By
Hon. Chinedu
Nkwonta
Most times, I
wonder almost in fantasy. As if removed from this immediate world, dreaming in
my mind, how and why we still have not gotten it right.I do not really spend so
much time thinking of myself and my personal worries, I take every day as it
comes and apply my wisdom in dealing with lives' daily issues on daily basis.
I worry a lot
more about us, the Igbo nation and why we do not seem to see what is happening
to us individually and collectively. I wonder why our so called leaders have
not been able to bring us all together as to deal with our issues from position
of unity which is strength. I wonder why we have to be living in the mist of
plenty and abundance and yet very hungry, why we are living in a nation that we
are equal or better stakeholders yet we are treated worse than animals.
I wonder why the
Igbo nation will still travel to different parts of this nation, toil day and
night, sleep in gutters and under bridges with nothing. Eventually, we survive,
only for us to abandon all those sweats and toiling because of one silly issue
or the other. It is only the Igbo nation that has abandoned property in this country.
I sometimes wonder what would be in the minds of our late fathers,Akanu Ibiam,
Mbonu Ojike, M. I Okpara, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Osadebe and so many great leaders
that we had, if we can ever get the opportunity of hearing from them, are we
really making them proud, have we progressed as they had planned?.
Every time that I
pick up my pen to write, I am always desperate to make the Igbo nation see what
we are doing to ourselves. I do not think that I get anywhere, I do not know
why. Sincerely, we all know that things are a lot worse today than it has always
been, the entire society and system are going crazy and getting more desperate
on daily basis. The values that were there have been consistently basterd-ized
by some elements that never had values so could add nothing to us. The quality
of people that are in charge of us all keep deteriorating on daily basis. the
collective interest of Ndigbo keep becoming the interest of very desperate and wicked
few. We all have suddenly became desperate that we are scrambling for little
portions to eat, we have lost focus of the bigger picture.
So many people
have made derogatory statements about us, we applaud them, some have gone far
to abuse us, we keep calm, we are afraid in our territory. It has gone so bad
that what we are almost mere crump beggars, we seem to have given up and
accepted out faith.It is a great tragedy that an Igbo nation that parades the
best brains in almost all areas have not had the simple intelligence of coming together
to discuss us and how we can take care of us in one political entity called
Nigeria.
Listen to the news,
anytime someone is arrested for narcotics at the airports, it is us, money
rules, nothing else matters.I have seen a few people with different qualities
which if harnessed together, will change the world of the Igbo nation, but who
will bow for who. The divide among us is too much that we do not need any outsider
to break us, we are naturally broken.I weep in my soul, but I never lose hope
completely, that is why I am knocking,
please let someone answer me.
We can blame
anything and anyone for our problems, the truth is very clear, we are the
architects of our problems. No one led us to where we are today, we led
ourselves willing and happily, pursuing selfish interests, interests that have
not benefited anyone. There is no human being that has all the attributes of
God, we have to find a way to accommodate each other. We must find a way to identify
and amplify our strengths as individuals and collectively and harness same for
our collective well being. We must learn to ignore and tolerate our weaknesses,
there is no human being that is perfect.
We must
understand that if we do not put our house in order, no one will do that for
us. We must understand that no individual makes a forest. I do not care what
you think of yourself, if you are not using your strength for the collective
interest of all of us, you are selfish and ignorant, our people answer
"IGWEBUIKE" , the Igbo nation can never make any headway if we
continue on the momentum that we are moving, it is nothing but self
destruction. I have to keep knocking, till someone answers me.
kpomness@gmail.com
0909 77 00000