Enugu Centenary: Expect the biggest carnival ever –Obiora Ilo
From PETRUS OBI, Enugu  daily sun
Wednesday, May 13, 2009

As Enugu turns 100 years this year, the government and people of the state are hoping that the celebration would be one that would remain in the memory of the people for a long time to come. Already, the state government which is spearheading the 100 years anniversary celebration recently inaugurated a steering committee headed by Chief Nnia Nwodo.

Gov Sullivan Chime&Obiora Ilo 


Secretary to the Centenary Committee and Special Adviser to the governor on Media, VinMartin Ilo, in this chat with Daily Sun gives an insight into what the people of the South-East and South-South whom, he said, are the owners of the city should expect. Excerpts:

The Centenary anniversary


The occasion is to celebrate the city that has been here for 100 years; to celebrate a city that at a point was the capital for the whole of Southern Nigeria minus Lagos; to celebrate a city that was a capital of Eastern Nigeria; to celebrate a city that was the capital of East Central State, that was the capital of old Anambra State and today Enugu State; to celebrate a city that has remained home for people from more than 11 states.


You find out that a man who is from Akwa Ibom has a house in Enugu, the man from Imo has a house in Enugu, the man from Ebonyi, Abia, and Anambra has a house in Enugu; it’s like the soul of the Southerners in Nigeria. We want to celebrate a city that was the main stay of this country for many years before oil became fashionable. The coal that comes from this land sustained Nigeria. We want to celebrate a city that has produced great people in this country. If you come to the contemporary time you remember all the footballers, all the sprinters that this city has produced.


Enugu produced great men like the late Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, M.I. Okpara, Akanu Ibiam, Eyo Ita, the Jim Nwobodos, the Onohs, the Nwodos and many others. We want to celebrate a city that is home to a great school like C.I.C, one of the schools in this country that has produced the greatest number of governors both in Enugu and outside Enugu . We want to celebrate a city with a people that are so hard working; a people that persevered even at the heat of the civil war. So, this Centenary is about celebrating a city that is outstanding, that is still popularly called the Coal City .


Expectations

We want to leave some landmarks; we want to use this celebration to bring back the history of this great city. We want to see if we can document, dramatize and, to a great extent, bring back the memories of the important contributions of the Coal City in the history of Enugu State, Nigeria and the world. We want to look at the contributions of indigenes of this city, their sons, their daughters and use them in telling a story of survival and success.


We want to use this year of the centenary to bring back our landmarks and our sites. You never knew that the Great Zik of Africa was a legislator at the old Eastern Nigeria House of Assembly so also was Okpara, so also were the others like the Nwodos, like the father of the present governor, Chime, he was also a legislator here. We have many people from Bayelsa State whose parents were legislators in that building; in Anambra, in Imo, in Ebonyi, in Abia, Akwa Ibom, Cross River; we want to bring back the glory of that House of Assembly.


We want to trace the history, know the contributions of the men that were there. If you go to Washington DC you may spend two days just looking at the site in that great capital; when you come back to Enugu there is nothing to look at. The only place people used to go was the Polo Park, not to look at history, rather to drink beer; that was what Enugu was turning into, but now we want to see that history; we want to locate the first place that the first premier of Eastern Nigeria lived. It’s somewhere hidden in the GRA; we are going to trace it, retrieve it and restore it so that our children will know that they have a rich history.


They can aspire to be something; they can go to old House of Assembly building and with the documents there a child can read up a particular man and want to be like that man. They will have role models. Most of our kids just say Enugu the Coal City, they don’t know what that means; they think it’s a pseudo name, but we want to make it possible after this centenary celebration that when you come to Enugu you can pick your kids and go back to the coal mine and see what our forefathers went through to sustain our today.


That will also give us the opportunity to develop other tourist sites in and around Enugu so that once again people can connect with Enugu. I mean it’s like going back to the hospital where you were born or going back to the primary school you attended. A lot of us that grew up in Enugu have nowhere to go to either the house where you were born, the frontage has been turned into a beer parlour; this centenary will give us that opportunity. It’s like a home coming for all the people that trace their roots to in Enugu.


For the state itself, it’s an opportunity for people to come and see what contemporary Enugu is; what the present government is doing to reclaim the city, to renew the city. We are expecting that during the grand finale sometime in December, that parents domiciled in United State, Canada , Britain can bring their kids home to a carnival; oh! That was the school I attended; that was the playground where I played football. And in so doing we are not just bringing people from Enugu State, they are bringing their friends; we also open the door for investors to see that we have a more secure Enugu, a cleaner Enugu, with good infrastructure. So, it is renewing history and then creating a future for this city.


The city of Enugu 100 years after

Enugu has not gotten to where it should be in terms of development. It has not because of things that happened in the past. But thank God today that we have a leadership that is providing a direction; for instance, if in 2011 Sullivan Chime decides he is not going to contest for a second term and someone else is to take over as governor, the person is not going to rebuild the roads on Okpara Avenue; the person is not going to rebuild Ogui Road, and all the roads that has been constructed in Independence Layout, Uwani and what have you.


What the person may do is to say okay, we have done so much on roads, we have done so much on cleaning Enugu, it’s working, let me go and do more boreholes; or let me plant trees, or let me build new secondary schools. If the baton was passed as it should have been passed; if the relay race was as good as it should be Enugu must have been somewhere more than where it is today. We would have been at the higher level. Now, here we are a new foundation is being laid for this town and that foundation is going to be strong so that whoever comes after this administration will have something to build on. So, the answer is no, Enugu is not what it should be, but thank God we are just realizing that and that Enugu will be better tomorrow than it is today.


