The burial that puts Oba on the map

Yesterday in Oba Anambra state, an event took place that dominated the public discourse; it was the burial of Obi Iyiegbu aka Obi Cubana mother’s burial. A lot has been said about the heavily publicized burial. Here my concern is purely what I think as Nigerians we should take away from the images and stories we heard about the event. 

 

First, I’d like to start with the number of cows we heard that was donated or given to the Mr. Obi Cubana. Significant amongst the cow donors, is Pascal Chibuike Okechuwku, popularly known as Cubana chief priest. We heard authoritatively that Pascal gave to Mr. Obi, who we understand is his boss forty six (46) cows, which incidentally represents his age. Many others gave two, others one cow. Now, I’m not going to deal what that implies. My concern here is the significant of the business aspect of the cow donations, which we heard totaled over three hundred cows.   

                          

Those cows were sold by businessmen from northern Nigeria, in fact we heard from one of the viral videos that the 46 cows from Pascal aka chief priest came straight from the North as we saw the trucks arriving Oba. The rest of course would either be from the North too, or bought from northerners doing business in the east.  

What am I driving at? I’d tell you. The igbos have a tradition of burying their dead, especially those whose children are wealthy with efi, meaning igbo native cow. The igbo native cows are more expensive than the northern cows and are usually more honored amongst the igbos in terms of significant.  

If Obi aka Obi Cubana had insisted that those who wants to give him cows should bring only the igbo native cows, I’m very sure they’d all bring the igbo native cow. But he never did request for that, hence we have in place of the igbo native cows the northern bread cows. In case you still don’t understand my point here, I’d explain further. 

What I’m trying to say here is that; Nigerians are more connected and interwoven far more than the events and issues that seem to divide us. From this singular burial that took place yesterday at Oba Anambra state, many Northerners made serious money and most probably were encouraged to believe for better days. This is just from a single source or business. It might interest you to know that what happened in Oba yesterday happens almost every month in the east, though not usually at that level, but at least to a significant size in comparison. What does it tell you? The issue of Fulanis herdsmen killing innocent southerners in the name of open grazing is absorbs and beyond comprehension giving the fact that their highest customers is from the southern part of Nigeria. I heard; I may be wrong. I 

heard that in the North, cow meats are not usually eaten as much as we do here in the south. So, what that means is that the people who keep the northern cow businessmen in business are their southern Nigerian brothers and sisters. That’s what it means. So, if that be the case; question is, why then would any right thinking northerner; Fulani or hausa think of killing a southerner because of cow?  

My submission on this matter is; the seemingly division amongst the south and northern Nigeria is not as a result of our differences, either religious or cultural. Rather the polarization of this differences by most political elites on both sides, who use this divide and rule method as a ploy to perpetually enslave their people, while enriching their pockets. Politicking, rather than ethnic or religious differences is the reason why the North and the south are at variance with regards to how to graze cows in Nigeria. It is also the reason why IPOB exists in the east and Oduduwa in the south. Remove politicking, which is in the interest of those corrupt and maladroit politicians, who unfortunately are in greater number in politics, you’d marvel at the level of interaction across all sphere of human endeavor that exists between the south and Northern Nigeria.   

                 

The second thing that the Oba burial projected is the benefit or merit of the igbo servants business method. Any keen observer of the chief convener, Obi Cubana will notice the flock of successful young men, especially igbos around him, whenever he’s celebrating or having any event. This is not just because he is a socialite or a club owner etc. this is as a result of his business model and leadership style. Obi Cubana, like most igbo business men believes in raising equally capable successful business men who are directly or indirectly linked to his various business interests. Yesterday, we saw in many viral videos how many young successful looking young people were trying to outdo one another in money spraying competition. One story even went as far as saying, when they could not see Obi to spray on, they’ll create a reason to spray money. This is all in a bid to demonstrate their loyalty to the man whom many call Boss. while this may not apply to every person that was at the occasion, it nevertheless represents a large junk of them.. Again, I’m not here to debate on whether or not the money spraying makes sense or not. My only concern herein is the beauty of raising people when you have the resources and means to. Imagine, if every Nigerian rich person will commit to taking under their wings young men and women who are desirous of learning their trade or craft. Train and set them up like the igbos do. Just imagine the multiplication effect of such undertaking and how much it will help to eradicate poverty in our country. For from each successful young man made, you elevate families and create room for people who hitherto had no hope of getting education to get education etc. that model for me is what we saw at work yesterday in Oba, and what was displayed by the hype around and about the burial and not because of how much money the young man has.  

Thirdly, the array of security personnel displayed. This is one area that almost got me confused, but thank God I was able to process it beyond my initial reaction of ‘this is stupid’. We saw how various arms of government security agencies was deployed or involved in securing the guests, people you may refer to as VIPs. Again, my concern here is not to debate whether or not these individuals merit such prerogative, my concern here is the business opportunity such lavishness of our top security personnel amplifies. There’s nothing wrong in ensuring your important people in the society are safeguarded against certain threats or harassment, especially in a tensed and unsafe environment such as we’ve had in recent times in the east. But there’s everything wrong if those doing the job are drawn from the already stretched size or number of security personnel the country have. We all know that Nigeria is under policed, and that our solders are already stretched as a result of their involvement in several fronts dealing with internal security issues. Same can be said of our DSS and others. What I think this opportunity provides is the need to legislate for armed private security industry like it’s done in countries like South Africa and other countries. The need to protect our very important people cannot be over emphasized, but having our lean government funded trained security personnel to do that job, when in fact there’s shortage of such personnel in the discharge of their constitutional mandate is not economically viable and also capable of creating discord amongst the people. 

Government should take a critical look at legislating and encouraging well scrutinized and monitored industry of armed private guards, which will not only create employment and another business, but also engage so many of our young able bodied youths and security veterans, who most times for want of something to do ends up doing crime.