VITAMINS/ HORMOMES AND HEALTH.

My dog Babe has been gaining a lot of weight lately. She has also become very docile quite unlike her wild self. She used to love running around and playing. I would scold her for jumping up on people to play, even strangers who should be barked at. She would want to play because i was there.

Then suddenlly she changed and became quiet, sleeping a lot and then got fat, very noticably fat. Attempts to get her to execise have failed. She shows no interst whatsoever. I started wondering if she could be depressed. As funny as it sounds, animals do get depressed. I used to laugh at the

idea.

A friend suggested that I have her thyroid function checked out to make sure she is not suffering from hypothyroidism.

In my line of work, I recieve prescriptions for the treatment of all types of ailments for dogs and cats, and once in a long while other critters like rodents. Once there was this hamster who had a fungal skin infection and had a prescription called in for him. Ailments range from diabetes, epilepsy, infections, depression, anxiety, arthritis, eczema to cancer.

Some people spend outrageous amounts of money on their pets and I would wonder about it. Vitamin supplements are part of this expenditure.

Specialty pharmacies dealing soley in veterinary formulations and compounding are doing very well. Livestock like cattle, goats, sheep, horses, chiken and turkeys are at least being raised for food or recreation and source of income. Pets, on the other hand are like family and some people spend a lot of money monthly on their sick pet's healthcare and I would sometimes wonder why they won't just get another healthy pet. Then you see an individual mourn an animal which was put to sleep to end the suffering from pain, sickness or old age and the picture becomes clear why so much can be invested in a pet's wellbeing.

Taking care of health is very important for humans. Prevention is always better than cure. Healthy lifestyles and attitudes play a major role in maintaining good health.

Recently, I heard from two female friends who were very surprised at the alarm raised by their doctors at their vitamin D level. After routine checkups, they recived phone calls from the doctor to come pick up vitamin D prescriptions. One of them wondered aloud to the doctor----Vitamin D? Yes Vitamin D was the answer. She learned that her level was very low and needed immediate attention.

Some resarchers are now suggesting that Vitamin D is actually a hormone which plays in the functioning of many parts of the human body and in some diseases like Ricketts, Psoriasis, Colon, Breast, Prostate Cancer, Melanoma, Osteoporosis,Congestive Heart Failure, Diabetes, Multiple Sclerosis, Autoimmune diseases like Lupus , Depression,Macular Degeneration and more.

Researchers and experts have recently put out new dosage recommendations for Vitamin D.

Vitamin D, Sunshine and Health: Coming soon.

OKPA AKU ERI ERI: PUTTING OUR RESOURCES TO GOOD USE.

