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Tuesday, 27 September 2016

The Task Ahead For Igbo Intellectuals (3)


By: Most Rev Prof Godfrey Onah (Catholic Bishop of Nsukka)
If any German had any idea about how to influence atmospheric conditions in such a way as to make it rain or stop raining on desired dates, at specific times and in designated areas only, we would probably have had “professors of rainmaking” sitting among us today; that is, if they would not have been in the different parts of Africa helping solve the severe problem of draught ravaging the area, or somewhere else (in Europe and America) stopping the rains from causing destructive floods and inundations. Unfortunately, those who claim to have such knowledge are our own people and they seem to use the knowledge they claim to have only to disrupt celebrations. (There are claims too in some quarters that even some foreign road construction firms now engage their services.) Nobody knows exactly who believes these claims and who does not. What is certain is that for some celebrations in some months of the year, most of us are likely either to hire them or, with some unexpressed gratitude, pretend not to know when others do so on our behalf.
That we jumped directly from the town-crier method of sharing information to the cell-phone is evident from the way we shout into that little piece of technology. Most of our people (whether they are the ones making or taking telephone calls, or are simply passing or standing by), are not aware that telephone conversations are supposed to be private. First, there is the loud sounding of the gong (ivom/ogene — now the ringing tunes), then comes the public announcement (ohaobodo geenu nti-o-o!). And although the mobile telephone in Nigeria is very inefficient, because of oversubscription on a fragile infrastructure, nobody seems to care. Indeed, most people will say that it is better than nothing. For without it, most Nigerians have no other means of telecommunication. Should the system collapse now (it is a miracle it hasn’t already), we have nothing to fall aback on.
The word “malaria” is Italian in origin, a contraction of two words, mala aria, meaning bad air. The sickness was endemic in the Italian peninsula up till the period after World War II. Today, it no longer exists there, except it is brought back by a traveller from the tropics. In our case, we seem to have resigned ourselves to its incurability, until salvation comes from either Europe, America or, now, Asia. It is common knowledge that many, very many plants, on our soil are medicinal. Are our pharmacologists doing enough to discover, catalogue and synthesize these substances for better use?
The political system we are running in Nigeria today is not working because it was designed for societies that are completely different from ours and took centuries of trial-and-error to arrive at the stage in which we found it. Rather than evolve a system from what we had already, or adapt the borrowed system to our exigencies, we have obstinately insisted on moving contemporary Washington, D.C. to Abuja, in the same way that we transplant models of houses from England, Scotland and Wales to Imerienwe, lhiagwa and Amaimo, without any regard for geography or culture. Do our political scientists and philosophers really think that what we have now is the best or the only form of representative government in our present context? Have we nothing better to propose, or are we merely content with being considered a “democratic” nation by the rest of the world? Perhaps we expect our politicians themselves to “think out” a better system. Supposing that some of them are still able to think at all, they seem to think only about their personal interests. Given that the present system is to their advantage, with all the corruption and abuse of power that it permits, these same politicians who profit from the system will not be the ones who will try to change it.
There are simple savings and interest-free loans systems that have been operated by women in our area for a long time now. Some of them were life-saving for local women during the war. If our economists ever thought of developing these systems, perhaps by now they would have arrived at concepts on par with or even better than the microcredit and microfinance concepts, which have earned the Bangladeshi social entrepreneur, Muhammad Yunus, a harvest of prizes, including the Nobel Peace Prize. But since our intellectuals are not rising to that challenge, our economic policies are being driven by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, to the advantage of their masters in Wall Street.
Metal craft and pottery were flourishing in many parts of lgbo land ‘before the white man happened to us,” to borrow yet again the expression of Theophilus Okere. The waste from the blacksmiths is still there, but the industry has completely disappeared. Is there any possibility of reviving this industry? What help can our intellectuals offer to the expert to codify their knowledge and art in a way that would make it easier to preserve and transmit? Whom are we waiting for to translate the sounds and beats of our local musical instruments into notes and signs in order to make it possible for anybody who wants to learn how to play any of them to simply buy a “teach-yourself’ book on it, rather than depend exclusively on reluctant local masters who prefer to die with their art?
Our intellectuals have to persistently ask similar questions in all the sectors of our life as a people, if we really want to develop. The issue at stake for Ndigbo today is not whether or not we need intellectuals and intellectualism for our development but rather:

Which intellectuals and whose intellectualism will guide our development? So long as we keep answering only the questions asked by other people, we shall continue to produce what we do not consume and to consume what we do not produce. That is a recipe for dependency and underdevelopment, not a pathway to development. James Parkinson, Alois Alzheimer, John Langdon Down, Gabriele Faliopplo, Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, Andres Celsius, Rudolf Christian Karl Diesel, Louis Braille, Franz Anton Mesmer and many more have become part of our everyday vocabulary as we discuss health issues, education, temperature and transportation. The world is waiting for the time when Ona, Okere, Anyanwu, lwuagwu, Nwachukwu, Okonkwo… will make it to other languages through the ideas and discoveries of the intellectuals who bear these names. Nobody denies that some of our intellectuals have been working hard in their various fields. But the fire of intellectualism is yet to be ignited in our own area. Here, once more, I find the following words of Theophilus Okere, which he referred to the entire continent of Africa, pertinent:

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