STRENGHTENING THE SINEWS OF PEACE IN IGARRA

To grow up in that beautiful place I wrote about many years ago was the ideal and idyllic meeting at a point of intersection that is heavenly. You just knew you were born the right way and in the right place. This was true for me, my friends and the ones before me and after me. Igarra was an irresistible place then and it remains even more so today.

Right from the day of birth until one started to feel, touch and learn, it felt the same way up until we started elementary School. We went on to secondary school and the University still feeling the same way too. Growing up in that land always felt special, you could not exchange it for another world. May be because we did not know this other world – who cares about some other world anyway, when you have a world like Igarra! Igarra always felt like the only world there was to know.
Life was much simpler then, everyone was born in the same hospital and in the same homes. Everyone went to the same Schools, the same markets, the same streams and the same farms. Everyone partook in the same common social and cultural festivals and in the same age grade when the time of life beckoned.

We were largely Christians and Muslims. There were many who are professed traditionalists and we dated and married across family and religious divides without batting an eyelid. Life in the local Igarra community simply revolved around the family and redoubtable cultural engagements.

The Igarra local market known as “Ofu – Amomo” at Ugbogbo quarters and “Ofu – Orere” at Ufa quarters so named after the day of week and the place where the markets are located respectively played a central role in the life of the Igarra people.
Amomo day and the markets though small are an integral part which shapes the cohesion of the community. Igarra has a four day week, reckoning not with the Gregorian calendar the Papacy decreed to replace the Julian calendar in 1582. Like our brothers from across the East of the Niger, the Igbo’s, who have the four market days of Eke, Orie, Afo and Nkwo, the Igarra week days are Ude, Ofosu, Ube and Amomo.
In Igarra, the three week days of Ude, Ofosu and Ube are usually work days – though some cultural festivals may be held on these days – when the menfolk go to the farm to till the soil and eke out a living for themselves and their families. They may freely engage in other vocations of choice on these days whilst our women, when they are not full time housewives or helping out in the farm trade in household utensils and food items.
These women may therefore utilize these days to go to the markets in other towns our people considered distant markets in those days – there is the Ube, Enwan, Somorika, Ago, Atte, Ibillo and even the farther afield Auchi market not discountenancing the Igarra main market at Utua quarters. The exploits of many of our women in these markets continue to be celebrated today.

The Amomo market day, unlike the others is a day of rest from the drudgery that is farm and other tedious work life of the Igarra people. It is a day no one goes to the farm (unless they cannot help it). The men will generally stay home to be treated to sumptuous bowls of the “chief” food of the Igarra people, “Iya” (pounded yam) and soup laced with generous portions of exotic meat from game which was hunted down and/or trapped in the farm in the three days of work preceding the Amomo rest day or easily sourced in any of the markets our women frequent.

The Igarra woman anticipitates the Amomo day as much as the Igarra man does. For the full time housewives, it means a day when their husbands will provide the good money for them to visit the market and shop for necessaries with which to exhibit or validate their culinary skills and expertise for their husbands to savour along with the men of the house who must be equally champing at the bit after three days of tedious work and rightly expects to be treated to the “Iya” delicacy as has become customary on the Amomo day of rest.
Those house wives who are traders or into other vocations of course also welcome the day for a slightly different reason. It is a day they could sell their wares at Amomo market, make money and still get back home early enough to make the customary “make up” “Iya” delicacy either as a late lunch or early dinner for their husbands and family.

The Amomo market is such a market where you would not immediately notice any under currents in the benign nature and energy of the market but it is there. Underneath the hurly burly of transactions in a market where everyone knows everyone is a rumour mill – alive and thriving in overdrive. Sellers and buyers alike struggle to catch up on community news and gist of the past week.

Gossip is rife at Amomo market. It is at the market that a wife may get wind of the new woman her husband is seeing. A woman may learn something unpalatable about her rival wife with which to warm herself into the good graces of her husband. A woman and many times men may learn things happening in their homestead they were hitherto oblivious of. It is at Amomo market that one will most probably first learn about upcoming community events.
It is also Amomo days when everyone and sundry will be home and resting from the exertions of the past week that are set down for many social engagements, cultural festivals and traditions of the Igarra people. It is on this day that we have our “Azi” (Grandchild celebration) ceremony. It is also on this day that traditional Chieftaincy Titles are taken. No one misses these events which mean days of camaraderie, hefty portions of pounded yam and lots of “eche aku” (exotic alcohol made from guinea corn) which remains a big draw for many Igarra indigenes whenever they visit home still.

Yet again, it is on this significant Amomo day that “Iyanda” (the communal pounded yam) is eaten. This is a very important event in every family’s calendar. This “Iyanda” eaten from the same large bowls age group by age group bring members of the larger Igarra families together and affords them the opportunity to bond in unity and reinforce shared family values.

