Weakening Extended Family Ties in Igboland

While economic and political issues take centre stage in discourses, social and cultural dimensions are not always given crowded attention. Nevertheless we are social in everything. The Christmas holiday opens another seasonal mass cities abandonment or rather short-term movement from the cities within and beyond Igboland to extra-urban locations in Igboland. This act by many can be summaries as family visits or revisitations to ancestral lands by individuals and members of extended families. The destination is held by extended families.

The focus of this paper is to draw out emerging pattern of weakening extended family ties, the context and timing of the emergence, potential contributors to the emergence and implications.

I have observed a gradual shift in the weight and expression of extended families in various parts of Igboland in the last 2 decades. While the bulk of the instituition remains in various forms there are new intrusions into its fabric with challenging niches. In addition it must be acknowledged that the concept of extended family is an old institution akin to Igboness. This is expressed primarily in the word, Nwanne/Nwanna. It is a unisex pronoun denoting brother or sister in a nuclear and or extended family. A qualifying adjective indicating possession or even gender doesn’t always clarify the geography as suggested in Nwanne m/Nwanna m, Nwanne m nwoke (male)/Nwanne m nwanyi (female). 

Gender qualification is unnecessary with Nwanna. This doesn’t in any way suggest diminished nuclear relationship against extended family relations. Everyone is entitled to knowing their origin however the sentiment for an experience greater than nuclear family is always overhanging. Anyway nuclear family is limited.

This currency of Nwanne/Nwanna relationship is always strong in perception and application until recently in Igboland and in the diaspora. Its application is stronger in the diaspora even though successful or mutually beneficial outcomes vary over time and space.

For various reasons the tenacity of extended families is on a gradual decline which has accelerated in the last 3 decades. There are increasing examples of extended families where communication gap within and between generations is as wide as Atlantic Ocean even in the age of information and communication technologies. The generations that seem to be less keen in maintaining extended family relationships are not isolated and premeditated but are schooled in the art by the preceding generation. In any case one can surmised that the generations that received the best from the ancients have unashamedly stabbed the body of value that made them. They are protagonists of intensive nuclearisation of family ties.

Reasons

Reasons abound for this gradual transformation. Economy cannot be dismissed. First of all the transformation of economy from agricultural to industrial and services mostly located in the few urban centre meant that young men and women travelled far from home to earn a living. In the process new relationships are formed (including with those of other ethnicity), new urban values are picked up, ancestral homes become point of seasonal visitation and even for children socialisation is mostly urban. In the days of limited communication technology, seasonal physical presence sufficed still at great cost for large families.

The second reason is lack of education. This has nothing to do with formal or academic learning. The evolution of economic structures and increased movement across distances was received as the new norm without constructed process focused on collective discussion of benefits and implications. A reactive disposition where actors are rather observers of their acts seem to be welcomed without hesitation. Of course in the case of ‘economy stupid’ he/she who pays the piper dictates the tune as attention is focused on him/her without dissent or intervention.

An important aspect to this development is bound to history. Violent penetration of Igbo heartland by Nigeria-Biafra War was not just a cathartic experience but an inter-generational pain wound up unceremoniously. Arid victory of the victor! It was brutal conclusion with pregnant consequences on the social, cultural and spiritual dimensions of Igboland. While no-victor no vanquished rang the air, dispossessed individuals and families sought survival and stability of one and all in a new economy. Though young and strong, most lacked basic skills required in the workplace so did the best in the ‘republic of hard labour’.

As hard labour economy grew and fell the ‘weak’ had little option but to return to the one place his/her rights are secure and indisputable. By 1982 Shagari administration introduced austerity measures, everything came back full circle. The finite communal and extended families land parcels in Igboland which were previously left to ‘others’ became focus of wider attention. Inter-generational and intra-generational clashes exploded across the land. Land disputes became headline news with unique circus of events which to all intents and purposes turned into a security issue with parties seeking protection, justice and revenge respectively ‘by any means necessary’.

