The Executive Secretary, National Institute for Cultural Orientation (NICO) Dr. Barclays Foubiri Ayakoroma is billed to deliver a paper as a special guest in the United States of America in a forum where Nigerians of Ijaw extraction will gather to celebrate late Major Isaac Jasper Adaka Boro.
The event being organized by the Ijaw National Alliance of the Americas (INAA) will bring together the Ijaws in the Diaspora and will take place from June 25 to 26 at the Sheraton Newark Airport Hotel, Newark, New Jersey.
The occasion tagged “2011 Boro Day Summit and 14th Service and Devotion Award”, is the ninth in the series of INAA Boro Day.
It will provide an exceptional platform for interaction on the way forward for the Ijaw nation and Nigeria. In this regard, Dr. Ayakoroma in his thought provoking paper titled, “Culture and National Identity: A Challenge to Ijaws in the Diaspora,” re-examines the existence of the Ijaw as a people, and suggests how they can be proud of whom they are as Ijaw men and women.
Recalling how late Adaka Boro initiated and championed Izon ethnic struggle through positive expression of his national identity, he emphasized that for the Ijaw culture to have identity in the Diaspora, there must be identification with national aspirations, where things that boost culture, such as creative writings, national dress sense, indigenous language, dance, music, etc. need to be systematically promoted in the Diaspora.
In a paper, “From Boroism to Ethnic Nationalism and Militancy in the Niger Delta: Towards a Cultural Agenda for the Izons” he presented at the same Late Boro Commemoration Day but in the United Kingdom, Europe, at the Lambeth Town Hall, Brixton Hill, Brixton London in August 2010, Dr. Ayakoroma also talked about the Ijaw struggle as he recalled the patriotic nature of the Late Boro.
Nwagbo Nnenyelike
Corporate Affairs