THE LOST IGBOS OF AMERICA
Everyone dressed as a King.
Everyone addressed as doctor.
Igbo lawyers are doctors.
Igbo pharmacists are doctors.
Practices anathema and fraudulent,
To American Lawyers and Pharmacists.
In fact every Igbo in America,
Is a doctor or doctor to be.
Most doctorates acquired,
Over the Internet or by mail,
In six months or less.
All non-doctors are Professors,
Engineers, Chiefs, or Sirs.
The lost Igbos of America.
Event slated for 7:00 pm.
Guests start arriving at 10:00 pm.
Three hours after the official start,
Event opens with a prayer.
After praying, the market begins,
Each table is a separate event,
With animated participants shouting,
At the top of their voices, making,
Invited speakers inaudible because of noise.
Introduction of the Kings, Doctors, and Chiefs,
Takes the better part of another hour.
Every consequential and inconsequential guest,
Makes an elaborate highfalutin speech.
The lost Igbos of America.
Another round of prayers over the food.
The food line forms and stretches,
Outside the hall, into the parking lot,
And sometimes onto the street.
How un-Igbo is it for guests,
To help themselves to the food,
As they enter the hall in trickles?
Guess long torturous food lines,
Add to palatability of the food?
A practice that is un-American,
As it is un-Igbo and uncivilized.
Food lines unknown at events,
Organized in Igbo land by Igbos.
The forever lost Igbos of America.
The carnival turns into a bazaar of processions,
Procession after procession with dancing,
By the 200 Igbo provincial associations,
Registered in an American metropolis of,
Less than one million inhabitants.
Another hour wasted soliciting funds.
Funds obtained under false pretexts,
To build nuclear reactors,
In all Igbo villages and hamlets,
Banishing perennial lack of electricity.
Funds instead sequestered in accounts,
Until misappropriated by corrupt officials.
Behaviors foreign to Igbos in Igbo land.
The lost Igbos of America.
Igbos in America oblivious to,
The existential threat posed,
To Igbo survival and progress,
By marauding Fulani Terrorist Herdsmen.
Igbos in America not contributing funds,
And planning to counter Hausa-Fulani hegemony.
No sense of urgency, no commitment,
To better Igbo land for Igbos,
Trapped in a cycle of bloodletting,
Orchestrated by the bloodthirsty Hausa-Fulanis,
And their jealous allies.
No accounting of donated money.
What a waste of valuable resources?
The lost Igbos of America.
Underage children and spouses used as dancing,
Machines to collect more money.
Older children nonchalant,
And not being groomed as successors.
This charade lasts all summer long,
As each irrelevant organization,
Extracts its pound of flesh,
From other organizations,
As the merry-go-round continues,
Into the fall and early winter.
Breakaway factions of existing bodies,
Formed in the winter at the rate,
Of a one new organization a month.
The lost Igbos of America.
Each organization headed by a,
Chief, Dr., Professor, Sir, or Engineer.
Igbo Knights of the Church are Sirs,
Their American counterparts are Mr.
Do these doctors realize that,
Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem,
Was built by Jews in the Diaspora,
Especially American Jews?
Why not pull Igbo resources in America,
And build the M.I. Okpara Hospital,
In the geographic center of Igbo land?
Igbo traits of disunity, clear evidence,
That Igbos are not Jews.
The lost Igbos of America.
Every $50 donor makes a speech,
Speeches delivered in IngiliIgbo,
A combination of Igbo and English.
Finally, time to exercise by dancing.
Alas, it is thirty minutes to closing.
Dancing once again interrupted,
By solicitation for more money,
As the M.C. sights more money bags,
Making their grand entrances.
Disgusted and dissatisfied guests,
Start exiting the hall to avoid,
Being thrown out unceremoniously,
By the owners of the the venue.
There is no hope for the lost Igbos in America.
These deplorable events going on,
For over twenty years and continuing,
With no end in sight.
Igbos in America, wake up,
And smell the roses or ranunculus.
Nigeria is about to undergo implosion.
And the Igbos in the homeland,
Are waiting for salvation,
From Igbos in the Diaspora,
A hope that is misplaced,
As Igbos in the Diaspora,
Have developed un-Igbo traits,
That are fraudulent and fiendish.
Is there hope for the lost Igbos of America?
Simply, true of them….everybody wants to add a title after his/her name in Igboland, as a form of spiritual elevation of personality, just to be seen as more than everybody else as a person. White people do the same self-elevation in many ways through ownership of special property enclosed as theirs and at the same time make them to be rather different than lower level individuals in society in the West and America, today. Theirs may be aimed at rural elevation above everybody else resulting from existential Vacuum, like the Igbos experience,,,,Void, nothingness and lonesomeness in person and community as such, sense of an “US”, idea of common good etc. Titles hence, are kind of security in the face of dog eat dog, ideology of the Igbo world. In the Igbo world, looking for ones self outside ones character and basic treats is normal, given that, thinking of your relation to creation, your relation to God, the nature of nature, or man in society, relation to nature and moreover the manipulation of nature for the benefit of man,(we are still eating corn from the cob nothing changes) To think of relationship with government in terms of the use of the people power, is not our business to participate in the government. Normally, chieftain or chief title in industry, or local society means and, is usually based on leadership, but in Igbo land that title is for psychological reason of: WHAT DO OTHERS THINK OF ME? WHAT DO OTHERS IMAGINE ME TO BE, WILL THEY EAT MORE FOOD OR DRINK MORE WINE AND WHINE ETC, when I Die as a titled person. OZU WHISKY, OR OZU BEER OR OZU LOCAL WHITE WINE. Class at work in Igbo Land. Some people write of Igbo Cosmology, and I read it, and laugh. THE NAME IS SUPERFICIALITY. QED.
The vainglorious pursuit of money and titles is the bane of the Igbo person. Money for money’s sake and not for the public good.
This is a very dangerous trend. This means that hope is deeming for the generality of the Igbos considering the fact that the people we look up to have completely derailed and are even getting worse than the home grown Igbos. Please can someone wake them all up because they are in deep slumber, I weep.
It is futile trying because “Every Igbo Is Smarter Than Every Other Igbo.”