This Colloquium starts tomorrow March 11 2014. NDIGBOS PREPARATION FOR NATIONAL DISCOURSE By Valentine Amanze&Felix Uka The International Colloquium on the Igbo Question in Nigeria scheduled to hold in Enugu, the capital of the old Eastern region on March 10 – 14, promises to bring together a galaxy of Igbo scholars, activists and pathfinders, who are convinced that the Igbo dilemma lies at the heart of Nigeria’s national question. The historic concourse is conceived by a body of Igbo intelligentsia, clergy, elders and patriots against the backdrop of the current socio-political situation in the Nigerian Federation, the debate over its future and in the light of the enormous challenges facing the Igbo nation, especially since the end of the Nigerian civil war. The colloquium, which conception predated the current National Dialogue initiated by President Goodluck Jonathan, aims to tackle the perceived absence of internal cohesion within the Igbo nation and to address the future of Ndigbo and their survival in Nigeria and in the world at large. For an ethnic nationality considered one of the most democratic and egalitarian in the African continent, with a highly intellectual, industrious, entrepreneurial and vibrant populace, Ndigbo see the forthcoming internal dialogue as a platform to examine the ways and means of overcoming their current obstacles to self- determination and overcome their strategic exclusion in Nigeria’s socio-economic and political ladder. The Igbo condition has remained the major concern that pre-occupied the minds of Ndigbo in general. It has been a persistent agonizing “predicament over which all and sundry in Igboland, youths and elders, men and women, at home and in the Diaspora, keep groaning day after day, month after month, year after year.” Senator Uche Chukwumerije seemed to have summed up the scenario when he delivered a paper titled: “Wake-up call: Path to Igbo self-rehabilita tion,” during the 2011 Igbo Day celebration at the Abakaliki Township Stadium on September 28, 2011. He asserted that: “The (Igbo) zone is not only economically prostrate, but is constitutionall y structured to remain so in the foreseeable future by the Nigeria system”. He said that “The body language of the Nigerian system has insisted that the Ndigbo must remain permanently relegated since the end of the civil war.” Chukwumerije buttressed his arguments with concrete examples. He posited that “the South East zone does not seem to exist within the industrial radar of the Federal might,” since according to him, “the Nigerian system has not established even one major federal industrial concern to generate employment in the zone in 50 years.” In the political-admin istrative sector, the situation is even more perplexing. From being a major stakeholder in the post-independen ce regional arrangement, the Igbo South East zone is the only zone out of the present six-zonal arrangement to have only five states as against six or seven states allocated to other geo-political zones in the Nigerian federation. This calculated political relegation has nailed down the Ndigbo to a permanent minority, no thanks to the several state creation exercises undertaken by the triumphant military regimes which allocated/ reconstructed the states, local governments and federal constituencies with a view to submerging and liquidating Ndigbo in Nigeria’s political equation. The idea of the colloquium started around August 2012, when a group of Nigerian patriots of Igbo extraction began to reflect on the Igbo condition in Nigeria’s multi- ethnic nation state. The publication of the late Prof. Chinua Achebe’s epochal autobiography, “There was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra,” later that year and the concomitant controversies it generated further reinforced the thinking of the Igbo intellectuals on the urgent need for a colloquium on the Igbo Question in Nigeria. Following the articulation of the conference document, the organizing committee of the colloquium with the eminent scholar-statesm an, Prof. Uzodinma Nwala, as Project Director, addressed the Imeobi Ohanaeze Ndigbo during its meeting at Enugu on August 18, 2013, where the apex Igbo socio-cultural organization unequivocally gave its approval for the hosting of the colloquium. It has enjoined Ndigbo and Ndigbo worldwide “to endeavour to be part of this major historical concourse of Ndigbo for the sake of our collective solidarity, unity and progress both in Nigeria and in the wider world.” Other pan-Igbo organizations involved in the colloquium include the Conference of Democratic Scholars (CODES), Aka Ikenga, Izu Umunna, Igbo Studies Association –(USA), World Igbo Congress (WIC), Igbo World Assembly (IWA), Oforbuike Intellectual Union, Igbo Women Assembly, Council for Intellectual Cooperation of Nigeria (COFICON), The Renaissance Forum (TRF-USA), Umuada Igbo at home and in the diaspora, Ndigbo Council for National Coordination (NCNC), Igbo Christian Restoration Assembly, South East Peoples Development Assembly (SEPDA), Aladinma Organization, Ekwenche Organization including Bilie Human Rights organization, etc. The Chairman of the Planning Committee and Coordinator of the colloquium, Prof. Uzodinma Nwala, has assured that the colloquium will be all-inclusive and that no strand of political opinion or