A welcome Address Delivered by Dr. Emeka Esogbue, Chairman, BoT, Anioma Watch Social Association On the Occasion of the 1st Annual Anioma Watch Anioma Legacy Lecture Held inside the Banquet Hall, Orchid Hotel and Conference Centre, Asaba, Delta State on Friday December 22, 2023
Protocols
It is my pleasure to welcome everyone to our beautiful event today. Our gathering here is the making of history in coming together from Enuani, Ika, and Ndokwa to sit down and listen to intellectual speeches from our Guest Lecturers. This is something that the people of our Anioma Nation do not expect to happen often because there is the tendency to assume that lectures only happen when one is in the university but people should sometimes come together to employ public lectures to educate themselves and also estimate or determine the situational extent of the socio-cultural, economic and political path along which they are moving as a nation of people. Happily, this is what we are inclined to achieve for our Anioma Nation with this epoch-making program.
We have diligently engaged you, professionals, and experts from fields relevant to the areas of this discourse to come together and share their knowledge, ideas, and experiences hoping that our Anioma people make something out of it. You will agree with me that the topics for discussion today are quite relevant to us as a people. When people are challenged by issues, the same people are expected to come together to mull over such challenges with the intention of conquering them. The event of today will provide us the opportune confluence to listen to some of the challenges confronting us and then pave the way for us to get through them.
There is hardly a society without challenges hence, our Anioma society is not an exception. However, the difference between us and them is probably that scarcely do we, the Enuani, Ika, and Ndokwa come together to confab about a plan of action which invites us, the tendency to continue to drift apart in some ways. It is a development not peculiar to our Anioma people but ecumenical to our nation where any such proposal transforms into a source of suspicion to both the conferrers and conferees. This is why suspicion builds up in the society with inimical coexistence, friendship, and cooperation in place instead.
Anioma Watch Social Association, the organizers of this event has lined up several activities for you, which we hope will deepen your knowledge and also make your day. From the lecture topics, we have the subject matter touching on the preservation of our heritage against the indiscriminate sale of our lands by ourselves. It would seem that our people have abandoned legitimate means of livelihood, the hard work, and value that our people were once known for, to idly and indolently pursue the sale of land in our communities.
A new consortium of youths and elders, combined appears to have arisen to move from one Anioma community to the other to continue to sell the people's lands and nobody is asking or answering the question of where our children will live tomorrow. To exacerbate the situation, the lands are sold to only one particular ethnic group in the country, and in some cases, the population of these people has overwhelmed our indigenes. Those who have socio-political eyes can see that it poses serious challenges for the affected communities.
The second topic touches on leadership cultivation. To what extent have our political representatives nurtured leadership to favour us? As the Anioma people, have we sufficiently reaped the political fruits of representation from our leaders in 1999? Perhaps, the Guest Lecturer who is a politician will answer this question today.
Lastly, for those of us who knew him while he was alive, Rev Fr. Dr. Kunirum Osia from Obomkpa, was the civil war hope of several Anioma communities. He was once a young Reverend Father whose sudden unforeseen calling was to prevent Anioma communities from becoming an organized persecution zone, making moves that involved danger including risking his own life to safeguard our people. Beyond this, he was one man who championed the cause of the existence of Anioma, founding the associations in the United States of America, and publishing and editing Anioma journals to propagate the cause of the people. Despite these patriotic contributions to our people, he remains unsung to the extent that many may here today may not have heard his name. Have our people accorded him any recognition? Beyond Osia, how well do our people celebrate their legends? Maybe, too, this speaker will help us to answer this question.
Well, once again, we welcome you to this maiden edition of our programme. It is for Anioma and we are all Anioma. We are sure that after today, it will no longer remain a maiden edition because it will become an annual exercise without interruption. We hope we all have a nice time today.
I thank you, all.