Ezeala: Lesley Agams calls for Umuaka Historical Society.
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Development expert, human rights activist and Akatrotic attorney, Ms Lesley Agams has advocated for the need to establish Umuaka historical society in Umuaka community. This advocacy was made in a telephone conversation between the Umuaka Times publisher and Agams who is also the Executive Director of a community based organization in Umuaka known as Women’s Crisis Centre WCC. According to Agams, Umuaka is a society blessed with highly influential and productive intellectuals such as the late Professor JOL Ezeala, such a society in her own opinion should be a model for positive academic and intellectual developments where organisations like Umuaka historical society will be established.
“We as a people can no longer rely on foreigners to document and write our stories for us. We stand the risk of wrong representations when others write our own stories for us,” she told Umuaka Times.
When Umuaka Times asked Agams why she needed the society established, Agams responded by deeply stressing the role history plays in shaping the future and the present of any society. Hear her: “The historical society will serve as a reference point about the history of Umuaka and Akalites. Each village will elect or select those that will represent her in the central body. It is this central body that will research and document the history of Umuaka and the histories of her great sons and daughters. The younger generations need to know and understand the role played by their forefathers and grandfathers as well”.
Agams who used the opportunity of the burial of Prof JOL Ezeala to stress this point also made it known to Umuaka Times that will also be a source of revenue for the community.
