Awka: City of gunsmiths and firearms
By MIKE JIMOH
Sunday, November 15, 2009

•Nwude: Dirty work but we’ll keep at it Photo: Sun News Publishing

Living index

Nothing makes you feel you’re home in the heart of Igboland than sinking your fingers into hot inioka and ogbono soup cooked the only way Igbos know how to. Long in Awka, capital of Anambra state, and anxious to sample local recipes, a commercial motorcyclist recommended a nameless but popular restaurant at Regina Junction.

The restaurants and bars at the junction are as popular to natives as the hospital the street is named after. But the one singled out by the okada rider was just the right place. “That is the only place you can get what you’ve just described,” he said in good English.
You may be covered in sweat at the end of the exercise. Never mind. You may also pay as much as N300 or more. Never mind, too, because your money would’ve been well spent.

Inioka is a popular cornmeal among Igbos everywhere. Rich in fibre and yellowish, it goes down well with any kind of soup but ogbono sprinkled with okra is everyones’ favourite. Most certainly served elsewhere in town, restaurateurs at Regina Junction, however, have their unique culinary touch. Garnished with crayfish, bits of smoked fish and okporoko then served with chunky pieces of beef or cowleg, there is nowhere else in Awka than Regina Junction to savour a delicious staple.

By 11 in the morning, regulars start streaming in. By 5 in the evening, the entire inioka is sold out! But for late comers, there are varieties of other meals like eba (garri in Igbo), fufu and semovita to fill groaning bellies.
Regina Junction is not the only such place in Awka but it sure pulls the most crowd. By night, habitues settle down to different recipes - this time goatmeat or catfish pepper soup served with lagers and stouts.
Much as it guages the social life of Awka, the junction does not in any way define the capital. The most telling trait of the town is what you don’t get to see at all - firearms.

If you wanted any kind of locally made gun in Nigeria back in the fifties, sixties and seventies, there was only one place to go for a reliable one. For dane guns, double barrels, pistols, rifles and shotguns, a blacksmith in Awka was a sure choice. The quantity didn’t matter. If you wanted them in hundreds, by the dozen or just one or two or three, an Awka blacksmith will always be at your service.

So popular were the gun makers at the time that their finished product ranked next to imports from Europe used by the Nigerian police. Thus, Awka-made did not enter Nigerian lexicon for nothing. In street parlance, it was not for shirts, shoes or trousers. Aba, a distant eastern town, had that distinction. For Awka, it was just guns!

Awka’s fame for firearms predates modern Nigeria. Raiding parties from neighbouring villages, according to sources, relied on the ingenuity of blacksmiths in Awka for their arsenal – spears and arrows inclusive. Hunters were never far behind. Others beat their trail to the blacksmith’s door in Awka to buy arms for self-protection or to attack. Surely, robbers patronized them as well, though a gunsmith can never tell who is and who is not a criminal.

Indeed, one of the most remarkable characters in Nigerian dramaturgy went nowhere else to settle a family feud. Burning with fury to avenge his father’s death, Oziddi, an Ijaw man and fictional creation of J P Clark in a play by the same name sought and met an Awka blacksmith to design a special sword for him. Needless to say that the tragic hero succeeded in his murderous mission.
These days, blacksmiths in Awka rarely fabricate unlicensed guns. If they do, it is not to the public’s knowledge. But blacksmithing, a vocation begun hundreds of years ago and handed down from generation to generation, has continued to this day.

“Awka is known for a particular vocation or industry, if you like,” says Mike Udah, Chief Press Secretary to Anambra state governor. “Throughout the length and breadth of Anambra state, if not the entire Igboland, if you mention an Awka person, what comes to mind is that he is a blacksmith. And the industry applies to different facets of life. In fact, an Awka man can fabricate anything metal or devise a means of putting it to better use.”

