Our elders
say “Egbuo dike na ọgụ ulo echeta ya na ọgụ ama – when a people kill their champion during skirmishes
at home they will be forced to remember that warrior while fighting external
aggressors.” People who destroy their leaders out of jealousy
always rue it. “Agbawọ dike izuzu agba ya mgba na abọ
– when people scheme and take decision behind the back of an important
dignitary they will be forced to reconsider and reverse their decision.
Once upon a
time, God made the different parts of the body. He housed them in a magnificent
garden and gave them certain ground rules. The most essential of all the rules
was the law of hospitality. He commanded them to be compassionate, generous, and
welcoming; they should freely give alms and show hospitality to all, especially
to unknown visitors.
One day, he
told each one of them that he would visit them at a certain hour. They all
dressed up nicely, decorated their rooms and swept them clean and dusted the
chair, waiting for his visit. Precisely at the appointed time, he disguised
himself as a beggar with gaping wounds of leprosy and he visited each one of
them. They all found his sores repulsive
and nauseating and they discharged him quickly and drove him away when he made
for the chair kept for God. They did not want him around because they were expecting
a very important dignitary. Only the Stomach attended to the beggar, even
though he was very much put off by his wounds which were foul and festering. He
nearly drove the beggar away like the others, but he heeded an inner voice that
reminded him of the rule of hospitality. That day, all of them waited in vain
for God, whom they believed did not keep his appointment.
Afterwards,
God sent messengers to them. To the Head he sent headache and Alzheimer; to the
Eyes, blindness; to the Hands, Parkinson’s disease; to the Bottom, waist pain;
to the Stomach, ache; and to the Feet, arthritis. They were charged with the
offense of insensitivity and of breaking the law of generosity. They were
ordered to appear in court and they did. Only the Stomach was found innocent.
He was discharged and acquitted. The rest were found guilty as accused and were
sentenced to forever serve the Stomach. The Bottom is to carry the Stomach
while at rest in a sitting position, but the Feet are to carry him to wherever
he wants to go. The Hands are to fetch and prepare his food, the Head is to
carry the food to him and the Eyes are to watch the way he takes so that no
harm will befall the Stomach. The Stomach had fellow feeling. In his naiveté,
he begged God to let him share in the plight of his companions. God consented
and decreed that his place, as a leader, should be that of a vanguardist positioned
at the forefront where he would be vulnerable and exposed to danger in times of
conflict. That is why people hit others on the stomach while fighting. The Stomach brought this trouble upon
himself.
A single
act of generosity made the Stomach a king just as a single act of stupidity
made him a target. However, his fame increased and drew more attention as
people built adages around the Stomach e.g., “Gwam gwam gwam igbe Chukwu gbashiri? - Who can tell me the box locked by
God?” The answer is “The Stomach! - Afọ!” Even though
he was humble, his elevated position generated petty jealousies and mean
spirited criticisms. He did not mind it because envy and jealousy are
instinctive ways of affirming the superiority of a rival. Things went on as the
Creator decreed, and it appeared as if every one’s struggles were geared
towards feeding and maintaining the Stomach. The aphorism: “Afọ dị mkpa! - The Stomach is important,”
heightened the jealousies.
One day,
all the parts of the body conspired and revolted against the Stomach. They all
complained that they were slaving, suffering, doing all the work while the
Stomach was enjoying and growing fatter and fatter, doing absolutely nothing! “Mọnki de wọọk, babun de
chọp
- The Monkey works but the Baboon does
the eating,” they said. The Feet protested that they were tired of carrying
the Stomach, they wouldn’t carry him again. The Eyes said they were tired of
looking, they wouldn’t watch again. The Hands said they were fatigued, they
needed rest. The Head said he was fagged out; he did not want to have brain
fag. Therefore he would not carry food any more to the Stomach. So they all
stopped collaborating with the stomach. They ignored the principle of
reciprocity: Aka nri kwọọ aka ịkpa,
aka ịkpa akwọọ aka nri – The right hand washes the left hand
and the left washes the right.”
For a day
or two they were okay because they were sustained by body reserve. They mocked
and jeered at the Stomach for he was emaciating. The Stomach prophetically
warned them; “If I go down, you all will go down with me!” But they laughed him
to scorn, and mimicked him. After one week of strike, the Head became giddy and
dizzy, the Hands began to tremble, the Eyes became dim and unable to see well,
the Feet began to wobble, etc. They were weakening and death was imminent. It
was only then it dawned on them that the Stomach was really important and was
playing a vital role. They understood that their services were mutual and for
the benefit of all and not necessarily for the Stomach. It became very clear
that when they were feeding the Stomach, they were indirectly feeding
themselves because the Stomach digested the food, absorbed it and distributed
it to them. So by starving the Stomach, they starved themselves. They went back
to apologize to the Stomach and to beg him to forgive their foolishness. The
Stomach pardoned them. They pledged allegiance to him and life continued. Our
elders are right; when death (an external aggressor) confronted the parts of
the body they were forced to remember their champion whom they relegated, and
they had to reverse the decision they took behind his back.
