Snatching the Ohafia story back from the Aro
By Uduma Kalu
Re: Chief Uduma Olugu.
Ezie, ka. I enjoyed the first part of your Warriorism essay. It's xerox narrative of Ikpa's in his what I consider first autobiographical book by an Ohafia. I pray that more of our people should document their lives in books because the life of an individual, like the lives of our greats, is the life of our society.
I first heard about Chief Ochea Ikpa at the Ohafia Trade Centre, now Government Technical College, Ania Ohafia.
As young pupils in our Isiugwu Ohafia Community Primary School, we would trek to Ania with the excitement of the fresh air the new environment of Ania burst on us. It was during the college's interhourse sports. And for us in the farther remotes of Ohafia, the event was an opportunity for a fresh air.
And it was indeed fresh. The morning breezes. The gay and geity, the frenzy, music, razzmatazz and all that colour made the GTC a centre for all Ohafia and beyond to converge for a moment and bind themselves. The houses competed among themselves, RE Nmaju, Justice AK Uche ( Uche would later write a book in Ohafia customary laws), Oke Ukpo, was there Eni Njoku and Ndukwe House? I can't remember. But the houses were named after the elites of the Ohafia towns. I think the families were contributors to the houses' developments.
I would later hear about Ikpa again in the music of Paulson Kalu where he dedicated a song to that great son of Akanu Ohafia, indeed, one of the greats of Ohafia and Igbo.
But I didn't really know Ikpa until his autobiography was slammed on my desk at The Guardian. Yes, he told the Ohafia story which is essential today following the revisionists' agenda of some people to reinvent our Ohafia story that our origin is Oro Obolo, and not the other way round. I wish to have this trashed out once and for all with concrete evidence. We are still struggling with a stolen Ohafia history by the Aro. Now the Oro Obolo.
But that's not the story here. The story is that Ikpa was in that book by far above most of those that later in Nigeria became its leaders. Look at Bola Ige, his classmate at the UC, Ibadan. Both studied Classics there. But Ige failed. Ikpa I think got a first class or so. But Ige later did law. It wasn't the law degree that catapulted him to national limelight. In my view, it was his unholy alliance with Awo and the Gowon government to starve Biafrans whose ambassador Ikpa was in the Cameroon. Biafra lost and the winners look over. The paradox of Ikpa and Ige is graphic reflection of the Igbo or Biafrans in post war Nigeria.
Yes, the Ikeogu narrative. Sad that he didn't know there was a cure for leprosy. Instead of killing himself in a celebratory war dance, the simple application of the leprosy pills and medication would have saved him and saved his story for us. We lost him and his story to ignorance. Because the story of the ubiquitous Ohafia settlements all over Igboland and beyond would have been pieced somewhat together by the likes of him. I have encountered several towns in Abia and Imo States bearing Akanu. Why? How!
And that's where you lost the gist. You may not know it but we are in broiled in cultural war. Blacks. Africans. Igbo. Ohafia. All these mentioned are consigned to the dustbin of history or as we say in literary or post colonial discourses, marginalized, cast in the margin of discourse, not at the centre of it...in post structuralism... We are left with no option than to air or speak for ourselves. To answer present in the discussion of our people.
So, I now ask, did your Warriorism discuss Ohafia or Aro in the end? You described the Ohafia as mere appendage to the Aro history. Which it is not. The Aro weren't warriors. The Aro didn't train Ohafia warriors. Warriorism was ingrained in the Ohafia through the rites of passage, the age system, the war guilds such as Ndi Ikpo, Ndi Nta, Ndi Unan, the war commanders, skilled fighters etc. The Aro didn't recruit soldiers. The approached Ohafia for military assistances as allies through their agents: marriages, businesses, alliances etc. And Ohafia would mobilize and send warriors for the expedition. Don't forget also that the Aro, I understand, sold their weak or injured soldiers including the Ohafia to slavery.
The later part of your story is from Aro narrative that submerges Ohafia or erases Ohafia Warriorism. It reminds me of the coronation of my friend Prof Chukwue
meka Ike of Ndi Ikelionwu. The warriors dancing were announced as Ndi Ikelionwu warriors. I knew it was a lie because the Aro weren't warriors. So I went to confirm it. Lo and behold, it was Ohafia war dancers. Such is the story of the Aro and the Ohafia. Ohafia fight the war, the Aro claim victory and the story. Such story you have rehashed in your Warriorism. Which is not true.
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