THE CASE OF IDOMA
By Olohy Ejembi
In second week of January, 2020, I wrote something similar to the opinion in this write up. Then it was engendered by few issues, and was meant for some Idoma WhatsApp groups. Since then I have been met with more headspinning issues about my people, the Idomas. In a part, the case of Idoma is like the case of stubborn Israelites and Moses – an unending stubbornness that causes Israel not to have a settled home up till date. Well, the case of Israel is even better. Many of them cooperate with one another and unite to advance their courses. But the ‘crabological’ (pulldown syndrome) of Idoma people won’t let them. Idoma people do not respect their own; they are yet to be found supporting a common course or interest and advance fairly well.
The first case is the language. Idoma as a language is linguistically elaborate; it has well defined syntax, morphology and phonology, despite the fact that it’s not yet codified. It’s semantically rich and expressive. According to a professor of linguistic stylistics, the Idoma language is the most romantic language he has known. Notwithstanding, this naturally endowed language is heading towards extinction with many other minority languages. It may disappear before next millennium. This threat comes from the attitude of our people towards the language. Idoma people are among the people that are less proud of their native languages; some of them are even ashamed of speaking the language.
Idoma has many children and youths born and living outside the native land that cannot speak Idoma. The most annoying are children of parents that do not know how to communicate in any languages than Idoma – that is, parents who cannot construct good pidgin not to talk of good English -, yet their children cannot speak the only language they have. There are families where my generation (35-40 age bracket) is the first to acquire education in its real sense. However, the number of children and youths that cannot speak Idoma language in such families is alarming, therefore asymmetrical to their parents who had poor background in the use of other languages. There was a day, knowing that an uncle of mine could not communicate well in other languages but Idoma, I asked him to tell me the language he used to communicate in with his children that they could not speak Idoma. This actually pervades all Idoma families living outside their home land, and it is already found down home.
The aforementioned problem is part of the fact that our people do not seem to know or understand what gives meaning to or decrepits a people as a nation. They fail to realize that life is logarithmic, and that people must follow certain algorithms to get it right. I have always said that we, the Idomas, are unbridledly perfidious towards our heritage – we show no regard for our own. As a result of this attitude we are the only people in this country without a kingdom in the true sense of it.
In all histories, kingdoms only thrive in places where the people are good courtiers. The people, both great and low, place their paramount rulers next after their gods – in fact, as gods in some places. In Nigeria here, many people treat their rulers in the same manner; whether trustworthy or not, they place their rulers above themselves, other people and other rulers elsewhere. They hold them high with great reverence in an obsequious manner, irrespective of the person wearing the crown. Their great regard for their crowns makes things propitious in their lands.
The Idoma crown, however, has always been repudiated by its people, therefore relegated to a vicious background. It has been advertently made the least respected crown among its equals. Our negligence, pomposity, impetuosity and cultural infidelity have reduced the status of Idoma paramount ruler below the status of most wardheads in other parts of Nigeria, as a result the Idoma people lack an audacious sovereign representative in this country. Our notoriety towards the Oche’Idoma council is the greatest oddity that impugn our unity. This is why Ortom was able to cripple the status further.
Seriously, to be successful as a people, and to build a powerful kingdom, the people must form a cult-like phalanx around their ruler, and draw great politicians and Generals from far and near to come beg for his blessings and to be given chieftaincy titles. But the Idomas have never had such regards for any Och’Idoma, their paramount ruler who is greater than the Emir of Kano who is just a meer religious head with a status of a Catholic bishop.
Because they don’t respect their own, the Idomas have failed to unite around their ruler to make him revered by kings and lords in both far and near. It’s this disrespect for our own that made the gods to give us the Och’Idoma we have today. Because we never respected our past Och’Idoma like the way other tribes respect their own, the gods allowed someone who doesn’t respect our culture and traditions to become our ruler. And now that the gods allowed someone who desecrate our culture and traditions to become Och’Idoma, we are crying wolf as if we used to give the due honour to the past true custodians of our traditions. We relegated the past honourable Och’Idomas, and we now, as a consequence, get an Och’Idoma who relegates what we stand for as a people. We read in the Bible where the god of Israel allowed bad leaders to rule Israel because of their disrespect to the ‘culture and traditions’ of the land. Today we have a ruler who desecrates our traditions because we failed to honour those gods’ ordained ones that we had in the past.
