Economic and business activities operated by the Igbo are expected to pause for three hours on Saturday, January 30, as Southeastern Nigerians observe a day of adoration and thanksgiving for their survival during the civil war nearly 55 years ago.
The event, tagged “World Igbo Day of Adoration and Thanksgiving,” is being organised by Ohanaeze Ndigbo and Igbo religious leaders and will take place in churches across Igboland and other parts of the country.
Archbishop of Enugu Ecclesiastical Province (Anglican Communion), Rt. Rev. Sosthenus Eze, said the day had become necessary because Ndigbo had not formally expressed gratitude to God for surviving the three-year conflict, which began in 1967 and ended in 1970.
“That war was planned to exterminate the Igbo nation completely, but we survived as a race, despite all that we passed through,” Eze said at a press briefing in Enugu on Friday. “Since the war, the Igbo have faced denial of property, rights, and recognition. Sometimes freedom is not achieved by war alone; it can be achieved through adoration and praise.”
Flanked by former Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria chairman Bishop Obi Onubugu, former Bishop of Oji River Diocese Rt. Rev. Amos Madu, and Presbyterian Church Archbishop Most Rev. Ezichi Ituma, among others, Eze said the Igbo would remain eternally grateful for God’s mercies.
Bishop Onubugu, a former aide to the late Biafran leader Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, described their survival as miraculous, recalling that he was 20 years old during the war.
The organisers called on all Igbo-owned businesses to close for the designated three hours to allow citizens to participate in the nationwide day of prayer and thanksgiving.
