‘The Need For Unity (Udama) In Igala Land’
Being The Full Text Of Lecture By Maji Isah At The Launch Of The Unite Igala Magazine
I am proud to be called upon through this means to talk about the issues affecting and facing the Igala nation and people today.
The Igala people are resilient, self- effacing, but determined bent on ensuring their future, but are faced with the problem of unity which must be talked about.
Unity is the state of being in agreement or working together. Or a state of joining together two or more things or people to form one unit. This therefore means that Unity is a state of or condition whereby many or variety of things are integrated to form one thing.
The term Udama in Igala language is etymologically a derivation from its verbal form, “Dama” which means “altogether”, to bring two or more things together to one position. In a nutshell, the word Udama means the state of togetherness, wholeness or Unity. It could also be rendered variously as reconciliation, at-one-ment, meeting etc.
Among the Igala, there is that notion of ” Udama Chu’kpahiu” ( Unity is power). Togetherness is seen as a great source of strength or power. As it is often expressed in proverbs, “ALU ma mujon ya fufon” ( if the lips do not come together, there can never be successful whistling).
It is that notion of Unity is power that gave birth to one of the most revered festival in the Nigerian history which is the “Italo” festival where all sons and daughters both home and diaspora come together to discuss the development of Igala nation.But this festival has gone into oblivion because of the political interest of the Igala elites.
In most of our society, families groups etct today, Unity is a talk of the past where people will spend time to talk about what their forebears did as a result of their Unity then, but they are not willing to take after the footsteps of their forefathers. Where there is no Unity, development can never exist. It is only when people are united in their minds, purposes, efforts and of every other positive thing that development can set in.
THE TYPE OF UNITY NEEDED IN IGALA LAND
a. Unity of the minds: in a society, families, groups where there is no Unity of the minds, when the people involved embark on any project that’s supposed to bring positive impact and results, they will fail because confusion is bound to set in. We all know that we stand when we are united and fall when we are divided, which therefore means that without having Unity of minds, you are embracing failure. There is no society, organization, or any institution that can stand without the strength of the unity of its members.
b. Unity of purpose(s): there are intention or planned action somebody is determined to achieve. Therefore, when people of one aim, intention or common determination come together, that is when we can talk of unity of purpose(s). Every group has a purpose, there are however several purposes which the coming together of its members is designed to fulfill or achieve, but if they are not united as to the purpose(s) for which their group is established, the group will never go anywhere beyond where it’s members stand. Therefore there is need for Unity in its purpose(s), knowing that if there is no such unity, there can never be any development, progress or advancement in Igala land.
c. Unity of efforts: effort is the attempt to pup into action the ideas and plans that have been painstakingly thought out in other to achieve a purpose. It is also the physical and mental energy targeted towards translating our ideas into realities, or ideas into something we so much desire to get. Truthfully, as strong and united as you may be in mind and purposes, without the unity of efforts, you are nothing but thinking cymbal. When people’s efforts are united and directed towards achieving any purpose, it would be easy for them to perform any task connected with the purpose which they want to achieve. Any group or society who’s members are united in their effort to achieve a purpose will certainly experience fast growth and at the same time develop enormous strength in its membership. Efforts also require the pulling together of skills and resources in other to achieve or gain desirable height.
In spite of the enormity of these problems stated above, Igala are transcending certain limitations, especially through education and are appropriating different means towards creating existential relevance. Like many other Nigerian minority ethnic groups, but sometimes comparatively terribly nuanced, the injustice against the Igala people as engaged by the Nigerian state today is monumental. Today, the Igala as a nation, as a people, since the fragmentation and distabilization caused by the imperial colonial intrusion and decimation of its cultural institutions is faced with serious and critical problems, especially of cultural, Unity and development. Igala land is among the least develop of any spatial polity in Nigeria, without industrialisation, stable electricity, good water supply, better health care system, and such amenities. Nonetheless, in the area of education, Igala land thrives with good schools like St. Kizito Minor Seminary, founded in 1982 by Bishop Silas Obot, the Kogi State University Anyigba, Federal polytechnic Idah, school of health technology Idah, and the school of midwifery, Anyigba. If not for the general fall in educational values in Nigeria, this schools represent some of the best institutions in Nigeria.
Given this scenario, there is still a whole lot that needs to be done. In the first place, we have noted that Igala lacks pan-Igala bodies; if we had, the continuous marginalization of the Igala nation especially by the present government of President Muhammed Buhari wouldn’t have been so. Though there are similitudes of such bodies that can be accepted and developed. The two organization that hold out the greatest prospects of a Pan-Igala organization is Ûkomù Igala and the Igala Cultural and Development Association ( ICDA). this associations are neither age nor gender specific and they are comprehenssive in that, it deals with both culture and development and thereby fusing the past with the present in other to attain the future.
Igala can be united by adopting one of this associations and making it a pyramidal hierarchy, starting at the hamlet or village level and terminating at the national level.
Let me reiterate here that, whatever we do, whoever we are, non of us is greater than Igala, the organic entity to which we belong. We should cultivate good habits and shun the act of retrogressiveness to our cooperate existence and progress of Igala land thus, the prospect for the Igala is bright, and so we want the continuous positive development of the Igala social space. The concept of the need for Unity in Igala land represents a veritable agenda towards ordering the capability of ushering and organizing Igala sons and daughters in the hope of sustaining the Igala identity into the future, while evolving new paradigms, optimistic of transcending certain constraints of the past and present.
From the above assertions, it is Cristal clear that politically, educationally, socially, economically and culturally Igala people has what it takes to be united but what we lack is Unity of the minds, of purpose and of efforts. Which should be worked on if the Igala race must continue to exist and demand development.
