By
Obododimma Oha
Igbo traditional philosophies of work greatly encouraged personal commitment and self-reliance. These days, when people in government employment, people who are paid monthly for their efforts, perform their various tasks half-heartedly (or as is explained in an Igbo proverb, dibia kpara aku ma mmadu nwua (The physician collecting his or her fees, allowing the patient to die or live!), I marvel greatly at that nonchalance. I know that it is criminal to owe for the worker for previous work done and to expect the worker to continue going to work. If we say such a system is oppressive, it is a euphemism! The commitment one brings to the work – whether it is immediately for the benefit of self or not comes through personal training. It is part of the upbringing in a culture, part of the education. It is not merely created through sermonizing on the theories of productive workwork -- is very essential. A person who has grown to think that personal gain or reward is the primary pursuit can only be thinking of it and not the work accomplished first, not the pleasure of satisfactory work.
My growing up in a rural Igbo culture where one was taught to like one’s work, whether the reward comes immediately or not (but it would surely come) has been something I often remember with gratitude to my parents, my primary trainers on the pleasures of meaningful work. Perhaps I could have acquired that elsewhere, but the one I know is what I can talk about. This culture has theories of work that could compete favourably with Western theories of work or serve as a great complement to Western theories of work, for those of us studying work of various kinds in the so-called postcolony. The insights gained in this University of Human Behaviour run by one’s parents are simply unavoidable in the use of knowledge in the postcolonial setting!
Does the word “ambush” in the title not make you raise eyebrows? It is a humorous, literal translation. Literal translations could make you smile or laugh, you know. The Igbo strategy of manual labour so transliterated is called “ima ubi oru.” It simply involves changing a direction (returning from a desirable point, instead of the point from which one was initially approaching the work). That is, a dialectical reversal of attack front! That technique, you know, could be applied in warfare or business. It actually accomplishes several things, namely:
(1) It makes the approach unpredictable, unstable;
(2) It places an obligation on the worker who must finish the task started; and
(3) For those interested in game (“bushmeat” in Nigerian parlance), wild animals homesteading in the zone get confused and could fall to the worker’s cutlass, as a reward.
Ima ubi oru is actually an attempt at literally ambushing the remaining work to be done. Imagine the lovely euphemistic personification! It is as if the task is a living thing one is pursuing and targeting! One must not let it escape! One must catch and deal with it!
It is a lovely way of one placing an obligation on oneself to complete the task by all means. If one leaves the portion uncompleted, it would be to one’s shame. It may become the gossip of wagging tongues in town. Somebody could pass the site of work and say: “Who is this lazy fellow who has not completed the job started? The person must be damn lazy and stupid!” Who would like the comment? It does not have to be made on Facebook (on one’s wall!) before one gets shocked and embarrassed. Members of the village know the owner of the plot of land. Even if they do not mention names in their comments, one can count one’s teeth with one’s tongue and know how many they are! Your plot of land is your Facebook wall and you should expect reptiles and spiders to visit it. You invited them.
Onye na-afu opi na-eficha imi (A person who plays the flute pauses to wipe the nostrils). No bi so? And so, in the context of one’s work, one can get immediate reward through getting snails (for snail-eating cultures), pick mushrooms growing wild, kill frightened wild animals, etc. There is always the great fun in eating these things brought back from the farm.
Apart from those rewards, there is the therapeutic reward (which my mother always emphasized!) --- Onye rujuru oru afo, nri na-ato n’uto n’onu (Anyone who works to his or her satisfaction gets a sharp appetite). That is tested truth! The manual work becomes a physical exercise and the veins or arteries are awake and embarking on their transportation business effectively! Mother must have been a good fitness expert and psychiatrist in the home!
Further, when the approach to work is unpredictable, unstable, you can be sure of surprise in the results, one of which is a possible completion of the task when it is least expected! That, too, could be a surprise, both to the worker and observers. There is nothing surprising like a surprise. Even in one’s approach to issues, if one can be predicted, one can be check-mated. An unpredictable move is always the best in anything.
Finally, one would want to apply one’s cane at this point in handling those who think that, because they have gone to school and have got certificates, they can’t touch the soil. Nonsense! School is meaningless if it does not help us to discover the secrets of effective living, and to harness the insights developed in the lives of our forebears in our context. The kind of schooling limited to queuing up behind Western theorists (like queuing up as supporters’ clubs of European league clubs, supporter of Manchester United, Chelsea, etc) is “follow-follow" schooling. It is senseless. Those theories developed in the West are good, but they have emerged from specific experiences. Why not fully understand them first, and look at your different context to see if such a context makes a difference, which it often does!
Ambushing the work or ima ubi oru, was conceived as an effective, self-motivating way of executing work. You put yourself at the centre of the task and ambush it, to your glory. Don’t let the task escape!
