When I was undergoing training back in the days as bank personnel some words featured very prominently as veritable tools to grow the organization. We were taught about team effort, team spirit, team building, and later I got to know that the word team represents ‘Together Every One Achieves More”. As I reflect deeply on these concepts I discover that they are already embedded in the Igbo philosophy of Onye aghala nwanne ya (be your brothers’ keeper) which is demonstrated practically in their lifestyle.
As I was growing up I was able to experience true bonding and love in the family circle expressed through various processes among my father and his married sisters on one hand and his kinsmen on the other hand. This bonding extends beyond them to include the village. Then one man’s burden was seen as everybody’s problem and every child belonged to everybody. Looking back and relating the experience to now, what exists is high level practice of individuality which appears to say, every man for himself, God for us all.
The Igbo prides themselves as people who love each other. While I may not dispute this all I can say is that the real love of old which I saw growing up has disappeared. It is through the instrumentality of this love that they were able to achieve so much through self-help. Self-help was the game through which many communities back then were able to build a lot of infrastructure that supported development. I came to realize that self-help like we had back in the days is gone. The presence of government in meeting the developmental needs of the people was a key factor that destroyed it.
What the communities could do for themselves they left in the hands of government. People hold the view that government has enormous resources and immense capacity to meet the challenges of the people than anyone else or groups of people. There is no doubt about it. But today’s government has become ineffective to serve the people because even the little they can do they have also abandoned it. Personally, I also notice that the key ingredients that drive self-help are clearly missing among us. They include love, bonding, unity, integrity and passion.
When there is love among a people it gets them to bond with each other which in turn lead to creating unity. Without unity there will be no development. I can recall that the first set of elites identified in my community were people who were trained through self-help by the community. Some of them became leading lights and worked as top civil servants, principals, architects, custom officers etc. How they went to school was through proceeds of sales of palm nuts harvested by the entire community during a period within which the community would place a ban on harvesting of palm fruits individually owned. This is called ‘ntushi nkwu’ and is popular in Igbo land. I am just wondering if this still exists anywhere in Igbo land.
At an agreed period they are harvested, stock piled and sold it and proceeds used to achieve an agreed community need such as scholarship, community hall, pipe borne water, hospital/maternity etc. I was also told that the health centre, the general hospital, pipe borne water etc that came to my town was through levies and contributions made by people which manifested those facilities. Then every taxable adult had an amount that was obligatory for him to pay and in the spirit of oneness and love for the community all would strive to pay or risk confiscation of personal items. This was happily done.
This culture of self-help appears gone and unknown to this generation of people. Even not too long ago, in the ’80’s to be precise, Imo as a state engaged in a self-help effort and the result is the present Imo International Cargo Airport. This was achieved by the Sam Mbakwe administration. Mbakwe, dubbed the weeping governor, identified the need for an airport in the old Imo State so as to facilitate business transactions. The commercial centre of Aba made this even more imperative but the then federal government was not willing to give attention to the issue. It is not today that this marginalization cry started.
Communities were tasked and taxed to pay certain amount for the purpose of the project, Individuals working in the civil service were also levied some monies deductible from their salaries for a couple of months and according to their levels, Communal support and government effort yielded the airport before it was later handed over to the federal government. I am sure not many people know how the Cargo airport came about. Up to the eighties and early nineties it was more of competition for communities to build secondary schools which they later handed over to the governments. Other community projects were done through this process.
In my village where I come from Okorocha and even now Uzodimma has come short in providing the required teaching strength for the primary school there. The villagers each month task themselves fifty naira to raise salary for two teachers hired by them just to close the gap. This has gone on for over three years. We must return to this spirit of self-help because it aids development. It gives a people some pride. It creates spirit of competition among people and instils some discipline among a people. Some may argue that this practice still exists. Where you see people struggle to do anything together if you look deep down it may not have been propelled by this spirit of brotherhood but religious persuasion to give because the scripture enjoins one so to do.
I am more inclined to believe that it is our different beliefs arising from the various churches we attend that may have put the knife that dragged us apart. Today people are talking about believers and unbelievers and are never harmonized in the process of doing things.
There are many things that we can still do for ourselves pulling our resources together and getting everybody to join hands rich or poor. The present practice of having a few rich ones call the shots in community development at their own terms sometimes subtracts from inclusiveness and appears to make others subservient. Re-enacting this team spirit or team effort will get Imo come back on track again. Self-help is a dying culture of the Igbo just like the extended family system. Let’s go back to the root and rediscover ourselves.
