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The traditional ruler of Ogidi Community in Idemili North local government area of Anambra state Igwe Alex Onyido has said that the community would honour and immortalize her illustrious son and a literary icon late Prof Chinua Achebe.
Igwe Onyido said that Achebe was author of awarding winning popular book, “Things Fall Apart” hails from Ogidi Community brought fame and honour to the community even after his death.
The traditional ruler who stated this during his third Ofala festival saying that the community had resolved to builds cultural centre with museum, archive and conference centre to immortalize Prof Achebe for writing the name of the community in the world map.
“We want to to build Prof Achebe’s cultural centre and event place which I hope to achieve this year. He was number one literary legend in Igbo land, Nigeria, Africa and the whole world and we are proud of our own and we want to immortalize his name. I will build a befitting centre of tourism in his name.
“I have made the proposal to my community and we shall start the project very soon. The centre will have library where all his books will be placed, it will be a museum and archive where everything about Prof Achebe will be done and also a conference centre.
“The conference centre will be where people will come to hold functions and will be avenue to generate fund for the community. I intend to attract local and foreigners to Ogidi community through the the centre.
“I want the people to stand behind me in Ogidi because I came to serve the community, and I’m serving the people in truth and honest, with all my might and strength. I’m serving God, I preach peace in the community. My aim of being in this stool is to serve the people with all I have and in truth which I have been doing since I was crowned Igwe.
On the Ofala festival Igwe Onyido said: “This year’s Ofala festival was done in a low-key because of Corona virus pandemic. I and my cabinet members decided to make to be low just to mark the Ofala festival. We decided to dispersed the crowd that normally come to festival.
“We had method where we sent foods and drinks to various groups and villages to their homes so that they will not come to palace to avoid crowd. You can see that there is no crowd here in the palace and we celebrated the Ofala festival under COVID-19 protocol.
“Ofala is an annual event whereby the king will bless his subjects and marshal out his programmes for the next year. In this year’s Ofala no masquerade, no procession by age grade and homage due to Coronavirus” Igwe Onyido stated.
