Ndi Igbo, 'Ka Uche Anyi Di Ya' by Chuka Nnabuife - Commentary@ITREALMS

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The final words in Timothy Ofoegbu’s recent podcast are: “Ka uche anyi di ya.”

He repeats the line for emphasis before the short film fades out. To me, that phrase encapsulates the entire essence of his message.


Since encountering this film on social media about three months ago, I have watched it several times. I have even used it in one or two of my social reformation live campaigns. In many respects, I consider Ofoegbu’s intervention comparable to “Yoruba Ronu” — the late Hubert Ogunde’s clarion call to the Yoruba people during Nigeria’s First Republic.


“Yoruba Ronu” (meaning, Yoruba people, think) became an appeal to collective introspection and renewal. It urged the South-West to rethink its direction and re-engage Nigeria’s political, economic, and socio-cultural landscape with a more strategic consciousness. To a large extent, Yorubaland has dutifully applied that template — and the results have not been unkind to them.

Socrates once reasoned that “an unexamined life is not worth living.” The same applies to societies and nations. When the writer and philosopher Chinua Achebe penned his small but profoundly insightful book, The Trouble with Nigeria, he attempted — albeit unsuccessfully — a form of “Yoruba Ronu” for the entire Nigerian society. 

Being Igbo himself, Achebe devoted a significant portion of the text to critiquing the self-defeating tendencies of Ndi Igbo — their ostentatious display, loud assertiveness, and, at times, uncultivated public conduct.


Yet, as Nigerians largely ignored Achebe’s counsel (to their detriment), one wonders: did Ndi Igbo heed their globally revered brother? Who will wager that Ofoegbu’s message will not suffer the same fate?


My dear brothers and sisters, no matter how much we choose to indulge our confidence, pride, or delusion, the Igbo nation needs serious rethinking. Sadly, we persist in dangerous escapism, even as circumstances continually demand reflection.


Has there ever been a society where the intelligentsia deliberately surrendered leadership to men of shallow values, low intellect, street bravado, and unthinking cheerleading — and yet emerged from its crises stronger? History teaches that such societies only stumble deeper into dysfunction.


Ofoegbu’s central point is unmistakable: at the current trajectory, Igboland is sliding downwards — unless we pause, rethink, rechart our path, and recharge our collective energy.

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Regrettably, we have drifted into crowd-thinking, where even our wisest minds feel safer echoing the sentiments of the main market, the spare parts shop, or the motor garage. Those perspectives have their worth, but even the richest merchants and landlords ultimately depend on thinkers for guidance. That is how it is in civilised societies. Ask Plato, Socrates, Cicero, or Kissinger.


Why was Obafemi Awolowo, who repeatedly failed as a cocoa trader, entrusted to lead the Yoruba — even by their wealthiest produce merchants? Why did the vastly rich Jewish merchants scattered across Europe, America, and beyond entrust their collective destiny to a modest journalist and bureaucrat, David Ben-Gurion?


Let us ponder these. Who are our pathfinders today? Who shapes Igbo thought? Why should the “mba-mba ukwu,” “ukwu sara mbara,” “money na wota” lyrics of the Fynos of this world dominate our cultural soundscape instead of the edifying messages of thinkers like Ofoegbu?


Why has Igboland become a theatre for slapstick money drama — the playground of Kubanas, Chief Priests, and Osisinamiegos? Where are our voices of renewal, of redirection, of vision?


In truth, we created our MKNs, Simon Ekpas, Emma Powerfuls, and their ilk by allowing men of arms and raw street power to dictate the course of change in Igbo society. The degeneration has now yielded the odious hordes of Gentle de Yahoos, Osisikankwus, and who knows what next? Is it implausible to imagine even worse emerging?


Today, we face growing calls for all Igbo to think one way and follow one political path. But how rational is that? In the United States, Russia, France, Argentina, Canada, or the United Kingdom, are all Jews in one political party or behind one politician? Certainly not. Yet, in every shift of leadership, Jewish interests are protected and advanced — even in post-Holocaust Germany, where Jews were once persecuted as never before.


So why should Ndi Igbo allow themselves to be boxed into one political queue? Is that wise? The Jews, who share many historical parallels with us, have never done so. Even the Chechnyans have not.


If political survival requires strategic dexterity, why shouldn’t some of our leaders enter the APC? Consider this: if President Tinubu secures a second term, would it not become more difficult for his party to distribute influence and power as freely as it did this term?


The American political thinker Harold Lasswell defined politics as “who gets what, when, and how.” The great Niccolò Machiavelli echoed the same truth.


Thus, whether we debate the wave of defections to the APC, the quality of leadership in Ohanaeze Ndi Igbo, or the controversies around MKN, the bottom line remains this: Ndi nwere akonuche — people of reason — must rise boldly and confidently to lead the Igbo cause in this troubled age of bandwagonism.


We, the intelligentsia, must lend our voices and our support. In my view, anyone not brave enough to think beyond the crowd, as Zik, Awo, and Tafawa Balewa did in their time, is not helping the Igbo cause — but rather harming it.


Ndi Igbo, ka uche anyi di ya.
Let our minds be in it for the sake of our mother land else, we perish.


*Contributed by Sir Chuka Nnabuife, is the Managing Director of the Anambra State Civic and Social Reformation Office (ANCISRO). He writes from Awka.