UNITED IGBO ELDERS COUNCIL
(UNIEC)
*WORLDWIDE *
2024 SPECIAL IGBO DAY
ANNIVERSARY
1.Unquantified number of Igbo peoples perished in the trans-Saharan slave trade and wars, connecting the Mediterranean, Middle and Far Eastern ancient worlds with Igbo metal technologies. The Igboukwu/Awka axes bear testimony to this.
2.Countless millions of Igbo were thrown into or drowned in the Atlantic ocean; perished in the plantation, railroad, industrial and domestic service Americas; opened several modest countries in the Caribbean; fought for and created the first black independent state of Haïti; participated in the continental independence struggles of Bolivar; and authored and inspired the civil rights revolution, the most comprehensive human rights revolution in the modern world. Ubani or Bonny was the central outlet for this unprecedented Black contribution to human progress.
3.Many Igbo suffered and died in a self-inflicted domestic slavery of diverse descriptions: Osu, etc., and they need a spiritual recompense.
4.Since the colonial 1914 unilateral Amalgamation, the Igbo have been massacred by sundry Nigerian officialdom, and 1937, 1945, 1949, 1953, would prove to be mere tips of the iceberg of the pogroms, genocides and ethnic-cleansings to come.
5.Large-scale, well-coordinated pogroms were perpetrated against the Igbo mainly between May and October, 1966, with probably hundreds of thousands perished: beheadings, disembowelings, arsons, river drownings, mass shootings, mass live-burials, suffocations, strangulations, say it.
6.Between May 1967 and January 1970, 3 to 5 million Igbo and other Easterners were wiped out – with officially sponsored starvation and hunger, plus mass bombings in markets and worship centres. The same starvation killing Nigerians today.
7.Between 1970 and 1999, variously code-named general ethnic-cleansings were orchestrated against the Igbo: “Abandoned Property,” house demolitions, market burnings, beheadings on account of “blasphemy,” heart breaks, attacks and sudden deaths because of countless official maltreatments of Igbo youths and adults.
8.Between mid-2015 and mid-2023, the Igbo suffered one of the worst types of state-sponsored organized barbarism against them by a supposed federal government. Statistics are still ongoing, but many estimates range into millions of direct and collateral deaths on account of a phoney “war against insurgency” that never existed in any part of the Igbo society. Kidnappings for ransom, murders even despite ransom, farm invasions, coordinated “unknown gunmen,” Lokpanta and other mass graves. And so on.
9.Many illustrious Igbo men and women fought not only on the Nigerian side during the civil war, and supported the federal side, but till today they have never been honoured by a Nigeria that continues to oppress their own Igbo peoples.
10.Since Olaudah Equiano, Dr. James Africanus Beale Horton, African-Americans – most of them Igbo, King Jaja of Opobo, Nnamdi Azikiwe, etc., the Igbo have been at the forefront of Black, African, and Nigerian emancipation – but, not a single Nigerian government enjoying the fruits of the Igbo sacrifices had thought it fit to erect a memorial for these true heroes of the past, except rewarding their offspring with hatred and animosity.
The Igbo people, under the auspices of the United Igbo Elders Council, Worldwide (UNIEC), have decided to used the Igbo Day, preparatory from Friday 27 and culminating in September 29, 2024, to honour these great Igbo forbears in a special way; with a plan to erect in future a befitting collective memorial in their honour at a date to be announced.
MODE OF PARTICIPATION:
Every Igbo man, woman, boy, girl, Ichie, Okorobia, Agboghobia, Ntorobia, as well as friends and relatives of the Igbo in Nigeria and abroad, are invited to join their Igbo compatriots to honour these past true heroes of the Igbo nation, in fact, Nigeria, Africa, and the world. Let’s join to share our joys, tribulations, and hopes together as children of the same God:
A.Friday, September 27, 2024. Igbo African Traditional Religion Worshippers, Moslems, Buddhists, etc to offer prayers in their shrines, covens, temples, etc for the peaceful repose of the departed; together with Igbo atheists or non-believers, agnostics, etc to remember the heroic departed in their meditations.
B.Saturday, September 28, 2024. Igbo Sabbatists, 7th-Day Adventists, Jews, and other like minds to offer prayers in their churches and temples for the peaceful repose of the souls of the Igbo departed.
3.Sunday, September 29, 2024. Igbo Christians in their various churches and denominations to offer prayers for the peaceful repose of the souls of the departed.
There might be a lecture by eminent Igbo and non-Igbo scholars on our commonality as children of the same God or Nature.
SIGNED:
1.His Lordship, Bishops Amb. Dr. Dennis Jacobs, JP. National Chairman, Inter-Religious Affairs, UNIEC.
2.His Lordship,
Justice Alpha Ikpeama.
Director General.
3.H.E. Maj. Gen. Collins RU Ihekire (Rtd.), OMC (Rwanda), JP. National Vice President, UNIEC.
4.Prof. Obasi Igwe.
Director, Media and Publicity.
Sept. 26, 2024.
