Dear all:
The thread on the Igbo Congress has moved in various directions from the need for it, to Benin/Bini, and now to the memoir of Cornelius. I need to disentangle for better threads. As an aside, any group of people has the right to hold a meeting and discuss itself and its future. A group owes know one a reason for its meeting or its motivation. Nations run on compromises and negotiations—things break down only if one group wants to impose its own wish all the time.
As a second aside, regarding Benin/Bini, do not confuse changing orthographies with changing politics. Bornu to Borno, Ijaw to Ijo, Egbira to Ebira, Uthman to Usmanu, etc. as the elite of a group decides what it wants to correct. I wish Chinua Achebe were alive to tell you his experience regarding an aspect of this and how it produced an uproar.
Now to the suggestion to Cornelius. I have been encouraging the publication of memoirs, and if you have one, just contact me. I have published that of Kalu Ogbaa, titled Carrying My Father’s Touch (2014). Ogbaa’s memoir chronicles “the remarkable spiritual and educational journey of a poor village boy from Nigeria who, through sheer hard work and the unwavering Christian faith he learned from his father, struggled to realize his American dream….”
A. B. Assensoh has recently submitted his own to me which I am reading.
Toyin Falola
Department of History
The University of Texas at Austin
104 Inner Campus Drive
Austin, TX 78712-0220
USA
512 475 7224
512 475 7222 (fax)
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