AFAMEFUNA: Lost Identity
I woke up this beautiful thursday morning with a burning holy anger and it is specifically directed at parents, especially of the IGBO stock.
You grew up mastering an upward of two languages, the IGBO Language and the ENGLISH Language, then life sent you on several voyages where you picked up several other languages.
You learnt the IGBO Language at the feet of your parents. Your own mother, especially, nursed you using the IGBO Language. She cuddled and lulled you to sleep countless times with IGBO lullabies. Your father mouthed and shouted instructions to you in IGBO.
Your house, the humble cradle of your beginnings, was ordered, tailored and designed to function to programmes coded in IGBO language. Infact, the IGBO language was the numero uno, the official and the lingua franca of your family house. You even learnt IGBO proverbs and folklores, and could tell and sing their accompanying songs.
*Fast forward to the present*
You are now established, married and have your own children. You are even fortunate enough to have a spouse who is of thesame tribal stock as you are, probably even from thesame hometown. The both of you converse in IGBO between yourselves, but speak ENGLISH to your children! How terrible!
You suddenly have forgotten all you learnt in the two decades plus years you spent learning from your parents. You refuse to pass on this invaluable inheritance to your own children.
Tell me, I pray, are you being fair to them? Why deprive them of a privilege your own parents never withheld from you? Is that not the highest form of wickedness ever? Do you know that YOU are part of the primary cause of the nonsense we see everyday in Igboland?
A man who without an IDENTITY is lost, even to himself!
If you are amongst the lot who speak ENGLISH at home, then you are a huge embarrassment, even to GOD who gave you that language to preserve. Please retrace your steps and salvage what's left of the ruins you've turned your children into. I wish you Godspeed.
To the folks out there who have raised their kids to speak, behave and replicate all the values of their native tongue, GOD bless you. You have given them the best inheritance ever, a long enduring legacy I tell you: The gift of an IDENTITY!
#AFAMEFUNA
Kelechi Nonso Ezekwere
You are now established, married and have your own children. You are even fortunate enough to have a spouse who is of thesame tribal stock as you are, probably even from thesame hometown. The both of you converse in IGBO between yourselves, but speak ENGLISH to your children! How terrible!
You suddenly have forgotten all you learnt in the two decades plus years you spent learning from your parents. You refuse to pass on this invaluable inheritance to your own children.
Tell me, I pray, are you being fair to them? Why deprive them of a privilege your own parents never withheld from you? Is that not the highest form of wickedness ever? Do you know that YOU are part of the primary cause of the nonsense we see everyday in Igboland?
A man who without an IDENTITY is lost, even to himself!
If you are amongst the lot who speak ENGLISH at home, then you are a huge embarrassment, even to GOD who gave you that language to preserve. Please retrace your steps and salvage what's left of the ruins you've turned your children into. I wish you Godspeed.
To the folks out there who have raised their kids to speak, behave and replicate all the values of their native tongue, GOD bless you. You have given them the best inheritance ever, a long enduring legacy I tell you: The gift of an IDENTITY!
#AFAMEFUNA
Kelechi Nonso Ezekwere
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