Photo: His Majesty, Nnaemeka Alfred Achebe, CFR, mni, Obi of Onitsha

It's pathetic that only Igbo people in diaspora are the ones who abuse the Igbo traditional institution. No other African ethnic group bastardizes its traditional institution as some elements of Igbo people abroad do. You cannot see any Yoruba person who claims to be Oba or Oni outside of Yorubaland. No Hausa person can arrogate the Emir title to himself outside of Hausaland. No Bini person would dare desecrate the Oba title abroad. Ghanaians are numerous abroad, but no Ashantiman would bring their royalty to disrepute by claiming to be an Ashanti King in Germany, Ireland or Britain. Shamefully, Igbo people want to be known by all the wrong reasons. For those of you who do not know, you cannot set up a kingdom in another kingdom. It's ignorant trying to submerge the Igbo Kingdom in another sphere of authority. When the English invaded Scotland, they deposed the Scottish royalty, and made Scotland a part of the English monarchy, hence you hear about the Duke of Edinburgh today (who is a member of the English royal family). One of the reasons that led to the secession of Belgium from Holland was the fact that there existed two Kingdoms in Holland...the one in The Hague, and the one in Brussels. Two captains do not exist in a boat. Denmark was originally made up of Denmark, Sweden and Norway. Each of them is today a separate country with their separate houses of royalty. When someone claims to be an Eze, and he gets to his autonomous community in Igboland, is he going to do obeisance to his Eze or Igwe, or vice versa? The Igbo Council of Traditional Rulers and Ohaneze Ndi Igbo in Igboland have debunked this anomaly, but still greed and avarice propel some of our deluded people to show complete disregard to the order. The least that the Igbo in diaspora need is any form of distraction and abuse of our culture. Many a time, Igbo organizations do fairly well until the unreal ezeship tussle wades in. It pitches everyone against everybody, showing how distracting it's meant to be. Some of those people who deceive themselves as eze live in apartments or rented accommodations. When has an apartment become a palace of a king? The Queen of England lives in Buckingham Palace. Other monarchs live in their official palaces. Then you come to Europe or America, one ill-informed Igboman begins to fool himself as an Igbo king. If they were not living in their conceit, let them show us their palaces, and the make-up of their territories and staff of office. Unless the Igbo in diaspora deal with this embarrassment brought upon the Igbo nation by people who know too little or nothing about our history and traditional institution, we'll continue to be the laughing stock of other people who know their culture. In Ireland, those chaps who thought they could violate the sacred culture of the Igbo people in Ireland through the bastardization of Igbo monarchy have become conscious that it's only when you put the toad into hot water that it discovers that water is of two kinds. What the Igbo in diaspora should be doing is to be useful to the homeland through development initiatives, and not idling their time fighting for titles that don't exist in this life.