Obododimma Oha
Igbo traditional philosophies of work greatly encouraged personal commitment and self-reliance. These days, when people in government employment, people who are paid monthly for their efforts, perform their various tasks half-heartedly (or as is explained in an Igbo proverb, dibia kpara aku ma mmadu nwua (The physician collecting his or her fees, allowing the patient to die or live!), I marvel greatly at that nonchalance. I know that it is criminal to owe for the worker for previous work done and to expect the worker to continue going to work. If we say such a system is oppressive, it is a euphemism! The commitment one brings to the work – whether it is immediately for the benefit of self or not comes through personal training. It is part of the upbringing in a culture, part of the education. It is not merely created through sermonizing on the theories of productive workwork -- is very essential. A person who has grown to think that personal gain or reward is the primary pursuit can only be thinking of it and not the work accomplished first, not the pleasure of satisfactory work.
My growing up in a rural Igbo culture where one was taught to like one’s work, whether the reward comes immediately or not (but it would surely come) has been something I often remember with gratitude to my parents, my primary trainers on the pleasures of meaningful work. Perhaps I could have acquired that elsewhere, but the one I know is what I can talk about. This culture has theories of work that could compete favourably with Western theories of work or serve as a great complement to Western theories of work, for those of us studying work of various kinds in the so-called postcolony. The insights gained in this University of Human Behaviour run by one’s parents are simply unavoidable in the use of knowledge in the postcolonial setting!
Does the word “ambush” in the title not make you raise eyebrows? It is a humorous, literal translation. Literal translations could make you smile or laugh, you know. The Igbo strategy of manual labour so transliterated is called “ima ubi oru.” It simply involves changing a direction (returning from a desirable point, instead of the point from which one was initially approaching the work). That is, a dialectical reversal of attack front! That technique, you know, could be applied in warfare or business. It actually accomplishes several things, namely:
(1) It makes the approach unpredictable, unstable;
(2) It places an obligation on the worker who must finish the task started; and
(3) For those interested in game (“bushmeat” in Nigerian parlance), wild animals homesteading in the zone get confused and could fall to the worker’s cutlass, as a reward.
Ima ubi oru is actually an attempt at literally ambushing the remaining work to be done. Imagine the lovely euphemistic personification! It is as if the task is a living thing one is pursuing and targeting! One must not let it escape! One must catch and deal with it!
It is a lovely way of one placing an obligation on oneself to complete the task by all means. If one leaves the portion uncompleted, it would be to one’s shame. It may become the gossip of wagging tongues in town. Somebody could pass the site of work and say: “Who is this lazy fellow who has not completed the job started? The person must be damn lazy and stupid!” Who would like the comment? It does not have to be made on Facebook (on one’s wall!) before one gets shocked and embarrassed. Members of the village know the owner of the plot of land. Even if they do not mention names in their comments, one can count one’s teeth with one’s tongue and know how many they are! Your plot of land is your Facebook wall and you should expect reptiles and spiders to visit it. You invited them.
Onye na-afu opi na-eficha imi (A person who plays the flute pauses to wipe the nostrils). No bi so? And so, in the context of one’s work, one can get immediate reward through getting snails (for snail-eating cultures), pick mushrooms growing wild, kill frightened wild animals, etc. There is always the great fun in eating these things brought back from the farm.
Apart from those rewards, there is the therapeutic reward (which my mother always emphasized!) --- Onye rujuru oru afo, nri na-ato n’uto n’onu (Anyone who works to his or her satisfaction gets a sharp appetite). That is tested truth! The manual work becomes a physical exercise and the veins or arteries are awake and embarking on their transportation business effectively! Mother must have been a good fitness expert and psychiatrist in the home!
Further, when the approach to work is unpredictable, unstable, you can be sure of surprise in the results, one of which is a possible completion of the task when it is least expected! That, too, could be a surprise, both to the worker and observers. There is nothing surprising like a surprise. Even in one’s approach to issues, if one can be predicted, one can be check-mated. An unpredictable move is always the best in anything.
Finally, one would want to apply one’s cane at this point in handling those who think that, because they have gone to school and have got certificates, they can’t touch the soil. Nonsense! School is meaningless if it does not help us to discover the secrets of effective living, and to harness the insights developed in the lives of our forebears in our context. The kind of schooling limited to queuing up behind Western theorists (like queuing up as supporters’ clubs of European league clubs, supporter of Manchester United, Chelsea, etc) is “follow-follow" schooling. It is senseless. Those theories developed in the West are good, but they have emerged from specific experiences. Why not fully understand them first, and look at your different context to see if such a context makes a difference, which it often does!
Ambushing the work or ima ubi oru, was conceived as an effective, self-motivating way of executing work. You put yourself at the centre of the task and ambush it, to your glory. Don’t let the task escape!
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