When BNW Magazine asked Ambrose Ehirim and me to cover this year’s "World Igbo Congress" (WIC)
convention in Los Angeles
California, I wasn’t
thrilled. This is one of those assignments from BNW News that I dread and hate to take on. It is not that I am
concerned about all the Igbo Efulefu and the political wannabes who would be participating in the events. It is well known that
the WIC crowd is a bunch of people I don’t share anything in common with.
Therefore, this assignment reminded me of one Igbo adage which says:
“when your girl
friend is asking you for a favor and Dr. Death is asking you for a favor, you don’t know which to turn down.” It is love to go on another assignment for BNW; it is near moral death
to find one’s self in the midst of sworn Igbo Efulefu from home and Diaspora. Luckily, my colleague, Ambrose Ehirim, was kind enough to cover all three days of WIC’s convention
activities. The only day in which I partook in that basement mayhem happens to be the most exciting day of them
all. It was
Saturday night, September 3, the so-called Banquet Night, which was supposed to showcase Igbo personalities both
home and abroad.
For me, Saturday started with a bang. I sent my source to the Ezurezu Mbaise meeting that Saturday Morning to cover the meeting called
by Mbaise sons and daughters
from home and Diaspora. Mbaise has always had those meetings Saturday
morning of the WIC convention for the past 11 years. However, this year’s meeting had a significance attached to
it.
Why is Ezuruezu Mbaise meeting
so important when Ndi-Igbo
and WIC have a bigger fish to fry, you may ask. I beg your indulgence
for a moment. You will see why. The main reason I found myself covering the Banquet night, was that the Famous Abigbo Mbaise and Umu Igbo USA dance groups (Stay tuned for the pictures) were to herald the occasion Saturday night. The dance by those two
groups turned out to be the only bright spot for Both WIC and Mbaise
in this year’s WIC convention.
Of Winners and Losers
The ideal thing would be for WIC to create an environment where its programs
would lead to results that are win-win for Nd’Igbo and for the participants in WIC’s pet projects. Unfortunately, WIC is
a winner-takes-all outfit. The Los Angeles convention could certainly not be described as a win-win event. There are winners and there are losers. The winners win, and the losers lose big! I start with
the losers.
Losers
Other than Igbo Cultural Association of Southern
California, the Host organization who put together this rowdy gathering, Mbaise came a close second as the biggest loser in this year’s
WIC convention. Mbaise called
a meeting Saturday morning. The main topic of discussion at the meeting according to my source was non other than Sunday’s Election for WIC’s chairman of the Board
of Directors. Alas! The do nothing reign of Kalu Kalu Diogu had come to an end, and four persons
were campaigning to replace him. Out of the Four
candidates vying for WIC chairmanship, three were from Imo State,
and out of the three from Imo State,
two are from Mbaise, Dr Joe
Etoh and Dr Ugorji Ugorji.
The only things these two men have in common is that they are both from Mbaise and both are addressed as “doctor.” These are two men
who couldn’t stand each other. Their hatred for each other was obvious. Igbo yahoo forums are littered with insults
traded between Dr. Eto and Dr. Ugorji. That those two men despise
was a problem for Ezuruezu
Mbaise that Saturday Morning. Mbaise appealed to these two men, asking that one to them step down for the other. Bad idea ladies and
gentlemen! To
say it was a bad idea is to put it gently. Ugorji and Eto refused to listen to Ezurezu Mbaise. Their egos got too big, bigger than Los
Angeles International Airport
and presented a problem for Mbaise.
Umu Mbaise frustrated and disgusted with such
stubbornness unleashed their bottled anger on the two Mbaise candidates. For Umu Mbaise it was like one of those suppressed
childhood psychological abuse cases finally exploding into a public show of anger by the abused. Umu Mbaise were finally
going to a chance to tell Ugorji
and Eto something they had
been waiting for years to tell those two rascals. Umu Mbaise let
them have it. As
we used to say in Mbaise, Umu Mbaise kuru madu abuo na nsi. Umu
Mbaise gwara ha ihe nsi ka nma.
The tongue-lashing was fast and furious. Even with all the tongue-lashing and the cajoling and pleading, Ugorji and Eto were willing to budge. None would step down
for the other.
With the handwriting on wall, Mbaise resigned to losing the chairmanship of that
efulefu organization called WIC. Umu Mbaise reminded Ugorji
how he was instrumental in forming AFOMA
Mbaise organization and also
how he destroyed it, through his own selfishness and ego. When AFOMA Mbaise created
a $250.00 scholarship for Aboh
Mbaise students, Ugorji was asked to announce the scholarship
and deliver the $250.00 check to the winner.
Ugorji wasted money
at Concord Hotel Owerri entertaining hordes of Igbo Efulefu.
In the end, he submitted a $6,000.00 expense bill to AFOMA Mbaise.
As for Joe Etoh, let’s say Mbaise
will not soon forget his role in the election saga.
As a face-saving measure, Ugorji and Eto agreed that if two of them make it to the run off, the candidate with less vote would step down
for the one with more votes. It was too little too late.
Well let’s say that the problem was solved by the WIC conclave because
Chief Onwuchekwa won in a landslide.
On Sunday, Umu Mbaise convention attendees left Los Angeles licking their wounds and wondering why
and playing Monday morning Quarterback. Umu Mbaise now know how the whole Igbos felt in 2003, when 35 Igbo candidates ran for president with none
willing to step down for a single Igbo Candidate.
