What Village People Did To Me

(By Immanuel James Ibe-Anyanwu) I arrived Umueze Umuhu 30th December, 2018, after a three-day stay at a hotel in Owerri. Off Aba-Owerri highway lies Umueze, home of my ancestors, 15 minutes to the Imo airport sited in Ngor-Okpala, our local council area. The road is untarred, the colour of a rising sun, parting rich vegetations left to thrive around rural homesteads. There is notable treenocide from housing developments, but much of the greenery is intact. I love trees, love watching the harmattan push their branches to a side like women’s hair.

          Our earth is flat, literally. No gullies, no flooding. No drainage, yet rainwater knows its way to the farm. The road runs a long stretch before bending, so that, standing at your entrance, you can see a kinsman several meters away; you can call his name, raising your hand in greeting. Our road reflects a sense of ancestral geometry, a sense of kinship.

          Because my arrival is being expected, a hot oha soup is asked to wait for me at the table. My stepmother. Oha, your leaves are green and true, I think to myself, eating without any waste of time. Dry fish, the one they call nwa-urubiri, with its colleagues is lounging in the soup. The fufu is pure white, pampered into a round edibility. I am officially welcome to the place I grew up, reminded of Grandmother’s culinary offerings.

Nollywood, Stereotypes, and Misrepresentations of Igbo Culture

(By Immanuel James Ibe-Anyanwu) - There was that billboard of a certain West-African president who was dressed in an Igbo traditional attire. A loud caption gave meaning:"Igwe!" It was easy to locate the source of that cultural benefaction, credit rightfully placed at the feet of Nollywood, Nigeria's largest exporter of culture and values. Books and social media can tell the Nigerian story, but none can boast the compelling, even hypnotic power of the movie.

Which is why we should worry about the competence of movie makers—their cultural intelligence and sense of sensational restraint. Their products speak to millions, most of whom are illiterate and poor, but powerful. Powerful in their sheer number, in their capacity to spread a social or religious poison. They are the very agencies often punctual at lynching scenes, consumers of wild superstitions on whom depends the fate of that fellow accused of manhood theft in the local market. 

For the most part, the Old Nollywood is run by Igbo scriptwriters, directors, and producers, who are businessmen more than they are artists. For too long we have watched their cultural illiteracy ruin the integrity of much of what stands for Igbo culture and values; we have watched them distort historical facts, fixate on and promote ugly, exaggerated stereotypes, even invent cultural obscenities that do not exist. We have seen Igwes who do nothing all day other than look like frogs on shiny thrones, flanked by two able-bodied human fans, as they condemn villagers to evil forests, when they do not order their deaths outright. We can tolerate such cultural inventiveness for its decorative value, aware that fiction need not be exact and realistic.