Life goes on whether we like it or not. Life also ends whether we like it or not. Michael Jackson's demise last week brought the world grinding in shock, but life went on as usual---sunrise, sunset, moon and stars. Nothing stopped. The world went on as usual with no interruption whatsoever.What people do in their lives and with their lives have consequences, whether we like it or not. Our actions and inactions all have consequences.Last weekend in Atlanta Georgia, the keynote speaker at the NnewiUSA convention, an Nnewi so, resident in the United States delivered the best keynote speech ever delivered at our conventions. In other years, keynote speakers were invited from the homeland or outside the country and with great effort. This year, with the great wisdom of the president Mr Nathan Mommah, Dr Ndubeze Okonkwo of Louisiana was tapped as keynote speaker. His speech was short, to the point and very powerful. His speech accomplished so much for Nnewi, ushering in deep thinking, soul searching, and motivation. It was as if a breeze blew over the house taking with it deep resentments and discord. To God be the Glory. We live as the "Okpa aku eri eri" of Oriental Brother's glory days. They asked Okpa aku eri eri to take a good look at the mouth of the dead. We need to do that today. We acquire knowledge, sometimes great knowledge and flount our degrees and honors and titles, yet we accomplish very little with our academic "aku". Our nuclear families, our extended families and our communities continue to suffer. Death and dying has become the biggest business in our homeland. Premature aging and dying have taken seige of Igbo at home and abroad, yet we have so much in monetry terms and otherwise. India and South Africa have become places where the haves rush for emergency medical treatment sometimes going home in caskets or half dead only to die. Nobody really knows what kind of treatment or non treatment they receive, yet we have the best in every specialty, name it residing in foreign lands laboring for others, wasting time in pettiness, planning and helping in pulling down or destroying their very own.I will get Dr Ndubeze Okonkwo's permission to publish his keynote speech. Maybe more soul searching will result from it. If we as individuals put in the little bit we have or if we can leave the few who truly want to chip in what they have alone, our homeland and our people will gain so much and in so many ways. Tackling our problems with whatever we have goes a long way in improving things and bringing understanding which help solve our problems.Take for example the case of Domestic violence and spousal homicide. This year 2009, no single case of spousal homicide have been reported. The publicity it recived in the last few years and the discussion from it at great cost to some, played a major role in the progress. The awareness was made and the problem was out there for all to see and think about. It was at great cost as toes were stepped on to bring truth and ugliness to the surface.Prices are still being paid as slander and malicious press continue to follow people to their church and places of work and neighborhood. One thing is certain----- --- Ochu Okuko nwe ada, nwa okuko nwe mwo- mwo oso. Ezi okwu na emechaa put ihe na ikpe azu. Let the bad press and slander continue. It will not change anything or stop anything that God himself did not stop or change. People may avoid, mock, sneer at innocent people, but only for a season. The truth usually emerges at the end of the day.There are consequences for everything. The consequences of our inaction in the real sense of it is very evident in the state of affairs and life in the homeland. The truth must be told, be it to parent, child, brother, townsman os woman, the truth and the hard truth must be told. Character assasination will not cut it. If God is with one, who, WHO, can be against him or her ? Even if the whole church and co workers reject him or her as they are told, what diference does it make when GOD Has not rejected her and Has not avoided him or her. Being a social reject is laughable because those doing the rejecting are most likely already rejected by God, who is no respecter of persons.Michael Jackson (May his soul rest in peace) succumbed to daeth when it came, even with all his glory. The world did not stop when he passed on into history. The sun, the moon, the stars and everything else in the universe continued in their continous march, declaring the glory of God.Using our individual " Aku" for our own benefit and the benefit of the world around us will save Ndi Igbo, Nigeria and Africa form the grip of backwardness and poverty. Instead we invest our best in bringing out the worst in others whether real or staged. May God help us.

Nwada (Lady) Chinwe Enemchukwu

Onye Uwa Oma

na Orlando, Florida

EBURU OZU ONYE OZO, O DI KA E BU UKWU NKU

A few days ago, a brother, nwanna posted a link to a youTube Igbo news. He asked Umu Igbo to share the laughter with him. I was very curious and really excited that somebody has finally arrived with a new facet of the Igbo language revival project. What a brilliant idea, I thought, to have an Igbo News channell on Youtube. I saved it and went back to it after deleting all the mails I had no interst in.
Upon clicking on the link, the image of a young well dressed, good looking man presumably Igbo, could not tell by his attire popped up. He went straight to the bussiness of delivering the news or was it news? Although this was supposed to draw laughter, I was appalled by what I was hearing. The bearer of this joke from hell went on talking about, actually joking about nurses killed by their spouses. The gruesome pictures of the murdered women played before my eyes as I listened to this young man with a smile on his face comparing nurses to Abakaliki rice. These are daughters, wives, sisters, aunties and friends of umu Igbo. The callousness of the so called joke was unbelievable. Even if the murdered women were all bad women and bad wives, did they deserve to lose their lives? Is cold blooded murder part of the Omenani this young newscaster was predicting must survive? The husbands of these murdered nurses who are tarnishing in jail, are they better off than their dead wives? The orphans left by these destroyed couples, are they not alive and sometimes re-live the good times when mother and father were alive and things were allright.
I am still trying to figure out what has become of our people. Ndi Igbo have a saying----- Eburu ozu onye ozo na aga, o di ka e bu ukwu nku. ( when the coffin holding the body of a dead stranger is carried by, it looks like a bundle of firewood)

This "funny "video was available for all to watch and laugh about, even friends and relatives of these nurses, even nurses and non nurses, male and female who suffer at the hands of their spouses. It is a shame how insensitive we have become. Some of the things said to other people, done to other people, said of other people are mind boggling and then we wonder why things are falling apart.
I had deleted the e mail with the link after listenting to the video but I could not get it out of my mind since then. I thank God that no news of a dead nurse has surfaced recently, no matter whose fault it is, no matter how worthless the nurse was, assuming nursing has become a disease.
I am hoping that the culture and omenani talked about in that broadcast will prevail, the culture of abhoring Igbu Ochu, no matter what. Ndi Igbo abhor murder, cold blooded murder. Return to sender, peacefully. Kama madu ga eriju afo dachie uzo, aguu lee kwa ya buru. For that reason, Ndi Igbo abhor Igbu ochu. Ka Chineke mere Umu Igbo ebere, weghachi ako na uche ha furu efu.

