The Impact of the Alienated Colonial 7 Days of the Week replacing the Igbo 4 Market Days.

The fabric of Igbo world before the coming of the colonisers was structured around Four days a week, Eke, Orie, Afo, Nkwo. This is what we call Afia na ano, ubosi na ano.

In Nnewi and many other Igbo communities, these four days are grouped into four holy days(Okwu) and four ordinary days (Ukpolo). Sacred activities are mainly done on holy week while ordinary business activities are chiefly carried out on ordinary days.

This is the world our ancestors lived in till seven days a week calendar with Sunday, Friday or Saturday as holy days were introduced to them.

Today, practically, Sunday is the official holy day. On Sunday all markets are closed in the whole of Ala Igbo. Every Sunday, we shut our shops, markets, to worship the God of our colonisers.

You may not understand fully, the impact of colonialism till you appreciate the fact, this was not so before the fortune hunters came. We have our own sacred days for the indigenous Gods of the land who are the owners of this territory. We understood our own sacred days and ordinary days. It helped to maintain law and order in great measure.

A culture, people, building or organisation is nothing without structure. Once you destroy the structure that holds the administrative system of a people and successfully supplant it with something alien, you have colonised and created a new “controlled” reality for the colonised.

Chinua Achebe in his last work, There Was a Country, stated “African post-colonial disposition is as a result of a people who have lost the habit of ruling themselves”.

Our ancestors ruled and ordered themselves on the structure of four days a week. They created an organised society around this structure. When this structure was supplanted with seven days a week, they buried our ability to control ourselves. They took away our abilities to maintain law and order.

One may ask how? To destroy the old, you must create a new order. The managers brought in to ensure the destruction of the old and building of the new were the very worst of our kind. The colonisers sowed the seed of corruption and greed among the managers of the new. They made this corrupt elements the star boys. This is how the systemic corruption was created in our society.

As far as this new alien system exists, corruption and corrupt leaders will continue to be the order of the day. It was built on corruption, and must be maintained through corruption.

To get back to where the rain started to beat us as a people, we may have to get back to our very own structure which was devoid of corruption to find inspiration. Our very own sacred and ordinary days. Afia na ano, ubosi na ano!

Ala Igbo being so quiet on Sundays is a testament we are still under colonisation. Never forget this fact! Nku di na mba na eghelu mba nri!

Written by Nze Tobe Osigwe (Ezeikolomuo).