WHEN AUTONOMY BECOMES BALKANISATION: HOW WE ARE SYSTEMATICALLY DISMANTLING OUR ANCIENT COMMUNITIES.
An Oblong Media Global Intelligence Commentary.
There is a conversation Imo people urgently need to have about the uncontrolled creation and proliferation of autonomous communities across our state.
What may once have been conceived as a mechanism for bringing traditional administration and development closer to the people has, in too many instances, mutated into something entirely different:
The systematic balkanisation of ancient communities, the multiplication of traditional stools, bitter Ezeship contests, litigation, political manipulation and, worst of all, the gradual destruction of communal identity.
The concern is hardly imaginary. Traditional rulers and community leaders across the South East have publicly complained that indiscriminate fragmentation has produced disputes over kingship, land, markets and communal resources, while some defenders of autonomous communities maintain that smaller units can bring government and development closer to rural populations.
Imo has been wrestling with this problem for decades. As far back as 2009, the then chairman of the Imo State Council of Traditional Rulers was already warning that further unnecessary creation of autonomous communities was generating crises. By 2016, contemporary reporting referred to 644 autonomous communities in the state.
Today, the number is widely said to be approaching 800.
But whatever the precise current figure, the more important question is:
At what point does autonomy stop promoting development and start destroying history?
MY OWN COMMUNITY, IHIAGWA, IS A PAINFUL EXAMPLE
I do not have to travel around Imo State looking for examples.
I can begin from home.
Ihiagwa.
An ancient community. One people. One ancestry. One historical identity.
Ihiagwa Ofo Asato.
The old Aguzieiafo’s, the calendar keepers.
The home of the 8 Oha Otamiri’s
The home of Ogbuduamogu warrior dance.
Yet today we find ourselves confronting the consequences of a division into what are now presented as Ihiagwa Dindi and Ihiagwa Ancient Kingdom.
Why?
For what?
Did our ancestors suddenly become different people?
Did our history change?
Did somebody discover that we had been two unrelated peoples for hundreds of years?
Of course not.
At the heart of our own fragmentation was a bitter greedy and self serving Ezeship rivalry. Instead of resolving a contest for one traditional institution, the eventual answer became, effectively:
Divide the community. Create another kingdom. Let everybody have something.
But what happens afterwards?
You have not eliminated the dispute.
You have institutionalised it.
Suddenly questions arise about communal property.
Who owns what?
Which assets belong to which side?
Where exactly is the boundary?
Which ancestral institutions belong to whom?
Which festivals?
Which markets?
Which lands?
Which traditional rights?
And before long, brothers whose ancestors lived together for generations begin speaking about one another as though they belong to different communities.
This is the tragedy of indiscriminate balkanisation.
IF I HAD MY WAY, IHIAGWA WOULD BECOME ONE AGAIN
I make no apology for saying this.
If I had my way, I would bring Ihiagwa back together as one community.
Because fundamentally that is what we are.
One people.
Our disagreements cannot be greater than our ancestry.
An Ezeship disagreement should never have been powerful enough to rewrite centuries of history.
People come and go.
Traditional rulers come and go.
Governments come and go.
Political administrations come and go.
But communities remain.
Why should the ambition of individuals determine the geographical and cultural identity inherited by generations yet unborn?
An Eze occupies a stool for a period in history.
The community owns the stool forever.
We must never confuse the two.
THE PROBLEM IS BIGGER THAN IHIAGWA
Across Imo and other parts of the South East, communities have been fractured for various reasons: legitimate administrative considerations in some cases, but also Ezeship ambitions, political patronage, personal rivalries and struggles for influence in others. Take Owerri nchi use for instance. I’m still surprised that the Gods of Owerri nchi ise have not delivered judgement on those who conspired to divide it.
Reports examining the phenomenon have documented other communities ending up in litigation and bitter disputes after fragmentation, while critics have argued that political interference and wealthy aspirants seeking traditional stools have contributed to the degradation of traditional institutions.