CRITICAL THINKING
It is the
Stomach that naturally brings people together in a family. A puzzle which
children often pose to one another is “Do you live to eat or do you eat to live?”
And they laugh at those who respond that they live to eat. The wise eats to
nourish life for life is worth more than food. The children must be searching
for the meaning of life, wondering why human struggles are geared towards
eating and drinking because it is absurd to live just to eat.
Our elders
say: O mekara
mmadụ, mekara onwe ya - One,
who does anything good to someone else, does it to oneself.”
As one feeds others, even spiritually, one feeds oneself. Goodness and kindness
rebound, the same is true of evil. Hence the Biblical dictum: “Evil brings
death to the wicked; those who hate the good are doomed”(Ps 34:21). It pays to
be kind to all because the Creator could visit people in the form of a
stranger, a beggar or a sick person. It is noteworthy that when one fails a
fellow human being, one fails God. This lends credence to the metaphysical
axiom attributed to Parmenides: “Being is one”, and to the scriptural dictum
“When you did it to the least of my brethren, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40).
Breaking the law attracts punishment but hospitality brings blessings. The Igbo
do not joke with hospitality. They always offer kola nut as a sign of acceptance
and welcome before ever a visitor declares his mission. The practice correlates
with this parable of the Stomach.
The parable
posits the origin of man and the idea of a gracious Creator whose priority is
generosity, which is love in concrete action. This same creator is a just judge
and a ruler for he has a court to which the creatures were summoned. This
Creator, who visits, tests and disciplines defaulting creatures must be a
caring and affable person. Discipline trains the mind and helps one to achieve
desired goals. If the creator intended his creatures to resemble him, it is
only to be expected because agere
sequitur esse – action follows being. “By their fruits you shall know
them.” (Mt. 7: 16, 20) Thus by commanding the parts of the body to be hospitable,
he wanted his creatures to be merciful and caring like their Creator.
Knowledge
has two properties, namely, truth and falsity. Was the Stomach really doing
absolutely nothing as alleged? According to an Italian proverb, “La bugia ha una gamba corta – Lies have a short leg.” Therefore truth
can easily overtake lies. It is striking that suffering brought the parts of
the body to their senses. They learnt the hard way. Iroegbu rightly referred to
suffering as font of solidarity.[i]
“Those things that hurt, instruct,”[ii]
says Benjamin Franklin. In the words of
Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a
good learner would not miss.” [iii]
The lesson
is that people should guard against the presumption that their leader or anyone
else does not contribute to the common good. In fact, directly or indirectly,
everybody does. “Achọọ mmadụ achọọ,
amara ihe n’ome - It is when a person is absent that his fellows realize and appreciate
what he had been doing,” says an
adage. It is when the work remains undone that it becomes glaringly clear that
someone had been doing it all the while. The
story highlights the importance of collaboration for the common good. Every job
in the society is important. When we do
our work, we make life liveable for all. Like the parts of the body, all the
members of a family or the society at large are but complementary parts of one whole.
They work in synergy. Mutual services sustain the ecosystems. Networking is
based on the realization that no one is an island and no person can survive
alone on earth. “Ahara otu
onye ụwa, chi ya egbuo ya
- Leave the world to one person, and his fate will waste him,”
says an Igbo adage.
There is no
self-made man. “No matter how brilliant, how talented, how mentally tough, a
person can hardly be self-made. Any noteworthy individual has been nourished by
the teaching, guidance, correction, and encouragement of others. Cooperation is
the mother of commitment.”[iv]
There is division of labour in the society and everybody’s bit is very much
needed. For instance, if farmers back out everyone will starve to death. If
refuse collectors should refuse to dispose of garbage, there will be epidemic.
If medical practitioners opt not to care, there will be serious health problems
in the society. If leaders refuse to rule, there will be chaos in the society.
If male and female fail to co-operate and procreate, species will go extinct,
etc. So nature is such that creatures complement each other in mutual services
and the quality of their collaborative efforts supersedes the efforts of
individual collaborators. This is the essence of the proverbs “Agbakọọ agbakọọ nyụọ mamịrị, ya
agbaa ụfụfụ - Team
urination makes urine to foam.” “Otu mkpụrụ aka anaghị atụta igwu - One finger cannot not pick louse.” “Aka
nri kwụọ aka ịka, aka ịka akwụọ aka nri - The right hand washes the left hand
and the left washes the right.”
