Emotional intelligence should be a subject in schools in the S-East?

By Osita Nwaka

MaTaZ ArIsInG
Texas

Emotional intelligence should be a subject in schools in the S-East. High IQ can lift a person. But, low EQ keeps a people down – Osita Nwaka

The people of South East do not necessarily need Emotional intelligence. What they need and I have advocated for long now is EMOTIONAL TRAUMA HEALING.

Majority of South Easterners are either war survivors or children of war survivors. The end of the war saw an emergence of a people deeply wounded psychologically and there had not been a conscious effort to help them heal. The natural consequences of this neglect is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – PTSD.

Many of the surviving children of South East went through Adverse Childhood Experiences whose consequences manifest in dysfunctional behaviours. In one of my write ups on this issue, I asked “When Will The Igbos Heal?”.

As a trained Psychologist and a Certified Energy Psychologist, a celebrated International Energy Therapist, I am aware that war trauma, abandonment trauma, and unresolved issues around Adverse Childhood Experiences will create serious dysfunctions in behaviours and in fact, do lead to early mortality. So what we are seeing in the South East is not about lack of emotional intelligence but a more fundamental challenge that calls for community assessment, embrace and action. Glad you brought this up – Dr Iwowarri Berian James.

Iwowarri Berian James ….. Thank you for putting it down well. The Igbo in Nigeria started with the accusations of eager domination orchestrated by the British moving all the way in that short spell to the brutal counter-offensive war of containment and dispossession. What followed the dislodgement of the Igbo afterwards was the feudal-military appropriation of the powers, allocations and control of the Nigerian state that further kept them away.

From Gowon to Abdusalami, the containment and dispossession ran, and continues to run, as current state legacies, on its lane with the content, structures, institutions and policies of a federal government drawing sustenance from that implanted system. This is the state of affairs, call it the fate of the SE, and to some extent the SS. That is the Old East, the Eastern Region stripped of the Igbo leadership powers in the contest of Nigerian influence and the seizure of its minority oil and gas assets.

With that being said, Emotional Intelligence fall flat in its face because of the need for existential re-assertions. Except if ET represents, the Old East coming to terms about their victimhood through imposed divisions, separations which weakens their abilities to march as one for their sizeable space in the old tripod of Nigerian foundations.

ET is not the art of submission to an uncomfortable fate. The struggle to be freed of it, may constitute the appropriate raison d’etre of existence than any mindset of acquiescence to intentional conniving exclusion from the heights of the national scheme of things. Enough said!

Iwowarri Berian James Thank you, Dr. for bringing a professional perspective to the discussion.

I said, in response to a comment here, that the Igbos are fond of starting our post independence history from the civil war. The emotional trauma you talked is in relation to that war, too.

But, we’ve been behaving the way we do long before the war. That was why, even before independence, we had a system of government different from the other two major regions.

The Igboman is independent minded; he consents to the authority he submits to, without sacrificing his freedom in the process. He is also impulsive and daring. There are many advantages as well as disadvantages associated with this nature. Because of the disadvantages associated with his impulsive nature EQ education has become very important in Igboland.

Zik was high on emotional intelligence. That was why he was able to navigate the idiosyncrasies of the Nigerian state, making difficult sacrifices for the sake of the good of his zone.

Ojukwu represents a typical Igboman in his impulsive nature. (I don’t mean this as a slight. I have great respect for the late Ikemba).

Zik didn’t see war as the right approach even in the face of the pogrom, but he was in the minority, then. With the benefit of hindsight, we know it wasn’t. But we’ve not learnt any lessons. IPOB took us on a similar part from which we are yet to recover. That is because we are more of Ojukwu than Zik.

Igbos are the only ones among the big three who have no principle guiding their position on national issues. That is why we mouth division but act unity. While others mouth unity but act division. But, because of our mouth, we are the ones that shouldn’t be trusted.

So, it’s not really about post war trauma. Our fathers were men – who recovered such a devastating war, at a pace that Energy Therapists should understudy. They were so successful that by the time I became a teenager, they had erased the scars of the war. I am not ruling out trauma associated with the war. But, it’s in us.

I read a book on Temperament in my youth. It was like a SWOT Analysis of myself in black and white. I became very aware of my strengths and improved them, and worked assiduously on my weaknesses. It helped me a great deal in developing self control.
From the personal level, it guides me in my dealings with people of other backgrounds. Without undermining my interest, I accord others their due regard.

That is the sort of thing EQ education would achieve among the new generation of Igbos. It will greatly improve Igbo consciousness and unity and tame our impulsive tendencies.

“Except if EI represents, the Old East coming to terms about their victimhood through imposed divisions, separations which weakens their ability to march as one for their sizable space in the old tripod of Nigerian foundations.”

Emotional intelligence self awareness will erase the victim mentality that causes us to harm ourselves the more. It’s this ‘victim’ card that IPOB and their likes play to win our people over to their often ill thought out course, which takes us backward.

Lack of EQ is why we haven’t been able to do the much we can do for ourselves.
When I raise the issue of investment in Igboland, it’s the Igbos that discourage others by reading their usual litany of impediments. But thank God for the likes of Prof. Nnaji, who practically shut their mouths.

High EQ will help us navigate our ways better in the Nigerian project. Since it’s clear that secession is not an option.

We always mouth division, but act unity, in the Nigerian project. Meanwhile, those who mouth unity but act division get a better deal because they are regarded as patriotic – that’s emotional intelligence.

EQ will help us to change our approach and have better results.

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