ON “AKỤ LUE ỤNỌ”: A VERITABLE HOPE FOR A MORE FAIL-SAFE TOMORROW
By Ogochukwu Maryern Ikwuoma Okoye
The Igbo language and its sociolinguistics are such that some epigrammatic statements come in two parts; the first part originates from the speaker, while the listener either verbally completes the second part or simply understands it.
For instance,
First speaker: Iru a na-adụlụ ezigbo…
Second speaker: …ọ nalụ fa n’iyi
(Meaning: sulking for a looker is a waste of time)
“Akụ lue ụnọ” is such an epigrammatic statement. Meaning is “When (If) a person’s wealth gets (reaches) home…”
The second part, to me, is what you make of it.
I will say,
“Akụ lue ụnọ, òkwuó ebe akpatalụ ya”
“Akụ lue ụnọ, òkwuó onye kpatalụ ya”
“Akụ lue ụnọ, o dozie obodo”
“Akụ lue ụnọ, obodo egolibe”
I can go on and on. So many things have been said about wealth by different people.
A Chinese Proverb says that “Wealth is but dung, useful only when spread about.”
Henry Ward Beecher said that “It is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich.”
The idea of a person’s wealth getting home has to do with our recognition of where we began and where our roots are. This matter of extending the opportunity we had to others is about beginning our good works from our “Jerusalem”.
Dr. Philip Ozuah, the President and CEO of Montefiore Health System in the United States recently donated one million dollars to the College of Medicine in his alma mater, the University of Ibadan, from where he graduated with an MBBS.
An Anambra man from Nando, he recognised his alma mater as the impulsion that set him on the path of such powerful getting. He made his wealth go back “home”.
He paid his school fees and dues at the time, I believe. He must have worked extremely hard to be where he is, I am sure. Nonetheless, his giving back to his “home” does not mean that he owes the University anything. He simply recognised the concept of “Akụ lue ụnọ” – empowering others in your “home” to attain and even surpass your feats.
Akụ lue ụnọ can only be made possible when we imbibe the spirit of altruistic philanthropy.
One may wish to disagree with this submission, viewing this concept from a socioeconomic perspective. Akụ lue ụnọ, in terms of instituting of commerce and industry in the region.
All one and the same; jobs will be created for our teeming unemployed working age population. Creation of viable commercial activities and importantly, giving the much-needed boost to basic education in the region by building affordable and well-equipped schools (not for profit, but to get us out of this morass that education in the region has sunk).
Akụ lue ụnọ is both a prayer and a hope.
