Uriladọmbụ

By

Obododimma Oha

My paternal grandmother, whom I wasn't lucky enough to be born when she was alive, was named "Uriladọmbụ" by her parents in Ndiumereaku, Ụmụọma Uri. The name was a warning: that people of our town were inviting a big scandal. Her parents were not the first or only ones to warn about this scandal. Many did and openly too. They also used various media to issue this warning. However, the traditional ruler of our town later felt it was an insult and sought to change it to "Urilasọmbụ" (Uri detests scandal). The warning and the assertion seek to bring something good to Uri. But it is not good to deceive oneself, to say that all are well when nothing is well. If Uri detests scandal, which it truly does, then it should not be inviting or rnurturing it in any way. In "Uriladọmbụ," Uri people are cautioned to stop looking for trouble  but in "Urilasọmbu," a dislike is merely being expressed. If one dislikes something about it still waits. 

I have serious respect for the serious-minded traditional ruler, having lived with him as a child. But he had no right to rename my grandmother. Only my grandmother's parents can name her and they properly consulted the spirits before doing so. So, we should avoid scandal and condemn it. Our traditional ruler wanted greater pride for the town, but that would not be accomplished through pretence and lying. My grannies warned about such.

The change of names that is even more disturbing has to do with colonization. Europeans gave converted Africans the impression that their African names were a spiritual burden that needed to be put down or that these names led to hellfire. Thus many Africans took European names at baptism. Catholics would argue that these new names were " saint names" and so the bearers became clean by association. But the saints bore those names as non-saints and faced no damnation. 

Is it not when one buys a pet one labels it,  the new owner calls it something else for recognition? So, new African converts as newly purchased pets can be labeled other things as the new owner wants. Maybe along this line, our zealous traditional ruler would have in proxy labeled grandmother " Josephine" or "Jennifer"! 

 European names are seen as more progressive and fashionable, while African names are backward. Imagine an applicant telling you the interviewer in three-piece suit that her name is "Mgbọkwọ Okeke." What is your impression? What is your attitude as an interviewer with a colonial mentality? 

Even places have had to be re-named, sometimes the younger generation not knowing the original thing and the history behind it. A town known as" Uri" may be renamed in a city dịalect as "Uli." The Uri dịalect, if it still exists, is considered just too backward. Why not a dịalect made in the city where there is life? 

Sometimes, one finds a place re-named in the dịalect of another place considered more trendy! That mentality of being named and cleaned up by the other is still there. 

Today, one hears similar whitewash slogans such as, "Uri Ome ọgọ." Was that the original thing? If we wish to cover up what appears offensive, are we to change history? It reminds one about Plato the social philosopher saying we should not tell children that gods and goddesses fall in love with humans and make babies or wage wars so as not to damage their young minds. But the deities were doing what was alleged and more. Which is now a greater lie: telling children that what was so was not so or protecting the interests of these deities in these narratives? 

For me, Uriladọmbụ is  beginning to clear the air a bit. If Uri loses identity in this struggle, it is a big scandal. It has a name and it has a dịalect.  No overzealousness can alter these facts. 

This Uriladọmbụ issue set me thinking seriously. The attitude to history in Nigeria is still very bad. It's not only that some facts are avoided or distorted, hardly do parents teach their children their origin. Do parents even know? Do we still communicate that essential part of history of family origin called " Ntaala" in Igbo? Can one narrate one's genealogy up to the seventh generation? No. No more Ntaala. We are here to forget and to forget ourselves, better. 

Better if we have no history or have none to narrate. 

Uriladọmbụ if the new life is that we have no history. 

Uriladọmbụ if the town has no cultural identity. 

Uriladọmbụ if many now think the town has no dialect, even if all have to welcome the idea of standard Igbo. 

Uriladọmbụ if the town is now neither a bird of the air nor animal of the ground. 

Indeed, Uriladọmbụ if it is carried away by Oyibo shine and fails to look at life critically and from the inside. 

 

Uriladọmbụ if wealth becomes the way, the truth, and the life. 

Perhaps, it is not only Uri that is now inviting scandal and not bothered about how wealth is achieved. Indeed, the whole of Alaigbo, the whole of Nigeria, the whole damn world, is asking for scandal and is not bothered. Ụwaladọmbụ! This world is moving towards scandal. Nobody needs to be renamed to save face. The world is already standing upside-down.