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Ralph Ahanonu |
No nation, race, tribe, community or
society can move forward without a real grasp of its history. As human beings,
we speak to the future in the accent of the past. The annual Ahiajoku Lecture Festival
was instituted by the often-praised Chief Samuel Onunaka Mbakwe administration.
It is unarguably the first real attempt by any government after the civil war
to articulate Igbo world view and heritage into a festival. The first Ahiajoku
Lecture was held on Friday, Nkwo, November 30, 1979 – just two months after the
Mbakwe administration was sworn in on October 1, 1979. So it is evident that
the brains behind the lecture festival were at work even before the
administration was sworn in.
The Ahiajoku Lectures are usually
thought-provoking; a product of intensive research and an excursion into Igbo
cultural values, traditions and proud heritage. It is an affirmation of the
ideals very dear to the Igbo nation. Every year the lecture is delivered by
no less a person than a professor who must be of Igbo extraction chosen from
any of the various disciplines of human knowledge. Coming two months after
the inauguration of the Chief Sam Mbakwe administration on October 1, 1979,
many sceptics never gave the idea a life beyond that administration. Thirty
five years after it commenced, the annual lecture series is still standing
and waxing stronger. For many years after the Mbakwe administration, the
lectures were held inside the Grasshoppers Handball pitch of the Dan Anyiam
Stadium and inside marquee tents. However, help was to come just a few years
ago. The Governor Ikedi Ohakim government took up the challenge to rebrand
and reposition this unique lecture festival by awarding a contract for the
construction of a befitting structure and monument which it aptly called the
AHIAJOKU CONVENTION CENTRE. A massive building that can accommodate thousands
of people at the same time, it is to the glory of the Ohakim administration
that it conceived and brought the idea of the building to fruition. In 2009,
the Ahiajoku Lecture Festival clocked thirty years. To celebrate it, the then
Ministry of Culture and Tourism in collaboration with a consultant compiled
all the lectures into a book. It is a trilogy of ten years per compendium.
This compendium remains the first and most comprehensive compilation of the
lectures into a book till date and can be bought from that ministry. It has
become a veritable source of information and knowledge for students of
African studies conducting research about the Igbos. The Ahiajoku Lecture
Series enjoyed tremendous support from that administration until we got to
where we are now. Just recently during an inspection tour of the uncompleted
(but in use) Ahiajoku Convention Centre site, Governor Rochas Okorocha
decided to turn the hand of the clock backwards. Descending from an Olympian
height, he launched a scathing and blistering attack on this annual
intellectual festival. It was an unexpected attack from the governor of the
host state of the festival. In a fit of anger, the governor erroneously
described the name, Ahiajoku, as symbolizing a ‘’deity’’ and surprisingly
claimed that Imolites have expressed dissatisfaction with it. If you are very
good in reading the body language of his Excellency rightly since he came to
power, then Ndi Imo have to brace up for either a name change of the festival
(he has done a similar thing in the past) or an outright abandonment of it
through non-funding until the expiration of his tenure. In preference, he has
converted, rededicated and ceded the Ahiajoku Convention Centre monument to
the Imo Chamber of Commerce, Trade and Industry (ICCTI). Not even the Lagos
Chamber of Commerce, Trade and Industry, unarguably the most viable and
vibrant in the whole nation, has an office space as gargantuan as this. Now
let me ask: what is wrong with the present office space of the ICCTI located
on Okigwe Road? It’s small and unbefitting? Are the members complaining about
location or size? As a keen follower of events in my dear state, I am not in
the know that the governor at any time in the past conducted any vox pop on
the appropriateness or otherwise of the name, Ahiajoku, before claiming that
Ndi Imo are dissatisfied with it. For decades, I have followed the Ahiajoku
Lecture Festival and I dare say without equivocation that neither the name
nor the activities of the lecture festival are anything near a deity. In
retrospect, there is no doubt in my mind that Governor Okorocha’s decision to
rename the ACC is not a product of sound advice and wide consultations with
those who should know. If he had consulted widely, the answer would have been
a resounding ‘’please don’t hurt or destroy our pride and heritage as a
people’’. The smear campaign against Ahiajoku is a justification of the
governor’s lack of interest in the annual intellectual festival and an
attempt to forcefully grab accommodation for the Imo Chamber of Commerce,
Trade and Industry. Let me say that the setting up of a chamber of commerce
and industry in Nigeria is purely a private sector initiative. Government’s
responsibility in a situation like this is to provide the enabling
environment for the industries to take off and thrive. Now where are the
industries the governor promised us during the election that brought him to
power? Where is the much talked about sound economic base that is a
prerequisite for industrial revolution? A chamber of industry is not made up
of only a gargantuan building. There must be industries to employ the army of
unengaged youths roaming the nooks and crannies of our state. If the
government feels so enamoured with having a befitting office space for the
chamber of commerce and industry, it could as well donate a land space and
further assist with funds for its construction. Or it can renovate one of the
several abandoned buildings belonging to her strewn all over the state
capital and hand it over to the body. It is laughable reading the statement
credited to the governor in the print and online media calling Ahiajoku the
name of a deity. The New International Webster’s Comprehensive Dictionary of
the English Language (2004 Encyclopaedic Edition) defines a deity as a ‘’god,
goddess or divine person’’. In the same vein, American born academic and
anthropologist, Covington Scott Littleton (1933 – 2010) in his book, Gods,
Goddesses And Mythology defines a deity as ‘’a being with powers greater than
those of ordinary humans but who interacts with humans positively or
negatively in ways that carry human to new levels of consciousness beyond the
grounded pre-occupations of life’’. In the light of these two authorities
cited among many others, where lies the deity in the name, Ahiajoku? Is the
Ahiajoku the governor referred to the same god or goddess mentioned here
whose powers are greater than those of ordinary humans? Where is the location
of the Ahiajoku shrine? Ndi Imo will need answers to these questions. In the
words of late Ambassador Gaius Kemjika Anoka (Chairman 1979 Ahiajoku Planning
Committee), the man who first conceived the idea of the Pan-Igbo intellectual
harvest celebrations and laboured very hard to bring it to fruition
‘’Ahiajoku is an Igbo conceptual reference to cultivation, fertility and
harvest...Yam, being the prestige and culturally important crop of the Igbo
people, its cultivation and harvesting are traditionally linked with Ahiajoku
which is also variously called in Igbo land as Ufiejoku, Ifejioku, Njokuji,
Ihinjoku, Ahajoku, Fijioku, Ajoku, Aja Njoku or Ajaamaja’’. Need I say more
because the master has spoken? To rub it in, just recently, I saw a picture
of Governor Okorocha in the papers at the annual Iri Iji Mbaise Festival
sharing some joyful moments with the natives. Perhaps, his Excellency needs
to juxtapose what he went to Mbaise to do with the name and explanation given
above about Ahiajoku by the respected, late Ambassador G. K. Anoka (also an
indigene of Mbaise). Is there any difference? As political leaders, let us
all draw a line between what is culturally ours and playing to the gallery. I
am sure that Ambassador Anoka will feel very uncomfortable in his grave
because of the denigration going on now around Ahiajoku. Let me state here
that in all the 35 years of the Ahiajoku Lecture Festival, it has not at any
time been associated with any occultism, ritualistic or idolatry activity.