If you lose your bunch of keys, for instance, according to Udah, an Awka man can take a look at your padlock and make another set of keys that will both lock and unlock the door. It can be keys to doors or cars. “All you need to do is invite an Awka man to your house to take a look at the lock and you’ll get a new one in good time.”
Udah is a former editor with the defunct Business Times from the Daily Times stable. Balding and well built, he is from Umuleri in Anambra state. In looks and carriage, he reminds one of some Igbo actors in home videos, without their heavily accented English, though. For some years now, he has been playing a different role, that of liaison officer between his state government and the public.

Awka people, he continues, were scattered in different parts of the state as blacksmiths. But once the town was made capital in 1991, indigenes of Awka began to relocate home. Surprisingly, most of them abandoned their foundry business. Instead, they took to selling land piece by piece, reason why blacksmiths are reducing in number.

Son of the soil (Omo Onile)
Who would have imagined those pesky sons of the soil called omo oniles ever making a living outside Lagos? But they’re there in Awka, according to Udah. And their modus operandi is not any different from their counterparts in Lagos. You buy a piece of land and presto, about a dozen or more indigenes are at your doorstep, making this or that demand.
Looking as glum as professional mourners or, in some cases, as combative as Bakassi Boys, their visit becomes more frequent as the building rises.

“After paying for your land in Awka, you’ll settle them. Once you commence laying foundation, you’ll also settle. It only stops after you eventually move into your house.”
For Udah, the emergence of omo oniles is the death knell of blacksmithing industry. “Blacksmithing is dying as a vocation because Awka land became a costly jewel soon after the town was made capital,” he explains. “Its status as a capital was an invitation to sundry businesses, from banks to hotels and state or federal agencies.”
For instance, there is Central Bank of Nigeria, Corporate Affairs Commission, Consumer Protection Agency and National Orientation Agency, among others. There are nearly a dozen first- and second-generation banks scattered around the capital. As a result, real estate more than quadrupuled in Awka. So, previously enterprising natives left blacksmithing for the more lucrative business of selling land.

Dismal as that may seem for a town whose reputation rests solidly on anvils, there are a few Awka natives carrying on the tradition of their forebears. For now, there are only 180 blacksmiths in all of Awka. Mr. Anakweze Nwude is one of the oldest and head of all blacksmiths.
He is as dark and rugged as any blacksmith worth his name. He should be. Fired by his passion for forging metal, Nwude is always exposed to the blistering heat of his furnace in his smithy where he started work as a young man.
He was born in Awka on September 11, 1936. In 1948, the same year he started his primary education, he began his apprenticeship right at his father’s feet, helping with a variety of duties like fanning the bellows, lifting hot metals with tongs from a furnace that can turn the strongest bone to ash in seconds. He sometimes beat red-hot metals into desired shapes.
Today, Nwude is a craftsman to the core and the number one citizen as far as blacksmithing is concerned in his native town, and he is not about to quit the only vocation he has known since childhood. His foundry is by far bigger than most other ones near him. Surrounded by the tools of his trade – anvils, hammers, pliers, and finished products like traps, knives, spears and kitchen utensils, Nwude bemoans the fate of what every Awka man was once proud of. Despite his age, he remembers clearly when nearly every household in Awka had a foundry.

“Even newly married spouses helped with the bellows,” he says. He claims to be an expert gun maker, any type of gun. But now, government has stopped blacksmiths in Awka from making firearms. Worse still, young men who should continue the tradition are turning to quicker ways of making money. Besides, “it is a dirty job.”
Before he settled finally in his town, Nwude was more or less a peripatetic craftsman. He was variously in Ahoada, Benin, Degema, Ile Ife, Ilesa and Okemesi, fabricating farming implements such as hoes, cutlasses, pots and pans or whatever was required.
Reliable sources say the head blacksmith is just one of thousands that went to other towns and villages to work. From Awka, they travelled as far as Benue, Kogi, Kwara and just about any town with a large agrarian population, supplying them farming tools.

