Two weeks ago, I accompanied my boss to the traditional marriage of the daughter of Nnewi-born industrialist, Dr Chika Okafor, known as Chicason.
When my boss told me about the traditional marriage, I thought he was referring to the white wedding and not the proper traditional marriage that I knew of till we got to the venue of the occasion at Ikoyi.
Alas! It dawned on me that we came for the igbankwu ceremony (traditional marriage) that I have always known, and which I know all my life takes place in the ancestral land of the bride and not in a foreign land.
It was strange to see the lovely, gorgeous bride carrying the cup of palm wine and looking for her husband, as was customary in a foreign land.
I shook my head in disbelief at what has become of our land, the once peaceful Igbo land that was so sweet to travel to in the past.
My mind went to the cost of organizing this colorful igba nkwu (traditional marriage) ceremony in Lagos and the loss to the local economy in Nnewi.
If this Igbankwu (traditional marriage) were to be held in Nnewi, the interior designer who designed the hall would have been paid for her services.
Also present were beverage and food vendors.
Then the make-up artist, the DJ artist, and the hotels around Nnewi, where the invited guests would have stayed for 2 days, would have all benefited from the value chain of the Igbankwu ceremony.
In fact, the value chain and businesses that benefit from weddings and igbankwu in Igbo land lost all that to the local economy in Ikoyi because of insecurity in our land.
This Chicason’s Traditional marriage had now come to be the poster boy of the fate of our people living in the east because of insecurity.
The cost of insecurity, which was self-inflicted by us, is enormous and has killed our local economy in the east , which in turn has made our people living in the east poorer, but I’m not sure we are discussing this well enough.
It is a pity!
