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Igbo embark on self-empowerment with Igbodum Database Project

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Igbodum Database

 

BY KAZIE UKO


The Igbo of Nigeria, marginalised in national politics, economic and infrastructural development, may have found a ‘home-grown’ remedy to empower its people and develop their homeland.

On Sunday, the Igbo collective, across the five South East states and two South-South states of Rivers and Delta, led by the Igbo think-tank group, Nzuko Umunna, unveiled the historic Igbodum Database Project, with the formal launch of a website: www.igbodum.org

The Igbodum Database Project, according to the Coordinator of Nzuko Umunna, Ngozi Odumuko, seeks to unite the Igbo professionals, in business, industry, academia, politics and with various skill trades at home and diaspora under one platform, purposefully for the development of the Igbo homeland. The data base will have records of Igbos in different fields of work and business all over the world, detailing their attainments and accomplishments.

The unveiling done virtually on Zoom platform brought together prominent sons and daughters of Igboland, across the two geo-political zones of South East and South-South, who spoke eloquently about the project and its objectives.

Unprecedented in most of Igbo causes, speakers were united in their appreciation of the project as one that would help tell the Igbo story by Igbos and not by outsiders. They encouraged every Igbo to get involved by registering and supporting the project for common good.

“It is a great day for the Igbo nation. The project is an epoch for the Igbo nation,” said former Senate President and chairman of the occasion, Anyim Pius Anyim.

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Professor Pat Utomi, chairman of the board of Nzuko Ummuna, who spoke in his Anioma dialect, lamented that the Igbo had been on the back seat in Nigeria in the last 50 years, essentially because of what happened during the Nigeria-Biafra civil war. “Now, there is need for Igbo unity and collaboration to develop Igboland,” he said.

Utomi, a political economist, drew a map of the critical infrastructural development needed to interconnect the strategic cities and towns across Igboland for the much-needed economic development of the area, saying that God created the Igbo to help uplift the black race.

First Republic Minister of Aviation, Chief Mbazulike Amaechi, said Igbo must shun too much talk and do the needful, for according to him, unlike in his hey days when action spoke louder than words there is too much talk today and little action.

“We have wealthy people abroad. Let them come back and develop Igboland. There is nothing Igbo cannot do for themselves. Look at Israel, with technological, and educational power, it is a force to reckon with in the world now.

“Let Igbo not focus on pursuit of political power but look for other powers – technological, economic, educational, etc and develop Igbo land, and create employment for our people,” the elder statesman said.

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On his part, the former chairman of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), Professor Anya O. Anya, said the Igbodum Database Project fits the challenges of this time and should be embraced.

Anya said by 1964, the Eastern region had become the fastest growing economy in Black world and measuring up in many areas of life through education. He however lamented that today, education was being derided in Igbo land.

“Igbo and Nigeria are in dangerous times now. Where we are now, we must recognise that education was the leverage we used to rise from the bottom to the top. Now we deride education. It is still what we need to get to the top.

“Now competitive advantage has taken over from comparative advantage because of education and knowledge power. We must use what we have to become the first knowledge economy in Africa. The resources for doing this are available. It is how to develop the resources to capture the young that is lacking,” he admonished.

Some other prominent speakers at the event included former Minister of Power, Prof Barth Nnaji; former Deputy Speaker of the House of Reps, Hon Chibudom Nwuche; former Senator Chris Anyanwu and Prof Osita Ogbu, chairman, Alaigbo Stabilisation Fund.

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