They almost always settled in those faraway communities, particularly during planting and harvesting seasons. But once it was Christmas or any popular festive period such as Egwu Imoka, they always returned home. “Anywhere you see a blacksmith in Nigeria,” an Awka native boasted, “he is likely to be an Awka man or one trained by somebody from Awka.”
Dr. Alex Asiegbo of the Department of Theatre Arts, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, admits that Awka blacksmiths “were highly itinerant because of the nature of their jobs. They were going about making hoes, machetes, guns and fabricating wrought iron gates for palaces.” But not all of them were nomadic artisans.

Kingsley, John and Joseph are three siblings also keeping alive a vocation young people like them are least attracted to. They are children of Chukwunago, a blacksmith whose father was also one. They all work together in their family foundry in Awka. When the newspaper met them, they had just flattened several gongs and were about reopening them.
Kingsley is 23 and a student of Mass Communication, Federal Polytechnic, Oko. John is two years older and a student, as well, of Institute of Management & Technology, Enugu, where he is studying Electrical Engineering. Joseph is the youngest at 20 and in Community Secondary School, Agulu Awka.

The three of them joined their father in 2000, and have remained with him ever since. Now on vacation, they prefer exercising their muscles and challenging their creative muse to sitting idle at home or keeping bad company. Besides, they’re fulfilling their filial obligation. For that, their father dotes on them. He considers them adept enough, so he sometimes leaves the shop for them to run.

“I am happy as a blacksmith,” Kingsley says, speaking the mind of his siblings as well. True, youngsters in the town now avoid the dirty business of blacksmithing. Again, there is no money in it. The vocation can do with a lot of improvement, he suggests. It can be made less unwholesome to others if modern machines are provided.
Displayed outside their shop are very big and small cooking pots, scooping ladles, giant frying pans, garden tools, traps, machetes, hoes and just about any useful metal object for home or farm use. People come from Onitsha to buy gongs. Elders and Igbo title-holders commission them to do their staff of authority. Women stop by to size up aluminum pots and deep fryers, or metal grates.

You suspect the Chukwunago children will continue their vocation long into their old age. Yes, Kingsley agrees, and he won’t ever discourage any of his children from becoming a blacksmith. “Suppose it is what he wants to do for a living?” he asks rhetorically.
Old and young, men and women, politicians and drivers, lecturers and traditional rulers, market women and shop owners, every Awka native seems to glow with pride in the town’s centuries’ old metier.
Ozo Dr. Aneze Chinwuba is one such person. He is an Awka native and a member of Ozo Awka, the highest decision-making body in the town. It is the equivalent of the Supreme Court in the land. “We are blacksmiths, and we are good at making farm implements – whether for cultivating or harvesting,” the soft-spoken Phd holder in History and International Relations avers.

A renowned politician and former contender for Government House under the Peoples Democratic Party, Chinwuba is anything but the over-dressed, kingly characters portrayed in some Igbo films. He is polished and if you were not told, you’d hardly believe he is just a step away from being Igwe of Awka. Only Ozo Awka members are eligible to be crowned Igwe, he says.

As of now, the traditional ruler of Awka is Igwe Gibson Nwosu, a retired air force officer.
On the floor with Ozo Awka
The session was unplanned, unforeseen and unexpected. It was meant to be an interview with an Ozo Awka, Chief Obiora Essel but we ended up mumbling through an address to grave old men staring you down with baleful glares trying to erode your confidence bit by bit.
In their red caps and eagle feathers stuck in brass tacks on the left side of the head, Ozo Awka has existed as the highest and most revered social status attainable by Awka citizenry, as one of their members put it.
Ozo Awka maintains its preeminent position in dignity, honesty, truthfulness and fairness in public/ community affairs. It also fights for the progress, peace and unity of Awka town and its people. The president or head of Ozo Awka is the chairman of the council of kingmakers. He crowns a new traditional ruler and becomes a regent when there is vacancy. He is the most senior living Ozo title-holder at all times.