To be continued.

Nwada Chinwe Enemchukwu
Onye Uwa oma
na Orlando, Florida.

THE IGBO

The Igbo SpiritBy Peter Alexander Egom
I am of the Igbo stock from UkalaOkpunor in Oshimili North LGA of Delta State. I am 61 years of age and have from late 1965, during my undergraduate days at Downing College, Cambridge, England, been fascinated by my people, the Igbo, and specifically by what makes them such a pulsating enigma of a people.It was, indeed, a chance remark by the late and distinguished scholar in Social Anthropology at Cambridge, Professor Meyer Fortes, which set me on my lifelong journey of private enquiry into the ethnospiritual makeup of the Igbo. My then largerthanlife and boon companion was my fellow undergraduate at the Cambridge University faculty for Archaeology and Anthropology, Mallam Ibrahim Tahir of BBC Bush House fame. As was our wont, we were on this particular autumn afternoon having tea at a teashop that was just across Ibrahim's King's College when our Professor in Social Anthropology, Meyer Fortes, walked in and sat with us for a chat. One thing led to another and we soon found ourselves discussing ethnotypes in Africa.Professor Fortes had been one of the bright lights in Lord Bailey's team of Africanists that did the regular tome of Africa Survey for the British Foreign and Colonial Office. And Professor Fortes told us that, according to Lord Bailey, the Igbo, out of the legion of African ethnic groups they studied, were the least encumbered with any cultural baggage. In a manner of speaking, the Igbo come Iight and go light with the baggage of culture.Of course, Professor Fortes assumed that Ibrahim and myself knew what Lord Bailey meant with the concept of cultural baggage and did not venture into any explanation of it. But as soon as he took his leave of us, Ibrahim and myself fell to a very passionate but friendly discussion of this hazy concept. And, if my memory serves me right, we eventually let the matter be without agreeing on what the concept of cultural baggage stands for. But there was something, which my mind could not let be after this encounter. I had to know more about my people, the Igbo, who come light and go light with the baggage of culture.My lecturer in Social Anthropology at Cambridge, Mr. G. 1. Jones an excolonial administrator in the Eastern Region of Nigeria, and an IgboPhil of sorts, was on hand to give me advice on where to find materials on the Igbo. And what I could glean from the diverse tomes of Igbo historical and ethnographical that came my way was this. There was no love lost between the European slavedealers and colonialists and the Igbo either on the continent of Africa or in the Diaspora. Igbo slaves were difficult to handle, prone to rebellion and bad for the economy of the slaveowner. And, the fear of the Igbo was, in a manner of speaking, the beginning of economic wisdom among European slaveowners and, later, colonialists.The Igbo was a troublemaker and a troubleshooter in bondage as one saw in Haiti in the rebellious years leading up to the overthrow of the French and the independence of the island in 1805 and in the Southern States of North America where Igbo slaves jumped into the sea rather than face slavery! So, the Igbo were bad news as a slave. And in the restricted freedom of colonial Nigeria, as the colonialists saw to their continued irritation, the Igbo was uppity, difficult to convince and diffcult to lead. He was never really the darling of the mandarins of the British Foreign and Colonial Office at Whitehall, London!But, all of the above was what Europeanpredators thought about the Igbo! I was not satisfied with it. I wanted to know what made the Igbo uppity, diffcult to convince and diffcult to lead in the restricted freedom of colonial Nigeria and what made him a troublemaker and troubleshooter in the bondage of slavery abroad. I simply wanted to touch the Igbo spirit in order to better understand who I am. And the books I read then in England could not lead me anywhere in this direction. And so I shelved the project of my search for the essential attributes of the Igbo without knowing whether I would ever come back to it.But, did I really shelve this project? Not at all. For what I failed to realize at this time in Cambridge is that I had begun a lifelong journey of an inquiry into my essential, I as a member of the Igbo stock and that this project could never be shelved until the very day I died. Indeed, my search for what makes the Igbo what he is is my search for my true identity as a fullblooded Igbo. There is no way my mind could rest the matter as soon as it had embarked upon its search. So, what I do now see, in retrospect, is that my mind has been, for nearly four decades now, trying to put a tangible structure to the Igbo spirit. And what I do give in this brief writeup is my statusreport on what I think makes the Igbo what he is as a man of vision, mission, adventure, integrity and compassion. But, before I embark upon this my brief ode to the Igbo spirit, let me fill in the reader with a few titbits about my life after going down from Cambridge in June 1966.My flight back to Nigeria was scheduled for that blighting day of July 29 1966 and had to be shelved until August 4 1966. I made it to Lagos on that day and came to see a Nigeria that was calm on the surface but was doing unspeakable horror and mayhem to the Igbo in Lagos, at Ibadan and all over Northern Nigeria. But I never felt that I was in danger and went about Lagos without any fear for my life. And in so doing I came to catch an instructive glimpse into the mind of the Igbo.The heavens were about to fall upon him and even the ground he stood upon was giving way under him. Yet, he did not panic. He reacted with bonechilling firmness and maturity. Kai, was I happy to be an Igbo? Save, for the Roman Catholic Church, the Igbo had no friends at home or abroad. This is what I saw with my own eyes in Lagos from August 4 1966 until July 18 1967 when I was taken into a seven month detention spell at Ikoyi and Kirikiri prisons and mercifully kept out of harm's way in the hands of my fellow countrymen. And after my release from detention on March 14 1968, I bolted for Europe on April 18 1968.I spent the ensuing fourteen years in Denmark and Tanzania teaching social anthropology, reading and teaching economics and doing research in economics. But in late 1982, nature and culture reached out to me in Denmark and brought me back to Nigeria for keeps. And on my coming back to Nigeria, what I saw, after twelve years of the end on January 15 1970 of the Biafran hostilities, was as marveling to me as it was encouraging. The Igbo, my people, were back into the mainstream of the Nigerian socio political and economic life as if nothing had occurred between 1966 and 1970.1 was happy to be back to Nigeria and I have no desire whatsoever to ever leave