The states involved in the Centenary

You may wish to know that the committee the governor inaugurated recently for the Centenary included people from Enugu , Anambra, Imo, Ebonyi, Abia, Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom, Cross River and Rivers states. We are also bringing into the sub-committee people from Lagos who grew up in Enugu; northerners whose forefathers found a place in Enugu and brought them up in Enugu; they are coming on board, we are bringing everybody. One of the programmes for the celebration is that we are going to have a Centenary torch that will move round all the states of the South-South and South-East.


It will be an enlightenment campaign; we will advertise what we are doing, it will also give those brothers of ours, who found a home in Enugu a sense of belonging; they will know that we are not claiming Enugu to ourselves. So, our torch will move through Bayelsa, through Cross River, through Rivers, through Akwa Ibom and all the states of the South-East and eventually end up in Enugu where the Centenary proper will be taking place. But having brought some of them into this committee, of course, you will like to know that the governor of Cross River State, his father was one of the great men in this city.


You hear about Imoke Close in GRA; and so many others, so, we are going to reach out to all of them. We have already written a couple of them. In fact, the elder brother of the governor is a member of our committee and so also the son of the former premier of Eastern Region, Uzo Okpara is a member of our committee and a couple of others. So, we are carrying everybody along; this celebration is not for the people of Enugu alone, it’s for all those Enugu had in one way or the other touched their lives.


Timaya is also a member of the committee because he does his art here. Timaya lived in this city even when he released his first album. It might even interest you to know that Jay Jay Okocha is one of our grand ambassadors; we are reaching out to him and a couple of other people that made Nigeria proud, but came from this part. Bringing people like Timaya shows you that there is no age barrier; some members of the committee are in their 60s, some in mid-40s, some early 30s and some in their late 20s because we want it to encompass all. When we are coming for our grand finale sometimes in mid-December, the musical show we are going to put up will bring in the old, the contemporary, the young and all that; so it’s all encompassing.

Year-long activity


It’s a year long activity; the celebration has started with the inauguration of the committee by the governor. Very soon we are coming out with a Centenary calendar; what we want to do for the Centenary. Of course, it will include the Centenary fund raising because for the first time this kind of celebration will take place without government spending money. I mean if people are celebrating they don’t expect the government to take from the money they want to use in paying salaries, especially during this period of economic meltdown to come and sponsor.


There are lots of people that owe so much to this town; there are lots of businesses that owe so much to this town; there are lots of transport businesses whose sustenance is all rooted here; we want them to make contributions to what we are doing. There are many banks that are sustained by people in Enugu and their business activities take place here, we want them to come up; then the whole lot of other businesses. So, we are going to have a fund raiser in Enugu , in Abuja , and in Lagos ; that may come up in the second quarter of this year. We are going to call our friends, our brothers and sisters to buy into what we are doing.


Then we are going to have as early as possible a logo competition involving the whole Nigeria; let them give us a logo, or call it a mascot if you like; we are going to have art exhibition; these things will happen as the year rolls on; sons and daughters of this city that made this city proud, we are going to have an award for them; it’s part of the celebration. We are going to have a centenary art exhibition; we are going to have poetry/song exhibition; somebody should come and do a song for Enugu , we want to see the best. So, it’s a whole year of activities, but the grand finale will be in one week; but all these other things I’m talking about will take place; of course, there will be a centenary lecture; it’s a year of activity celebrating Enugu , but the great celebration will be in December.


Enugu residents

We are going to come up with a lot of public enlightenment; if you are asking people to come to Enugu then the residents of Enugu will help us in making Enugu to be clean. If this government took out time, took out money to do the roads with drainage, we won’t be asking for too much if we ask everybody in Enugu to paint their houses; it won’t be a bad idea; it won’t be a bad idea if the paint manufacturers in Enugu, just for us to achieve the aesthetic component of what we want to achieve, say okay, instead of N3000 for a drum of paint, centenary offer is N2000 or N2,500 so that people can make their cities beautiful; we want the schools to clean up their schools and make them beautiful. Because when our tourists come they would want to know the Holy Rosary Secondary School of old; CIC, Boys Secondary School Awkunanaw, Coal Camp Primary School and the rest. So, our appeal to them is for cooperation.


Let’s have a cleaner city; let’s have a more secure city. You know in this year of centenary we want to come with a culture where the residents are partners of security agencies. It won’t be business as usual when you see somebody beating another person on the street and you just walk past. We want them to be part of the campaign that if a drunk driver knocks down a street light pole, they should be able to arrest the person and call the authorities concerned; knowing that this is their city and we want to make it even more beautiful. So, what we need from residents is cooperation and then assistance in ensuring that our city is cleaner.


It will be a carnival-like atmosphere; all year round people will be visiting Enugu to know what is happening. Of course, in another one week or two our website will be on; so when we make the noise people all over the world can go to our website and see what our carnival is; some may say they want to come during this or that; and we are going to have the Mmanwu (Masquerade) festival. So, when they go to the calendar they will see that Mmanwu festival is for, say July; and they would indicate interest to be there. The government is already doing there beat so we want the residents to also help; be more hospitable because we are going to have visitors.

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What is the point of opening an entire new thread over a personal problem between you and becomerich?

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ikeyman00:

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