So what qualifies an individual to become an Ozo title-holder? As Ozo Chinwuba tells it, an aspiring Ozo must be a male indigene of Awka, must have taken the Ajaghiya title, which entitles him to wear the short red cap. He must be at least 40 years of age, must have a son and not be convicted of any criminal offence or committed any abomination (Alu in Igbo). He must have built a reasonable house (storey or bungalow) befitting an Ozo title holder and must be married at the time of initiation.
According to the former lecturer, a title-holder is an Ndichie in Awka traditional system, serving as the executive committees of the town. Any member of Ozo Awka is expected to be of exemplary behaviour all the time and everywhere he goes. The title lasts until death. It is not hereditary and not bestowed or conferred as a free gift on anybody – whether he is a citizen or not.

Usually, an aspiring Ozo Awka is interviewed by a panel to determine his suitability. If he passes, he is then initiated wearing a long red cap with eagle feathers, white ankle cords with brass rings. His wife is addressed as Ojiefi – the senior wife or any other for that matter. On initiation day, she wears the white ankle cords as well but without the brass rings. Seniority is determined by the date a member joins and not by the date of one’s birth. Initiates are presented with the staff of office called Ngwu Ozo.

Like other members, Ozo Chinwuba has all the paraphenelia of office, some of which he showed the reporter in his house. Members must wear the full regalia at ceremonial functions like the one they had yesterday when new members were initiated.
Given their expertise with arms, were blacksmiths in Awka commissioned to contribute to Biafran arsenal during the civil war? According to Chinwuba, there was no direct request from the High Command of Biafran army to blacksmiths in Awka to provide the rebel army weapons. But he assumes that Awka men would have defended the Biafran cause with their weapons even though they lost in the end.

He also knows that Awka blacksmiths were particularly useful to the Nigerian Army in the Corp of Engineers. An Awka native, John Kachi, was a pioneer member of the NACE. But it was even long before the civil war that Awka blacksmiths achieved the highest recognition for their dexterity in their craft.
In 1924, the British Empire held a special exhibition for its colonies. There were craftsmen and artisans from Africa, Asia and other parts of Europe. Among them were the only two blacks in the annual metallurgy display. Both were from Nigeria. Both were natives of Awka, and they had gone to represent the colony of Nigeria as renowned blacksmiths.
Not many Nigerians today remember David Nwume and Uzoka but to every Awka native, they’re revered icons of a vocation the town is known for. Famously, David and Onwuka were said to have participated in building and designing the door at 10, Downing Street, official residence of the British Prime minister.

At 105, Felix Ngenebgo Adigwe is the oldest living man in Awka. Like most males, he worked in his father’s foundry and then inherited it on his death. Though wiry and bent because of his advanced years, Ngenegbo was once a sturdy young man who could fashion the most lethal gun within hours.
Senile like most people his age, Ngenegbo however has the memory of an elephant, recalling effortlessly how he started out as a blacksmith in his younger years, how he trained himself and his children with proceeds from it and those he helped while in school. Ngenegbo remembers rather sharply, too, he was a classmate of distinguished professor of history, Professor Kenneth O. Dike, first indigenous vice chancellor of a Nigerian university.

Corroborating Nwude’s claim that every household had a a foundry, Ngenegbo says that every young adult had something to do with blacksmithing then. More important, he asserts that an Awka man does not feel happy if there is no sound of clanging metals, of iron hitting iron anywhere he goes. His inference is that once an Awka male arrives a place, he soon sets up a foundry if none exists.

Popular as they are for blacksmithing, what is the position of Awka today as a state capital?
Awka isn’t a city as such. It is much like many eastern towns. Much of it lie in the undulating topography you find east of the Niger. Much of it is red and loose, sandy soil. You find houses in the deepest of valleys as there are some carefully balanced on the side of gouged out hills.

Hotels, hotels & more hotels
Along with its record for having the highest number of blacksmiths, Awka has more hotels than any other town or city in Nigeria. They’re everywhere you turn, in the centre of town and on the outskirts, some old and dilapidated while some are new and modern, complete with swimming pools.
There is Bartonia, for example. There are Golphins Suites & Hotels, Olde English and Numac Hotels, and Queens Suites. But the priciest, for now, is Barnhill Hotel.
“A typical Igbo man likes to enjoy himself after making his money,” says Asiegbo. “Besides, Awka is a transit point between Onitsha, Aba and Enugu. Some of the traders in those places come to Awka to relax once they’re done with their businesses.”