Nigeria again for anywhere else. Why so? Because the Igbo spirit is the future of Nigeria.The Igbo spirit is not a conquering spirit, an imperial spirit or an exploiting spirit. The Igbo spirit is an Afro centric spirit, a competitive spirit, a liberating spirit and a spirit that restores. In fact, the Igbo spirit is the quintessential IslamoChristian spirit of the common good as one finds in the holy books of the Qurtan and the Bible. Thus, the Igbo spirit thrives and lives by the democratic ethic of one for all and all for one.This is the liberating and restoring spirit that is about to encompass Nigeria and to take her to great heights of material and social plenty and of individual freedoms. And there is nothing anyone anywhere on this earth or in the heavens can do to stop this Igbo spirit from encompassing and elevating Nigerians and the black race as a whole. For the matter has long been settled in the highest heavens, the abode of God Almighty.So, it is quite understandable that the Igbo must go through, as they are doing today, the harassment and chicanery of the sworn enemies of light and of the liberation and restoration of the black race. The Igbo spirit is the bearer of light and where light comes, darkness must disappear. So what we are experiencing in Nigeria today is the era of pitchdarkness, which must precede the dawn of freedom and plenty. In fact, what we are witnessing in Nigeria today, with the Igbo bearing the full brunt of it, are the thrashing deaththroes of an old and uncaring dinosaur of a Nigeria of the ungodly where local slave dealers have unleashed, on behalf of their old European slavedealing puppetmasters, a culture of impunity and lawlessness on all Nigerians and especially on the Igbo. But it will not last. This is simply so because the 21St century is the century of the African and the Igbo are in the forefront of the war for the economic liberation and empowerment of the black race. This is what makes the Igbo spirit the ethical template of the future for the common good of all Nigerians and every black person.What then are the attributes of the Igbo spirit? One, it is Godfearing and God loving. Two, it is democratic to the core. And three, it is private enterprise write large. The Igbo puts God Almighty at the center of his sociopolitical and economic life and this is what explains why he is so fiercely democratic and so competitively entrepreneurial but so passionately communal to the core.So, the Igbo spirit is not about the ethnic subjugation of one group by the other. Rather, it is about the opening up of equal vents of opportunities for the small as for the medium size and for the big, for the weak as for the halfweak and the strong.It was, indeed, this very stark and unmistakable difference between the eurocentric spirit of oppression and enslavement that rules Nigeria today and the Afro centric Igbospirit of liberation and restoration which will rule Nigeria tomorrow that I had in mind when I wrote as follows on pages xviii and xix of the Preface to my book of 2002, "Globalization at the Crossroads: Capitalism or Communalism? ""Consequently, the centre is extremely attractive to any budding ethnic politician in Nigeria. For, they are all ethnic politicians. It is there at the centre that the financial and fiscal power of Nigeria is concentrated. So, every ethnic politician wants to get to the imperial centre at all costs. And when he eventually gets there, he wants to keep the imperial reins of Nigeria's financial and fiscal power within his ethnic bailiwick for all time and at all costs. It is an ethnic winnertakeall affair where only the ruthless and the idolatrous survive."However, we do want a Nigeria that has ample room for all of us. This Nigeria must deal, even handedly and fairly, with all of us no matter the physical size of our persons or the purported numerical strength of our ethnic origins. Equal representation and participation for all of us shall be the whole of the law. Thus, each and everyone of us, individuals and groups, who belong to Nigeria must be allowed to use our native and achieved financial, human and material resources for our private good and for the common good..."But the reigning Eurocentric spirit of oppression and enslavement in Nigeria today is the sworn enemy of democracy. This is so because it puts Mammon, instead of God Almighty, at the centre of the socio economic and political life of the Nigerian. This is the source and sustainer of the culture of impunity and lawlessness, which pervades all levels of governance in Nigeria today. For where Mammon is in charge, do what thou wilt is the Godhating and Godbaiting whole of the law. Fortunately, however, the Afrocentric Igbo spirit which seeks to put God Almighty first in the thoughts, words and deeds of the Nigerian, is, most certainly, around the corner to consign this eurocentric spirit of the congenital blighter, the cowardly scourge of the Nigerian and the black race, back to the pit of hell where it belongs.Therefore, the Igbo in Nigeria have nothing to fear but fear itself. They should always bear it in mind that to whom a lot is given, a considerable much is expected in return. God Almighty has blessed them with the knowledge of the financial and industrial ways and means of turning sand into gold. It is their duty to open up and spread this knowledge among their ethnic neighbors in the near and far beyond of Africa in order to forge such an everwidening and concentric wave of financial solidarity among different ethnic groups in Nigeria and Africa, that will empower each African ethnic group to yield its best of social and industrial products for the common good of all Africans and to the glory of God Aimighty.In fact, the true social message of the Igbo spirit for the Nigerian in particular and for the black race in general comes straight from the Catholic Social Teaching and more specifically from St. Paul's 2 Corinthians 8: 1315 and St. Peter's 1 Peter 4:10 as follows: Financial solidarity among Nigerians and Africans leads to the industrial subsidiary of each Nigerian and each African. This is what the dividend of democracy is essentially about. It is the enabling environment to dream dreams and to see one's dreams work out in practice in one's lifetime. And this social message that allows the zillion flowers of entrepreneurial excellence to bloom in Nigeria and in Africa as a whole is the essential social ethic of Islam as in Qur'an 16:90 al'adl walihsan. Hence, the Igbo spirit is the IslamoChristian ethic for the economic liberation and restoration of man in Africa and beyond.Consequently, the Igbo in Nigeria and in the Diaspora should take heart and continue to put all before the Throne of Grace. For their past and current tormentors, both Eurocentric and local, are just but a passing storm in a Godbaiting and Godtaunting teacup. Uyagami!

