What a marvellous and ingenious story!   It is my favorite Igbo folktale, and I have re-told it dozens of times in different venues, usually under the title of The Bigger Truth.  It is eternally true that even on those infrequent occasions when people choose to tell the truth, they often disregard the Bigger Truth and tell the smaller one.  It is wrong to steal, yes, but the biggest thief in the community may not be the poor man who stands accused!  If God were to descend from heaven and declare: "I plan to kill the biggest thieves in this city!" (Insert whatever city you like -- Lagos, Abuja, London, or Washington, D.C), who will be the first to die?  People in the prisons?  People on Welfare?

In Christian religious terms, the tale is readily linkable to:

 Psalm 130:3 ("If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?") --

John 8:7 (The story of the woman caught in adultery -- "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.") --

Matthew 23:23 (You have neglected the more important matters of the law -- justice, mercy and faithfulness. . .  You strain out a gnat but you swallow a camel.") --

Matthew 7:3 ("Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?")

"Onye Isi na Onye Ngwörö" is a cautionary tale against religious and moral ostentation.  The well-to-do and the religious (Christian) Pharisees (Ndi ödi ka ödirö fa -- according to the old Igbo Catechism) are admonished to note the "weightier" transgressions of the Law, which they tend to overlook, while railing against the comparatively "smaller" sins of the poor and the irreligious.  

The moral of this tale can also be linked to several Igbo proverbs.  Among them:

Ogu onye akarikötö -- the ogu ritual (emphasizing finger pointing)enacted by a man whose fingers are gnarled by arthritis -- the fingers he tries to point outwards point back at him.  Hence the proverb: Onye akarikötö njürü ogu njürü onwe ya!

Ikpe amagh eze -- The chief/judge is never found guilty in his own court.  No one is ever guilty in his own eyes -- it usually takes a discerning outsider to discover guilt or sin. 

While this story speaks to a peculiar world view of the Igbo people, one must admit that the view is not unique.  The old Roman proverb, Quis custodes custodiet (Who watches the watchmen)? addresses the same issues. 

In our time, Chinua Achebe addresses the same idea in his novel, Anthills of the Savannah.  Rulers of a country, in a charade of highmindedness, are having armed robbers face firing squads.  The irony is that the rulers themselves are the greatest armed robbers of all -- they seized the government by force of arms, and they are stealing tons of money from the public treasury.

(To be continued --  Dede)