Numbering more than two dozens, there are not enough good roads to service the hotels and recreation spots in Awka. To reach most of them, you either go by okada or car, depending on how good the road leading to them is. To natives, the state of the roads show how successive regimes have abandoned a capital that is almost 20 years old.
Even so, Udah says nobody has made as much impact on the fortunes of Awka as Governor Peter Obi.
One by one, Udah ticks off the projects Obi has done since he assumed duty three years ago. “You cannot finish inspecting Governor Obi’s project in three days. For the first time, we’ve seen somebody who is a jack of all trade and master of all. Unlike some other people who will say they have a two-point agenda, three-point agenda, Obi has an all-point agenda, encompassing all facets of life, all sectors under Anambra Integrated Development Strategy (ANIDS).”
Continiuing, Udah says he is sometimes bemused that Obi’s predecessor was a medical doctor yet he didn’t do much in the area of health in Anambra state. “Under him, all the medical outfits in the state lost their accreditation. General Hospital in Onitsha lost its accreditation. School of Midwifery at Nkpor, same with School of Nursing. ANIDS is all about Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) and Obi wants to achieve the goals a year before the target. Obi has secured re-accreditation for some of those health institutions in the state.”

According to the CPS, Obi has provided breast cancer diagnosis machines, kidney dialysis centre and built houses for house officers. “One of the tragedies in the previous administration was that some of the medical doctors could not find a place to do their house job. They started relocating to other states – to Akwa Ibom and Ebonyi states.”
For Udah, Obi has similarly notched up successes in education. “The most important achievement Obi has made is changing the psyche of the average Anambra man or woman, refocusing them from placing emphasis on material wealth to development of the human capital. Those who criticize Obi negatively are not driven by patriotism because he is not bringing any money for them to share. If they’re driven by the desire to serve, will they be as desperate as they have been? Obi will never take a project to his own town. Mbadinuju sited a university in his town. Ngige took a campus to his own town, Alor. So when Obi assumed duty, some people said he should take a faculty to Agulu his own town. He refused. His reason? Nnamdi Azikiwe was an Onitsha man but sited UN at Nnsukka. Awo an Ikenne man put OAU at Ife, same for Sardauna of Sokoto who chose Zaria for ABU.”

Light of the Nation
Of all the 36 states in Nigeria, Anambra is perhaps the only one that has changed its motto. Until recently, it was seen as a home for all. But like a bad name that spells evil everywhere, it has done the state more harm than good. Or so those in Government House, Awka, believe.
“Anambra State was a power state,” Udah explains. “It was notorious for all the worst things – a state where a sitting governor was abducted in broad daylight, a state where all the public buildings were burnt in broad daylight – Government House, Anambra Broadcasting Corporation. It was a lawless state, a place to which everybody had access, both the criminally minded and all manner of ne’er-do-wells.”

Surely, something must be done about that. So the governor came up with the idea that since the state was also remarkable for excellence, it should be called the Light of the Nation.
“The person who brought money to establish the Nigerian Stock Exchange (Sir Louis Ojukwu) was an Anambra man. He was also the first Nigerian to live in Ikoyi and lent the Nigerian government his limousine to drive Queen Elizabeth 11 when she visited the country in 1956. The first Nigerian to win a gold medal in the Olympics, Emmanuel Ifeajuna, was from Anambra. The first graduate in the Nigerian Army, Odumegwu Ojukwu is from Anambra. Professor Chike Obi, the first mathematician, was also from Anambra state, as with Phillip Emeagwali, the computer whiz.

