Despite the diversity of human goals, aspirations and means of survival, one thing remains universally essential to everyone, male or female, young or old. It is the well-being of the soul. Whatever your philosophy, ambition or profession in life is; however peculiar, challenging or demanding your circumstances and commitments in life are, this is one area of your life that you will never be excused for neglecting. The Bible says, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36).
Omissions could be made in certain areas of life with reasonable explanation and negligible repercussions, but matters of the soul are totally different; for while everything else that matters to us in this life will someday cease to be, our immortal souls will continue to live on, whether in eternal bliss or eternal grief. Christ, in describing the incomparable tragedy of losing one’s souls, asked a thought-provoking question: “What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mark 8:37).
We, the Igbo, have for long years committed our lives deeply in the pursuit of the materials, which we always pay dearly for, so long as the government changes face. Successive regimes have seen the Igbo man leaking the wounds of harsh economic policies simply because they wanted their own Caesar to be greater. For a long time, no one knows the Igbo as a good investor in stocks and foreign exchange marketing, but the very moment he dared to try, the story was very different from usual.
When the Igbo was promised the Nigerian Presidency, he did all that he could to receive the mantle, yet it was a near miss. Up till this very moment, the Igbo are still gathering themselves as to what next to do in order to get to the finish line. Hope later on, beamed on the side of the Igbo man, when his sons and daughters were given appointments, yet he could not truly be liberated from that. What is the cause of dislodging us at the edge of breakthroughs?
The Igboman is a man of destiny. God ordained him for greatness, but there are many adversaries. Jacob was a man who was later called Israel by God. He had twelve (12) sons, which actually made up the twelve tribes of Israel. His first son Reuben threw away his right through his inordinate love for pleasure. He slept with his father’s wife and the honour to produce a king for Israel passed away from him.
Judah committed incest with his daughter-in-law, and could not produce a king for Israel until after a period of nine (9) generations. In a whole, it took God forty-two (42) generations to reconcile man again to Himself after the fall of Adam (Deuteronomy 23:2). It takes God up to ten (10) generations to purge evil from one’s bloodline (Ruth 4:18-22). David was the first king of Israel that came through Judah’s bloodline, whereas Saul was the fist from Benjamin (Matthew 1:1-6; Deuteronomy 23:2).
It will be very good for the people of Igbo extraction to look inward and fish out the hand of the monkey that has bedeviled us all these years. What we are seeing today emanated from a borrowed lifestyle, no, this is not what the IGBO stand for. We must have missed it somewhere, and duty demands that we diligently look for it and pick it up. Let us go back, even to the 10th generations of our bloodline, and activate certain things that has been speaking against us (Joshua 6:26; 1 Kings 16:34). Let us repent today and call on God for forgiveness, while there is still time to do so. Let us drop whatever we’re holding now that divide and scatter our family ties, and come home to settle issues with God. Only then, can we be able to find our feet. God bless NDIGBO!
