It is longer news that most Igbo people across the globe are known for heading home to their heritage annually during the Christmas festive period. The gist is that most people of non Igbo origin can’t seem to understand why and how important this herds like movement for Ndigbo
This annual Christmas home call has been described by most Igbo people as “igbo ritualistic Serengeti crossing to the East”, “holy trip back home”, “Mass movement to East”, “Exodus”, “Movement of God's people”, and “home coming”. The feeling of travelling home has been likened to an animal in heat that will never stop until Igbo gets to their ancestral home for Christmas.
The planning and preparation for the annual Igbo home call for some Umuigbo, starts as soon as they return back to their base after answering the previous awesome home. The planning (building a house, buying new cars, renovating and/or decorating existing houses, contributing towards community development, training relatives in business and trade to build capacity, contributing towards community festival events and meeting planning, sending down food items and drinks, buying the travel tickets, concluding arrangements on who to travel with etc) continues until the end of about October each.
Come November, the spirit of “home going” gets on the overdrive and is evidenced by a common watch word/question “Ole mgbe/Kedu mgbe unu n'ala Igbo”. Meaning, “when are you travelling back home to Igboland” At this point, even the man who was reluctant to travel becomes home sick, risk limbs and fortunes, go through stress and untold inconvenience to ensure that he goes home with his family for the Yuletid.
To the Igbo friends and neighbours who don’t will quite understand this unfathomable exodus to Igboland during the season, it is a time that Ndigbo defies all logics to return back to Alaigbo from all corners of the world to be exposed and bonded to our root and ancestral environment irrespective of any posh urbane sophisticated life. It is a time for us, like mere puppets to be strongly tied and attached to the strings of our dusty remote home towns and villages where we are beamed with unexplainable satisfaction and filled with a sense of freedom, relaxation and enjoyment from the everyday hassles and hustle that took the broadest smiles of Umuigbo over the year.
It is a time for Igbo people to commune with family and relatives, extract much needed wisdom at the feet of elderly uncles/aunties, a time to renew friendship with childhood and old time friends over a keg of palm wine (mmaya ngwo/nkwu ocha), and a time to appease the spirit of our ancestors and to reassure our forefathers that their linage has not closed. It is a time of festivities (age grade meetings, traditional weddings, cultural dances and masquerades, village meetings etc) and a time for individual and communal reunion and engagement with the old and young. It is a mystery that only Ndigbo can understand and it hurts being in a distant land during these annual “rituals”.
Returning home at such time is a character engraved in our hearts. It is a time to initiate personal and/or community projects, a time for mending fences, a time for “settling” (establishing) Igbo apprentices and for selecting new apprentices. It is a time to appraisal milestone achievement of the year’s targets and for setting new goals and targets for the next year. It is a time of personal realistic appraisal of the living the Igbo entrepreneurship identity. It is a time to renew the bond of kinship amongst kinsmen, it is a time for communal oriented Igbo people to make communal decisions on varying issues and to speak with one voice because we belief in communal strength.
For those who couldn't travel home for one reason or the other, they feel strongly that even a trip to the best holiday island won't suffice and some have openly confessed this. No wonder a 14 year Igbo boy once told the father that he “feels empty and sad” that they would not be able travel home for Christmas. It's really in the blood and is beyond the human imagination of none Igbos. Not being home at this time of the year generates a sense of emptiness and loss. An Igbo man was once seen outside his shop in Lagos during the season with the doors half opened. When asked why his shop is fully opened, he replied “I am contemplating travelling home; I can’t stand seeing my neighbours, friends and relative travelling “home” while am here”. Guess what? The shop was locked the next day as he was on his way to Alaigbo.
Some have tried to ridicule this movement and great home coming with the allegation that Igbo people return to show off. Such insinuation is far from the real purpose as people can also show off in the cities outside Igboland. However, it is pertinent to condemn some of the newly imported behaviours creeping into Igboland including the quest for money through illegitimate means that contravenes the genuine enterprising and hardworking spirit (Igbo mgbo) of the Igbo person, plus the associated flamboyant lifestyles display that communicates wrong values to some Igbo youths. Also condemnable are some of the wicked and evil stories of unwarranted envy and jealousy leading to gruesome and mystical poisoning/killings during and after the season in some parts of Igboland. This is completely un-Igbo and is at variance with the Igbo value of preserving life and of being our brother’s keeper (umu ji adighi egbu obi). Some of these ugly stories and event is currently discouraging some faint hearted Igbo people from travelling home with their families even when their body and soul are in Alaigbo at such time. This wicked act, conduct and behaviours needs to stop and community leaders in Igboland need to adopt strong signal resolutions to put an end to such development.
In summary, the Igbo Christmas home call is all about connectedness. The same communal spirit (igwe bu ike), bonding and bravery that resulted in the historic Igbo Landing of 1803 in Dunbar Creek on St. Simons Island, Glynn County, Georgia where Igbo slave captive Igbo took control of their slave ship and eventually committed mass suicide than submit themselves to slavery in the United States. It is simply in the blood of Igbo people to return home despite being great travellers. It is an indelible mark, our heritage, our #igboness, and our identity. Igbo people return home even in death because it is in our gene and belief to have communal fellowship with our likes in our ancestral home. We return home to contribute towards personal, kindred and community development and growth, hence the several Umunna meetings in different towns in Igboland at such time. We return because it is our season of internal peace, joy, merriment, togetherness and this will not stop anytime soon.