As a result many extended families ended up in many courts of law wasting huge scarce resources as the local family courts buckled under pressure of compromise and or lost credibility. Irrespective of court verdicts, contaminated extended family relationships went downhill. Outcomes include increased isolation of nuclear families through limited interaction or what I refer to as factional interaction, terrorisation of private space i.e. high fencing, celebration of fear and reconfiguration of nuclear family modus operandi in the community. In the bid to ‘protect’ the family, the next generation were inadvertently schooled into ‘isolation’ tactics. Such schooling and behaviour emanating from it can be seen as continuation of conflict by other means.

The curious picture of this sad development which is very young is the fact that the previous generation and the ancients had peculiar structures for conflict resolution in the laws and constitutions. However it must be acknowledged that in the zeal to give opposing member of the extended family ‘technical knockout’, local and ancient structures were defiled, abused in rejection and relegated for the new valued legal structures in the proud bid to obtain justice with residual projection of power.

Implications

Weakening pattern is mostly denoted in those born post Nigeria-Biafra War and concentrated on those born a decade later. Like all new trends it is struggling to make impact at this stage and its future trajectory is uncertain however one thing is clear. The currency of weak extended family is sustained by maintaining urban residence, limitation of communication with umunnadi (kinsfolk) and limitation of physical presence in ancestral homes.  Nevertheless this success is one sided and complex because while ‘students’ of new isolation cannot be strictly censured, their isolation is always punctured when the need for extended family windfall is inevitable like marriage arrangements.

Isolation is an aberration. Fragmentation of extended families is a fatal consequence. The first impact is gradual loss of identity for ‘students’ firsts and then their children i.e. the 2^nd generation. The self-belief that achievement is sustained by isolation is delusional because core determinant of effort is underpinned by social capital in various relationships. While it is crucial to understand origin, it is dangerous to avoid other branches of a genealogy even in one’s age group. Such danger manifests in cases of emergency where dependable members of isolated nuclear families are absent to act with purpose when required.

Secondly the collective development of peoples including and not limited to extended families suffers from lack of input, resources and process. The hallmark of advanced and advancing communities is solidarity and dense social capital. It doesn’t only happen in China, Turkey, Brazil and United States.

Thirdly there is a confusion of this development with trend along western lines. This is another delusion. For countries of Western Europe where currently family, nuclear and extended are no longer priority; the transformation reconfigured family into a large concentration of networked relationship called state. In the state every individual or citizen is recognised, recorded (from conception to death) and has a place. This is the basis of Mussolini’s definition of state; everything in it, nothing against it and nothing outside of it. Of course this view has been muddle with violence and repression but bear in mind that no state tolerates dissent even the Vatican, hence every state is totalitarian.

In a political geography devoid of active state in the real sense, the highest collective expression of close relationship is the extended family. Even if the state becomes viable later, extended family provides another layer of richness for success of one and all. One can surmise that those caught in the ‘labyrinth’ between weak state and weak extended families have 2 options. Increase participation in extended family or hybridise into new network that cannot fulfil irreplaceable extended family functions.

A grave outcome is the emergence of absentee first sons or Opara gba aka ofo. This is a serious outcome in many nuclear and extended families where shoulders of responsibility have repudiate their erstwhile duties. Ofo knows who holds it and whoever holds it must deliver. Of course there are first sons who are present and inactive nevertheless this doesn’t diminish the scope, function and expectation on the office of Nwaopara/Okpara (first son).  Family name and honour is at stake in such circumstances within and beyond the community. Examples are many where extended families and communities have lost heavily as a result having an ‘isolate’ member in position of influence who buffers his/her community against progressive potential/outcomes of his/her position.

Lastly there is incentive that weakening of extended family ties will intensify not only for reasons of its inception but for the increasing gap between urban and extra-urban areas in term of economy, quality of life and fulfilment of aspirations. The expectation that technologies will accelerate increased interaction confuses the fact the technologies are not agencies rather depends on (human) agency to fulfil its functions. It is down to isolates to reactivate their agencies in rich networks of dense and reliable social capital of ageless distinction like extended families. This is an institution that has stood the test of time nourishing generations. It will be sad for it to be dismantled in one crazy generation.