Peter Alexander Egom Managing Associate
__._,_.___

LOOKING AT TAGS, MIRAGES AND SUCH: HIS EYE IS ON THE SPARROW.

Tags get attached to or hung on things for various reasons. To identify them, to make them stand out, to advertise them or make them be recognized for what they are. Sometimes tags get hung on people to tarnish them, to diminish them or to totally change their reputation and thereby destroy their lives and families. Hanging tags on people have been around for a while in the form of stereotypes. Lately, hanging and sneaking tags on people to destroy them has reached a new level and defied age,status and wisdom which used to inhibit such misbehavior. A popular saying has it that a Canine sometimes get bad names tagged to it in order to hang him for being very bad and deserving to be hung. Very well is it known that an old dog cannot be taught new tricks but ugly horrible tricks can be tagged on a dog it is then paraded all over with much cacophony that before long, if nothing and nobody intervenes, the canine becomes lynched for being a terrible creature or worse than a grouchy vicious bitch.
In recent years tags and "chads" have made their rounds in the political arena. The 2000 elections which changed the course of this country for ever in its aftermath, featured chads of all kinds----hanging chads, pregnant chads and the rest of them. Millions of dollars in overtime money went to examining and re-examining chads in Florida in an attempt to determine which ballots should be counted as votes. The rest of the drama of chads are in the history books.
In the very recent past, hanging tags featured in a big way and sneaking tags or boldly slapping them on and making a lot of noise about them to make them stick became common place. Tags were even set up for victims to stumble into and wear to their own detriment and destruction of their lives, family and future.

