By joshua 
IGALA: A KINGDOM ONCE KNOWN FOR BRAVERY, NOW ON ITS KNEES FOR POLITICAL VALIDATION
By Christopher Sunday
This article is not a generalization against the Igala Kingdom or her people. Rather, it is an inference drawn from a few awkward political events that have continued to provoke deep concern about the direction of our collective political consciousness and identity.
History is cruel to people who forget their own worth. The tragedy confronting the Igala Kingdom today is not necessarily political defeat, but the gradual erosion of political dignity and collective confidence. A people once admired for courage, pride, resistance, and leadership now appear increasingly trapped in a culture of political submission disguised as strategy and survival.
This crisis is deeper than politics. It is a crisis of identity.
There was a time when the Igala man stood firmly on conviction, defended his territory with pride, and negotiated power from a position of strength. Today, however, we increasingly witness political actors measuring survival not by the protection of the Kingdom’s dignity, but by proximity to power, even when that proximity comes at the expense of collective pride.
Echocho went on his knees before Bello, an Ebira political leader, in search of acceptance within a structure many now believe psychologically conquered the minds of our political elite. Erico equally bowed before the Accountant General of Kogi State, an Ebira woman, in what many interpreted not merely as courtesy, but as another symbolic representation of a dangerous political culture that now rewards submission more than self worth.
Then came perhaps the most symbolic moment of all: Muri apologizing to Yahaya Bello for leading the Igala people into a constitutional and legitimate political contest in 2023. That moment carried profound philosophical implications. A people exercised their democratic rights, rallied around a political aspiration, endured intimidation, emotional trauma, division, and violence, only for the struggle itself to later appear treated as an offense requiring repentance.
Such moments send dangerous signals to the younger generation. They subtly communicate that resistance against established political dominance is unacceptable unless approved by those already controlling power. In that process, courage becomes rebellion, resistance becomes guilt, and political awakening becomes something to apologize for.
Even more painful is the intellectual defense that often accompanies these realities. Every era of decline produces voices that normalize surrender and rationalize dependency. Edward Onoja became one of the visible symbols of that ideological shift through the propagation of the “Eneomuneme” philosophy — the troubling notion that an outsider is better than one’s own brother. Beyond politics, that philosophy represented psychological warfare against the unity, confidence, and self belief of the Igala Kingdom itself.
Civilizations do not decline first because outsiders conquer them. They decline when their own people begin to internalize inferiority and normalize dependence.
The revolutionary philosopher Frantz Fanon once warned that oppressed people can become so mentally defeated that they eventually admire and defend the structures suppressing them. Sadly, many of the political events unfolding around the Igala Kingdom today resemble that very tragedy. Political access now appears to matter more than political dignity. Personal survival has overtaken collective identity. Convenience has replaced courage.
Yet history also teaches another lesson: no people remain permanently on their knees unless they choose to stay there.
The future of the Igala Kingdom will not be shaped by those constantly seeking validation from external political emperors. It will be shaped by a new generation willing to rediscover the values of dignity, solidarity, courage, political memory, and self respect. A people who forget their history become tools in the hands of others, but a people who remember who they are can rise again, even after seasons of humiliation.
And so the question before the Igala Kingdom today remains simple but profound:
Are we still defending our destiny as a people, or have we gradually become spectators begging others to define it for us?