Origin & meaning of Awka
According to Honourable Kelue Molokwu, a lawyer and former House of Assembly member who represented Awka in the house for eight years, there were no migrants to Awka as such. There were people living in what is present-day Awka. He recalls how two half brothers led to the origin of two closely connected communities in different states in the east.
Ugwuoba in Enugu State and Awka were half brothers from different mothers but sired by the same father. Awka’s mother was the first while Ugwuoba’s mother was the second wife. But she gave birth first and Awka’s mother did later. In Igbo language, Ugwuoba means the first – I am settled here in this environment. So, when eventually the first wife gave birth, her son was called Awka ni ga ka, meaning that though his brother came before him, his greatness will not diminish. While Ugwuoba remained where he was born, Awka moved eastward to present-day Awka and settled.

Tough place
For a first-timer, the first impression you get of Awka is a town under siege. There are no corpses littering the streets, though. There are no shelled buildings, either, and no refugee camps anywhere in town. Still, there is that palpable fear and general apprehension associated with post-war communities. It is not hard to see why.
Though countless numbers of military personnel and the police stand near barricades all the way from Onitsha to Awka, there are more of such check points within the capital itself. Mean-looking, combat ready with fingers never far from their triggers, it is a confirmation of a native’s verdict that Awka is truly a tough place to be.
Earlier in the year around March, robbers literally held the town hostage. Their target was the clutch of banks lining Azikwe Avenue and located in other parts of Awka. Almost always armed with superior guns, they stormed and raided the banks commando style from day to day.

“No day went by without thieves attacking and robbing banks here in Awka then,” says Uchenna a commercial motorcyclist from Umuahia. It got so bad that the governor had to quickly rush to Abuja for a desperate solution. He got 600 mobile policemen. That seems to have put the criminals in check. But then just as Awka earned notoriety for smash, shoot and grab in banks, it suddenly became infamous for yet another criminal enterprise – kidnapping.
For political or pecuniary reasons, Awka has now conferred on itself the kidnap capital of Nigeria. Nobody is too young or old. No sex is untouchable. Indeed, a day before the newspaper got to Awka, news spread quickly that Pa Soludo, father of former CBN governor, Chukwuma Soludo, had been kidnapped. The gracefully ageing grandfather was held for more than 10 days before he was released.

For all that, Awka literally shuts down as early 8 at night. A town that, in the words of a long-time resident, never used to sleep, indigenes have learnt to avoid late nights, thus making more relevant an Igbo saying that “since hunters have learnt to shoot without missing, eneke the bird has also learnt to fly without perching.”
Indeed, on a night out with some locals, guests from out of town were rather surprised when their host hurried them to their hotels after a few drinks. Time was a little past 8!

But diehard night crawlers still manage to catch their fun, however risky. Some of them sit over beer at i 7, a hip hangout for big boys in Awka. At a late dinner organized in Bartonia Hotel, guests turned up in their numbers. Filled to the rafters with a live band on hand, freeloaders happily chomped on chicken parts and wolfed down fufu and onugbu soup and other meals provided. They helped themselves to wines and spirits, quaffing lagers as well, as if in defiance of the criminals who have shut down nightlife in the capital. Thankfully, nobody was taken hostage that night.

Race to State House
“Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a thousand thoughts contend,” Mao Zedong once exhorted the Chinese. Though an inveterate dictator, Chairman Mao’s prescription was to allow free flow of ideas from as many people as possible.
In Awka today, there are more than a thousand thoughts contending, not in the sense Mao meant but for the highest political post in the state. A long walk along Enugu/ Onitsha Expressway from Aroma Junction down to Arthur Eze, for instance, you’ll see campaign posters of no fewer than two dozen candidates on giant billboards for the gubernatorial elections scheduled for February next year. Almost every Awka man has his own candidate. Thus, there are supporters of the incumbent governor. Former governor of CBN has a phalanx of supporters, too, not to mention those for onetime governor, Dr. Chris Ngige. Still, there are many more for both known and obscure politicians.