And therein lies the contradiction.
We supposedly create autonomous communities to encourage development.
But if autonomy produces litigation, rival factions, contested communal property, duplicated institutions and permanent hostility between people who were previously one community, exactly what have we developed?
EVERY HAMLET CANNOT BECOME AN ANCIENT KINGDOM
We also need the courage to say something politically incorrect.
Not every village needs an Eze.
Not every cluster of compounds needs a palace.
Not every disagreement requires another autonomous community.
And certainly, every newly created autonomous community cannot suddenly reinvent itself as an “ancient kingdom.”
History does not become ancient because somebody prints it on a letterhead.
Traditional institutions derive their legitimacy from history, custom and the collective memory of their people.
When traditional stools multiply without corresponding historical foundations, something precious happens:
The institution itself becomes devalued.
When everybody becomes a king, kingship gradually loses its meaning.
This concern has been raised publicly within Imo itself, including by traditional rulers who argued that excessive creation of autonomous communities was diminishing respect for the institution.
GOVERNMENT MUST STOP MANUFACTURING KINGDOMS
There should now be a serious review of autonomous community policy in Imo State.
Not another politically motivated exercise.
Not another opportunity to reward friends or punish opponents.
What we require is an independent historical, cultural, legal and administrative review of how these communities were created.
Where there are genuine historical communities with distinct identities and overwhelming popular support for autonomy, their identities should of course be respected.
But where an ancient community was arbitrarily divided because two individuals wanted the same stool, because political interests demanded fragmentation, or because influential people wanted kingdoms manufactured around themselves, we should have the courage to reconsider those decisions.
There should also be a very high threshold for creating any new autonomous community.
The burden should be on proponents to demonstrate historical identity, administrative viability, clearly defined boundaries, broad community consent and compelling developmental justification.
An Ezeship quarrel should never qualify.
AUTONOMY MUST NOT BECOME DIVIDE AND RULE
The deeper danger is political.
A large, cohesive community speaks with one voice.
Fragment it repeatedly and eventually everybody retreats into increasingly smaller identities.
Village against village.
Kindred against kindred.
Family against family.
Eze against Eze.
And while everybody fights over stools, boundaries and titles, the larger questions of roads, schools, healthcare, employment, security and development disappear from the conversation.
That is why this matter goes far beyond traditional rulership.
It concerns the social architecture of Igbo society itself.
We cannot continuously complain that Ndigbo are politically fragmented while simultaneously institutionalising fragmentation inside our villages.
WE MUST BEGIN REBUILDING OUR COMMUNITIES
There is nothing inherently wrong with autonomous communities.
Properly conceived, they can improve local administration, strengthen grassroots representation and preserve genuinely distinct identities.
But autonomy must have a purpose beyond creating another throne.
And where fragmentation has demonstrably produced greater division than development, we should not be frightened of discussing voluntary reunification.
Imagine the message if historically united communities voluntarily began saying:
Enough. Our ancestors were one. We will be one again.
In Ihiagwa, that is the conversation I would like us eventually to have.
Not about who defeated whom.
Not about which Eze retains what.
Not about which faction won yesterday’s argument.
But about what kind of Ihiagwa we want to leave our children.
Because one hundred years from today, the personalities involved in today’s disagreements will be gone.
Our descendants will remain.
And they deserve to inherit a community strengthened by history rather than permanently divided by our ambitions.
There is one Ihiagwa.
Ihiagwa Ofo Asato.
One ancestry.
One heritage.
One people.
Perhaps the time has come for Imo State as a whole to rediscover that simple principle:
AUTONOMY SHOULD BRING GOVERNMENT CLOSER TO THE PEOPLE. IT SHOULD NEVER TEAR THE PEOPLE APART.
OBLONG MEDIA GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE
Preserving our history. Questioning our politics. Rebuilding our communities.
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