Magnus Eze, Enugu
A leading Igbo organisation, the Alaigbo Development Foundation (ADF), has said the Igbo/Yoruba cooperation would help quicken the actualisation of restructuring and the self-determination pursuits of most ethnic nationalities in Nigeria.
It also said closer ties between the two ethnic groups would not only engender economic emancipation, but further strengthen the already identified historical and cultural affinity between the two regions.
These were part of ADF’s reaction to the Ooni of Ife’s recent citations of the Igbo origin, traced to Ile-Ife.
The Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, had during the recent Aje Festival at Ile-Ife, emphasised the aboriginality of Igbo civilisation in Oduduwa, which the ADF, described as a welcome development in the restoration of positive relationship between the Igbo and the Yoruba.
In a statement obtained in Enugu, yesterday, the Chairman of ADF’s Publicity Bureau, Chief Abia Onyike, said the information provided by the Ooni was also reflected in a book, titled, “The cradle of a race: Ife from the beginning to 1980,” written by many Yoruba intellectuals and edited by Prof. I. A. Akinjogbin.
The group, therefore, enjoined the Igbo nation, especially the paramount traditional rulers and spiritual fathers in Igboland, to reciprocate the goodwill demonstrated by the Ooni of Ife, to further improve and consolidate Igbo-Yoruba rapprochement and solidarity.
Part of the statement read: “Ndigbo and the Yoruba should always emphasise those cultural and historical links as well as socio-political and economic issues, which unite them, rather than those which divide them.
“ Let us recall that Ndigbo, under the leadership of former Premier of the Eastern Region, Dr. Michael Okpara, went a long way to heal the wounds inflicted on Igbo-Yoruba relationship, during the Nnamdi Azikiwe–Obafemi Awolowo era, by the care his government took of Awolowo and his wife, Hannah, while Awo was in Calabar Prison.