Beaming with the confidence of a farmer whose barn is filled with hefty yam tubers in time of famine, Udah says his governor has no problem
“Obi will be reelected,” the CPS says matter of fact. “It is a matter of time. People in Anambra have seen a difference in governance and they will die if any person stands between them and the reelection of the incumbent. God has not finished with Obi yet.”
But other Anambrarians like former Speaker of the House of Assembly, Barr. Ben-Chucks Nwosu, have sworn to stop Obi dead in his tracks. In his view, Obi has done little or nothing to move the state forward. The high rate of crime in the state, Nwosu suggests, is because of lack of job opportunities for young people. Nor has the governor kept any of his election promises.

Once he was sworn in as governor, the former Speaker charges, “Obi told Anambra people that his children schooling in London will return to Nigeria. They’re still there.”
“He said he has provided schools with computers. Where is the light to power the systems?” Chaffing at the bits, he says he is withholding his trump card for the campaigns and elections proper. “We have invited him severally to a debate but he has refused to accept our challenge.”
For Udah, no challenge will be too much to cost his governor the elections. In his mind’s eye, Obi is as good as reelected.
Nwanyi Awka
There is no distinctive difference between an Awka woman and women elsewhere in any part of the east. Dark or fair, tall or short, their physical structures are almost the same from Aba to Abakaliki, Ebonyi to Enugu, Onitsha to Owerri, Ohafia to Orlu.
Usually with impressive statistics, Igbo women are some of the most beautiful in Nigeria, perhaps next to Fulani women. Mostly big-boned with hour-glass shapes, they’re everywhere in Awka, whether as students sashaying to their hostels from school along Oby Okoli Road, dispensing food in restaurants or minding their wares at Ekoku Market along Nnamdi Azikiwe Avenue.
Like women in most parts of Nigeria, their choice wears are wrappers – George, Hollandis, lace, brocade or just print cotton dresses – topped with blouse and headgear. Wigs and sundry attachment are common with Awka women, too, as you find in most urban cities.

Like their counterparts elsewhere in southern Nigeria, Awka women avail themselves of different brands of make-up. Thus, on any good day, Sundays especially, you’re certain to see a gaggle of ladies with plucked eyebrows or bold eyeliners or rouged faces hurrying to or from church, children in tow. Even teenagers experiment with their mother’s pancake now and then, sometimes garishly and often with disastrous results.
Awka women are just as resourceful and industrious as other Igbo women. Married or not, young or old, you find them in markets dispensing one item or the other. Girls as young as 10, 11 or 12 dish hot rice and stew from coolers at street corners and markets. Women as old as 50 call your attention to barrows loaded with long and yellow bananas, oranges, pawpaw, pineapples or watermelon. Some others hawk local recipes like okpa (local moin moin wrapped in leaves) from transparent plastic buckets, all of them giving the impression that in Awka you must work hard to survive.
But where the Awka woman is easily distinguishable from other Igbo women is just that name, Nwanyi Awka. In Igbo language, it means a woman from Awka, and there is no other part of the east where a name fits so well as a perfect glove. It is as unique as blacksmithing is to the town. It is easy to pronounce, too, like a run-on sentence. If you’re in doubt, try pronouncing Nwanyi Enugu, Nwanyi Onitsha or Nwanyi Owerri, for instance. They sound clumsy. But Nwanyi Awka is simply different.

Prospects for Awka
With all the divisions in the state capital, all the underlying apprehension and fears for the coming election, what hope is there for Awka? Will it transform into modern state capitals eslewhere or remain the provincial place it has been for years?
Again the CPS: “Gov. Obi has great plans for not only Awka but the state in general. Once he is reelected, Awka wil be a much different place from what you see now.”
To Chinwuba, developing the state capital is what any government should consider seriously if for nothing else but for its status as a capital. To start with, the roads must be repaired and modernized. For now, they’re too narrow and few for the growing number of vehicles in the town.
“If I come to your bedroom and it is dirty and unkempt, do you think i’ll want to see the rest of your house?” Ozo Chinwuba asks pointedly. His analogy is clear enough: the development or otherwise of capitals are direct pointers to what you’re likely to see in the rest of the state.

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