ADF Statement on May 30, 2020 Biafra Remembrance Day Celebration.
Date:- May 29, 2020
Events in Alaigbo on May 30, each year show that May 30 has become an official Igbo Remembrance Day in Memory of the Biafra war of 1967-70, not only within Alaigbo but throughout the entire world where Igbo citizens live.
Each year, from London to Johannesburg, to several cities in Europe, Asia, America and Canada, the story is the same with various activities organized by Umuigbo and their friends to mark the occasion. Back home the entire Alaigbo have often been
shut down; markets, shops, schools and offices closed while streets are deserted to mark the Remembrance Day.
The Alaigbo Development Foundation (ADF) is fully aware that May 30 is a day in the history of Alaigbo, deeply rooted in the heart of our people and which nobody can wish away or ban by force of Law or prevent by force of arms.
It is in the light of this that the Alaigbo Development Foundation (ADF) has fully supported the observance of May 30, each year embracing peaceful activities lined out for the day by different Igbo organizations.
May 30 marks the day Biafra was declared in 1967 and no patriotic Igbo son or daughter can pretend that Biafra is not part of the history and indeed the major water-shed in the history of the Igbo nation.
If anyone is in doubt let him recall what has often happened on May 30, as was especially the case in 2017 and 2018 when our sons and daughters under the aegis of IPOB, MASSOB and other Pan-Igbo organizations declared a SIT-AT-HOME to commemorate Biafra Day as a historic day in the life of Ndigbo and their neighbors, with various other forms of memorial activities to mark the historic day.
The total compliance of that call throughout the length and breadth of Alaigbo was not because these pan-Igbo and pro-Biafra organizations have become their supreme authority. No! That call evokes intense yearning in the innermost recesses of the hearts and minds of Umuigbo. Consequently, whosoever provoked the observance is welcome as a lover of the Igbo nation.
BIAFRA evokes intense longing for freedom for our people. Biafra is indeed more than a state of the mind. It is also a material force that moves our people. Why will Biafra not be in their mind? Why will Biafra not symbolize their longing for freedom, when their predicament since the Amalgamation in 1914 up to the Biafra Declaration on My 30, 1967 and ever since Biafra has been a continuous state of estrangement, brutal attacks and punitive measures against their spiritual, economic, political and physical survival?
The Alaigbo Development Foundation (ADF), therefore, proposes that Umuigbo should continue to observe May 30 every year as a REMEMBRANCE DAY – a day to remember our history, to review our successes and failures, to remember those who have died fighting for the Igbo cause and also think of our future.
Incidentally, the May 30, 2020 celebration is taking place during a most tragic era in the history of humanity, namely, the COVID-19 Pandemic. This is not the only terror Ndigbo and their neighbors are currently facing. The massacre of our people have been intensified with the influx of Fulani warriors in the guise of Almajiri.
In the face of all these, ADF hereby call on Ndigbo and their neighbors to remain vigilant, strong and united; ready to defend themselves and their ancestral homes.
PROF. T. UZODINMA NWALA PROF NATH ANIEKWU
ADF PRESIDENT ADF SECRETARY
HON ABIA ONYIKE
CHAIRMAN,
ADF PUBLICITY BUREAU
