Umuavulu Culture Reform

A tree is strong and fruitful if it is firmly rooted in the soil. These roots, in turn, get their nutrients from the soil and grounds around them, transport same to the trunks, and then the stems (branches) and the leaves.

As long as the tree follows this basic principle, it remains healthy and flourishes, providing the much needed shelter, pulp for our paper, wood for our various furniture, and fruits for our nourishment and health. Conversely, uproot this tree, and it slowly dies. Cut off a branch, and sever it from the trunk, and the branch slowly withers away. The branch of the tree hardly survives without its roots.

And so it is with us as a people. We did not just drop from the skies. We had ancestors (great men and women) who lived before us. They were our forebears. They imbibed, nourished, and propagated our way of life, norms, and traditions, which continue to guide and sustain our society.

Our ancestors are the roots, we the elders are the trunk, while our children and grandchildren are the stems, leaves, and fruits. Cut us off from this root, and we will be like a rudderless ship in the deep sea, without direction.

Odomagana carries the spirit of our ancestors, and Igodo festival in addition to being a period of stock taking, looking out for one another, and promoting sustainable development in the community, also represents our effort to celebrate these ancestors in a profound and culturally rich manner, recognizing their grit, resilience and sagacity in propagating a culture that is designed to bring about social security, peace and uprightness in our community.

The Holy book in Exodus 20:12 says that we should honour our parents, so that we will live long in the land of the living. The Bible also enjoins us in Luke 20: 24 - 30 to give to Ceaser what  belongs to Ceaser and to God what belongs to God. It means that for our worship to be complete, we need to honour our forebears and give them their dues, which they rightfully deserve.

Igodo is our attempt at honouring our parents for giving us such a diverse and rich culture and tradition.

Igodo Umuavulu is a rallying point, more like an umbrella under which we will continue to love each other, irrespective of our differences, to continue to progagate social justice and fairness, to develop our community and the entire Ebo-n'esato in the areas of infrastructural development, educational development, and cultural rejuvenation.

Nevertheless, like every other practice and social interaction, there is a need to continue to reform the modus operandi of Igodo and indeed the practice of Odo culture to make it more relevant to our times. There is a need to set standards and rules of engagement in such a manner that encourages good conduct, order, transparency, and better organization. We must also strive to ensure zero-disruption of movement and economic activities in our community during the Odo season. 

And this is where we are going to in Umuavulu-Abor Community. This is what we aim to achieve in our biennial celebration of the Igodo festival.

For our rich culture, and ancestral heritage, this is our gratitude to our ancestors for handing over to us a rich blend of culture that continues to shine its light on our paths in this journey of life. 

We say 'Welcome' to 2024 Igodo Umuavulu Festival.

HRM Igwe Dr Chike P.N. Onodugo

Ujaligwa III of Umuavulu-Abor.

IGODO 2024:

FROM THE CHAIRMAN’S DESK

The Odo season is here again! Igodo Umuavulu-Abor is here again!   The Odo season, a period of thanksgiving and merriment, affords us the opportunity to come home, reunite with our brothers and sisters, and do a proper stock -taking of how we stand as units, wards, and as a community. It is a period we acknowledge our roots, rekindle brotherly-sisterly love, amend broken relationships, support progressive projects , and generally look out for the wellbeing of all in the community. It is not a season for show-off or for intimidation. Odo season is not a time to cause mayhem, or disrupt activities (especially economic and religious activities) in the community. We have continued to guard against these. It is easy to get carried away by all the excitement and merriment, to the detriment of peace and order in the community. Igodo is a time for merriment, peace and brotherliness.

As is customary since 2008, our Igodo comes with a magazine. In this edition of the Igodo magazine, we shall see the stocktaking from some of the villages in Umuavulu-Abor. Stocktaking is to take account of how we stand today, so we can work harder and do better by next season. This is a valuable ancient tradition of ours which we want to uphold. We shall also read stories of some personal and community experiences that further buttress the wisdom of our forefathers, and many other exciting articles. I hope we all find them inspiring. 

This year, as in the last three seasons, our emphasis remains on Odomagana as an instrument of community development. We have continued to rehabilitate a number of indigent people, and some of our sons and daughters with different ailments, and we are not relenting, by the grace of God. We have many success stories to tell about those we have rehabilitated. For instance, one of our sons who was mentally ill and was rehabilitated has been consistent in winning  best staff in his department, where he is now gainfully employed. This is just one out of many similar stories. Again, our people should understand that mental ill-health is just another form of ill-health, like hypertension, diabetes, etc., and those affected should not be stigmatized, but assisted and taken to the hospital for proper treatment. It should not be associated with ill-informed, backward connotations, like ‘family curse’ and such related thoughts.

To support our well-motivated security architecture, we have continued to light up the streets of the the Umuavulu villages with solar lights, and we have covered the entire Ugwu Uwhie, Ohemje axis, heading towards Awho Owhuwhe, Abor. Also, a particular village took up the responsibility of rehabilitating our security vehicle. This is highly commendable and we anticipate more of such supports and from other villages.

This year, in a very encouraging family spirit, and in keeping with our philosophy of tabulu sokwum (eat and give me), we visited eight of our old and incapacitated members, in the four quarters of the community. They were naturally very happy to see us and enjoyed the felicitation. We hope to continue this beautiful age-long tradition.

We want to salute the efforts of our people scattered all over the globe (our diasporan community), who are involved in different development activities for the well-being of our people. This is the way to go! We are calling on more of our worthy children to join this development train in Abor. Look around you; there may be one or two persons you can change their lives for the better. This is the spirit of the season of Odomagana. Accordingly, this year, we have selected a good number of best-performing students from the secondary schools in Abor, for award of excellence and prizes. Some of them will also receive scholarships. 

We have also organized symposia for our youths to address some of the ills in the society. The last symposium was on drug abuse and security consciousness in our society, delivered by two top experts. We involved the students from St Theresa Secondary School, Abor (an all-girls secondary school), as we believe in training both sexes and catching them young while at it. We are calling on men and women of good will to assist our youths who are fast-losing focus. Many of them are involved in drug abuses of different sorts, smoking Indian hemp, and other hard drugs, with all their attendant misbehaviours and ill-health. These are things Odomagana frowns at, and we cannot continue to tolerate them. We want to thank Nchekwe Ujaligwa, our security network, the Umuavulu Council of Youths, and many other youth leadership structures, for stepping up and applying appropriate disciplinary measures on our youths involved in all the things that Odomagana abhors. For emphasis, Odomagana abhors drug abuse, laziness, rape, disturbing of hardworking mothers, wives, and people engaged in their various legitimate businesses (seeking the daily bread for their families), insulting or beating of elders and parents, not being engaged in any meaningful trade or work, and many such anomalies that end up destroying society. 

We are happy to see that almost all the onu odos have stepped up to imbibe the wisdom of our forefathers, which is very broad and rich, encompassing intelligence, hard work, enterprise, drive for development, orderliness, mutual respect, and many other virtues lacking in our society today. It is a call for us to go back to the positive virtues our roots promote. 

As we celebrate our forefathers in this year’s Odo season, we hope to integrate the positive values of our tradition with the efforts of the Church, Ndi omenani, and other formative institutions, for continued societal development.  It is our prayer that God will continue to be with us in this endeavour.  

I wish us all a very happy and fruitful Igodo ceremony, and Odo season!

ODO TEKWEE N’UGWU, NAA N’UGWU.

Umuavuluuuuu….Ujaligwaaa!!!

Prof. Obinna D. Onodugo (Ekuhelu Ngene)

Chairman, Igodo Umuavulu-Abor 2024