Victor Nwoko
“Some are born mad, some achieve madness, and some have madness thrust upon ’em.” -Emilie Autumn
Madness comes in different types. The roving-frenzy type that infects multiple people at the same time is on the rise. It usually begins as a social justice movement that quickly moves through a temporary religious/spiritual state to stark madness. Many times it may appear as wisdom but ends as utter foolishness. In AD 867, the Mother Superior of the monastery Coldingham Priory was informed that marauding Viking pirates from Zealand and Uppsala had landed in Scotland. Gathering the nuns under her charge, she urged them to disfigure themselves to escape becoming the Viking’s sexual targets. In her estimation, doing so would enable them to protect their sacred chastity. Boldly cutting off her own nose and upper lips, she instructed the nuns to do likewise. When the Viking arrived, they were appalled at the sight of the self-mutilated nuns, and in fury, burned down the monastery, incinerating the nuns inside.
There is a frenzy of madness raging across the Southeast in recent years. To the unthinking vuvuzelas of doom, intelligence, prudence, intellectual interrogations of the status quo are failures. They are quick to discount the paradigms of success that saw a people rise from the ashes of annihilation to becoming the dominant players in the economy of Africa’s most populous country. Nothing defines this madness more than the expression “otellectual”. There is a palpable disdain of knowledge, wisdom and understanding. And the verbal diarrhetic violence.
Otellectualism is a terroristic tool employed by non-state actors to intimidate, threaten, maim and kill those who dare to hold a different opinion from that of the proponents. The proponents of otellectualism masquerade as proponents of Igbo freedom, but are criminal elements who want to destroy the cream of Igbo people to gain power. Anyone that seeks to curtail the freedoms of others cannot be called a freedom fighter. The most fundamental of all freedoms is the freedom of speech. It entails the freedom of thought and expression of the said thought especially when it dissents from that of those in power. The proponents of Otellectualism do not think the Igbo people deserve such freedom.
The roving madness of the season is the threat to those who dare to say no to a forced holiday every Monday throughout Igbo land. Having forced many people to observe the May 30th sit-at-home order the past two years, there is a renewed impetus to extend such orders to every sphere of Igbo life. According to the otellectuals, it is good for poor Igbos to experience more hardships and deprivations in a show of solidarity for a cause that has not been interrogated or defined. Refusals to voluntarily submit to the imposed sufferings and afflictions is tantamount to sabotage, and punishable by death or severe injuries.
The great Igbo nation and people are under siege externally and internally. Externally, we have managed to survive the civil war and its devastating economic aftermath. We are warriors. From the ashes of defeat and annihilation we emerged stronger than ever before. Nigeria is still at war with the Igbos 50 years after the cessation of shooting hostilities. The war migrated from the battlefields to economic policies and politics. We have won a part of the economic war and are on course to win the other part- the infrastructural deprivations of the Southeast. On the political front, we are in the game.
Internally, the Igbo nation is under existential threat from a horde of unthinking dolts. The republican nature of the Igbo has been our greatest strength over the years. It is the reason for our successes. We are neither shackled by rigid traditions nor fettered by monarchs, dictators, autocrats or oligarchs. Today, a few minions are trying to impose either the rule of one man or that of a few tyrants across Igboland in the name of Biafra and freedom. They may want Biafra, but freedom is not on their agenda, at least freedom for the rest of the people. What they want is power. Power to kill or keep alive.
It is time to stop the madness from spreading further. The plan to cripple the economy of the Southeast by sitting at home every Monday must be resisted. The plan is to impoverish the Igbo as it was in the early 1970s – at the end of the civil war. It is easy to divide and conquer poverty-infested people. The civil war saw the balkanization of Igbo people especially the communities at the boundaries. Today, many do not see themselves as Igbo or covertly deny their ethnic heritage.
