I Find Joy in Igbo Language, Archbishop Obinna

Archbishop AJV Obinna

We haven’t quite fully recovered from the old indoctrination that everything from Europe or America is the best. Nigerians would have done better, but for the fact that we had people who were not properly educated leading us, and putting undue emphasis on everything Western. 

But when you study the Western culture as a real scholar, like some of us have done, you would discover that there is really nothing to get excited about. I have seen Europe and America, seen the white man, black man, yellow man, and all that. I have rediscovered myself. 

Indeed, when you have not rediscovered yourself, you will continue to look up to the Western world to define yourself. That’s why I define myself much more locally. I’ve found joy, learning and speaking the Igbo language. And that is why, in part, I started the Odenigbo Lecture Series.

The lecture series are conducted in my Igbo language; that every one in the village can understand. And I have discovered that it gives my people a great sense of joy, because I am helping them rediscover their identity, and to know that Igbo language is as good as English, French or any other, and never a mark of stupidity if you speak only Igbo. 

That there are very brilliant people who speak only Igbo because, after all, it was through the natural talents of farmers, fishermen and traders who never went to school, and what they cultivated, that their children were able to become trained as engineers and scientists. Indeed, many children of farmers, wine-tappers and wrestlers, have turned out to be excellent role models, because it is the practical knowledge of our people that laid the foundation for further intellectual or mental development of the later generation.

So, until we become re-orientated with and appreciative of the things around us, we shall always run after the white man. Now, although the white man has accomplished a great many good things, his society is far from perfect. Much of the present preoccupations of Western society do not seem to give its people joy. So, they end up being confused, and unhappy, and that is what some our people are running after.

So, I think it’s a matter of mis-education and misguidance by people who don’t have real values. They are living by what we call popular values; popular culture. Cars, dresses, shoes and what they can wear on their eyes and noses are more important to them…

So, Odenigbo is stimulating the revival and appreciation of the Igbo language. I do hope that, maybe, with more interest building up, others will come on board and we can produce programmes in Igbo language that are of high class quality; debates in Igbo, communications in Igbo, that will teach people how to treasure the Igbo language. Because there is literally nothing that cannot be expressed in the Igbo language, we have to be more creative with it, just as the Japanese, Koreans, Indians and Chinese are doing with their own languages. In fact, creativity comes more from your own mother tongue than from an imported language.

I can’t be as creative as the English are with their language. And whatever I create in English is only a small addition to their repertoire. But when I dig into the Igbo language and produce new concepts and new words, I enrich myself and the entire Igbo world.

Archbishop AJV Obinna of Owerri Archdiodese

Source: The Chinua Achebe Foundation Interviews