MEMORANDUM TO MAZI CHRIS ONWUZO AND OTHER INTERESTED AGENTS OF CHANGE ON THE TRAJECTORY OF NDIGBO AND THEIR PATH TO BETTERMENT OF THEIR STATUS IN HOSTILE NIGERIA BY M A C ODU 1. Ndigbo are a special breed with profound experiencing in current human condition. Human spirits have incarnated in parts of Creation where they have connections deep into the past for redeeming age-long commitments to other human spirits with whom they developed connections in previous phases of existence. 2. Each human spirit has within its core an Akashic Record of all its experience through its various incarnations. No human spirit incarnates without connection with people in its habitat. Man is consequently a manifestation of its past lives. Man owes communities into which he or she has incarnated of contributing to their welfare in order to find fulfillment. Ndigbo share this with all humanity and consequently owe their people in direct relationship with their capacity, the social responsibility of guiding their communities toward higher goals of happiness and fulfillment. 3. The Biafra War was a huge degradation of the status of Ndigbo. Our leaders were for the most part unaware of this social responsibility and sought distant goals without focus on their communal needs. Zik and Ojukwu in varying degrees failed to provide appropriate leadership when it mattered most. Both leaders were unaware of this and failed to guide Ndigbo to betterment. Zik sought to become an African Messiah. Ojukwu sought to be an Igbo hero. The war he led us into was the cause of colossal damage to our pristine psches and our communal integrity. Both ended up depreciating our futures. Ndigbo dropped from citizens that cared for their families, kindred, villages, clans and tribe to egocentric automatons craving for individual wealth and power and other vain goals that have redounded to devaluation of our communal ethos of love and care for one another; thereby condemning us to atomized individuals with little communal spirit. The communal spirit has to be reignited and sustained for group fulfillment. 4. Ndigbo were at the forefront of Nigeria Project on account of our communal spirit which evaporated with the Biafra War. It has to be rebuilt with mutual love and cooperation. Cooperative movement is our shortest path to recovery. It will reignite our cognateness as a people and unleash irresistible energy for consensus and resistance to enemy forces building up against us in the Nigeria Project. 5. This goal has been started in Imo State. Iam uploading to you various documents relating with our effort in Imo State to engender cooperation with love and integrity that was seen by Chief Michael Okpara in the first republic but which was truncated by the military before it developed firm root. Evidence abounds in all of Eastern Nigeria of old of this vision. The first settlements conceived for checking rural urban migration, improve sustainable prosperity and happiness have been neglected by subsequent governments by sheer incompetence and shallowness of development paradigms since adopted. 6. The documents for the effort are being uploaded to you in no particular order. The ultimate message is embedded in the text of each document. Circulate them as widely as possible to attract a critical mass of people who will drive the change in view. I desire no credit higher than change and would love people with iron determination to be enlisted. Subsequent generations will reap the benefits of what we create within the next ten years. 7. This endeavour at sustained prosperity has to be replicated in each Igbo State and driven by people called for the purpose toward fulfillment. I stated at the Colloquium that our trajectory for resurgence as a people must be powered by this consciousness of our uniqueness as a one language zone and the need to work together for group fulfillment. What has been done in Imo State would apply to other states in the zone. 8. Such people as we shall need shall present themselves without prompting based on the quality of the vision as a cure to our bereavement of communal spirit much in the same way as Jews. 9. Partners who have the desire to be relevant to their generation should be sought and motivated to this vision of pooling resources for self actualisation and perhaps growth in a new idiom. The ultimate goal is to set up structures that will provide our youth a definite trajectory for relevance in future through the cooperative movement. 10. In Imo State we have conceived and ignited structures for the materialization of First Nationwide Microfinance Bank Limited that should with appropriate subscription to capital, provide Ndigbo citizens outlet for investment in Igboland in shares of the bank for individual and group dividends as well as access to funds to power development of our communal spirit and attainment of group fulfillment. 11. I believe that we can change the circumstances of Ndigbo if we consistently work at it within the next ten years or so. Given hostility to Igbo in Nigeria, we have to devise our salvation and resurgence on the basis of love and cooperation. We shall assure our progeny of a future with action commenced now. Our sons and daughters are heavily invested outside Igboland. This effort will provide access for our sons to commence reinvestment in their own zone of Nigeria. It will assist us fund Ohaneze out of apparent lethargy and warped focus. It will ignite other organisations under Ohaneze with communal funding as bastion. 12. We will have to find arrowheads in each of our five states for anchorage of the goal of self actualisation in our own idiom. 13. We should meet at the next board meeting of South East Communities Development Association (SECDA, now under registration in Abuja) for the purpose of mobilizing communities and high net worth individuals and cooperatives into the vision and mission of cooperation for betterment to examine how far we have gone in this search for permanent and sustainable change to our diminishing relevance as a people. 14. This memorandum has been presented at your request. Kindly do not let us fail in our generation to provide guidance to posterity as we advance in age. Our experience shall not be rendered to nothingness by pressures that are ephemeral. Very truly yours, Eze Professor Mark Anamelechi Chukwunwike Odu Saturday, March 15 2014
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 05:51:34 +0000