,  having related to and with and KNOWN the Igbo for many years, I am emboldened to say most of the things we were told are bare-faced  lies.  Some call the Igbo criminals,  but fail to acknowkedge that the kind of killings we have seen in Rivers State here is enough  to scare away visitors.  While the Igboman toils day  and night in search of what to do,  our youths here join cult groups and terrorize their communities.  Osisikanku and the Imo State terrorist have been gunned down for terrorizing Imo and Abia States,  but if they were from my state,  they would have been EMPOWERED by the government and called LORDS.  The only  criminals the Igbo tolerate are those that do it in the guise of business. Fraud is a global phenomenon.  There are fraudsters in the US e.g. the Congressman Jefferson who was punished  for his criminal involvement in the Hallibuton/Semens saga.  There is no act of immorality that is peculiar to the Igbo.  But I entertain no jot of dubiety that GLOBALIZATION in business,  brotherhood,  and pursuit of self-determinism is peculiar  to the Igboman.  Such globalized mindset is a very,  very good thing.  Mazi Nnamdi Kanu,  a true advocate of self-determinism,  did the sacrificial  thing by being unjustly imprisoned for almost two years.  He did it for Biafra,  not for the Igbo people.  Saro-Wiwa did his for Ogoni in Rivers State; Obi Wali did his for the Ikwerre tribe; Adaka Boro did his for the Ijaw.  I am sure you can spot the difference. Can you see how dispersonalized the Igboman is?  Do you still believe  those mythical  stories about the Igboman?  Wake up,  my dear brothers and sisters.  Thunderous cheers to the Igbo people. May God continue to bless you for contributing immensely to the development of various communities, states,  and countries. An Igbo-less world would be as silent and dormant as a graveyard.

Russell Bluejack is a thinker,  writer,  university tutor,  socio-economic and political analyst, and academic  member,  Rivers State PDP Social Media Team that writes from Port Harcourt.