Christian Agadibe
Igbo ethnic activist group Global Igbo Alliance (GIA) has urged the worldwide Igbo community to set aside a day for Biafra remembrance.
The group said that 30 May signifies a day of sorrow for Igbos and not a day for partisan politics.
In a statement made available to the press and signed by the President of the group, Dr Christian Duru and Secretary, Mrs Chinwe Eboh, the group reasoned that is the responsibility of the Igbo nation not to betray their heroes and heroines. To politicize the remembrance day, the group said, is “a calculated effort to score cheap political points through narratives that tend to undermine the millions of Igbo lives that were lost during the Nigerian/Biafran war. The Biafran war is our history and we must uphold it.
They added: “We also take this opportunity to commemorate the Centenary (100 years) anniversary of the Aba Womens’ Revolt of 1929, when our women showed great resilience and proved that Ndi Igbo (both men and women) are strong agents of political and economic reform. Biafra Remembrance Day serves to empower the current Igbo leadership at all levels, re-evaluate their roles and responsibility, and frontally assess the many reversals in our contemporary Igbo existence, including incoherent leadership and absence of creative followership.
Commenting further on the need to observe Ndi’Igbo and their eternal patriotic duty, GIA said: “May 30th remembrances are integral and crucial parts of Igbo cultural and traditional etiquettes that compels the Igbo to pay adequate and befitting homage to our dead. The observance of May 30th through total abstinence from commercial and economic activity by Ndi’Igbo all over Nigeria and the global Diaspora is an expression of our eternal patriotic duty not only to the Igbo nation now, but also, to generations unborn.
They continued, “The Igbo have always held the belief that life is greater than what sustains it. Just as we honor our traditional markets days, namely: Afor, Eke, Nkwo and Orie; GIA faithfully reiterates the final call for Ndi’Igbo to seal May 30th 2019 as a sacred day for remembrance of the heroes and heroines who fell, so that, the Igbo nation will rise.
According to the GIA, “If we abandon our cultural heritage, and fail to immortalize our most tragic historical experience of the 20thcentury; then, we are surrendering our divine rights to political expediency. The consequence therefore, is that next time, when history visits with its baptism of fire, the Igbo nation will be forever extinct.”