On this Amomo day, young men and women are usually gaily adorned for the many social and cultural festivals for which the Igarra people are renowned. One may find friendship or more on this day. Relationships that resulted in eternal friendships and some that ended up in marriage many times have been forged on Amomo days and at such social and cultural festivals spurned on that day.
There are some who should be wary of Amomo days though! If a lad or lass, man and maiden gets unlucky enough and their matter is tabled and treated at Amomo market or at any of those other events on Amomo day, he/she should forget it as he/she surely has been dealt a hard blow from which it is difficult to recover.

These innocuous tabling and treatments might end a budding business or amorous relationship to your chagrin before it even gets off the ground. That which you would rather keep away from your parents or spouse may then become an open secret or worse still common knowledge because of the energy Amomo market and Amomo day exudes.

For the discerning, Amomo market and Amomo day is more than a market and not just a day! It is a day and a market place of ideas for local women. It is a melting pot of sorts for economic, social, traditional and cultural interactions. Amomo market and its kin at Orere, Ufa quarters are powerful forces of nature and tradition.

This is the simple rustic life the Igarra people always led. Amomo day and Amomo market bears this out and drives it home for both the initiate and the uninitiated in the ways of the Igarra people.
That simple life also extended to the education of the Igarra child in my time. In the days of my father they had limited choices of where they lived and studied. I know everyone in Igarra went to St. Paul’s Anglican Grammar School in his time. It gives me immense pride today to stand and proclaim that I studied in the same class rooms in which my father and his brothers studied.

In fact since the inception of that Grammar School in 1956, every generation of the Obajaja’s were there and you could count duo’s and multiple Obajaja’s in the same class (there were three of us in my time from JSS1 to SSS3) in every form until recently when public education went to the dogs in Nigeria and no one goes to those Schools again.
Of course no one placed premium on the education of the girl child in my father’s time but my mother and a few women of the time went to Okpameri Girl’s Grammar School – an all Girl’s School – which later became Ibillo Girl’s Grammar School and now Federal Government College, Ibillo.
I have always made the point that we, the Children of the 1970’s probably enjoyed Igarra most. Our father’s had seen the promise of Independence dissipate. The Civil War ended in 1970 and there was renewed hope for the generation that was to come.

This was the hope my mother carried for me when I started Primary School in Ugbogbo quarters where I grew up. There were only Iretutu Primary School – my great alma mater, Ugbogbo Primary School and Opoze Primary School where we all gravitated towards by virtue of the proximity of the Schools to our various homes or the dictates of our parents.

Our kit and kin in the other quarters of Igarra were similarly sent together to the same Primary Schools – Utua Primary School, Eyinozi Primary School and Etuno Primary School all located at Utua to serve Utua quarters and Ufa Primary School, Iretoji Primary School and Orere Primary School to cater for the elementary educational needs of our Ufa brothers and sisters.

When it was time for Secondary education, we only had that good Ol’ School, the great St. Paul’s Anglican Grammar School, Comprehensive High School (Mixed), and an all Girl’s School, Igarra Girls Grammar School both of which had then been established by 1980. Of course Etuno Mixed Grammar School had come and gone. So it was too that in this and with these limited choices, Igarra children were born and bred.
It is in these crucibles that our Schools were in those by gone days that we were forged and made! Apart from the “tribal” sentiments of fellow feelings in School, study groups and liaisons the Schools encouraged, no one had thoughts other than to excel and see others do as well as a band of brothers but “we reckoned without the devil” obviously.

Even though the circumstances of our town, our birth, our education and our shared common history engendered unity and peace in Igarra, politics and some inexplicable other circumstances threatened this in the 1980’s. It was our formative years. We were young and did not believe we were part of it. In fact it did not appeal to us as we could not understand why many years of peaceful existence had to be so disrupted.

We continued our development apace. Our ultimate dream was to study hard, pass our School Leaving Certificate Examinations and go on to University to escape the drudgery of farm/village life, parental/family “tyranny” and still to prepare for a career and future education can only enhance. Almost everyone of my generation in Igarra who still make an exclusive nucleus of the friends I have even today went on to achieve their individual and our collective dreams.
In that time in Igarra and even still, the point of convergence most evenings was that patch of earth in the centre of town called “Iboro” where we dabbled into the innocent teen vices of cigarette smoking, looking out for babes and the occasional gin/beer as you could not afford those most times. There were the lesson grounds too where the more savvy one’s amongst us could combine the principal business of trying to “make WAEC” with the side hustle of “toasting babes” and some scored quite well.

The big draw then was the mathematics you knew – if you venture to have a smattering grasp of the one they call “additional” or “further” – you were the darling of everyone and the babes swooned over you. The good English you could speak and write and your good grasp of literary appreciation amongst other very edifying attributes that marked out a young man of the time for a bright future stood you in good stead. This was our Igarra before things went south.

