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| founding father |
By Chiemelie Ezeobi
It was a colourful occasion when the guests dressed in
resplendent attires arrived Oriental Hotel, Lagos, the venue of the Investiture
of the President and Management Team of Atamu Social Club of Nigeria. From the
cascade of colors, it promised to be a promising occasion and it certainly
lived up to expectation. The gathering of the socio-cultural group was just one of
the ways through which it champions unity and sustainable development of Urhobo
nation.
Armed with its
mission of providing a platform for the promotion of unity, growth and
development of the Urhobo nation through interaction, empowerment and advocacy,
the group has through the years propagated its core values of integrity,
character, excellence.
In his speech, the president, Chief Johnson Ikporho Agagbo,
who took over from the past president, Chief Abraham Ogbodo, said the club has
since inception recorder tremendous achievements in consolidating the vision of
the founding fathers.
According to him, some of the strategic projects that has
impacted positively on the well being of Urhobos and Deltans at large are the
renovation of the Mariere hall of residence and the statue of Chief Jereton
Mariere at the University of Lagos.
Others are the launch of a N100million Atamu Eduxation
Endowment Fund for indigent Urhobo sons and daughters, the Urhobo national
scholarship award for brilliant undergraduates across the entire country and
the documentation, sponsorship and launch of the first dictionary of Urhobo
language as compiled by Mr. Edward Osubele.
He said the new administration would ensure it hosts the
Pan-Urhobo International conference and
the recommendations would form part of government policies to be reached
out to the legislature and executive.
He also proposed the establishment of the Urhobo national
data base which can be used for economic planning and political positioning
purposes, also, the revival of the scholarship programmes which is geared
towards sustaining the education of indigent students.
He said, "Our challenges and the instruments with which
to meet them may be new but the values upon which our success depends on are
old. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility. Now, we will
disagree, sometimes fiercely about how to achieve our goals.
"But by itself, the recognition that we have common
hopes and dreams won't end all the gridlock, resolve all our problems or
substitute for the painstaking work of building consensus and making the difficult
compromises needed to move this club forward."
He added, "Atamu has never been about what can be done
for us rather what we can do collectively through the hard and focused but
necessary work of self-government. That is the principle we were founded
on."
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