IGBOS AND POLICY OF ASSIMILIATION

The Igbo tribe in Nigeria is a unique tribe characterized by hardwork and creativity. The Igbos are widely travelled and very much endowed naturally. The Igbo culture entails hardwork, equity and justice as well as love and care. It abhors hatred, hypocrisy and destructive envy while truth irrespective of persons remains a quintessential aspect of Igbo philosophy. These are characteristics that drive a true Igbo personality. Meanwhile, Igbos might be a little bit aggressive in pursuing their set goals and in expression of their strong beliefs but for them all humans are considered equals without prejudice.

However, exposure to other cultures and alien practices have taken a negative toll against the cherished values that define a characteristic Igbo identity to such an extent that a significant number of Igbos have forgotten about their root or better still know little or nothing about their root neither do they know much about their history or origin. Most Igbos who grew up outside Igboland do not even know how to speak the language, Igbo and do not care at least to learn it. Some who claim to be educated are even ashamed of learning or speaking the language erroneously believing that it is either weird or inferior not knowing that language is part of culture and no culture is inferior to another! While some derive pleasure fluently speaking other languages such as Yoruba, Hausa, Idoma etc. as a result of the parental training that failed to teach them their own indigenous language in diaspora, some lack the basic knowledge of Igbo culture believing that it is of no consequential effect. But these are apt cases of loss of identity. Some even go to the extent of taking Yoruba and Hausa name to hide their Igbo identity thinking that it will make them more acceptable. But how many Yoruba or Hausa people are bearing Igbo name without any of the parents being Igbo? Such disposition by Igbos portends serious danger in the propagation of Igbo culture to the next generation, hence the Igbo culture faces the threat of extinction if left in the hands such fellows who hold unto the cherish values of Igbo identity with ignominy. Unfortunately, some persons who claim to be Igbo by the virtue of their name or surname prefer to speak other alien languages or the English language which is considered by many African scholars as the language of slavery with little or no knowledge of their own indigenous language. They have embraced other indigenous languages such as Yoruba as well as their mode of dressing, eating, as well as their philosophy to such an extent that they have even forgotten or abandoned their own language and tradition. They have been deeply assimilated into an alien culture like the French policy of assimilation in their colonies. The French policy was intended to make black Africans to become French people through French culture considered superior by the French colonial masters at the detriment of black culture and tradition. The French colonial masters described Africans as savages that needed civilization hence the need for policy of assimilation.

The Nigeria government have deceptively designed Nigerian state to ensure that the defunct Eastern Nigeria does not receive any impressive form of federal presence or massive infrastructure but rather remain desolate and unfriendly for business enterprise so as to force the Igbos out of the region. Some Igbos unaware of this conspiracy go to other regions such as Lagos, Kano, Abuja, Kaduna etc made business friendly to develop their infrastructure and thereby become assimilated with their family members to such region or environment and over a significant period do not connect with their home. Rather they become so much entangled to alien culture that they begin to look at their home and traditional values that define them with disdain. Some Igbos have equally helped to make their land desolate due to lack of adequate plans to come home and contribute their quota in development of their homeland. To some, such idea is archaic. Unfortunately, while some Igbos are busy building massive infrastructure outside Igboland in Nigeria where their safety may not be guaranteed on the day of reckoning, they have failed to take cognisance of the fact that many non-Igbos especially westerners and northerners who consider themselves as stakeholders in the "one Nigerian project" out of their evil suspicions of the doom's day find it extremely difficult to replicate such massive infrastructure or even a one room structure in Igboland which they engineered to remain desolate, many thanks to some Igbos who have discovered this conspiracy and have decided to bring their wealth home or stay put to develop their homeland. It is even laughable that many Igbos do not know their position in Nigeria, a nation designed with deception and conspiracy against them by the British to ensure that the enlightened Igbos, who were a serious threat to the colonial and neocolonial interest compared to other ethnic groups in Nigeria, remain perpetually endangered species as long as the country continues to exist with her present day structure. No wonder they overwhelmingly supported the Nigerian side with weapons of mass destruction during the civil war even after deceptively making earlier announcement that they are neutral in a civil war that engulfed their former colony. Some Igbos do not know that the map of eastern Nigeria particularly the South East as presently constituted was designed without a genuine contribution of the Igbo speaking community or representatives and such could be compared to what late MKO Abiola likened to shaving a man's hair in his absence. Some Igbos have been irredeemably brainwashed to such a magnitude that they have loss sense of identity in its entirety. To them, Igbo culture can go into extinction for all they care, not knowing that they are invariably burying their true identity while posterity will never be kind to them.

There is an urgent need for every Igbo person to identify with Igbo culture at least at the level of language to be able to pass it to his/her next generation if Igbo culture must be saved from extinction. Igbos must begin to assert themselves without fear or favour especially with their language as it is the most effective way of culture preservation if they do not want to loose their identity and become nonentities in the nearest future! There is no better time to do so than now.

OK

This hot afternoon?

NEGRITUDE, A DEFENSIVE TOOL FOR AFRICAN IDENTITY: LEOPOLD SEDAR SENGHOR’S PRESPECTIVE
http://www.bravoprojecthelp.com/philosophy/negritude-defensive-tool-african-identity-leopold-sedar-senghors-prespective/