Christmas approaches. To the Christian folk it’s a season to celebrate the birth of Christ. To the Igbo nation it exceeds just the celebration of the birth of Christ; it’s the one period of the year when the nation scattered amongst nations have a brief moment to come together as one nation. It’s the one period of the year which is {or at least used to be} guaranteed as the time in which the nationhood of the nation is transferred to the next generation. Over the two and a half decades I’ve spent being Igbo, I must say, and sincerely I must, I learnt nothing of the nation from my parents. All I know of my ancestry are things I gathered from research, and most of all, those few weeks I spent amongst the people at the end of each year. Now, that may well be over. So you see, the Christmas period for the Igbos isn’t just about the festivities, It’s also, and most importantly if I must say, about the transfer of the culture. Christmas period for the Igbos is also {or at least used to be} the period of the year when the home-based traders can make the most revenue. It’s that period when everyone comes home, and with very little other options are forced to feed off the produce of the locales at whatever inflated prices they {the locales} fix. More often than not these indigene–expatriates are so pleased with what they get at the prices they get them that they buy them in bulk when returning to their places of residence.
          Recently, though, things have taken a steep head-on dive into dimness. Ever since the eastern kidnappers went on a rampage, nothing has been the same in that part of Nigeria. I took a brief and unexpected trip to the East shortly before Christmas day last year. I took a brief break from the medical school I’m undergoing studies in somewhere in Edo and paid a visit. I was shocked at what I found – no one. The village was so empty that it was scary. I had hoped to meet my parents there before I decided to leave. Even they didn’t show up. I called to make inquiries. They told me of kidnap cases that involved people less influential than they were and their ransom fee. There were even some cases that resulted in fatalities. They strongly kicked against my presence there. In frankness I’d tell you, I wouldn’t have stayed even if they wanted me to. It was eerily silent. Very far from what I knew and expected it was, very far indeed. A woman I met the one day I spent there said to me “do Christmas for me now.” The look in her eyes was pronging to the conscience and agitating to the soul. She held two small boys, one in each hand. It was about 5pm, and the way they stood I just knew they had been walking a long distance with very little to eat. I had to give them the little I could. It was indeed a very disturbing sight. I asked her how things were with her. Her simple reply – “Chimno.” These are the worst hit of all this – the women and the little children. They’ve always been the ones to bear the burden of feeding the family.
           The effects of these kidnappings on the locales is that in a very short while there would begin an epidemic of deficiency related diseases, especially among the children. The women may soon lose hope and abandon all, or worse still seek alternatives which may result to large scale cases of STDs, especially the most dreaded of them. Worst of all, if this is prolonged, fertile sites may soon become burial sites, and in the not-too-distant future, the nation itself would become nonexistent. Look how easy it is for this nation to become part of other nations. Not too long from now, the only thing that would say who your ancestors are {not even where you come from} is your name, and even that still rests on very thing thread as people seem very eager to throw these names away for more Western ones. By the time my grand children walk the face of the earth the Igbo homelands would be empty lands bearing empty houses – mere proof of previous occupation. The way I see things now, if one of my great grandchildren ever come to face enough knowledge to stand in a congregation of Igbo descendants and say “Igbo kwenu!” they’d instantly be shouted down with cold silence.
             This is not just a problem for the Easterners. Let me tell you, as the day passes corporations in Nigeria are getting stronger. Soon they’d control the majority of the wealth in Nigeria, directly or through other means. With the ever increasing value attached to formal education in the Nigerian corporate workforce, a time would come when you’d almost never be able to afford two meals a day with little sweat unless you are formally educated. When the formally educated Easterners that can afford more than just meals stop taking trips home to ensure that boys like those of the woman I had earlier mentioned get two meals a day, what do you think is going to happen? Of course those boys would want to come to the city. You can’t tell these boys who’ve suffered in the village all their lives with little food that in the city they can’t get more food for less suffering. With no formal education, how else are they going to do this?
             These said, I think it’s time the older generation of the East take a stand, or they would always be remembered by history as the slow, irresponsible and disregarding generation that ended their own culture. There are very many of them that occupy positions of influence. If they can come together and collectively enhance security in the societies it’ll go a long way. It gets so annoying when you see some hotshot from Abuja paying a very brief visit to his father’s home with an escort of a thousand police officers, and after the visit he leaves with them. Why does everything about these people have to be so selfish? Can we not see that we are the worse victims of our own actions?

Igbos will not come home due to kidnappings in their cities

Igbos will not come home because generator business is out of form

Igbos will not come home because of Aba.