The last presidential election had its share of tag hanging and sticking. Peggy Noonan's Latin editorial on the campaign rallies still stand clear in my mind where the crowds were stirred up to react to a tag craftily pasted on an opponent to tarnish his image and name for ever. A confused woman protested that the opponent was Arab because that was what she was fed and she ate it whole. As if being Arab is a crime on its own, but being Arab has been tagged with terrorism which is the biggest threat to the modern world. When the Arab tag didn't hang or stick, the tagging tactic took a leap to a new and more daring level----"He is palling with terrorists." Wow!!! That's even worse than being Arab. The crescendo of this new tagging was amazing and the taggers boldly hung on to their music and went from coast to coast with it. Logical people were alarmed by the new game of politics and warned of the dangers of it. Such warnings fell on deaf ears.
Did the tags stick or hang on? No.The tag stuck to the hands that made them as the target maneuvered his way through the slippery course to the prize, carefully avoiding the tags everywhere. He chose his words carefully, chose his friends carefully, trusted completely in Divine providence, and Divine protection from foes and unfriendly friends.

In the quest for the different purposes, gains and ambitions in life, the Igbo diaspora has as usual elevated the Igbo " O muta, O gbakaria" syndrome to a new level, perfecting the tag, smear and destroy weapon to a new lethal demolition derby. Organized tag, smear and destroy became a thriving enterprise. Like frenzied bloodhounds on a hunt, tags in hand and tags laid along the hunt, Igbo descend on Igbo to change their reputation and lives for ever and destroy them and their children.
Decency and etiquette and even personal safety are cast to the winds in this deadly pursuit. Loops are jumped to trap and snare and destroy and decapitate all in the presence of the whole wide world, like scenes from the shows during the reality shows craze, the tagging game is played in broad daylight with mirages created all over the place. Mirages created when people put their necks out to trap others, like the boar constrictor hunters who go deep down into the burrow to trap the monster by allowing themselves to be partially wrapped in a suffocating grip, only to be pulled up by their partners while the snake is killed. Real days of living dangerous lives to destroy lives and gain absolutely nothing from it are upon us.

When mirages which looked like sizable pools of water are reached, alas, there is no water at all, none whatsoever. All the hard work and planning to make what is not there as if it were there go up in smokes like the Coyote of The road Runner show fame. And typically like the Coyote, the taggers shift gear and get back to work to device a new tag which will surely or rather has surely blown up one more time in their faces and the road runner stops, looks back, and typical of the road runner, lets out the familiar '----Beep Beep, Vro-o-o-o-o- m-" and goes on to taking care of serious life's business which are all over the place waiting to be dealt with. The Almighty watches out for HIS own. Has never and Will never fail to do so, for HIS EYE is on the sparrow.

Nwada (Lady) Chinwe Enemchukwu
Onye Uwa Oma
na Orlando, Florida
March 15th 2009. ( The ides of March) and All is quiet on the Igbo front. Hopefully for good. Time for SERIOUS soul searching.

DIVORCE IN THE NIGERIAN AND WEST AFRICAN COMMUNITIES IN THE UNITED STATES

Divorce in the Nigerian and West African Immigrant Communities in the united States


