E Leta A Ghara

By

Obododimma Oha

Many highlife musicians in Nigeria are not just entertainers of millions of local people, but also social philosophers on whose thoughts these people try to model their lives. In the Igbo context in those days, was it Chief Osita  Osadebe’s “Ndi Ochonganooko” or Joe Nez’s “Onye ma echi, onye ma ụwa?”Many people in the context listened to these songs and found their ways through life understood as a kind of battle! The late Oliver Akanite (Oliver de Coque) also taught a lot of lessons through his numerous songs. E Leta A Ghara (also written as “Eleta Aghara") was his own theory on tolerance. The song (crafted as call-and-response) went thus:

Oyị na oyi na-aga ọfụma .....E leta a ghara!

Di na nwunye na-ebi n’udo....Kwa eleta a ghara!

(A friend and a friend move on well ... E leta a ghara!

A husband and a wife live in peace .... Indeed, E leta a ghara!

.....

In the theory, we just try to overlook weaknesses in others, not that we like them or that they are not there to make us uncomfortable. In a sense, allowing what we do not like gives us a higher moral advantage. Yes; it makes us better people.

And when we are better, then, we can put others right. But if we return evil for evil, weakness for weakness, is badness not winning? E leta a ghara is our victory already! When we can only teach what we know and give what we have, not what is exactly what we oppose! Unless we approve of what we oppose, which is a great contradiction in terms. So, E leta a ghara.

From family to public life, we wrestle with the objectionable, always. We have to become practitioners of E leta aghara in order to carry on with life at these various levels. We must come face-to-face with something we do not like and must deal with it, everywhere! In dealing with it, we must try to be on the winning side of E leta a ghara. 

Indeed, one is being asked to accept the very difficult in that theory! That is also an irony!

Having pointed these general of ethics in the theory out, let me just pay some homage to my discipline. I will comment on its structure and link that comment to ethical issues already noted. In E leta aghara, the pronominal “E” could be anyone and has no gender. The “o,” “a,” “e,” and “ọ” in Igbo and other local Nigerian languages luckily hide the gender of referents, so that speakers cannot be accused of making a gender more visible than the other. Unlike English, these languages cannot express a given gender as the norm while the other is a mere deviant! So, in Eleta a ghara, both male and female are in focus (in no particular order)! This genderlessness that applies to “E” in E Leta a ghara is also applicable to the pronominal “a” in the sequence.

One also has to say something  about the internal parallel structure of

E leta

A ghara

(X Y

X Y)

that contributes in making the expression memorable and crisp to be ear. There is something that is in parallel structures (whether internal or external) that helps their aesthetic outlook! They are reiterative patterns and are therefore simple and could be handled easily so that one does not bite one’s tongue in the regular craft! Also, they look natural and make the texts friendly to users.

Is that theory or social philosophy not an important counsel? Should it not be helped or embellished structurally  so that it would be accepted easily by its receivers and live long enough in the memory?

This retention in the memory becomes intensified whenever that song is played, especially by lovers of good-oldies and evergreens that are sold in CDs in special videa shops.

Yes; E leta a ghara, if the president locks the citizens up but remains with the ex-colonial master to look after his life! E leta aghara if security agents are running after that fellow carrying a bag of rice and cocking their guns. E leta ghara when security agents round up artisans and accuse them of being Boko Haram terrorists unless they are able to produce any acceptable identities to show  that they are helpless and law-abiding citizens. E leta a ghara if citizens wake up every day to expect the worst, or that new heartless laws would be implemented. E leta a ghara when democracy turns out to be the worst form of military government practised by any human society.