Essential Ndubuisi
By Azuka Onwuka
I rarely ply the Amichi-Okigwe Road because of its deplorable state, but this Yuletide I used the road while attending an event. I saw a signboard close to where I parked that read “Ifa Temple”. Last year I had seen a car with a number plate “Ifa Priest” in Nnewi, but the driver drove away before I could take a shot.
This time around I took my time to take photos and videos. The journalist in me thought of going in to meet the man and interview him but I was in a hurry and was alone. And small time my church people go say dem see me enter one Ifa shrine for divination.
When I was in Nnewi in August, I was with my father when two men dressed in Yoruba garb came out of his house with megaphone and were leaving the compound. I asked him who they were. He said they were his new tenants from Ondo State who were selling herbal medicine.
Not long ago, a lady selling herbs walked into my compound to sell herbs to some workers in my compound. She saw the lemon grass in the compound and told me that she wanted to take some and asked me how much it would cost her. I asked her where she was from. She said Osun State. I asked her where she lived; she mentioned a kinsman I know. I praised her for coming to my hometown to live and do business. I told her to take as much of the lemon grass she wanted and enjoy her stay in Nnewi.
My joy is that many people would wake up in Ondo or Osun or Ekiti and consider where to go for greener pasture and end up choosing Nnewi my hometown over Lagos, Ibadan or Akure, and then travel some hundreds of kilometres to live within my community, pay house rent and make a living. I have also seen many tailors, tilers, building engineers, painters, mechanics, panel beaters, upholstery workers, etc, from the Southwest in Nnewi.
I see people from Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Benue, Plateau, Zamfara, Taraba, Cameroon, Ghana, etc, who left their hometowns and chose Nnewi as their land of opportunities.
It makes me feel happy that the years of building and marketing Nnewi is yielding fruit. It also tells me that there are many people who have chosen not to stay in their cocoons and depend on the fairytale rehashed by people who are always afraid of venturing out of their comfort zones.
Wherever you come from, Nnewi would welcome you and give you the opportunity to live in peace and pursue your dream. If you choose to buy land or house for your residence or business, it is available (but it is not cheap o). If you choose to marry in Nnewi and someone agrees to marry you, it is a free world. If you choose to bring in your kinsmen to enjoy what you are enjoying, it is your choice. Our hospitality philosophy is: Ọ bịara be onye abiagbula ya; mgbe ọ ga-ala, mpkpumkpu apụla ya n’azụ (May the visitor not suffocate his host with his visit; and whenever he departs, may he not be stricken with a hunchback) – In simple terms: come in peace, live in peace, and go in peace (if you choose to go).
