PRESS RELEASE: Igbo Services and Development Agency (ISDA)

ISDA visits war vets

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Igbo Services and Development Agency (ISDA) visited the Biafra War Veterans at Oji River camp on December 21, 2007. During the visit, (owing to limited capability) ISDA delivered 26 bags of rice and a sum of five thousand naira (N5000.00) to the veterans and their families. The Vets were very happy and very grateful to Ndiigbo through ISDA, not just for the bags of rice and money donated to them, but most importantly for the fact that Ndiigbo understands their plight and are extending help to them. The joy on their faces were not hidden as they improvised a song with the name ISDA.

Although this great heroes where very grateful for the little ISDA could give them, Ndiigbo have lots of work to do for these men with all sorts of handicaps ,which is not their own making but due completely to circumstances bordering the survival of Ndiigbo. They gave their limbs so that we can live today and enjoy a normal life. We at ISDA believe that these men and their families are the mirror through which Igbo's commitment to her own is measured. Ndiigbo must not claim to have wealth when our brothers and especially those that gave their all for our future, and families are not able to feed two meals a day. We must not claim most educated when the children of our handicapped heroes cannot go to school because there are not enough motorists who stop to give help as they seat on the roadside begging for pennies and rejected food. We definitely cannot claim to be together when our brothers, sisters and their children are sidelined and disregarded, dwelling in ramshackle with no amenities to help them with their handicap.

The situation of the Biafra veterans continues to present Ndiigbo as a people who are incapable of taking care of their less fortunate ones and makes us look like the proverbial hen which forgets her source help during times of difficulties. Today, civilized nations of the world consider it a true test of their greatness by the way they treat their less fortunate ones. Ndiigbo cannot be different. We cannot spend hundreds of thousands of Dollars holding Convention at Top hotels in Western world while our heroes are left at the road side to beg for alms.

It remains a fact that our wounded soldiers are the bridge between us -- those who survived the war, and those who died so that we may have a piece to eat today. Whichever way we treat these handicap heroes is a direct measure of how we treat and memorize our loved ones who could not be here with us today. Ndiigbo must do more than non-functioning tissue paper mill for our less fortunate ones. The children of our brothers who gave their limbs so that we are able to be here today, must be helped so that they get a chance to go to school. ISDA interviewed many children of the veterans, and every single one of them wants to go to school if provided with the financial opportunity. Of note is Chibuzo, an eleven year old son of a veteran who wish to go to college, but with her mother's death in 2006, and the little his father brings home begging at the road side, Chibuzo has little hope of fulfilling his dreams for college education. ISDA is planning 'adopt a child' program to connect willing people to these children who want to go to school. One could not help but be emotional to the condition which our brothers and their families found themselves, all for a fight to protect all of us. We wish not to give sermon at this time, but to highlight some issues staring us in the face in today's world. We ask any Igbo who care to seek ways to help our brothers, sisters and children of the Oji River Camp. ISDA is preparing other programs for our wounded brothers and their family and we urge all caring people to help. ISDA is ready to collect all donations for this purpose and ask all to give any financial support of their ability.