Why we don’t speak Igbo at our meetings – Ohanaeze

Why we don't speak Igbo at our
meetings – Ohanaeze
.
The umbrella association of all Igbo
cultural unions, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, has
given reasons for Igbo language not being spoken at Igbo gatherings by
Ndigbo.
Former National Secretary of Ohanaeze,
Professor Ben Nwabueze, SAN, who
spoke, lamented that Ndigbo do not
speak the Igbo language to themselves because most of them were promoting
their various dialects instead of
speaking the central Igbo. There are as
many Igbo dialects as there are
communities.
Nwabueze, who spoke at an Igbo language programme organized by the
Igbo Youth Movement, IYM, for
secondary school students in Enugu, said
that Ohanaeze Ndigbo once decided that
its meetings and activities would be
conducted in Igbo, but this did not work because there were several Igbo
dialects spoken in various parts of Igbo
nation unlike Hausa or Yoruba which
had acceptable central language.
"We once said at an Ohanaeze meeting
that all our meetings would be conducted in Igbo because we realized
that our language was dying, but this did
not work. The first day we decided that
we must speak Igbo in our meetings, the
late governor of Anambra State, Chief C.
C. Onoh spoke his own brand of WAWA Igbo.
"Onoh spoke at length and most people
did not understand what he was saying.
Every other person spoke his own
dialect and at the end, nobody spoke
Igbo again at Ohanaeze because none of us understood one another's dialect,"
he said.
Also contributing, the former Registrar
of the West African Examinations
Council, WAEC, and now traditional ruler,
Professor Chukwuemeka Ike, blamed the inability of Ndigbo to speak Igbo on
the missionaries who established
schools in Igbo land.
Ike said that when he went to the then
Government College, Umuahia in the
present Abia State, it was an offence to speak Igbo in the school premises.
"When I went to Government College, it
was an offence to speak Igbo in the
school then. When I left the college, I
travelled overseas for further studies.
Writers should publish their books in both English and Igbo languages …," he
added. Also speaking, the former Vice
President, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, said that
Igbo language should not be allowed to
die.
On why Ndigbo do not speak their language, Ekwueme said that this was
because, "English language is a
predator to Igbo," just as Hausa is the
predator to Angas, spoken by the
former Head of State, General Yakubu
Gowon's people. "Gowon's father was the leader of
his people in the Anglican Church. The
Bible was first translated to Angas
language, but nobody read it because
Hausa is predator to Angas. Igbo Bible is
not read because English is the predator to Igbo.
"The Hausa Bible which was translated
after the Angas Bible is widely read, but
that of the Angas did not sell," he said.
John Okafor, aka Ibu, an actor, also
lamented that the average "Igbo child cannot tell you where he comes from.
He will tell you that his/her father has
not told him the name of his village. This
is not good. We must speak our
language," Ibu said.
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