As the Igbo would say, the man who sets out to marry a wife and celebrate his wedding in the Village square while wearing stolen and brightly coloured clothes of another should pray that the owner of the apparel on his back does not turn up in the Village Square while he is rocking his new-found body gear of questionable origins. And this saying has an extension: He who prays that the owner of the stolen clothes he chose to wear to a public event should not attend the event and see him should remember that the village is a small place and that the original owner of the clothes has friends and relations who will carry home a report that would make the thief unable to sleep after close of the day’s business.

But the matter of whether Ohaneze was planning to embark on a begging expedition or not has been laid to rest for good. Just when it was beginning to look like a crescendo was about to be attained by drivers of the campaign of calumny, the project ran out of gas. Untruth may rear its head, and even display some bright colours you cannot ignore, but it can never last long enough to challenge the truth. The mischief makers who tried to float the totally reprehensible narrative lost out in the end. But there is still the after-smell of un-sanctity in the air. No matter.

In reaction to the shocking tale of beggary, the President-general of Ohaneze and the organization’s Secretary General rolled out the tanks of public discourse and drowned out the ridiculous, but viral, claim that the organization came up with the had the hare-brained idea going on some kind of begging expedition to the northern part of the country. To begin with, there was nothing remotely resembling that thought in the two-day Ohaneze retreat where the idea was alleged to have sprouted.

I was at the event. I was also the Lead Speaker at the retreat held in Enugu. My presentation, and other presentations, were focused on new paradigms for Igbo self-actualization in the nation that essentially undergirded by a conspiratorial, and not openly and freely competitive, political economy. It was a soul-searching and truth telling outing. The ensuing Communique spoke to the issues discussed, as well as the new programmes and focal concerns of Ohaneze Ndigbo, Worldwide. So where did the tale of begging and supplication come into it?

Ohaneze, and Ndigbo generally, had a chance to “beg” the North or, more specifically, the Fulani, for support about a year ago. That was before the Last presidential elections, when Peter Obi was a candidate. They did not such thing. Instead, a meeting was called some five months before the elections between the South East Elders Forum and the Northern Welders Forum. In attendance covered the confederacy of all otherwise distinct platforms from both parts of the country, all with a common interest on the issues the coming elections were likely to put   the table.

Prof Ango Abdullahi led the Northern team, while the South east team was led by Chief Simon Okeke, for Chairman of the Police service Commission (PSS) and Chairman of the Anambra Public Officers and Elders Forum (ASPOF). The atmosphere was sombre. The air was charged with barely concealed expectations of horse-trading proposals, since it was a question of an election wherein the highest position in the land was being sought by an Igbo man.

There was a smell of “What is in it for us” in the air. So, it was for the South East Elders Forum to “Make their case” and convince their counterparts that a Peter Obi Gamble was worth their while. The Northern Elder presented Dr Hakeem Baba Ahmed as spokesman, while the South East Elders presented Prof Okey Ikechukwu, mni, as spokesman. And so, Ikechukwu was invited to address the Northern elders after the leaders of the two teams had put forth their opening pleasantries.

As one of the very highly respected and also very old Northern Elders later quipped, after the three-hour interaction and exchanges, “We did not see it coming at all. That your Ikechukwu just compelled some of us to thinks about things we probably have bever adverted my mind to in the politics of the momen”. So, what really happened?

As the designate spokesperson for our own side of the table, I started by saying that we had come with a central message; which is captured in the statement: “Come let us reason together”. I said the we had not come to beg them to vote for Mr. Peter Obi, or to ask them to support our son and brother, no. Instead, had come to compare notes with them, on the good product that Nigeria needed a tthat historical hour.

I pointed out that Obi’s choice of their son and brother as running mate was based on his assessment of the latter, as enlightened, successful, and hands-on manager of human and material resources. Obi chose one of their best, who, in addition to being broad-minded, was also known for his substantial, and sustained, investments in human capital development. So, let us reason together, with these questions in mind: (1) “What  sort of leadership and navigational skills do we need to save Nigeria. (2) What type of person can deliver on this, and is Peter Obi, alongside his running mate, the type of team that dan do this job well?

Then came my clincher: “Gentlemen and elders, what every one of us here has in common is that we have all the attributes of people who can be kidnapped for ransom. are prime targets for kidnappers. That is not to say that we are wealthy by any stretch of the imagination in the conventional sense of Nigerians who can routinely sign off millions of naira, or eve n dollars, without blinking; no”!