Divorce is universal, meaning that divorce happens all over the world. Even in Biblical times,divorce was around and Jesus himself answered questions on the subject. Why then has divorce taken a whole new angle in the new immigrant communities in the United States. In the African immigrant communities, especially West African and more specifically Nigerian, the divorce rates have escalated and so have spousal abuse and homicides. In one year alone, up to five women died at the hands of their husbands. Most of the victims were Nurses. Discussions in chat rooms and mail fora display a variety of views and opinions on this very serious subject. Cultural influences weigh in heavily. Back in the homelands in West Africa, marriages were and are still mostly family affairs where the families and extended families of the couple are all involved to a certain extent in the marriage. When problems come and every attempt to save it fails, and a marriage must end, the families are again involved and the divorce is settled with mutual respect and the familes usually part as friends and the man and woman go their seperate ways,to remarry or do whatever they choose to do with their lives. Being Igbo, I am looking at this subject from the Igbo cultural perspective.The Igbo people take marriage very seriously and go through many customary steps to set up a marriage and when a marriage breaks up,there are also special customs which must be fulfilled to bring the marriage to a close. Over the last three decades, many Nigerians started putting down roots in the United States. It used to be that most of them got their education and then moved back to their homeland. A combination of many factors changed that trend and Africans,mostly Nigerians settled down after college with hopes of moving back to the homeland someday.Political and economics downturns are some of the factors contirbuting to the flight from the homeland by middle class Nigerians, even increasing the population of the Exiles. Many Nigerians have now reared or are having and raising their children here in the United States. At the same time, they remain a life line for their families and extended families in the homeland. This unusual set up tend to put a lot of stress on relationships and marriages. Here you have a family not fully settled because of plans to relocate back to the homeland someday, raising children, paying college tuition and bearing heavy burdens for family members thousands of miles away,and sometimes trying to set up homesteads in the homeland while maintaining one in the United States. As the burden of this way of life started taking its toll, marriages started succumbing just as domestic violence and spousal homicide became occurences that keep repeating. Money and finances are at the top of the causes of marital problems in these groups, not surprisingly. Alarmed, Nigerians are trying to cope with the burden of this problem which has drawn undesirable attention to the community already dealing with image problems. Women are given almost all the blame for the trend and quite unfairly too. Most divorced women are not vocal on this matter for fear of taking insults and criticisms. For the few who dare to speak up and live freely like normal people, the insult, both verbal and otherwise dished out to them by some people both men and women who feel that marriages collapse because the wives are inadequate as women and as wives. The probability of the cause of a divorce being a woman or man's fault is like the probablity of having a pregnant woman having a male or female baby. As painful as the unwarranted charges are, the real blow comes when serious intimidation is employed to keep such women quiet and miserable. Taunting, mocking, name calling and other methods are used to stifle these women. Sometimes, private lives are openly discussed and ridiculed. The feelings, interests, and privacy of the children are totally ignored. Swipes are often taken at each other by couples with marital problems on the internet, with each putting out private information, often laced with lies and half truths. The shocking revelations beget more resentment which in turn, at the urging of some of the readers and commentators, more ugliness is published at the expense of the writer, the subject and the children. The commentators add fuel to the fire, and most of the time without knowing the details, they take sides whether fairly or unfairly. The sad thing which most people miss is that being right or having more support does not in anyway change the situation. Only losers come out of divorces, no winners at all. The marriage may be already over, almost over or heading to the rocks. Instead of stepping in to stop the storm and save the marriage, or make the inevitable seperation and subsequent divorce cordial and peaceful as is the way in the homeland, the community resorts to criticism and antagonism. No mechanisms of intervention are in place, no education or discussion of the impact of living in a new culture or environment on marriages, are taking place. Most of the talk is on shifting blame and condemning, using culture, and bible verses,some of the time out of context, and even when not relevant to every situation. Change is coming very slowly. From the chat rooms and forum discussions, some of the problems and isues leading to the high rate of divorce and spousal homicide in Nigerian communities have at least been mentioned. As this year 2008 draws to an end, only one case of spousal homicide was reported, one too many, but a great improvement, none the less. The ideal thing is zero spousal homicide, reduced violence and divorce rates.
Ndi Igbo (Igbo people) have a saying --"mpempe ndu ka mpempe onwu nma" meaning that " a little peace of life is better than a little piece of death". If a divorce will save a life or lives, then so be it.
Hopefully, the rates of domestic violence and spousal homicide in the Nigerian communities will continue to drop. I hope that 2009 will roll in a new era of preventive actions through objective discussions on intervention through counselling, education, and town union sessions dedicated solely to families and family needs.
Chinwe A. Enemchukwu
November 2008.


Related: relationships, nigerians, family, divorce, counselling, children

FLASH FROM THE PAST ( IGBO SURVIVAL)

The Igbo (Ibo) of Eastern Nigeria went through a horrible war trying to seceed from Nigeria, following the pogrom and killing of thousands of Igbo in Northern Nigeria. The young Republic of Biafra collapsed in January 1970. Following is a report by TIME from July 1970.

