The Vice Chancellor of the University of Nigeria, Prof Charles Arizechukwu Igwe has appointed the immediate past Head, Department of Linguistics, Igbo & Other Nigerian Languages, University of Nigeria Nsukka, Prof Chris Uchenna Agbedo as the substantive Director, Centre for Igbo Studies, University of Nigeria Nsukka. In a letter, dated 2nd August 2021, Prof Igwe enjoined Prof Agbedo to ‘give leadership required to inspire staff and students of the Centre to work with vigour towards the efforts of his Administration to make the University of Nigeria a Centre of Excellence and her programmes/products globally competitive’. In his acceptance letter, Prof Agbedo thanked the Vice Chancellor, Prof Igwe for considering him to be so appointed and pledged to do his best to take the Centre to greater heights.
Meanwhile, Prof Agbedo has formally assumed duty at the Centre after receiving a handover note from the immediate past Director of the Centre, Prof Roseline Ijeoma Okorji, who gave a brief run-down of the activities of the Centre during her 3-year tenure. The former Director congratulated her successor, Prof Agbedo on his well-deserved appointment and prayed God to give him the enablement to pilot the affairs of the Centre and consolidate on the landmark achievements already recorded since the establishment of the Centre. In his response, the new Director of the Centre, Prof Chris Agbedo expressed gratitude to God for the opportunity to serve Him and humanity in that capacity and prayed for God’s grace without which he, as an ordinary mortal, can do nothing. He congratulated Prof Okorji on her successful tenure as a Director of no mean feat and wished her well in her future engagements.
After the handover ceremony, Prof Agbedo had a brief meeting with the staff, during which he expressed his happiness for the opportunity to be part of them. He enjoined them to redouble their efforts in their individual and collective responsibilities towards not only sustaining the glowing legacies bequeathed by the past Directors and present staff of the Centre but also actualizing the noble objectives for which the Centre was established.
The Centre for Igbo Studies, University of Nigeria Nsukka was formally established in 2014 with the mandate to garner and mobilise human and material resources for growing, developing, advancing, and sustaining the Igbo language, literature, and culture. To this effect, the Centre is developing a working Programme of Action (PoA), which entails Online Igbo (embedding digital pedagogy in the Igbo language curriculum), Conversational Igbo, research and documentation of linguistic, literary, and cultural aspects of Igbo, Acculturation Programme, Igbo Crafts & Arts, Indigenous Knowledge Creation, Professions/Occupations, Inheritance Rights & Gender issues in Igboland, Marital and Burial Rites, Communication Modes, Kola Nut, Igbo Calendar, Traditional Religion, Cultural Festivals & Carnivals, Igbo Political System, Tourist Sites in Igboland, etc. For the actualization of this PoA, the Centre seeks to synergize with similar institutions and organisation within and outside the University of Nigeria, including Departments of Linguistics, Igbo & Other Nigerian Languages, Arts Education, Fine & Applied Arts, Music, Theatre & Film Studies, Archaeology & Tourism Studies, Sociology & Anthropology, Political Science, Religion and Cultural Studies, Philosophy, Institute of African Studies, National Language Centre Abuja, Ọhaneze Ndịgbo, Royal Fathers & Cultural Centres in Igboland, Cultural Icons in Igboland and Diaspora. It would seek global partnerships and collaborations with Language Centres of tertiary institutions (within and outside Nigeria), Association University Language Communities (UK & Ireland), as well as apply and get accredited by the International Association of Language Centres (IALC).
Agbedo said the “current management and staff of the Centre are not unmindful of the fact the foregoing would remain mere lofty projections unless requisite manpower, material resources, and political will are duly galvanized and deployed towards actualising them in due course.”
To this effect, the Director, Prof Chris
Agbedo has called on all people of good will, well-meaning sons and daughters of Ndịgbo in Igboland and in the Diaspora, friends of Ndịgbo and lovers of Igbo language and culture to rise to the occasion and brace up to the challenges of advancing the worthy cause of Igbo language and culture.
He said, “Together, as a people with one mind and one destiny, collectively propelled by galvanic purposefulness and the urgency of NOW, we can be the change agent with the divine mandate to change the Igbo narrative for the overall betterment of Ndịgbo and their language and culture. Igbo ga-adị; Igbo adịrịla! The die is cast! Ugo eberela na mgbagbu!