I pointed out that we all came in more than passably clean air-conditioned vehicles; all in relatively good condition. We all look a little less harassed and less desperately hungry than the average person out there. So, anyone seeing us, and who has caught unto the new-fangle trade of capturing human beings in order to release them again after being paid, will see a potential product he can secure and use to make money”. Everywhere was dead quiet.

I continued: “No bandit, kidnapper or terrorist who accosts any of us on the road will first try to find out who we are, how good or bad we are and whether we are doing our best for humanity and for our fatherland. We would all be just, “ransom-able commodity” and nothing more. Professor, Imam, Senator, Senior military officer, students, name is!

Turning to the Prof Abdulahi, I said: “Recall, sir, that your son was one of the unfortunates of the Kaduna-bound train mishap. Fortunately, no stray bullet found him. But unfortunately, he was taken captive alongside everyone else they people could get hold of after derailing the train and killing some of the passengers. The young man’s identity as your son your son did not make any difference to them, or to anyone for that matter. No! with all the sacrifice you and many other people have made over the last 50 years?

I spoke if the demand for ransom and of the fact that the criminals held unto the young man until the full ransom was fully paid. Shortly thereafter, an incident involving the kidnap of another of your relations, this time with four of your beloved grand children in tow, was reported. It was all Ango Abdullahi’s problem while it lasted.

“The concern for us at the South East Elders Forum had more to do with a desperate need to rescue even our humanity as a people, in addition to all the hullabaloo about elections and positions after the elections. The coming elections, we held, must be sued as a tool for the restoration of the people-centred leadership ideals that characterized the era of the Ahmadu Bellos, Ziks, Awolowos, and so many others of that era.

I reminded us of the circumstances under which Prof Onyemelukwe lost his life in Anambra State, at the age of 84. He was accosted on the road by armed young men. Then they discovered that he was a saboteur working with the Fulanis in Nigeria against Igbo interests. Yes! And they had clear evidence and proof of his treachery before their very eyes. They also told him about this evidence and proof before they shot him. Guess what proof of his treachery and betrayal of Ndigbo they had against him? The 84-year-old man was wearing a caftan. That was all. He had to be executed for wearing Fulani dress in Biafra Land. That was the end of a great scholar of international repute and community leader.

Traditional rulers hitherto thought to be untouchable in various parts of the country are now routinely picked off their royal stool in their kingdoms and emirates like hapless chickens I nan exposed cage. Alongside the foregoing several other issues that were discussed in confidence on both sides.

Baba Ahmed was at his eloquent, and also very realistic best when it was his turn to speak for his side of the table. He raised all the relevant issues, forever focusing on the things that mattered the most. There was neither begging nor demand for begging. The gathering did not query, or try to impugn, the reputation or aspirations of other candidates besides the ones we had on the table at our meeting.

Then the meeting rose, agreeing embark of serious group reflections and introspection, and to reconvene soon thereafter to determine next steps. It was about Nigeria, about or physical, economic, political and moral survival as a people facing common problems that we needed to “reason together” and chart a way forward.

Imagine if a man who, as Vice chancellor of Ahmadu Bello university, did so much to fast-track tertiary education for Northerners were to lose his son to criminals at whose current means of livelihood is the fact that they had no education and no socially useful survival skills. The north stood by and Ango’s son was held captive for months. Just as the East watched the husband of Dora Akunyili bumped off in broad daylight by gunmen.

Going back to the matter of whether Ohaneze was planning to beg anyone or not, ”Untruth may rear its head, and even display some bright colours you cannot ignore. But it can never last long enough to challenge and permanently displace the truth”. Begging? I beg your pardon!

Nimbo community in Uzo-Uwani Local Government Area of Enugu State has become a metaphor for the dastardly actions of suspected Fulani herdsmen who have terrorised it for decades. At night and in broad daylight, innocent men, women and children of the community are gruesomely murdered by the marauders who desire their homeland for grazing their cattle. 

The beautiful grassland have been turned to killing fields and the people who try to resist the take-over of their ancestral homelands have become the guinea-pigs in a chilling experiment in forceful land grab. 

Penultimate Sunday, the marauders who have encircled the community and set up camps in the deep forests, paid one more visit to the community and as usual, left behind sorrows, tears and blood. Not only were four members of the community slaughtered like rams, most of the inhabitants of the village have now been forced to desert their homes and run for dear lives.

