(By Biko Agozino and Ike Anyanike) - “There
is an Igbo saying that the world is a marketplace (uwa bu ahia). This simple
worldview can be explained literally to mean that the Igbo think so because
trading is a prominent occupation among the Igbo (it could also mean that a
market-place is the epicenter of
community social and business interaction). That might be why the Igbo weekdays are named after their
markets - Eke, Orie, Afo, Nkwo. Children born on any of these market days often
assume the default name as in Okeke or Mgbeke, Okorie or Mgborie, Okafo or
Mgbafo, Okonkwo or Mgbonkwo for male or female children, respectively, born on
the corresponding market days. We are yet to come across another culture for which the market holds such a
fascinating centrality in their worldview even while they see themselves as
ruggedly egalitarian. The meaning of the thesis statement that the world is a
marketplace is deeper than the literal interpretation. The deeper meaning is
the suggestion that all the problems we encounter in this world are open to negotiation, haggling and
bargaining. Some people come into the market place with greater resources than
others and therefore are able to buy more goods and services just as some
people are born or raised with greater resources, increasing their bargaining power in the
global marketplace. When the Igbo say that the world is a market, they usually
complete the sentence by observing that when one buys to one's content, one
goes home. The home referred to here is the land of the ancestors to which the Igbo believe the spirits of the
dead return to bargain for a better life in their next incarnation. If one's creator dealt one a
raw deal in this life, one can still bargain with his/her personal God (or Chi)
and haggle for a better break in the next life. In other words, the Igbo intend the paradox that the
world is a market as a description of the global world and not simply just the Igbo world. … Are there lessons
that other cultures could learn from the Igbo and are there lessons that the
Igbo could learn from the social structure of modernist business school? ...
