Okey Sampson, Umuahia
The long held view that traditional rulers are not only custodians of their communities’ customs, culture and tradition, but are also fathers to their subjects played out recently in Aba, Abia state, when a first class traditional ruler, Eze Isaac Ikonne, played his fatherly role to his subjects and others within his domain.
Eze Ikonne, the Enyi 1 of Aba and traditional ruler of Eziama community in Aba North Local Government Area of Abia state who had felt what his subjects were passing through as a result of the COVID-19 lockdown, decided to cushion the effects by providing them with palliatives. Among the food items the first class traditional ruler gave to his subjects, churches and media houses in the area included bags of rice, cartons of noodles; many tubers of yam among others.
At the event, he said that he was not handing out the food items to the beneficiaries because he was too rich or the wealthiest around, but because he was touched by the sufferings of the people as a result of the lockdown: “I am not giving out these items because I am too rich or the wealthiest around, after all, I’m just a farmer; but I’m giving these things out because I am touched by the sufferings of our people as a result of the COVID-19 lockdown”.
Eze Ikonne said he decided to extend the palliatives to media houses operating within his domain because journalists as people working round the clock under hazardous conditions in the coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic deserved better treatment. He called on both the federal and state governments to provide palliatives to journalists on frontline duty of covering the Coronavirus pandemic.
While commending government for the lockdown which he said would help in checking the spread of the pandemic, the monarch however, called for the provision of palliatives so that people will not die of hunger. Eze Ikonne appealed to government to always use traditional rulers when giving food items and other palliatives to the people for effective delivery because “they are closer to their subjects”.
He appealed to security agents in the state manning the boundaries not to sabotage the efforts of government by extorting money from people and allowing them free movement.
Some of those who benefitted from the monarch’s benevolence included his subjects, the Brotherhood of Cross and Star Bethels and some media houses in Aba.
Traditional Prime Minister of Eziama community, Chief Ogbonnaya Nkoro, described Eze Ikonne as a philanthropic monarch who has not allowed the community to suffer any deprivation in his nearly 50 years on the throne.