The chairman of the council of traditional rulers from the south east zone,HRM Dr cletus ilomuanya,has been on the move with some of his colleagues.Recently,they toured the south west where they met with a number of yoruba obas and discussed issues of common interest between the igbo and yoruba people.
During the tour,ilomuanya advocated something that many people found astonishing but which is true.He called on his colleagues outside the igbo geographical enclave to stop according recognitioe to the rash of so-called eze nd'igbo(traditional ruler of igbo people) that are sprouting like tares in their domains.Since then,some traditional rulers in their replies to this call,promised to bar individuals parading themselves as such from their palaces.
Ilomuanya has been openly criticized by one of the holders of this comical title in lagos state,chief hyacinth ohazulike.Rather than show the cultural and historical roots and importance of eze igbo of lagos which he pardes himself as,he listed the services he performed to the igbo people,pointing out that his coronation was duly performed by traditional rulers from igboland.
The point in context is that those who went into the eze ndi igbo venture adopted a misguided option to solve the problem of providing direction to igbo people outside igboland.It was a need that became glaring in the 1990s when prominent igbo leaders such as dr nnamdi azikwe,dr akanu ibiam,m i okpara,sam mbakwe and others were either dead or getting too old to lead.People started complaining that igbos were getting difficult to organise because of what they called the igbo enwe eze ( igbos have no kings) syndrome.
This is erroneous conception because while some parts of igboland have kings others do not.Some are now adopting the kingship model.Some part has Enachioken but it is not one of the adopted kingship.It predates the foundation of the town itself.But those who did not have it had a republican sort of arrangement whereby elders' councils ran the affairs of such communities in a democratic fashion.When the igbo people started venturing out into the diaspora between the 1930s and 1960s,the town union system was adopted as a means of coordinating activities of various communities anywhere they found themselves.There emerged a central body known as the igbo state union (isu).It was so well organised that it was accussed by the federal commission of information in the general yakubu gowon civil war time cabinet,chief anthony enahoro of being used by the igbo elite in the 1960s to dominate the affairs of the nation and orchestrate the first military coup,which was staged mainly by igbo officers in january 1966.
When the igbos were in disarray in the 1990s,dim chukwuemeka odumegwu ojukwu decided to crown himself king of igbos.He becane the first eze ndi igbo.Later,he started setting up these urban traditional institutions outside igboland and promptly transformed into eze igbo gburugburu (overall king of the igbos).Many people,igbos and non-igbos alike were trully amused.The eze ndi igbo institution has not solved the problem it set out to do,rather,it has become a source of further division as anybody who has the means and supporters can annouce himself as one in any city.And it is causing irritation among the owners of the land where these "foreign " artificial monarchs are engaged in chieftaincy tussles, I am afraid that some day,these upstart traditional rulers might start laying claim to things that they are not entitled to.
The eze ndi igbo concept was simply copied from the hausa culture.The people behind it are mainly those who (like ojukwu) were born in northern nigeria.Hausa people settle in colonies when they travel and live outside their cultural domains.Each of these colonies has its "SARKIN HAUSAWA" which eze ndi igbo is derived from.In the same vein,they reserve a part of the towns within their cultural homelands for strangers,which are known as "SABON GARI".They do this to maintain their cultural purity,national integration and protect their islamic heritage.But it has often been a source of communal conflicts between them and their host communities because after a long period of living in these colonies,they start making claims that the native find objectionable as seen in jos,kwara,sagamu,ibadan and other bible.
It is high time the igbos know themselves as a republican democrat,not monarchists.Even where you have kings in igboland,they are never absolute monarchs unlike the yoruba and hausa-fulani kings.They are ezes-in-council or democratic monarchs.This is the culture of the people of the south east and south south (except benin monarchy which is related to ife).
Igbos should return to the spirit that made the igbo state union great,respected even feared.The ohanaeze ndi igbo ought to be an appropriate platform to coordinate the affairs of igbo in the diaspora as it is more suited to their cultural way of life in the diaspora, They should leave the hausa culture to the hausa people because you cannot promote a donkey to a horse.

This same guy that posted "do igbos deserve an apology from nigeria" and did not reply in that thread has come again and bet me he will not reply anything meaningful to this thread.

@asha 80
no qualms if i decide not to reply but l know a quote that says "Seek the truth and the truth shall set you free ".

I agree whole heartedly. I don't see why the Igbo should regress into monarch when they already had a head start as a democracy from day one. mind you with the rest of the world moving towards democracy. also nobody has the authority to recognize and eze ndi igbo and 'subject' would ever recognize it.

Igbo ppl have a unique spirit we can't ignore, a monarch would never work because we believe in the equality of all man at birth which is in the end changed at adulthood by merit.

if we being thinking some ppl are born superior we will loose our ambitious, competitive, and free thinking nature.