IGBOS CHALLENGED TO RETURN TO NATURE, EMBRACE THEIR CULTURE

Ndígbo at home and diaspora have been challenged to return to nature, revive, as well as, passionately embrace their culture and not allow the western culture to rob them of their God-given culture and traditions.

They were also tasked to look for feasible and plausible ways they could individually and collectively guard their culture against further discretion, reminding them that nobody, but them alone, could adequately guard and promote their cultural heritage.
A High Priest of an Igbo socio-cultural organisation, the Igbo-Amaka Youth Initiative (IYI), Chief Michael I. Ifedioranma, gave the challenge when the media crew of the group paid him a courtesy visit in his Umuoba Anam country home, Anambra East, Anambra State, recently.

Chief Ifedioranma explained that tradition (Omenani) had long been one of the great pillars of the Igbo cosmology before the coming and Inversion of the Igbo culture by the white men who he said were disguised as missionaries.
According to him, “Igbo people were the first fruit of the universe. And every first fruit belongs to the Creator, Chiukwu, the Supreme Being. Ndígbo are the most intelligent and industrious people in the world”.
He however regretted that Ndígbo are today experiencing all sorts of suffering and marginalisation because they unwittingly had discarded their God-given culture and embraced foreign ways of life.

“Having adopted the strange culture, they thereby deviated from the covenant which their ancestors had with the Supreme Being”, adding that the said covenant had within it some sets of natural laws among which is the retributive justice.
“For instance, in Omenani Igbo, it is believed that you must reap whatever you sow. Therefore, whoever does evil to his fellow man, must get evil as a reward for his evil action”, Chief Ifedioranma said.

The Chief, Ogbuefi Nnabuenyi of Umuoba Anam, expressed deep worries concerning the degree of the disparity which he said exists between the eternal truth contained in the Igbo traditional religion and the one he called, the “white man’s” religion.
Although he blamed Ndígbo for being responsible for whatever he said they are passing through in the world today for incautiously abandoning what he described as their divinely ordained religion, Chief Ifedioranma remarked that without the world recognizing Ndígbo and according to them their rightful positions in the scheme of things, the world would never have peace.
He, therefore, encouraged Ndígbo everywhere in the world not to allow the Igbo language and culture to die, urging every Igbo to cherish, adore, love and live their culture by being proud of it as well as actively promoting it.

The chief priest commended the media arm of the organisation led by Mazi Chuka Nnaji for their selfless efforts for the Igbo cause and appealed to them not to relent in their present endeavour towards giving the Igbo language and culture a boost.