Worried by ongoing efforts of some foreign organizations in ensuring the extinction of Igbo cultural heritages, Igboezue International has asked the South East Governors to agree on a day within the week in which the State House of Assemblies will be holding their sittings in Igbo Language and traditional Igbo attires as part of the strategic measures to ensure the promotion and sustenance of Igbo cultural heritages.
The socio-cultural organization stated this in a communiqué they issued as part of their deliberations during their National Working Committee (NWC) meeting they held on Saturday in Owerri, Imo State capital.
The six paragraphed communiqué signed by High Chief Pius Okoye and Mr. Everest Ezihe, the organization’s National President and Secretary General respectively while further decrying efforts of some people to discredit the ethnic groups cultural and traditional identities also appealed to the Governors on the need to ensure that the study of Igbo Language is made compulsory in their State Schools educational curriculum.
According to them “it is also pertinent that the South East Governors should encourage the wearing of native attires among the political appointees, politicians, State civil and public servants and in most other official activities of the State government as being done by other ethnic nationalities in Nigeria” they noted.
Igboezue further canvassed that “As a means to foster unity of purpose. brotherly love and to confirm that Igbos have respect to their Leaders that the South East Governors in collaboration with other political and religious leaders of the ethnic origin should meet and resolve on the need to have a convenient date or dates in which all Igbo sons and daughters in Diaspora and those living outside the geographical region should return to their ancestral home and assembly in their various communities for a cultural carnival, summit, empowerment, meeting, launching etc.
This they said will discourage the erroneous impression that Igbos cannot unite and does not respect their leaders and instill the spirit of oneness among the ethnic group.
The group further decried the state of Federal roads in the entire South East geo-political region describing the roads as deplorable and death traps.
They appealed to the Federal Government on the need to give priority attention to Federal roads in the region especially Enugu-Port-Harcourt Express Road, Awka to Owerri Express Road, Enugu-Onitsha Express Road, Owerri-Port-Harcourt Express Road, among others.
Igboezue also lamented bitterly on the snail pace in which the construction of the second Niger Bridge is been executed.
They appealed to the Federal Government to consider the socio-economic potentials of the bridge completion so as to quicken action towards its earliest realization noting the region as the economic hubs of the nation and therefore deserve priority attention in terms of infrastructural development, capacity building and transformation.
The group further commended the security agencies and Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the peaceful conduct of last November governorship election in Anambra State and appealed to INEC and security agencies in Nigeria to sustain the tempo of free and fair election.