Biochemical assays of KSAT and ACPs

As noted in our last chapter, every Igbo community before the colonial era was an autonomous unit and had pursued its own interest and independent policies in social, economic and political matters in search of common good. Communal solidarity was always the centre and major successes, depended on how a community was able to drive, manage or

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steer this wagon to its desired conclusion. However, to do justice to the institution of the Igbo Development Unions, a brief historical background will be necessary and unavoidable to help us understand this aspect of our study. The Igbo people in the era of colonialism were faced with the inescapable presence of the outside world (just like any other people’s colonial experience); various Igbo communities lost their political power and therefore their independence. This political and social reality change dawned among the Igbo when the British conquered Igbo land between 1900 and 1910 (Egboh, 1987: 8).

Alongside these inevitable changes were three other major ones that affected immensely the Igbo ways of life; namely Christianity (new way of religious belief and following came into place), Western Education (Western system of primary and secondary education produced village graduates in search of new life) and Urbanization (small and big cities came into place and attracted a huge number of population); all these factors led the traditional Igbo people to look elsewhere for survival from the changes. The Igbo people who were known for their firm rootedness in village communities were now to leave and settle outside (abroad) their village groups (Uchendu, 1965: 38; Egboh, 1987: 9).

However, the following changes and factors could be attributed to the formation of Igbo Development/Welfare Union’s Institution as noted by Egboh (1987: 10-12), thus:

• Having left their known home surrounding and settled in the new urban centres, the Igbo people were faced with enormous challenges of isolation away from home.

Their general feeling was that this isolation, over the years, might lead to a complete submergence of their traditional values and ways of life.

• More so, as the Igbo people were scattered in different parts of the new urban centres where they sojourned, they lost their traditional village life style and found it difficult to secure the co-operation of their fellows (as was the case in village community) in the solution of common problems.

• There was also what was referred to as ‘heterogeneous elements’ as the urban centres harboured people from different villages and ethnic groups. These diverse elements sometimes revived in their new environments hostilities which had plagued them in the villages and ethnic areas from which they had come; with the result that each of

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the groups feared that its rivals might constitute a serious threat to its means of existence and livelihood in the urban areas.

To address all these concerns and difficulties therefore, unity was to be maintained in the form of cultural solidarity among these Igbo urban dwellers. This situation created among the Igbo people a strong desire and sense for a reunion with their kith and kin in the villages. It was based on this state of affairs that each Igbo group and tribe came to the conclusion to establish associations of their members in each of the urban areas where they were residing (Coleman, 1958: 213-214; Isichei, 1976: 217 and Egboh, 1987: 11).

Uchendu (1965: 37), while verifying the foundation and formation of the Family-Unions, Village-Unions, Town-Unions and Development/Welfare Unions as they are known in different expressions or names of this institution among the Igbo people, wrote:

…in Nigerian and other West African cities where some Igbo people work or seek paid labour, the need to protect themselves and to educate the newcomers in the city ways, as well as to act as pressure groups in their respective village and district politics, led to the formation of various associations called Family Meetings or Improvement Unions. These associations meet at home… to plan welfare developments, map strategy for the local councillors, and, in an election year, influence voting through propaganda and the reinterpretation of major political issues in language their people can understand. As opinion leaders and innovators, their role is to explain the demands of their changing world to their people and to analyze the implications of the political choices they make at the polls.

Hence, the Development Unions among the Igbo people came about as a result of its reaction to the contact with the foreign world and therefore serves as a means, the Igbo people were to manage, re-adjust or cope with this event or advent of the western world and modernity. The birth of development union-institution was very much a contemporary age in which an Igbo living outside his/her natural location was able to keep contact with their aspirations and desires back in their rural communities.

This is the understanding of Igbo village-groups in which their autonomy and self-determination manifest in their decisions or plans, and the state is not expected to interfere.

The Town Unions in other words relate to the mentality of the Igbo people and most of the

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time the present day state governments need to liaise with the Unions to be able to reach the Igbo people. But most of all, these unions are to protect the larger interests and development plans of their Igbo communities; and it is on this note that I will enumerate the developmental roles and activities of the Igbo Unions to improve the common life of every Igbo both at home and abroad. Nzimiro, (1971: 175) identify the following roles:

• Igbo Unions serve as link between the Igbo urban migrants and their rural based are to maintain cultural solidarity among all Igbo people. Hence, for the Igbo who are outside their home communities, these associations based on the lineage structure, became important centres for readjustment and for contact with “home” people.

• The urban situation into which the Igbo people found themselves did not provide them with adequate social adjustment. The improvement and Patriotic Unions seemed to fulfil this need and help them adjust to the rigours of the new setting, among other things, making available to them ideas and attitudes with which they were familiar in their rural base.

• Having been exposed to the new urban social life in their various stations, these Igbo elites used these associations as channels through which urban cultural ideas and habits were transmitted to the Igbo villages. They were forward in the establishment of modern institutions such as schools, hospitals and clinic/health centres, and pipe-borne water. Also identical to these Unions are the establishments of new modern-built markets, community halls and recreational facilities for their “towns” (Nzimiro, 1971: 176).

Finally, it must be noted here that much of the achievements recorded by the Igbo by means of educational institutions and modern amenities were a result of the single-minded exertions of the Patriotic and Improvement Unions. Emphasising the importance of these Igbo Unions earlier on Uchendu (1965: 38) wrote:

…for the Igbo, helping the town “to get up”⁵⁷ is nothing short of an obsession. It requires community action and self-sponsored welfare programs, which in turn demand sacrifice from the individual as well as from the town. The town helps its

57 Refer to footnote No. 21 above.

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citizens to “get up” just as the citizens help the town. The prestige of one is tied to the prestige of the other.