Then we all went to the same Universities. Most of us who grew up in Igarra have two Universities of choice. The great research University of Benin (my University) and Edo State University, Ekpoma which has now been rechristened Ambrose Ali University. Those of my generation were a core group trained together in these Universities and at Auchi Polytechnic too which always has a sizeable student population of Igarra indigenes. One would think that this common path of development would aid the cause of unity and act as a force for good in Igarra community.

When the relative peace in Igarra returned as the dust settled after the debacle of the 1980’s, we seemed to settle along with it into a life of peace and prosperity. Igarra did not become as rich and prosperous as one might like but many of our sons and daughters made good at home and abroad. The future of Igarra seemed assured and we dreamt that we might be ushered into a new era of prosperity and wellbeing.

The 1990’s and the Noughties promised so much. So many pan Igarra organizations sprang up. Old ones schooled in division seemed to change their divisive ways. The young ones at our various institutions of learning embraced one another. We were very happy together. We treasured this unity and put it down to the exposure education and travel afforded us and the new affluence many young Igarra people found which made it easier for them to see beyond the parochial interests of our fathers. This helped us entrench the enlightened self interest when it became evident that the common destiny with whom we are all bounded should prevail.

We truly reckoned without the devil for after we made these great gains, we allowed the renegades amongst us to take centre stage again in a subversive and subtle manner. We first allowed them to infiltrate all pan Igarra organizations at home and abroad. Then they got to the influencers and affluent amongst us and sold to them the old dummy of family discord. An old trick that always seemed to work! Some unfortunately bought the worn out but shiny tin pot and have themselves become peddlers of family discord.

In a fatal twist of fate, our youth got caught up in the web of the rotten Nigerian state and the global corruption and decadence in society. Communal and family life does not matter to them anymore. Education, which we boasted in time past, was our only industry was derided and jettisoned. “What does it profit a man who gained all the education and his mother remained poor peddling petty wares on Amomo market days?” they cynically asked.

Then followed wealth without work and reward without effort! Whilst we were still getting to grips with the new fad and trying to say No, this is wrong, our mothers and fathers bought into the hype and as they say, the rest is history. Who could blame them? They have seen the ones for whom they toiled, sold all they had to see through the University unable to find work. Now there is the one barely out of his teens never speak well or do good bringing in the goods.

It is a catch 22 for the parents no doubt? What are parents who fate had seemingly condemned to eternal poverty to do when a child without visible means of livelihood lifts them out of poverty and a life of drudgery and scorn? Society can be very cruel, unsympathetic and unforgiving when life deals you a bad hand.
Thus we came to celebrate the anomalous that has become our lot in Igarra. With this came the rise of perfidious voices with money, guns and power. The renegades, like leeches latched onto them and that which we thought had been defeated has come back again to haunt us. They tore at the fabric of our society and today the sinews of peace have been weakened beyond recognition.
Nevertheless we will not be helpless. We will remake the sinews of peace anew in our local community.

Remaking the sinews of peace demands that we do well to gravitate towards our strength, see and emphasize that what unites us is far greater than that which divides us. Let us say no to the ones amongst us who are merchants of division, violence, war and death.

Every one of our brothers who put profit before human life must be told in no uncertain terms that if the rest of the world is losing its head, Igarra will not lose its own with them. Let it be made clear that Igarra will not blindly follow the polluted stream of the wicked that sweeps all before it into the hobbessian state of nature, where life is brutish, nasty and short.

We must remind the sons of perdition, the evil merchants of blood and death amongst us that we are still a people united by blood and marriage. We have a common heritage and destiny – “Orupeza” (beanstalk theory) – which has been espoused by titans like the Late Professor Adebayo Akerele of the University of Benin, reminding us of the common brotherhood that should guide our relationships with one another.
I later seized upon the “Orupeza” tack and further extrapolated with other unique factors that make for unity, peace and progress in Igarra in a paper I wrote many years ago – “This Beautiful Place Called Igarra”.

It is important to remind ourselves in Igarra that those who have everything to lose cannot allow those who have nothing to lose lead the debate and spin their divisive narrative in these difficult times in our history.
The elaborate exposition of the significance of Amomo market day and the education of our children as I have done here painstakingly and extensively is to simply show they are generic and veritable circumstances amongst other unique features of our local community that should help shape a peaceful and united Igarra rather than a rancorous local community where we cannot meet our personal and collective interests of physical and spiritual growth. We all have too much at stake to let Igarra go to waste.

If we continue to fan the embers of hate and discord as many have done lately, what do we hope we will gain? What is the alternative to Igarra for us? Is there one? In playing the devil’s advocate I will say let us go ahead and consider the alternatives – which is really only one anyway – a violent community laid desolate! It does not bear contemplating so I will curtly end my devil’s advocacy and urge every Igarra man and woman to continue on the path of what is right even if we have felt hard done by many times over ourselves.
On strengthening the sinews of peace in Igarra we stand.
May God bless Igarra now and always.

Stephen Onimisi Obajaja, Esq
Lagos.