Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, first Africa-owned, US-based newspaper published on the Internet.
Chieftaincy deception by some Nigerians in South Africa. By Austin Okeke.
A set of people simply constituted themselves to create or imagine a kingdom in another country outside of theirs. Among the Igbo in the diaspora and outside the immediate geography of the south eastern Nigeria location of their origin, a handful of them deviously and dubiously nickname and confer on themselves such titles here in South Africa as “Eze Ndigbo South Africa”, “Onowu Ndigbo South Africa”, “ikenga Ndigbo South Africa*, “Owelle Ndigbo South Africa” and other”
They live in utopia, I guess.
The country South Africa is not a kingdom. However inside it there are several kingdoms in which the natives already have the holders to the titles as conferred and befitting of the functions, roles, duties and responsibilities in accordance with the cultural and traditional needs of their kingdoms.
The kingdoms in South Africa don’t even know that these bunch of of migrants exist and they don’t need them for their cultural celebrations.
One of those guys claimed to be the *onowu of Africa* (translation meaning, the prime minister of Africa).
The periods leading up to the pseudo ceremony where he claimed he was conferred the “onowo of Africa” he and his gang advertised the event and included his personal banking account into which they collected money from unsuspecting victims in South Africa. This is apparent fraud.
By the way, it has been their scheme to extort money from people. They go about hawking and conferring chieftaincy titles on the highest bidders in South Africa, they would even carve out imaginary kingdoms out of cities and street corners in South Africa and have someone who wants to be the Igwe (king) to pay handsomely into a designated personal bank account.
This character recently has stopped adding the “onowu of Africa” to the countless titles he ascribes to himself, may be out of pressure from right thinking and sane people.
By the way, Ohaneze Ndigbo the legally constituted socio-cultural entity of the Igbo nation has long out-lawed the practice of conferring such titles on people living outside of the Igboland. It is currently the law.
I believe that for these characters to continue to ascribe those titles to themselves is not only against customary law but seems a serious psychiatric case.