These are the principles of synergy and the common good.
It is in
serving others that we are served and in pardoning others that peaceful
co-existence is sustained and fostered. It is remarkable that the stomach had
fellow-feeling and also readily forgave his offenders. This made life to
continue when all of them were on the verge of perishing. Definitely, if the
Stomach had failed to forgive the other parts of the body, the whole would have
perished including the stomach itself. Did our people not say “O ji mmadụ n’ala, O jikwe onwe ya -
He who is
holding someone on the ground is equally holding himself?
“Nga mmiri n’ama ohu, k’ọna ama onye kpọ ya - As the rain drenches the slave so it does to the slave driver.”
Irving DeBlanc advises that we learn to forgive for that is a
greater quality than right. Mistakes may be a ladder, not a grave.[v]
It follows that the human society needs for its corporate survival not only
team work and group spirit but also forgiving spirit. In view of the mayhem
witnessed in Nigeria in recent times, the parable of the stomach needs to be
told and retold because of the lessons to be drawn from it.
As seen in
the parable, leadership is a thankless task. The most endangered species is
dedicated leaders, says DeBlanc. Even though the Stomach was a servant-king, he
suffered calumny and desertion. “It is easier to transport an anthill than to
exercise authority in the village,” says a proverb. Leadership is very
demanding and it often generates unnecessary jealousies and rancour. Our elders
identified this phenomenon and articulated it in the maxim: “Nze adị ibe mma - A person’s Nze status does not
please his fellows.” Some people name their children Nzeadi for that purpose. As this started
from time immemorial, selfless leaders should not take it personal when their
subordinates persecute them and refuse to co-operate with them. It is a human
problem, which is not to be taken too much to heart if a leader is to make any
headway. A sensible working policy then is to expect envy and stiff opposition
whenever one is making notable progress. Tedious work seems very easy when an
adept does it with dexterity, for a blunt knife always appear sharp in the
hands of an expert. “Edozie
ọnụ edozie juọ ọkpụrụka, ya adịka ajụga ọsụkwụ
- When one
eats with relish nutty palm fruits it appears as though the one is eating the
soft fleshy juicy type.”
However, it
has to be noted that not everyone is anti-leadership. Some people appreciate
and encourage their leaders as articulated in the traditional epic song:
(N.N.) ịdị anyị mma Ngwongwo! (2ce)
Onye chi nyere eze,
mmadụ apụghị ịna ya Ngwongwo! (2ce)
(N.N. - depending on the name of the leader), you are good enough
for us! Ngwongwo! (2ce)
No human being can ever take away leadership from the person on
whom God has conferred it! Ngwongwo!” (2ce).
Thus even though
the Igbo are very difficult to govern as depicted in the Igbo enwe eze concept, they believe that leadership
is divinely bestowed and nobody can snatch away this bestowal. However this
phenomenon is not peculiar to the Igbo
alone. Hence Tokunbo Adelekan writes: “The reward of leadership can be likened
unto the dessert that comes after the meal, not the hard work required to
purchase groceries, prepare the meal, and set the table.”[vi]
The
societal values to be learnt from the parable of the Stomach are conviviality,
love, acceptance and generosity, tolerance, forgiveness, fellow-feeling,
collaboration, mutual services, and servant-leadership, etc. These are values
that are perennially needed. Even so, today the realities in vogue are synergy,
networking, interconnectivity, collaborative ministry, interface, interaction,
team spirit, group dynamics, solidarity, etc. When as pupils this story was
dramatized on the Feast day of St. Teresa, the Patron Saint of our primary school,
the import of the story never struck me as forcefully as it does now that I
tease it out. Thus the wisdom hidden in fables is not meant for kids alone.
[i] P. O. Iroegbu,
Kpim of Predicaments: Cause of Evil and Suffering: God, Demon, or Man? Hope
Publications, Ibadan, 2004, p.76.
[ii] John Cook, The Book of Positive
Quotations, Gramercy Books, New York, 1999, p. 529.
[v] Irving A.
DeBlanc, Thoughts that change the World, Lake Charles, USA, P. 7
[vi]Tokunbo Adelekan,
Op. cit., p. 50.
See Eboh Marie Pauline, Fables, Proverbs & Critical Thinking, Pearl Publishers International Ltd, Port Harcourt, 2015, pp.1-12.
See Eboh Marie Pauline, Fables, Proverbs & Critical Thinking, Pearl Publishers International Ltd, Port Harcourt, 2015, pp.1-12.
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