Winners
My number one winner has to be Chief Chibuzor Onwuchekwa who went home with the Efulefu Gold, as the chairman of WIC for the next two years and the possibility
for two more.
Another winner has to be the Los Angeles Airport Hilton Hotel, whose
cash registers were ringing with Igbo dollars, even though many of the attendees were shameless enough to sneak
in their own six-packs of Heineken and other brews.
Another big winner is the photographer who made a killing taking pictures of
Igbo star-struck political wannabes from Igbo Diaspora who could not get enough of their pictures taken with every
Politician from Biafranigeria.
I am not a doctor of optometry. But, if I am a betting man I will bet
that Governor Orji Uzor Kalu’s eyes must be hurting right now with all the star struck Diaspora job seekers wanting to take pictures
with him, including Dr. Acho
Orabuchi of PNF-USA, who long ago in Maryland turned in his job application
to Orji Uzor Kalu and afterwards wrote what amounted to a Thank-you-for-the-job-interview letter that Acho published all over the web, where he
repeatedly referred to that high school and college dropout as “Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu.”
Keynote speech
The Senate President, Chief Ken Nnamani, lambasted World Igbo Congress for Hosting Igbo people in a Hotel basement. Nnamani
noted that first of all there is no reason whatsoever that Igbo people should be meeting in a Hotel basement. Nnamani went on to challenge the World Igbo
congress to bring their annual jamboree home to Igbo land. He challenged WIC to host next year’s convention in
any one of the Southeastern States. He said unless WIC starts seeing herself as an organization that can articulate Igbo agenda and bring such agenda home, all
they will be doing is just another annual jamboree. Nnamani went on to State how the Asian Tiger was made possible by Asians in Diaspora who went back home
to establish the Technology institutes that are making India and China super technological countries today. Senator Nnamani stated that because Igbos thrive in competitive environment that if
Igbo talent are well harnessed there is no reason we should not turn Igbo land into the silicon valley of Africa. He challenge World Igbo Congress to start working on setting the mechanism that would bring Igbo technological
talents home to Igbo land. Unless WIC think along that line, he said, all they will be doing is just an annual
feel good jamboree.
WIC and the Demise of Igbo Culture
This part of my report made me glad that I didn’t go to that Saturday
night Banquet with my beautiful lovely wife who had other important engagements. I am glad because she was too far away to witness WIC women,
turn Igbo culture on its head. The women of WIC wanted two captains for the same ship.
The banquet started very late as reported by my colleague Ambrose Ehirim. Earlier in the day the women threatened
fire and brimstone unless they were given permission to address the gathering. The organizing committee obliged
and gave them time to address the gathering before the banquet could start. Lolo Rose Amuchie took the podium, a
well dressed women I might add. Her speech was short and brief and didn’t not anger anybody, at least not yet. She spoke about imparting our culture to our children
and the rate of divorce in our community. She went on to introduce a committee of women whom she said had been
working on a blue print agenda for Igbo culture.
Perhaps Lolo Amuchie should have been the only woman speaker because she seemed
to understand Igbo culture a little better than her fellow committee women. When most of those women got up to address the convention,
they started by saying “cha cha
Igbo Kwenu!” It is taboo for
a woman to address any gathering of men or of men and women with cha cha Igbo Kwenu.
In Igbo land women do not say cha cha
Igbo Kwenu, Ihe Umu nwanyi na eji eti na ala Igbo
bu
Oro onu. Ohyi ohyi onye ji ego or onye ji egbe gba ngaa o. (That one is for my Igbo readers’ ears). Most people in the crowd ignored the first woman who shouted Igbo Kwenu!
As if non of these women were
taking note, the second women speaker came again and shouted Igbo Kwenu! the first time
only her fellow women shouted yea! back,
she repeated again in order to get resounding yea!
As if those weren’t bad enough, the second to the last women speaker
refused to give up the microphone as she was being prompted to wrap up her speech. She went on to ask if there
was anything the men could do to her if she refused to give up the microphone. After all, in her thinking, “this is America.” if she
doesn’t give up the microphone here tonight what will happen. She insisted that unless the women finished making
their speech nothing on the program could proceed.
Before the abominable cha cha cha Igbo Kwenu! many of the women could be heard demanding to be given the Kola
Nut. Some
of the women were being addressed as Chiefs, even though they had no husbands that anyone could see. Tufiakwa! Is
it not an abomination for an Igbo woman to be called a chief, especially when there is no husband around from whom
she could have derived her chieftancy? How could an Igbo woman
be called a chief when her husband is not a chief or she has no husband at all?
My people our culture is turning upside down in America. Thank God I still have a wife
who knows a thing or two about Igbo culture. My advise to some of you whose wives don’t attend WIC conventions is to be glad they don’t. If what I saw Saturday night while covering my first WIC
convention is how it is done, I will advise any reasonable Igbo man to keep his wife away from WIC convention with
long pole.
More commotion came during the introduction of Chief Peter Obi in the
Hilton Hotel basement banquet hall when the Senate President and Chairman Ohaneze tried to recognize the APGA Governorship candidate for Anambra State by addressing him as “Governor elect.” That didn’t seat well with many people in the audience.
Disruption ensued even to the point of shouting Prof. Joe Irukwu
chairman of Ohanaeze down. Prof. Irukwu
went on to state that Ohanaeze’s position on Anambra Governorship issue is to be neutral,
that the two combatants are all Igbo sons, that we should allow the political process resolve itself.
Dae Nnamdi Nwuda
Upland, California