For long, Nimbo has not known peace. Everyone who has lived there in the past 2 decades has somehow learnt how to sleep with only one eye closed. Their land is fertile and they are preponderantly farmers; they pride their community as Enugu State’s food basket. But the vast farmlands have been targeted by herdsmen who crave it, instead, for their cattle. 

The gruesome event of penultimate Sunday was not the first of that magnitude but it caught national attention because of its similarity with the carnage of April 2016. Exactly eight years ago, they had attacked the villagers at night, killed many and set scores of houses ablaze. 

Gov. Peter Mbah of Enugu State

Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, barely a year in office, had promptly visited the traumatised community. He came face to face with the wounded, the bereaved and saw the wreckage of burnt homes. The village was empty, save for the frightened few who sneaked in from nearby communities to receive him. 

The visit was going well as the governor took in the carnage and empathised with the people, until he was overtaken by emotion. He bowed his head at one point and shed a few tears. The crying drama earned him much criticism: of what use are tears to the villagers who expected their governor to stand strong with them? 

But there was a heartbreaking side to why the governor broke down in tears. A few days before the killings, he had received security reports about a possible attack on Nimbo but at the State Security Council meeting which he summoned to discuss it, he was assured by the Commissioner of Police that the situation was under control.  He was assured that the Area Commander of the State Anti-Robbery Squad was on ground in Nimbo. Sadly, in the early hours of the next Monday, reports of the carnage reached him. He was totally let down.

Ugwuanyi picked courage after the visit, and issued the usual threat to bring the perpetrators of the carnage to justice and take measures to strengthen security structures that would endure. For whatever it was worth, the people heaved a sigh of relief. 

Nimbo and the larger Uzo-Uwani area remained the same. In fact, the herdsmen have since become more brazen in their attacks and the people’s misery has increased.The killings and displacement have continued with impunity and many more people have been killed, some in their farmlands, while a large number of their homes have been torched. 

Sadly, not much was done to prevent a repeat. The Commission of Inquiry set up by the administration only scratched the surface; if it made any far-reaching recommendations at all, they only probably exist somewhere in the books. 

A community on the state’s borderline, Nimbo has largely remained forgotten, attracting the attention of government for the wrong reasons. While the people lament the lack of government attention by way of projects and facilities, their sons and daughters are not integrated into government by way of political positions. They have long concluded that they are abandoned to their fate.

Last week, it was at Ugwuijoro that the terrorists struck. The villagers had gathered to mourn their dead and deep into the obsequies, the gunmen wielding sophisticated weapons, struck. The unsuspecting villagers were easily overpowered and by the time their operation was over, four men lay dead with many more seriously wounded. 

Those killed, according to reports, are Okeh Simon Ugwu Oruku, Okeh Chukwuebuka, Julius Ogbonna Odiegwu and Gabriel Ugwor Ezea. Those who could afford to run, abandoned their homes for fear of more attacks. 

The following day, a Monday, Governor Peter Mbah of Enugu State did what his predecessor did exactly eight years earlier, minus the tears. He paid a visit to the community within 24 hours and repeated the usual condemnation  of the people who have taken the indigene’s open arms of welcome for granted. He announced a scholarship programme for children whose parents were killed during the attack, promised that the marauders would be brought to justice and to ensure stronger protection for the people. 

Whether the people believed him is another matter, considering how previous promises turned out to be meaningless. 

The strong police presence Ugwuanyi promised eight years ago is not there. The influx of strange faces with trailer-loads of cattle has continued on a daily basis in spite of the promise of monitoring activities in the forests. It has been easy for the herdsmen who had reinforced in nearby forests around Adani, Opanda and Ugboda, all within Uzo-Uwani Local Government Area, to consistently attack and overwhelm the unsuspecting locals.

They have largely succeeded in terrorising the villagers because government at state and federal levels that should guarantee their safety, chose to handle the terrorists with kid gloves. Some locals even accuse the federal forces of complicity while much has not come from the state government, beyond the occasional treats against forceful take-over of community land by herdsmen. 

The ceaseless attacks on Nimbo and the deaths of the innocent villagers send a strong signal across Enugu State that government has failed to guarantee the people’s safety. It tests the resolve of the government to deal with the criminals who are sworn to forcefully annex that juicy swath of Igboland. If enough, truly, is enough, as the Governor Peter Mbah declared after visiting the crime scene,  he should go beyond platitudes and give the people reason to live safely and peacefully in their ancestral homes.

