(By Chijioke Ngobili) – The Coming Ìgbò Spiritual Revolution
Take a look at the topic of this symposium these “learned” discussants are meant to tackle: “Return to Paganism by African Youths: Causes, Consequences and Solution”.
The keyword, for me, is “paganism”.
To each and everyone of these discussants who are Ìgbò (majority of them are Ìgbò by the way), for example, “paganism” is the indigenous Ìgbò Spirituality which is otherwise known as “Ịgọ Mmụọ” or more generically and recently as “Ime Omenaanị”. And, when the younger generations of Ìgbò have realized themselves in illumination and enlightenment, woken up from the many decades of brainwash and Christian indoctrination and returned to the unique and God-given Spirituality of their Ancestors which some missionaries ensnared them away from more than 100 years ago with all manner of means, they're returning to “paganism” and should be pulled back to be saved by these messiah discussants. Such a laughable and ignorant intervention!
I have once hinted at this: A spiritual revolution is building up and it's the younger Ìgbò generations who are leading it. That revolution is the return to the indigenous Ìgbò Spirituality (NEVER “religion”) from the various orthodox Christian backgrounds of their parents/grandparents. Surprisingly, the key leaders of this revolution are mostly those based in the diaspora of America and Europe who have thoroughly known and assessed and have been exposed to the background and source of the Christian religion thrust upon their Ancestors from 1857. They have come to know enough to know the truth. Some of these revolutionaries include even the 'religious' who may not want to come out openly for some understandable reasons! As the erudite scholar and thinker, Professor Damian Opata told me a few years ago, “Christianity has reached its peak in Ìgbòland and would soon be on decline”. So, did Dibịa Professor Anene Ume declare to me and Chimezie Ogenna Nwodo about 4 years ago, “Church will soon die in Ìgbòland; give it a few decades more, you're likely to see it happen before you”.
Indeed, it's no coincidence that these 13 discussants (majority of whom are priests/religious) are bothered about youths—in their words—“returning to paganism” and are determined to reverse it. But, does one go before a moving train to stop its motion? Such decision ends in a bloody regret. Around this time 100 years ago, the CMS, RCM and Methodist missionaries had successfully overrun the Ìgbòland with the help of the British expeditionary and colonial forces who militarily and economically subdued the people and land for them between 1901 and 1919, handing them a smooth access to the innermost recesses of the Ìgbò — not minding that they have been trying to do so with very little success between 1857 and 1900. For a town like Abatete in the present-day Anambra State that fiercely resisted Christian missionaries, its people paid heavily, more than their neighbors, with blood when the soldiers of the Ọnịcha Hinterland Expedition of 1904/1905 marched through their town. This Abatete event is documented in a degree thesis of an old student of the UNN but is little known today because the heavy casualties suffered by elderly and middle-aged Ìgbò people early in the 20th century in order to accept Christianity are barely documented, and they have been overtaken by the falsehood that Ìgbò people massively “accepted Christ” for, as they are quick to corroborate with the bible, “the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light”.
Not many now know or remember that the sets or generations of Ìgbò who massively accepted this Christianity at the turn of the last century are not the middle-aged or elderly but the younger generations, such as the Nwoyes of Achebe's Things Fall Apart whose decisions ruthlessly shocked the Okonkwọs and Obierikas of Ụmụọfịa. Is it then any surprise that after more than a century, the reverse of the trend—the return to Ịgọ Mmụọ or Ime Omenaanị which is the indigenous Ìgbò Spirituality—is driven by the younger generations whose bold decisions are now shocking to their elderly and middle-aged Christian parents and relatives as well as contemporaries? As Dibịa Professor Ume would always say with certainty, “Ụka bịalụ abịa, ife bịalụ abịa ya anakwa ana.”
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