The need for Ndigbo to close ranks and unite as the brethren they are has, once again, come to the front burners, as the most popular novel with Igbo plot, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, clocks 67 years on the shelf.

The 1958 novel, Achebe's debut, is a classic narrative about Africa’s cataclysmic encounter with Europe as the latter establishes a colonial presence on the continent.

At the Grand Finale of ‘Things Fall Apart Festival 2025’ – an event celebrating the 67th anniversary of the publication of Things Fall Apart – the Group Managing Director of Afrinvest and Chairman of the festival, Dr Ike Chioke, urged Ndigbo not to allow things to fall apart again, adding: “Let us rewrite the narrative, just as Achebe once – with clarity, courage and conscience.”

Also, Igbo novelist and poet, Chimamanda Adichie, called on Ndigbo to stop lamenting political marginalisation, which had been there for half a century, but fix the things that have fallen apart among them.

According to the Afrinvest boss, Achebe once said, ‘Art is man’s constant effort to create for himself a different order of reality from that which is given to him.’ “That is what Things Fall Apart achieved for Africa. And that is what we must now achieve for Nigeria.”

He noted that Achebe's 1959 novel was not merely a literary achievement; but a cultural intervention.

“At a time Africa was spoken about but rarely spoke for itself, Achebe gave voice to the silenced. He told the story of Okonkwo, a man caught in the riptide of cultural collision, struggling to hold onto tradition as colonialism reshaped his world.

“The tragedy of Okonkwo was not simply his pride or his temper; it was that he stood at a crossroads where two civilisations met but did not understand each other. The Igbo world he knew was complex, rooted in communal values, honour and a spiritual relationship with the land. But it was also imperfect. Achebe did not idealise pre-colonial Africa. He showed its strengths and its cracks,” Chioke noted.

He decried that more than six decades later, Nigeria still stood at a kind of crossroads; perhaps not between tradition and colonialism, but between potential and peril, making the themes that run through Achebe’s novel remain uncannily relevant.

Chioke related Nigeria’s woes to Achebe’s novel through leadership and failure of vision; the danger of silence and the erasure of voice; and community versus individualism.

Things Fall Apart paints a picture of a society deeply embedded in community life, where identity is linked to clan, duty and ancestry.

“Today, the fragmentation of that community ideal is painfully evident in the rise of ethnic tensions, the failure of social safety nets and the growing gap between rich and poor.

“We are experiencing not just an economic recession but a moral one – where empathy has become scarce, and shared responsibility is diluted,” he added.

On her part, Adichie said: “Things have fallen apart in Igbo land. We often speak of political marginalisation, and indeed any honest assessment of post-war Nigerian history acknowledges that. But before we can truly challenge external forces, we must first ‘clean house.’ We are giving those who want to marginalise us even more reasons to justify their actions.”

She was of the view that if all governors and senators from the Igbo-speaking states come together and put aside party affiliations, they would garner a significant bargaining power to influence policies beneficial to the region.

She also noted: “Languages are beautiful, and the more languages a child can speak, the better. But what’s happening in Igbo land is not about the ability to learn languages; it is about the lack of value for what is ours. Even our naming culture is eroding. We now give names not for their meaning, but for how ‘Western’ they sound.

“Igbo is Igbo. Nobody is more Igbo than another. The distinctions we make today – ‘Anambra Igbo,’ ‘Delta Igbo’– are political, not cultural. Our strength lies in our unity,” she added.