Our environment is undoubtedly fouled up. The physical is there for whoever cares to see. Of course, there are a great many who do not see and, therefore, do not care while there are those who see but do not care; they cannot be bothered. The inconveniences they may have caused to their fellowmen, what diseases may have issued from filth to threaten their compatriots resulting from their attitudes do not move them. Chambers 21st Century Dictionary defines environment as “the surroundings or conditions within which something or someone exists.” Thus we talk of the business environment; we talk about the economic as well as political environment. So is it that we also speak of cultural environment, school environment, or social environment. An environment can be hostile. On the other hand, it can be peaceful, harmonious, and uplifting. The dictionary even goes further, saying the environment could be external: “the combination of external conditions that surround and influence a living organism.” It is not infrequent that some people speak of the professional environment. The environment comes under the all-encompassing tangibility and the intangibility, either with waves of influence, the former assailing our eyes and the latter our feelings and sense of well-being if it is disagreeable.

Governments at different tiers make laws and bylaws to regulate the environment to make it beautiful, enchanting, and welcoming for the overall well-being of the citizenry. Consider heaps of refuse or gutters not cleared. These make for ugliness, an eyesore, and an incubating shelter for diseases. The gutters soon begin to send out a disgusting stench. Think of the great harm and destruction to life and property that unconscionable blockage of waterways and flood-control channels can inflict on the generality of the populace. Water whose pathway is blocked will always find its way. To avert widespread disaster, affecting even the unsuspecting members of the community, the decisive action of a government especially in flood-prone terrain becomes a blessing in disguise to the society as a whole.
A conducive environment by way of law and order triggers business or investment instincts and confidence. These make for economic development and the social well-being of a people. But there is more to the environment. It encompasses the wider unseen world with by far greater influence on our earthly existence and in our lives later in the Beyond, in the ethereal world. What our state here on earth, hardly realised, is moulded in the world unseen. It is, therefore, often stated that it is the environment that moulds the man and that man is a product of his environment, his fortune or misfortune, his experiences et al. The influence the environment impacts, it is argued, is such that the fate of a man is as sanctioned by the conditions of his environment. In the enlightenment of these times, we now know that this settled notion is erroneous. In other words, the station or situation in which a man may find himself is arbitrary and it is not so. It is similar to the “mystery” surrounding why good people suffer and why manifestly evil men prosper! Why should a good man be born in abject poverty and a wicked man into opulence? This is a thought we human beings have grappled with for thousands of years. They are questions for which strenuous efforts have been made in the search for answers.

The questioning has arisen from a lack of understanding of man himself and more importantly mankind’s perception of God and His Nature. The result is that there is a wrong image of God the Almighty Father. He is often reduced to the level of an earthly King, or at most the King up there a few miles above the clouds, overlooking every human being and every creature. He is so placed to be able to read everybody’s mind. What we must recognise is that The Almighty in His Omnipotence is infinitely and inconceivably greater than that. We must get it clear that arbitrariness is impossible in the ways of the Creator, the Almighty. It is His Wisdom that rules the world. It is the Wisdom manifesting in the Creation- Laws which He uses as mechanisms to govern His Creation. Consider it if it were not so: The incomprehensive and inconceivable vastness of Creation alone, the seven universes in the material world, that is the World of Gross Matter which abuts the Creation proper separated by a ring of the Animistic where animals have their origin. The Creation proper is where the Paradise of we human beings is. Consider the billion galaxies in our universe called Ephesus. The earth is only a planet in our solar system anchored around the sun. The sun itself is only one of billions of stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way. Each of the seven universes has its own solar systems and galaxies and each solar system and galaxy with its own planet—all Creation in living activities, working and weaving, and weaving and surging, and sparkling, energy fields far away from and to regions incomprehensible to human reasoning, and immeasurable.

It is little known that the Ethereal World which is the Beyond is by far bigger than our earth. It is vastly populated in its own different planes by human spirits still developing or trapped by errors and misconceptions as well as wrong teachings spread while on earth. These are different from multitudes in the Dark Region. On earth today, the population is said to be about 7.8 billion human beings. How is God Almighty to deal with every individual on earth and those struggling to shrug off the burden of their guilt if he were to relate to us in the manner as is generally believed? Scant attention is paid to neither His Omnipotence nor His Omnipresence, both attributes of the Creator which are least understood. It is knowledge and understanding of His Wisdom expressed in the Laws, the principles that reveal how sublime His Ways are and how unrelenting, ceaseless, immutable and just the mechanisms that govern life are.

