A pan Igbo socio- cultural group, Alaigbo Development Foundation (ADF) is seeking audience with American President-elect, Mr. Donald Trump, just as it has sent a congratulatory message to him on his victory.
ADF is a corporate body of intellectuals, clergy, traditional rulers, businessmen, politicians, women and youth of Igbo origin who are working to overcome the state of endemic corruption, political and economic marginalisation in the country.
In a November 12, 2016 congratulatory letter and signed by Prof. Uzodinma Nwala, president and Prof Nath Aniekwu, secretary, respectively, the group said Trump’s role in global affairs and his importance in the world can not be over emphasised.
In the letter, the group described the Igbo Nation as one of the three biggest ethnic nationalities that were brought together with several others for the administrative convenience of the British Colonial Regime to make up the Federal Republic of Nigeria in 1914, mainly to serve British interest.
It alleged ethnic exclusion, genocide, systemic alienation of the Igbo Ethnic Nationality in the Nigerian Federation, a situation which it said had worsened since the end of the Biafra war in 1970.
‘’We Igbos have no sense of belonging in the political contraption known as Nigeria today. We have also been severally unable to fulfil our legitimate aspirations as a people in the country as a result of its lopsided hegemonic and corruption–driven contrivance.
‘’Igbos are found across the globe, being a great cosmopolitan people with the immense God-given gift of an entrepreneurial spirit and culture. Since the second decade of the last Century, Igbos have emigrated in large numbers to the United States where they found a second home in search of education and attracted by the spirit and practice of self-actualisation, acknowledgment of merit, embodied in the American Dream and the core essence of American democracy; themselves being children of a society that is traditionally republican and democratic in practice well before the inception of the British colonial rule’’.
ADF said Trump’s victory “represents a hope for a new world order in which America shall chart an independent foreign policy, especially in Africa, devoid of British colonialist manipulation and interests.”
While collectively praying for Trump’s success through God’s blessings, ADF offered fervent prayers for his administration to help usher in a new world order, and reverse America’s pro-British policy in Africa.
‘’ADF looks forward to and will eagerly embrace a new American foreign policy under your leadership that recognises the inalienable fundamental rights of Peoples to the protection of their ancestral homes, their lives, property, religion and their faith, to equity and justice and, above all, their right to self-determination’’.
The group recalled that many prominent Igbo leaders and intellectuals were brought up in several American universities including the late Africa’s most famous pan-Africanists, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe , renowned world Bank Executive Director, Ngozi Okonjo—Eweala, China Achebe, Professor Barth Okechukwu Nnaji and several others.
It also expressed the hope that under Trump’s leadership, Igbo citizens who wishs to live and work in the USA would be guaranteed protection and freedom under law by your administration.
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