Igbo paying price of abandoning apprenticeship scheme –Nwala
From Ogbonnaya Ndukwe, Aba
Founding President of Alaigbo Development Foundation (ADF), Prof Uzodinma Nwala, has called on the Igbo not to hinge their survival on assistance from other ethnic nationalities in Nigeria or outside the country.
He said that Ndigbo needed charismatic leadership that will, without bias, work collectively to establish purposeful unity, growth and development of the ethnic nationality.
Nwala spoke on Igbo systems of governance anchored on the ancestral philosophy of the people, which revolves on communal socialistic inclinations.
He said societies that left their inherited ancestral systems of governance to embrace alien western civilization in totality without infusing a bit of what they learnt from their forebears, have always found it difficult to survive and thrive in times of stress. He noted that every society has its own ways of surviving during hardships brought about by natural climatic factors.
In the past, Nwala said, Ndigbo believed in practical entrepreneurship with focus on apprenticeship to attain productive leadership in community and business. He called for a return to that strategy that brought success in societal growth and development.
Nwala blamed the current situation in which the once vibrant people of the Southeast went cap in hand to beg for political relevance in Nigeria, on the abandonment of their God-given talented apprenticeship skills in spiritual leadership and embracing western social values.
He admonished: “In the past, we strived for and respected having charismatic leadership for the collective good of our communities. We pushed our young children into apprenticeship in corporate businesses and this made many of them become independent thinkers and unbiased leaders as they grew into becoming adults.
“Today, we have abandoned our creed to pursue western social values of neo-colonialism in which situation, we allow people from outside to choose our leaders for us.
“We now rely on people from other tribes in the country we belong to, to decide our fate politically and economically, telling us where to live, invest and otherwise.
“I want to let our people know that, if Ndigbo want to survive, we should not depend on any outside tribe or nation. We shouldn’t turn enemy to any one of them, but we must know those that are our friends, who will help us.
“We must choose our friends wisely, follow our mind, in order not to fall again into the hands of people intent on destroying Igboland.”