With the understanding of the mechanisms, that is the Creation/Divine Laws, it will be seen that it is man who forms his environment. He is the architect of his own fortune. He forms his environment with radiation threads he supplies for weaving at the loom of life manned by the Nature Beings–where they are at work. The radiations flow from his thought volition, speeches, or actions in the exercise of his free will, asserting his freedom of thought, freedom of speech, and action. Man in the exercise of his free will is free to think and choose. Didn’t the Lord Christ say that it is not what goeth into a man’s mouth but what cometh out of it that defileth a man? However, he bears spiritual responsibility for what he thinks or does. Thoughts may be unseen, speeches could be heard and actions seen or felt. Laws govern the whole of Creation. In the knowledge mediated to man today, we are permitted to recognise the fact that these Laws are perfect, uniform, immutable, and self-acting not just in the whole of Creation but in the activities therein as well. The Laws which govern by extension a man’s placement, whether the choice of family or social relationship are the Laws of Attraction of Homogeneous Species, the Law of Reciprocal Action, the Law of Spiritual Gravitation, and the Law of the Cycle. These constitute the manual of Creation as they are the expression of the Will of God Almighty.

The manual of any product is produced by the manufacturer. For a pilot and flight captain of an aircraft to fly their aircraft successfully and safely, they must be conversant with the manual of the model of their aircraft and abide by it, its content, and the direction it gives. It is the same with automobiles. The manual for a car tells us about tyre gauge, oil gauge, water gauge, speedometer, and when to change accessories. The car guarantees safety and gives pleasure and joy to him who is familiar with the manual. The Almighty Creator is the Author of Creation’s manual. Those who sojourn under the folds of His Creation have the bounden duty to be familiar with this manual so they do not constitute a hindrance and nuisance to the harmonious working of Creation. Legislators give expression to the will of their constituents through laws. With all the mechanisms in place, living and self-acting, indeed self-policing, the Almighty does not need to directly intervene in the cares of men and world conditions. These are left to the living and incorruptible mechanisms of life, the outworking of the Holy Spirit, the Creative Will and Justice of God personified, the eternal Mediator.

A set of Nature Beings weave the ethereal radiation threads from thoughts into forms in accordance with the contents of the thoughts so issued. Another set does the same with the radiations that stream out of speeches. Ethereal waves go out of actions and are woven into forms. These forms bear energies within them and through the Law of Similarity and Like attracting Like, they attract similar thought forms from any part of the world. The thoughts are thereby reinforced and they form power centres. All the forms are firmly linked with the author of the deeds, thoughts, speeches, or actions. They are seeds in the soil of life. When they have gone through maturation processes like the seed of any plant, the fruits ripen for harvest by the sower. The harvest can be in the form of a darkened environment around the sower.

The forms and power centres are not necessarily those of evil alone. There are power centres from where blessings flow as well. Good seeds will produce good fruits. As such returns from the power centre that consists of goodness form light environment around the sower and he feels light and glows. He knows joy and happiness, peace and harmony. He senses some wholesomeness in Creation. Thus, in the words of Herbert Vollmann in his The Gate Opens: “The environment does not form and mould man, but man forms the environment, in that his nature attracts other homogeneous kinds or is attracted by these, as with incarnation. Thus he creates for himself that environment in which he lives, with which he associates or ‘keeps company’. Hence the saying: ‘A man is known by the company he keeps.’ We could also say that our environment is our mirror image!

However, the ethereal environment has been darkened and is now full of filth because evil is more prevalent in countries and the world in general as of these times. What with the devastation, mindless killings, and destruction of properties in the Russia-Ukraine War and the Hamas-Israeli War! The bloody conflict in Sudan counts as part of the evil sweeping through the world for which there will be dire consequences for the perpetrators in another earthlife. What with the air of forebodement resulting from the unabating insecurity challenges in Nigeria: banditry, kidnappings, and killings!

