Before the Ozo title was gifted me by my father, titled relatives and acquaintances of mine were fond of telling me that once I took it, I would eschew my indifference to it and enjoy the profound dignity of the ‘prestigious’ society.
They told me this because of my reluctance to accept the title, which I made clear to my father. I had a dozen or more other objectives on my mind about what do to with that kind of money. Taking the Ozo title would not have featured in my top 500 priorities!
Ultimately, I did succumb to much brow beating from my dear father and enough tender cajoling by my precious mother. That was back in ’92, if I’m not mistaken and thirty years later, I can only look back and say that all my reservations about the fraternity remain firmly intact.
I believe strongly that every elite association or society of reasonable people must have social development as its priority, more especially here in the underdeveloped world, where governments are handicapped by a shortage of resources and a surplus of incompetence.
Unfortunately, this imperative is not reflected by the Agbalanze Society of Onitsha. It is made even more lamentable by the fact that the staggering amounts of money that pass through its coffers provides Onitsha with a source of internally-generated revenue that is unique and astounding.
The cost of procuring the title runs into varying sums of multi-millions, depending on the clan to which the aspirant belongs. With a multitude of members and an endless stream of wannabes, the potential financial worth of the society is mind-boggling.
One might have imagined that this was a great opportunity for the society to participate in some social engineering by way of the infrastructural transformation of Onitsha. I say this with particular referrence to the core indigenous enclave of Inland Town, an area of convenient size.
Surely, with the society’s volume of income and potential revenue, this relatively small district should have been considerably developed by now. A decent percentage of the society’s constant resources over all these years might easily have been set aside in an indigenous development parastatal for this purpose. This could conceivably have provided this small Inland Town with good roads and modern drainage, concrete sidewalks and street lights, traffic lights and waste disposal systems, bus stops and modern markets, a decent police precinct and even a standard school or two, among many facilities.
Instead however, these vast amounts of money disappear into thin air within a matter of days of the almost bacchanal initiation ceremonies. Much of it is converted into liquid and solid waste following the voracious consumption of booze and foods. Most is dissipated into inconsequential amounts as stipends to fraternity members, which would be frittered away within hours in most cases or days for the ones lucky to be in the immediate extended family of the initiate. Essentially though, in the final analysis, these huge amounts go towards funding the ego and feeding the self-importance of the initiates. And that is the story of all those billions.
Meanwhile, the small town remains in utter disrepair, decrepit and dilapidating all around us. The evenings are pitch dark by 8pm and provides a cover for assorted hoodlums. The streets are ravaged by floods even when it merely drizzles. The violent waters gush out of the open drains down the sloping terrain almost like the wild Inga rapids of the Congo River, spreading garbage and disease among the people. Usually, the garbage gets so much that they grow into mountains at some street corners and open spaces, so much that they become land marks. One such important mountain of garbage is royally situated at the top of the street where the monarch has his country home, to which a tourist will be kindly accompanied by the putrid smells.
Yet, everyday, members of this prestigious society will navigate their way through the debris and the stench on their way to or from yet another initiation ceremony, for which multi millions would have been expended. In return, they will get hailed by bystanders. In response, they would acknowledge the sycophancy with indulgent nods of their heads or majestically raise their animal skin fans at them. A great sight!
For me, I guess I am resigned to the fact that my name is nominally somewhere in the membership roll, courtesy of the old man, of course. Otherwise, no way am I going to be caught in a privileged fraternity that has no plans for our underprivileged society.
(Culled from Ivenkili, Facebook, 11 October, 2022)
