By Joyce Remi- Babayeju
The Statue of the Director General National Council for Arts and Culture, NCAC, Otunba Segun Runsewe was on Saturday unveiled in Etiti village as a historical edifice at the famous and ancient Igboukwu cultural heritage in Anambra State.
The colourful unveiling of Runsewe’s statue was part of the activities to mark the 2021 New Yam festival of the Igboukwu community the ancestral home of the Igbo nation and custodian of the historic NOK culture which dates back to 1500 BC.
According to the Etiti indigenes the historic statue which is the first in remembrance of a Nigerian public figure inaugurated inaugurated by MBIDO Igbo Association, an inter agency Committee on Culture, Arts and Tourism in the south East of Nigeria.
The MBIDO association Nation Chairman Chief Okafouzu Ugochukwu said that the statue is a tribute to remember Otunba Runsewe by the igbo cultural body for constructing the biggest Yam House in I2007 in Igbo land and in Nigeria, and for listing the Yam festival on national and global Cultural festival calendars during his time at Nigeria Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC) in 2007.
Words on marble at the site of six feet effigy of Runsewe in Igboukwu reads” This statue of Otunba Segun Runsewe OON, the indefatigable icon of Culture in Nigeria and Tourism Dynamo of our time, stands as testimony of a detribalized Nigerian who gave the igbo race the deserved voice in cultural tourism world.”
Ugochuchukwu disclosed that Otunba Segun Runsewe is so honoured for his enduring practical statement in the erection of the first national Yam House in Nigeria in 2007, and for enlisting the celebration of the igbo Yam festival in national and international cultural calendar.
” Otunba Segun Runsewe supports the lgbo cultural tourism history and tradition as an Iroko tree and Zuma rock in a dogged effort, not only putting a national structure in recognition of the Igbo traditional hold as producers of Yam but also in ensuring that the Yam festival is listed in the national cultural calendar which has helped the Yam Festival celebrated in eastern Nigeria, gain international recognition.
Chief Ugochuchukwu stressed the need for Igboukwu as the ancestral home of the igbo nation to be enlisted as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) site, in order to preserve and promote the socioeconomic and Cultural tourism value chain in igbo history, tradition and
Socioeconomic development.
We appeal to all relevant Federal government Culture, Arts and Tourism agencies to help us enlist Igboukwu as a World heritage site as strategic global attention to encourage more research and to attract tourism visits to other numerous Igbo ecological tourism sites in the south east of Nigeria, he said.