Because of the pressure of the Light through the Power of the Holy Spirit, power sweeping through all lands, in the proverbial End -Time that has already descended on the earth, there is intensification and acceleration of events and closing of cycles—the end going back to the beginning and therewith the ripening of fruits, and harvesting. The darkened environment is laden with tribulations and misery as consequences of wrong actions, the breach of the incorruptible Laws. Today, the animated darkened environment is pushing for manifestation in all parts of the world. Intuitive perception which is the infallible guide for man is masked resulting in the collapse of values and high-mindedness. We are told that mankind is at the moment living in a time of the Cosmic Turning Point, the last Turning point when our universe, Ephesus, is moving to the last phase! It is a phase of compulsion to knowledge invoked by unbelievably harrowing experiences; a phase where negligence and carelessness will avenge themselves bitterly. Only goodness as a way of life and purity of thoughts can reverse the darkening of the environment and the impending doom.

Africa is always in perpetual struggle for survival. It is the world’s second largest and second-most populous continent after Asia, but its past and future always seem to be in constant collision. In the past, our forebears confronted slavery, enslavement and colonialization, and this gave birth to pan Africanism. Now, the continent is at the crossroads of historical occurrences. The clash of civilizations between Islamic fundamentalists and the West; the fight for geopolitical dominance between China and the US; the breakout of war in Europe for the first time since the end of the Second World War and the growing wealth gap between the global north and global south are some of the forces that African leaders have to deal with to chart the continent’s socioeconomic direction in the coming decades.

Africa is also facing what appears to be another round of colonialism characterized by massive exploitation of its natural resources by agents of foreign countries notably, China and Russia. Illegal mining of natural resources in many African countries, including Nigeria, DRC, Niger Republic, Chad and many others are the major causes of insecurity, violence and poverty. A new wave of migrant from the continent pours into Europe and America every day. Without a doubt, our continent remains the most exploited continent in the world. In the welter of all these, the continent suffers from incompetent, corrupt and weak leadership.

Worried by the fate of their continent, a group of African academics, professionals and civic society activists have come together in search of a new generation of pan Africanists who will save their continent from collapse. Although Pan Africanism was born in the struggles of African people against enslavement and colonization, and this struggle goes back to the rebellions on the slave ships and plantations across the West, the new generation of pan Africanists are fighting at intellectual level, trying to decolonize the minds of Africans. They have established an organization known as The Pan African Dialogue Institute (TPADI). It was conceived in 2016 by a couple of African academics and professionals led by Nigeria’s Dr. Effiong Udo of the University of Uyo and Prof. Mutombo Nkulu-N’Sengha, a US citizen originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo. TPADI is headquartered in the University of Uyo. Dr. Udo has unfathomable passion for pan Africanism. I caught up with him in his office at the University of Uyo last week as he was preparing for hosting an international conference on Dialogue and Pan Africanism.

 TPADI, he says, is a network of academics, professionals, civil society and grassroot leaders in different fields of life, within Africa and the diaspora, who are motivated by the best principles of Pan Africanism to serve the continent and its people worldwide. It is a civil society think tank for the study, practice and propagation of Pan-Africanism. Its programs and activities revolve around three thematic areas: education, policy and projects. On education, the institute hopes to create programs to educate ourselves, all Africans and other interested persons in Pan-Africanism. It offers certificate, executive and postgraduate programs in Pan-Africanism and create public awareness through seminars, workshops, webinars and convoke cultural events and academic conferences on dialogue and Pan-Africanism. On policy, it engages in local, continental, and global policy analysis, formulation and advocacy, within the threshold of Pan-Africanism. The aim is to inform and advise stakeholders and decision-makers on resolving African problems with African solutions.

 On projects, TPADI conducts needs assessment to identify, design and implement projects to build and advance the living conditions of African communities and empower our peoples. ‘’Our educational, policy and project engagements intersect under social, economic, political, religious and cultural issues, as well as scientific, environmental, educational, legal, gender and business domains’’, he said, gesticulating frantically. ‘’This is why we have 10 dialogue commissions who regularly engage with these issues. So far, we have members from 22 African countries. Some of them are based in the Americas, Europe and United Kingdom’’. Dr. Udo said he was inspired into Pan-Africanism when he attended a program at the University of California in 2016 and had to team up with many Africans in diaspora on a research program. ‘’The experience opened my eyes to what is wrong with Africa and the fact that it is only Africans that can create African solutions to our problems’’, he told me.

