By
Obododimma Oha
"Onyenaadụm," a lovely Igbo name which means "who counsels me?" is a great question we all need to answer. Who counsels me? Is my counsel only for other people all the time? Do I also counsel myself? Do I listen to myself? Do I respect myself? Onyenaadụm? Do I claim right and try to win in that and this debate on social media and elsewhere ?
This name which is a question is very relevant nowadays when everyone seems to be carried away by their personal opinions about things in the world. Regimes, too, behave as if they are always right. Everybody is right and cannot make mistakes. Don't we have the social media in which we are seasoned lawyers and hoary-haired judges who would pass judgment? Don't regimes have newspapers and television houses that they can control? Onyenaadụm.
But we should watch it. Some who sing our praises and pretend to mean well in counseling us actually want to see our doom. Igbo people call them "Ndị ọsọ chi egbu" (Destiny actualizers or literally, those who assist one's personal god in seeing that one is ruined)! So, when we choose advisers, we should be very careful. We are choosing life or death implicitly.
But even if one has been given a misleading piece of counsel, one is still to be held responsible for taking action along the line of that counsel. We do not know or hold the counselor accountable. The person who acts is the person we know. So, the choice and the chooser.
That name, "Onyenaadụm," invites us to self-examine and self-interrogate. We all need counsel. And that counsel that one gives oneself is the best and the most important.
"Onyenaadụm" is about the self. How does one handle self-management? How does one manage the self? The self, in many cases, is right as said earlier. The self is justified, exonerated, above reproach. The self is most a small god.
That only means that one should watch it and find the time to do self-examination and contrition. Do I need to have my head examined? What kind of help do I need from others? What is the purpose of creating others and putting them near me? Is it for me to have ready meat or advice, generally support from others? Is the self sufficient?
Onyenaadụm when I am in charge? Am I not the president or governor making decisions? Onyenaadụm in respect of taking that loan or quelling that protest or handling terrorism? Am I not the one in charge and have to show it? Has the state ceased to be me, yesterday and today, always? Is security not about me, in fact, me? Is it not better to show these many voices, high and low, that I am in charge?
Onyenaadụm when I do not listen to advice, when I behave as if I know and can do everything? Onyenaadụm when I talk to God but do not listen to what He says in reply?
That loud music you are playing, is it for your ears or for the ears of another person?
Yes, Onyenaadụm is a name-question for everyone. It is a name we all need to bear unofficially. Onyenaadụm and Onyenaadụgị (Who counsels you?)
There was this story about a king who bore the name "Onyeagwanam" (Let nobody tell me). In other words, he was beyond counseling. One day, he entered the heart of a market with smelly excrement on his royal vestments. Nobody warned him in time because he was beyond counseling.
Eze Onyeagwanam is the opposite of Onyenaadụm in a way, for the last is seeking your counsel but the first does not want it.
Look for counsel while it still hovers around. Nobody knows it all. Remember : "Amazuiheọnụ" (No one knows all). See https://obododimma-oha.blogspot.com/2019/01/amazuiheonu.html
If names could be seen as philosophies, not just labels, as many thinkers have suggested, then Onyenaadụm is a philosophy of the utterer and not only the giver of the name. It is a philosophy on the lips of all people in the community where it is used. Changing such a name to something like "Darlington" discontinues the propagation of the philosophy and establishes a replacement with fancy.
Comments