U.S. women group canvasses teaching of Igbo language in schools

A United States of America (USA)-based women group, Otu Umuokpu Anambra, has urged governors of the South East states to enforce the teaching and speaking of Igbo language in schools, homes and churches to sustain the tradition and culture of the Igbo race.

President of the group, Dr. Maria Elioku, who made this known in Awka, Anambra State, during the inauguration of Otu Umuokpu branches in Awka, Onitsha, Enugu and all Lagos chapters, said such promotion would help protect and revive Igbo culture and traditions.

Elioku said parents and guardians should double their efforts at ensuring that their children and wards are taught to speak, write and read Igbo language at home, schools, churches and other domains since they were instruments of transmission of culture to future generations, with women as frontiers.

She argued that the positive impact of teaching Igbo language and culture to the younger generation would go a long way in checkmating the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) that Igbo language would go extinct by 2025.

She revealed that OUA, with the support of North Texas and District of Columbus (Washington) Maryland and Virginia (DMV), branches in the U.S., had embarked on advocacy programmes aimed at promoting the teaching of Igbo culture and traditions, especially Igbo language to the younger generations abroad through special classes.

While noting that women regard the male as heads of the families, Elioku appealed to them to accommodate the female folk in sharing the fathers’ inheritances, especially given the ruling of the Supreme Court in the Ukeje versus Ukeje suit.

Elioku pointed out that as female members of the Anambra in the diaspora, the group would not relent in promoting the culture and traditions of the state through establishment of a global network of women of Anambra in paternal ancestry.

On its part, International Coordinator of the group, Joy Ilochionwu, urged more women to join the body, which she said, used to intervene in serious family and communal issues in which the male folk find it difficult to decide objectively.

Also speaking, Founder of OUA Houston Headquarters, Jenny Ogadi, who was represented by the Emeritus President of OUA and wife of traditional ruler of Oraukwu, Queen Ozigbo, said the female group works towards upholding the culture of Anambra people.

She pointed out that, besides creating as network of sisters in the spirit of Ezinwanne and upholding the values of “our mothers in holding families together, among others, the OUA engage in empowerment programmes and donation of palliatives the in form of consumable and relief materials to needy persons and groups.”