"...Thousands of tons of relief food rotted on Lagos' docks; eventually stocks of Dutch powdered milk intended for starving children were used to fill road potholes in Port Harcourt..."
TIME MAGAZINE: Monday July 17, 1970

The unconquerable Ibos

Crowds still line the roads to Enugu and Orlu, Umuahia and Aba, major centers of Nigeria's Ibo tribe. But now the crowds are made up mostly of traders and their customers, not fleeing refugees. In Nnewi, the Cool Precious Restaurant for Good Diet is back in business. The breweries are working again, and cold beer goes swiftly at $1 a bottle. The Ibo commercial instinct is reasserting itself everywhere—from the $20-a-night Bristol Hotel in Lagos, where Ibo businessmen throng to re-establish their contacts, to the smallest villages, where young boys sell cigarettes for a few cents' profit. "They have learned a lot from the war," a Yoruba from Nigeria's Western Region told TIME Correspondent James Wilde last week. "They will never try armed force again, but will use their brains instead. This is far more dangerous."
The Yoruba spoke with mingled admiration and apprehension. Three years ago the Ibos established the breakaway nation of Biafra and precipitated Black Africa's worst civil war. When the war ended last January, close to 2,000,000 of them were dead or missing, Biafran Leader Odumegwu Ojukwu was headed for exile in the Ivory Coast, and the Ibo homeland was a shambles. But with the armistice six months old this week, the Ibos appear well on the way to reviving. "They have not been conquered," said the Yoruba. "They have merely cleared the decks to build anew."

Vacuum Cleaners. After Biafra fell, there were fears that many of the surviving 4,000,000 Ibos there would be slaughtered or starved. But there were no sweeping reprisals, and certainly no genocide. When the federal 3rd Marine Commando Division followed the armistice with an outburst of rape and pillage, Major General Yakubu Gowon, leader of Nigeria's government, swiftly replaced the unit. Though Major General Philip Effiong, who surrendered to Gowon, is still in custody, along with a score of other ranking Biafran officials, all other prisoners of war have been sent home. The East Central State, where the Ibos are concentrated, is administered by an Ibo, Anthony Ukpabi Asika, 33, who studied at U.C.L.A., taught at the University of Ibadan, and sided with the federal government in Lagos during the rebellion. But seven of Asika's ten ministers were officials of the secessionist Biafran government.

Despite the swift pace of revival, misery has by no means been banished from the East Central State. Hospitals are short-staffed and overcrowded. Some roads ripped up to slow Nigerian armored cars have not been repaired. Ex-soldiers, known as "vacuum cleaners" because they are so thorough, roam the region stealing from villagers. In Enugu, a businessman explained why he could never reach Lagos by telephone: "Thieves steal the copper telephone lines, melt them down and sell the ingots in Lagos, where they are made into telephone lines."
Starvation is still a major concern, and 200 children are dying each week of malnutrition or the protein deficiency called kwashiorkor that killed thousands during the war. After the armistice, the Nigerian Red Cross and the Federal Commission for Reconstruction quarreled over which should supervise Ibo relief operations; one result was a breakdown in aid. Most of the 300 British and U.S. vehicles rushed in to carry food have either been "diverted" or have stopped running for lack of spare parts. Thousands of tons of relief food rotted on Lagos' docks; eventually stocks of Dutch powdered milk intended for starving children were used to fill road potholes in Port Harcourt.

Barter Economy. Getting supplies into Ibo territory is difficult, because "General" Gowon firmly refuses to open the airstrip at Uli, a symbol of Biafra's resistance. The present alternative, now that Asika's government is taking over relief work from the Nigerian Red Cross, is a creeping system of old cars and trucks, some still carrying bright red Biafran license plates.

The Ibos are as short of cash as they are of food, and a barter trade has developed in which dried salted stockfish frequently takes the place of money. The East Central State government, which cannot run on stockfish, has a budget of approximately $80 million this year, but expects to collect only $14 million in local taxes. One result is that thousands of civil servants will not be paid.

Surviving the Slight. Jobs are still scarce. The once ubiquitous Ibo shopkeeper and market mammy are unwelcome in much of the rest of Nigeria. Before the war, there were 8,000 Ibo civil servants in Lagos; barely 1,000 will get their jobs back. Port Harcourt, center of a thriving oil industry that has already nearly doubled wartime production to 1,100,000 barrels a day, was once 90% Ibo; it is now 100% Rivers tribesmen. But the Ibos seem able to survive the slight. "We are very much like the Jews," said a former Biafran civil servant. "You know what happened to them during World War II. Now they are a force to be reckoned with."