Its activities are conducted in the open and lately on global Nigerian
television networks. It is on record that well known clergymen such as the
late Rev. Fr. (Dr) Ifeanyi P. Anozie (former Commissioner in Imo State), Rev.
Fr. (Dr) Theophilus Okere (former Rector of Seat of Wisdom Seminary, Owerri),
Rev. Fr. (Professor) Izu. M. Onyeocha, Venerable D.C.A. Oguike, Rev. Canon
(Dr) R. Maduka, Rev. J.O. Iroaganachi and Rev Canon E. E. Obilo and a host of
others had at one time or the other participated in the planning committee of
the Ahiajoku Lecture Festival. If there was anything un-Godly about the name
and its activities, I am sure these men of God would have kept their
distances from the lecture festival. One thing you cannot take away from the
Mbakwe administration is the intellectual content of that government. It had
world class intellectuals and technocrats who knew their onions and
articulated direction for it. Up to this day, the Mbakwe administration
remains a model for successive governments in the state. We had people like
the late Professor Adiele Afigbo, late Professor Martin Ijere, late Dr Ray
Ofoegbu and Ambassador Gaius Kemjika Anoka etc. The list is endless. Together
these men and women brought their brilliance, intelligence and administrative
acumen to bear on governance in our dear state. So it was a big let down on
their collective intelligence and that of all the Ahiajoku laureates when the
governor dubbed Ahiajoku the name of a deity. It means that these men and
women had all along associated themselves with a name and activity that is
un-Godly. The annual Ahiajoku Lectures compel attention because of the
calibre of intellectuals who deliver them. As a true son of Igbo land, I am
compelled to read them because they talk about me. As Professor Aloy Ejiogu
rightly put it ‘’a man who neither knows nor understands himself has little
or no chance of survival even in the mildest of environments much less in a
combative and competitive society such as ours. It is this knowledge of oneself
right from the beginning of time that the Ahiajoku Lectures want to pass on
to posterity as a priceless heritage’’. When the Ikoro sounded on November
30, 1979, and late Professor M. J. C. Echeruo, the first Ahiajoku Lecturer
and first Vice Chancellor of IMSU mounted the podium to delve into the topic,
Aham Efule (A Matter of Identity), he traced the course of our cultural
predicament to the present day and placed before us the challenge of
re-establishing our Igbo identity. That challenge is still before us and
cannot be wished away through impulsive decisions. Ndi Igbo remain grateful
to all the Ahiajoku laureates (many have passed on) who devoted their time
and energy researching into our values and heritage. The Ahiajoku Lecture
Festival is a legacy of knowledge to posterity and Governor Okorocha must do
all within his power to uphold this legacy. Ahiajoku survived the
unpredictable days of the military even under governors/administrators who
were not of Igbo extraction. It must not die under the watch of a civilian
governor of Igbo extraction. Let Ahiajoku be taken to a new height instead of
receiving a footnote mention under the Rochas administration. Let us witness
a return to its glorious years as the unique and flagship intellectual
festival of the Nigeria’s South East. Let there be adequate and proper
funding of the festival. Let us develop additional content for it and make it
richer and more robust while retaining its original form. The present
pitiable state of the highly entertaining annual Ozuruimo Cultural Festival
must not befall it. Among states in Nigeria now, the vogue is to either
sustain existing festivals or develop content for new ones to encourage
cultural tourism. The present government tried to replace the 25-year old
Ozuruimo Cultural Festival with the Imo Cultural Carnival but it is seriously
lacking in content and organization compared to the Ozuruimo Cultural
Festival that involves the 27 local government councils in the state.
Accepted government wants to create an industrial base for the state, it must
not loose sight of the things that make us Ndi Igbo. But for as long as this
administration continues to show a lack of interest in things that are our
core cultural values, so long will efforts to encourage cultural tourism in
the state be a mirage.
Long live Ahiajoku Lecture Festival.
Mr. Ralph
Ahanonu is a Brand and Communication Consultant and can be reached through
ralphzeroo@yahoo.com or 08033009130
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Rochas is a sum ole of leadership. An average Igbo man should rally around him for change in leadership within that region. They should stop playing politics with their children future.
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