Igbo Enwegh Eze: From an Antinomy to the Deutro Nomos – A Critique of the Second Wave of Pseudo-Monarchism in the Evolution of Igbo Political Systems

Abstract

Since the Igbo people of Southern Nigeria have experienced, and have indeed suffered, a profound crisis of identity, which has ultimately created gaps in group psychology and group coherence, and possibly reduced the capacity for group organization among the Igbo. Identity crisis can often manifest in a loss of will, in the radical constriction of social space, and in the loss of even the capacity to establish and consolidate values that often mark, differentiate, and preserve nations. Nothing signals, in my estimation at the very least, this crisis of identity more resolutely than the rise of the pseudo-monarchy in Igbo land. As an institution, the “Ezes” and the “Igwes” couched today as Igbo traditional rulers are creating a new order of reality. This paper traces the origin, manifestation and impact of this change on the Igbo.