Migration: ADF tasks Igbo in the Diaspora to think home

From Magnus Eze, Enugu

The Ala-Igbo Development Foundation (ADF) has asked the Igbo in the Diaspora to, henceforth, bring home their investments to fast-track the development of the South East.

The ADF said the move would reduce the ongoing migration of the Igbo youths chasing greener pastures outside their homeland.

Chairman, Board of Trustees of the ADF, Bishop Obi Onubogu and its acting Secretary General, Chief Abia Onyike, gave the advice during the pre-launch of Blossom City Estate in Enugu by a Lagos-based real estate firm, Pinto Realty.  

Onubogu said he was excited about the estate located between Nike in Enugu East Local Government Area, and Udi in Udi LGA, because its ownership shared the same vision and philosophy of Aku Ruo Ulo (Think-home) with the ADF.

He appealed to the governors of the five Southeast states to introduce policies that would not drive investors away, but rather create a friendly environment for businesses to thrive. He urged them to key into the Aku Ruo Ulo campaign to fast-track development and industrialisation of the zone.  

He said: “We have to drum this song into our ears and those of our children. The Igbo people have seen a lot in Nigeria. The Igbo man has witnessed so much that he must learn his lessons. The symptoms manifested even before the civil war. Then, after the Nigeria-Biafra war, the authorities in Nigeria seized everything we had outside Igboland before the war. Have you forgotten that all the houses belonging to the Igbo in Port Harcourt were seized from them as abandoned property?

“My own mother showed me her land in Port Harcourt, but I couldn’t approach it after the war; people have seized it. So, we have to caution ourselves.”

The ADF’s acting Secretary General, Onyike, said that developing massively would, among other things, help to checkmate the ravaging of Igbo communities by the murderous herdsmen.  

The Managing Director/CEO of Pinto Realty, Chimezie explained that, “any Igbo son and daughter can buy and build so that we join hands and save our youths from this sudden japa or migration to other countries, thereby depopulating our land. We need to bring the population to develop our home in Igbo land.”