A life size sculpture of the image of the Director General, National Council for Arts and Culture (NCAC) Otunba Segun Runsewe, has been unveiled in Etiti village, Igboukwu, the ancestral home of the Igbo nation in Anambra State, as the key agenda to herald the New Yam Festival across the South-east.
The historical project and first in perpetual remembrance of any Nigerian in public sector tourism administration in Nigeria, was inaugurated by MBIDO Igbo Association, an inter agency Committee on Culture, Arts and Tourism in the South-east.
The Igbo cultural body noted that Runsewe, would forever be remembered for constructing the biggest Yam House in Igboland nay Nigeria, and for listing the Yam festival on national and global cultural festival calendars during his time at Nigerian 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 detribalised Nigerian who gave the igbo race the deserved voice in cultural tourism world.”
National chairman, MBIDO Igbo Association, Chief Okafouzu Ugochuchukwu disclosed that Otunba Segun Runsewe was 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 stood with the Igbo 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 influence and sustainable prominence,” Ugochuchukwu explained at the unveiling of statue in Igboukwu, witnessed by top government officials, traditional rulers and Igbo cultural stakeholders.
Ugochuchukwu reiterated the urgent need for Igboukwu as the ancestral home of the Igbo nation to be enlisted as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) site, in order to preserve and promote the socioeconomic and cultural tourism value chain in Igbo history, tradition and socioeconomic endeavours.
“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. Sadly, none of the sites in Igbo land is so enlisted on the UNESCO heritage map in Nigeria nor the world today, the MBIDO leader explained.
