Igbo villa in America

FOR two days in March, Igbos resident abroad met in Staunton Virginia, United States of America (USA) at the Igbo Farm Village located at the Frontier Culture Museum.

The Council of Igbo States in America (CISA) organised the annual retreat with the theme To Harness, Harmonise and Perfect Igbo Global Agenda, in collaboration with the West African Culture Heritage Education and Tourism (WACHET), founded by Prof. Akuma-Kalu Njoku.

Welcoming the delegates, president of CISA, Mazi Chukwumaobi Okereke said, “we have come to the Igbo Farm Village to bridge the divide between us and our kinsmen, whose ancestors were years ago brought here in chains against their will.

“We are also here to celebrate who we are as a people, what we have overcome through the years and to lay a lasting foundation for the preservation of the ideals and culture of Ndi Igbo,” he said.

Chairman of Igbo World Assembly (IWA), the umbrella body of Igbos organisation, Dr. Nwachukwu Anakwenze, while lamenting the plight of Ndi Igbo in the country, said the assembly is committed to working and partnering with all genuine Igbo political, economic and socio-cultural groups to end the marginalisation of the southeast.

Listing some achievements of the Igbos in Diaspora, he said the completion in 2010 of the Igbo West African Village, an 18th century village to celebrate the contributions of Ndi Igbo who were brought to the USA as slaves, was a turning point in the life of the organisation.

Keynote speaker, Prof. Akuma-Kalu Njoku, centered his address on the Igbo expectations, which he enumerated as the pursuit of unity, healthy relationship, and peaceful living among selves, being their brothers keepers, making service a priority, quest for new homelands across the globe, high moral disposition, establishment of an Igbo bond market, and strict belief in the cardinal doctrines of the Igbos, which is primarily dignity of labour.

The climax of the retreat was the ancestral naming ceremony held for 16 DNA-tested descendants of the Igbos in the US. They were given Igbo names by the father of the retreat, Eze Nri, who said he did so using the powers conferred on him as the custodian of Igbo culture.

While welcoming them back to their roots after invoking the gods in prayers with kola nuts, the Eze Nri told them to visit their ancestry with a view to integrating themselves to Igboland. Some of the names given to them were Ugochukwu (God’s blessing), Osinachi (gift from God) and Adaeze (princess).

Speaking on behalf on the 16 newly found Igbo descent, Mr. Frank Underwood, who recently retired from the US Army after 29 years service, pledged to do their possible best to make Igbos and Nigerians proud.

 A nine-point post-retreat communique jointly signed by Mazi Chuks Okereke and Echiemeze Ofili, CISA president and secretary-general respectively, held that Ndi Igbo as a people are under siege. “The terrorist threat against the tribe in Northern Nigeria is real and a continuation of the pogrom of the 1960s.

“We shall hold any government where applicable primarily responsible for any assault on the lives and properties of Ndi Igbo by using every resource at our disposal, including legal action against such government deemed culpable for loss of lives and property.”

The communique called on south easterners in the North to begin a systematic withdrawal of their investments from the region. It also urged the state governments in the Southeast to absorb returnees and Boko Haram victims into resettlement camps until they are able to fend for themselves.