• US agog for African festival as Ohanaeze, Eze Nri mark 220th year of resistance to slavery
From Magnus Eze, Enugu
In 1803, precisely, 220 years ago, 75 Igbo were captured by slave raiders in the Otuocha/Aguleri of present-day Anambra State, ferried through the Omambala River to Calabar, and then to the United States of America.
At Dunbar Creek in Georgia, the Igbo captives said no to slavery and walked into the sea in mass suicide. Where that historic incident happened has come to be known as Igbo Landing. It was the first Black civil rights movement in human history.
Over the years, the Igbo continued to observe that significant memory. The Council of Igbo States in America (CISA) is focusing this year’s edition of its World Festival of Igbo Arts and Culture on “Igbo Landing: Memorialising our ancestors who refused to be enslaved.” The programme of activities is slated for Selden Park, Brunswick, Georgia and Igbo Landing, St. Simons Island, also in Georgia, United States of America from August 11 to 12th His Majesty, Eze Chukwuemeka Eri, Ezeora the 34th and Eze Aka Ji Ovo Igbo, will be on hand to perform the naming ceremony of African Americans
wishing to reconnect with their ancestry. Nri in Anambra State is the source of the Igbo. This year’s activity is coming at a time the new leader of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu has declared his determination to ensure integration of thousands of Americans of Igbo descent who had expressed their desire to be part of the apex Igbo body.
Iwuanyanwu will be leading a delegation of the Igbo from Nigeria and across the globe to participate in the event. Organisers said it is a huge tourist event designed to preserve and promote African Igbo arts, language and culture.
It held over the years at Igbo Village, Virginia, United States of America. This year’s will be the first time to be staged at Igbo Landing.
Believed to be one of the most unique and amazing cultural exhibitions of Ndigbo outside Nigeria, CISA president, James Umekwe said the event will showcase the beauty of Igbo cultural heritage in all ramifications. Daily Sun learnt that it had over the years witnessed contingents from Africa; North America, South America, Asia, and Europe. Since its initial opening in 2008, participants had come from different countries including USA, Colombia, Canada, Mali, South Africa; Liberia, Cameroun, Ghana, London, Nigeria, Gabon, Trinidad and Togo, Jamaica, Haiti and Barbados.
Chairman of CISA Board of Presidents, Dr. Nwachukwu Anakwenze (Onowu Abagana), said Igbo Landing-also called Ibo Landing, Ebo Landing, or Ebos Landing-is a historic site: “It was the setting of a mass suicide in 1803 by captive Igbo people who had taken control of their slave ship and refused to submit to slavery in the United States.” CISA’s Director of Media and Publicity, Chief Mathias Mgbeafulu, said holding the festival at the sacred Igbo Landing will give it the pride of place it has in the annals of active African resistance to subjugation.
He explained that the festival displays to the world the peculiarities of the Igbo, their roots, cultural heritage, and influences in continental America and to foster brotherhood among their African American kin and to humanity: “For CISA, the festival is a one-way Igbo heritage and Igbo contribution to world development more firmly cast in bold relief; the event is better experienced than described as it undoubtedly brings together Igbo people from all its subcultures to celebrate the endearing spirit of Igbo civilization.”
As a precursor, the Department of Theatre and Film Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), in May hosted an international conference on resilience against slavery to commemorate the 220 years of Igbo Landing. The event which took place on May 23 to May 24, 2023, featured a stage play titled “Ikenga: The dramatic recreation of the Igbo Landing story,” and an exhibition that captured the events of 1803 in various dimensions.
Convener of the conference, Dr. Ikechukwu Erojikwe, said the “conversation on forced migration, slavery and illegal migration tells the story of the heroic deeds of our forebears, while the exhibition preserved, promoted and documented this historical monument of our history.” There was a candlelit procession from UNN’s Arts Theatre to the Pavilion of Theatre and Film Studies where an evening of chants, poetry and cocktails, took place.
Prof. Damian Opata, an emeritus professor of the university who delivered the lead paper said Igbo Landing was a heroic affirmation of will over submission to slavery.
Speaking on the theme: “The legacy of research and resilience in the fight for black liberation: the concept of healing and restitution,” Opata said that it was “ariri” (a state of hopelessness and helplessness) that led the 75 enslaved Igbo to drown in a mass suicide, rather than submitting to slavery: “The Igbo Landing is a once and for-all event, not repeatable, not for emulation, it is irreversible and tragic, but a heroic affirmation of will over submission to slavery. “Yes, suicide is conventionally an abomination in Igbo cosmology, but that cosmology never anticipated anything like the banality of the transatlantic slave trade.” In a keynote speech titled: “Historicising the essence of the Igbo in Africa and the Atlantic Diaspora,” Prof. Chima Korieh of the Institute of African Studies, UNN, said that Igbo were able to respond to slavery because of their culture and republican nature, which “was quite a contrast to slavery where you have no freedom, no independence, and no self-determination.”
The conference was organised by Pentagram Pictures Media and Research Group UNN, in collaboration with Centre for Memories, Enugu and African Studies Centre, Michigan State University. Some other partners were the Department of History and International Relations, UNN and Centre for Igbo Studies, UNN, Council for Igbo States in America (CISA) and Centre for Igbo Studies, Dominican University, Chicago. President, Alaigbo Development Foundation (ADF), Prof. Uzodimma Nwala, chaired the event while Director of the Centre for Igbo Studies, Dominican University, USA, Prof. Nkuzi Nnam, was among virtual participants.