tendency in Igboland willing to participate will be excluded. Meanwhile, the South East Elders Council – a body of elder statesmen, former Ohanaeze presidents, traditional rulers, clergy and eminent political leaders – has given its full-backing to the hosting of the colloquium. In a recent letter it sent to the organizers, signed by the Coordinator of the Elders Council, Dr. Dozie Ikedife and Secretary, Prof. Ben Obumselu, the elders stated that: “With dark storm clouds once again looming in the near horizon, it is appropriate that our leaders and intellectuals should meet to look closely at the auguries and consider the options which we have.” The council therefore called on its members to fully participate in the colloquium and also to render any help in their power. The formidable quality of participation in the colloquium, involving eminent public figures and intellectuals shows clearly that it is an idea whose time has come. Indeed it is happening in the Biblical fullness of time. The Igbo predicament in Nigeria is the sad story of one of the three major ethnic nationalities in Nigeria, whose development potentials have been hampered and emasculated by what some analysis refer to as the “Nigerian system”. Experts believe that Ndigbo have a population of more than 100 million people at home and in the diaspora. This population estimation contradicts the official census figures allotted to them by official military and post military dispensations and their bureaucratic hirelings in the Nigerian federation. Its citizens “are highly cosmopolitan” and were at the forefront of the decolonization struggle in Africa. Their women laid the foundation of the Resistance against British colonialism during the famous Aba Women Riot of 1929. Ndigbo led the fight for Nigeria’s independence and produced world-renowned citizens in various fields of human endeavour. Some of them include Olauda Equiano – the great ex- slave writer; Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe – historically regarded as the doyen of pan-African nationalism. Azikiwe was the one who inspired Dr. Kwame Nkrumah while in Ghana in the 1930s as the Editor of “Accra Morning Post.” Zik also inspired and tutored Nelson Mandela (whom he hosted in the house of the veteran leader, Chief Mbazulike Amaechi for six months in 1960 – 61 before he left Lagos to launch his final offensive against the Apartheid regime in South Africa. Other global geniuses of Igbo extraction include Chinua Achebe, the father of African literature, whose novel, “Things Fall Apart”, became a bible of sorts in several continents of the world, having been translated into 60 languages worldwide. Mandela referred to Chinua Achebe, as “the writer, in whose company the Prison walls fell.” Others are Philip Emeagwali, the world acclaimed father of the internet, Sir Akanu Ibiam, one- time President of the World Council of Churches and Cardinal Francis Arinze, one of the leading Catholic cardinals in contemporary times. In a handbook on the colloquium, the Planning Committee provides explanation on the background as well as the aims and objectives of the colloquium. The basic aims and objectives of this project are summarized as follows: • To provide a platform for Igbo intelligentsia, clergy, patriotic leaders, elders, women and youth, at home and in the Diaspora, to commune collectively over the economic, political and socio-cultural challenges facing the Igbo nation both in Nigeria and in the world today. •To examine the historical roots of contemporary Igbo predicament over which all and sundry in Igbo-land, youths and elders, men and women, at home and in the diaspora, keep groaning day after day, month after month, year after year. •To consider the impact of the Biafra experience on the Igbo nation today, and examine the issues raised by the African literary icon, Chinua Achebe, in his recent world-celebrate d book, There was A Country: A Personal History of Biafra. • To examine ways and means of overcoming the contemporary Igbo predicament so that her citizens can live a life of dignity and self-confidence , co-exist and at peace with their neighbours, capable of protecting their collective and individual interests, apply their God-given talents and endowments for the betterment of themselves and the entire human race, honour the spirit of their ancestors and serve their God without let or hindrance. •To produce a blueprint/ charter for the survival of the Igbo nation in both Nigeria and in the world at large. Such a blueprint shall articulate not only what is to be done but how to achieve them. For many Igbo, the forthcoming colloquium is, indeed, a moment of self-reflection and introspection over the historical roots of the dislocation of the pristine values and solidarity of Igbo civilization and society; a society of which Olaudah Equiano had described as “a land of happy clean people, without unemployment, without prostitution, without drunkards and without beggars.” The colloquium is a bold step towards the restoration of this glorious civilization. And although some might see it as an impossible task, yet as Nelson Mandela once said, “It always seems impossible, until it is done.”
Posted on: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 22:42:05 +0000
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