This infamy permeates the Idoma polity, thereby subverting its political iridescence. Susceptible to insolence and eccentricity, every Idoma man craze to be a lord over his brothers, therefore doesn’t want to hear that someone else is his leader, talk more of serving her/him. This attitude amplifies a vicious, unbridled hatred that brews from envy, and it traverses all our communities. It’s an offspring of an egocentricity which makes people not wanting to see a richer or more powerful sister/brother. This nature enthralls the hearts of many people so much that, in many Idoma communities, the lives of those who make fortunes are always crippled by their own people.
Today, we see it playing out against the leadership of FUHSO. Because the leadership is composed of Idoma people who are our brothers and sisters, we keep digging up pits for them to fall in. When others would support their own to be successful, it has been learnt that, from the beginning before activities commenced properly in the school, some people (Idomas) had started planning to trouble the leadership of the school for them to be disgracefully dismissed. Today, these people are instigating protests in the school. Too bad!
Well, like the way the gods allowed the kind of Och’Idoma we have today, if we continue to torment the leaders of FUHSO that are from among us, the gods will take the opportunity from us and give to outsiders that won’t consider Idoma people to the proportions of today’s. Where in Nigeria do indigenes protest against their own heading a public organization no matter what?
A friend of mine, Barr Ejekela, once told me a story that in his community meeting, an issue which seemed a labyrinth ensued. All the so called great wise men in the community tried to unriddle the enigma, but their contributions were imprudent, hence paltry. Finally a man stood up to speak, but was met with cynical eyes. He ignored the eyes and went on to make a veracious contribution which bore the answer that the people were scratching and drilling for. However, another man stood up and said to his face that what he said was the right thing, but he was not a personality that they would take any decisive comments from. This is exactly the way a typical Idoma man feels about his brothers, and it is so because Idomas have ”entitlement problem“.
This brings us to another case – that’s, the divisions of the Idomoid people. One would wonder why a people of the same ancestors and tongue divided so much to become different people that are now considered unrelated by people who lack knowledge of their backgrounds. The accentual and ancestral differences among some people that are considered Yoruba or Igbo are mutually unintelligible and traditionally unrelated than one can find among Idoma, Iyala and Alago that are considered as different languages and people. No doubt, this division must have been motivated by our attitude towards one another – the pulldown our brothers down attitude. This must have been the reason why some have to cut away.
Again, I have not read to know the actual reason(s) that made our ancestors to leave Northeast to the present land, but, considering the incessant crises in that part of the country, I do believe that their gods were with them in making that decision. More important was where they finally settled down with their children; the present Idoma land, in my opinion, is very good and strategic geopolitically considering the composition of the country. Our ancestors unknowingly chose to settle down in an area where their children were supposed to dominate as the ultimate people.
The Idoma land covers an area in the Nigerian map that ought to form, together with other neighbouring lands, a state to balance up the Southeast geopolitical zone. Idoma would not have been a marginalized minority, if the people were to pursue common goal and promoted a powerful kingdom right from time. HRH Ajene Okpabi single-handedly tried to make the kingdom a strong one, but never got backing of the people. Hence, no matter the struggles he put in, the State he fought for was denied. Apa had a clear change to be created due to its proximity to Southeast. It was supposed to balance up the number of states in that region, but the people of Apa had no united front to unanimously pursue it. In that state we would have been an unmatchable forces in politics and decision making. As our brothers, the Iyalas, are in South-south, the Idoma land is supposed to be in Southeast, not in the obnoxiously formed North Central. Another unfortunate thing with Idoma.
Of course, Idoma as a nation is unfortunate: its land is geopolitically misplaced; its people are capricious; its language is denigrated by its people; its kingdom is repudiated and relegated; its society is without activities to promote oneness and allay the frustrations of the people; and its culture and traditions are rejected. Nearly everything that makes nations great and powerful is alien to Idoma land.
How do we succeed in achieving a common goal if we don’t solve all these problems?
BETTER A DIAGNOSTICIAN THAN A FLATTERER