Pan Africanism emerged as a response to the long history of the indignities of colonization, enslavement, and systemic oppression and exploitation faced by African people across the globe. The African Union defines Pan-Africanism as: “… an ideology and movement that encourages the solidarity of Africans worldwide. It is based on the belief that unity is vital to economic, social and political progress and aims to ‘unify and uplift’ people of African descent. The ideology asserts that the fates of all African peoples and countries are intertwined. At its core, Pan-Africanism is “a belief that African peoples both on the continent and in the diaspora, share not merely a common history, but a common destiny.” From the early days of Pan Africanism till today, the advocacy for the unity, solidarity, and empowerment of people of African descent worldwide continues to be a potent force driving discussions on identity, liberation, and socio-political progress of the continent and its people.

The Pan African Dialogue Institute (TPADI), according to Dr. Udo, is therefore established to pursue the decolonization of the mind through education, policy analysis, policy building and advocacy around multi-faceted issues within the threshold of Pan-African principles. He said, ‘’Our job is to inspire excellence and best practices in Pan Africanism, promote African values of community, hospitality, respect for human and environmental dignity, unity in diversity, love and solidarity with all, as encapsulated in the Ubuntu philosophy. We are seeking to reverse the mentality that Africans are not capable of helping themselves and solving their problems’’.

‘’We want to reverse that culture of dependency on external assistance that unfortunately still prevails on the continent. If people become too reliant on getting their support, their nourishment and their safety from outside sources, they do not strive to find the power within themselves to rely on their own capacities. Pan Africanism calls upon Africans to drawn on their own strengths and capacities and become self-reliant. Again, we are seeking to celebrate our Africanness, the unity, resilience and collective identity as Africans. And, we want to achieve all these by using dialogue and collaboration among individuals, communities, institutions and nations’’, he said.

The institute is marking the 2024 International Africa Day with pomp and pageantry. Nigeria is among the multitude of African countries that have never celebrated Africa Day which is May 25. It was on May 25, 1963, that leaders of the then 32 independent African States signed a founding charter in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, which brought the Organization of African Unity into existence. In 2002, the OAU established its own successor, the African Union, and adopted May 25 every year as a day to celebrate Africa and highlight the continent’s continued struggle against neocolonialism, exploitation and adversity. Surprisingly, ever since the day was declared, only nine African countries (The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Lesotho, Mali, Mauritania, Zambia and Zimbabwe) are known to observe May 25 as public holiday with celebrations. The other 46 countries, including Nigeria are less aware of this very important day. By marking the day with many festivities next week, TPADI is has made Nigeria join the other nine countries to celebrate Africa Day for the first time ever.

‘’Our institute will be formally launched on May 25 in a grand ceremony at the University of Uyo with former President Goodluck Jonathan as the chairman of the occasion. Akwa Ibom State Governor, Pastor Umo Eno, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Uyo, Prof. Ndaeyo and hundreds of distinguished personalities from Nigeria and outside the country will be present. Gov. Umo Eno will lay the foundation for the International Headquarters of the Institute at the University. There will be speeches, fairs, cultural displays and other events on the Africa Day’’, Udo enthused. Between May 23 and 26, 2024, the institute will host the first international conference on “Dialogue and Pan Africanism’’. The conference is held in collaboration with Centre for Deep Dialogue and Critical Thinking, Directorate of International Programmes and faculties of Arts, Law, Social Sciences, and Communication and Media Studies of the University of Uyo.

Already, Professor P.L.O Lumumba has confirmed his participation as the keynote speaker at the conference, while plenary speakers will include Prof. Wole Soyinka; Prof. Mutombo Nkulu-N’Sengha (DR Congo/USA), Prof. Mary Nyangweso (Kenya/USA), Prof. Emmanuel Akpabio (Nigeria), Amb. Daniel Guttierez (Rep. of Belize), Prof. Joseph Ushie (Nigeria), Dr. Donatus Ukpong (Nigeria), Prof. Chris Ekong (Nigeria), Prof. Peter Esu (Nigeria), Dr. Jean-Louis Ikambana (USA), Prof. Aniekan Brown (Nigeria), Prof. Mojisola Iseyin (Nigeria), Prof. Gabriel Umoh (Nigeria), Dr. Ubong Essien Umoh (Nigeria), among others. The conference seeks to provide informed Pan-Africanist perspectives on a wide range of issues affecting Africa and its people everywhere in the world. Presenters are expected to explore the trajectories of development in the continent from the lens of Pan-Africanism. They will probe the different approaches, theories, philosophies or ideologies that have been adopted at community, national and continental levels by key players to drive developmental efforts.