By Polycarp Onwubiko
One of the villages, Ngene, in Amawbia, Awka capital territory celebrated what it called “Ezeariam festival”. One of the prominent highlights of the event was conferment of (chieftaincy) traditional titles to personages by a personage who is not the traditional ruler of the community since the community has lost her traditional ruler and on the process for a new traditional ruler, Okpaligwe.
The curious thing about the celebration is that, apart from the fact that there is nothing wrong in villages and communities having yearly festival but for the conferment of chieftaincy titles which by the Anambra State Edict on traditional rulers, is the exclusive preserve of traditional rulers even in the entire Igbo land.
Being aggrieved by the crass impunity by the personage and his cohorts who supported the conferment of chieftaincy titles, the head of Amawbia Ozo title holders, Chief Dan Chukwuma Maduka, described the conferment of chieftaincy titles as the height of crass impunity and taking the revered Igbo titles to the cleaners.
“It is utterly despicable and alu even as the personage who did the conferment was not a traditional ruler of Amawbia because he delved into the responsibility of a government recognized traditional ruler”.
Maduka who cited the case of the traditional ruler of Neni who breached protocol by not securing the nod of the Hon Commissioner, Ministry local government and town union matters before the conferment of chieftaincy title to the Senator representing Anambra south senatorial district, Dr Ifeanyi Uba, said that he was not sure if the Hon Commissioner was aware of the sordid and despicable outing in Ngene village Amawbia by a group of people who do not have respect for due process in government.
Maduka who was the president general of Amawbia town union from 1978 to 1983 and also the chief custodian authority of Amawbia tradition and custom recalled how the traditional ruler of Lagos state, Oba Akran obtained permission from the Governor of Lagos state before conferring him with the exalted traditional title of Eze Igbo of Badagry.
The traditional chieftain condemned the conferment of chieftaincy title on the former Chief of Army Staff General Burutai by the traditional ruler of Aguleri and wondered what was the landmark achievement of the soldier during the president Buhari administration. Islamic terrorists, militia and insurgents were mindlessly slaughtering people and occupying territories even as the terrorists masquerading as herdsmen imported from the Sahel region of West Africa were killing Christians and occupying their ancestral homelands while the displaced people are languishing in makeshift refuge settlements while the security agencies including the army were not living up to their constitutional responsibility of protecting the people from genocidal gambits of the terrorists.
“When Igbo land was Igbo land, such thoughtless action would be openly castigated and called ‘alu'”, He advised Governor Soludo to ensure that such wreck less action will not occur in the state.
On education, he commended Soludo for his free education for the primary and secondary schools and urged Ndi Anambra State to cling to APGA since dumping it for another political party would spell doom for the people.
“It is only the outside world that recognize Prof Soludo because during his tenure in the Central Bank of Nigeria CBN, he revolutionalized the banking system which brought a measure of stability in the banking sector in particular and the economy in general.
On the national level, Maduka urged president Tinubu to remember his Federalist mindset and shun whatever covert understanding he might have had with a section of the country which is against convoking National Conference of ethnic nationalities to negotiate and fashion a People’s Constitution similar to the Independence Constitution later renamed 1963 Constitution to return the country to its realistic principles of federal system of government including decentralized security architecture which remains the effective and efficient security arrangement as obtained in True Federation the world over.
By Polycarp Onwubiko, public policy analyst
