Controversial Issues at Nupe Foundation Meeting in Bida

The Nupe Foundation or Ninibo Nupe had a preliminary meeting on the 11th of January 2014 in preparation for the next Nupe Day coming up on the 26th of June this year 2014.

At the meeting which took place in Bida, Architect Salihu Sulaiman, who is the Talban Lafiagi, maintained that there is a standing agreement among Nupe stakeholders to the effect that the next Nupe Day should take place at Lafiagi in Kwara State. Architect Salihu’s premise is that if the Nupe people of Kwara State are not carried along in most of the Nupe programs and projects that are of national import the Nupe Unity that everybody have been talking about will not be possible.

Architect Salihu said that the next Nupe Day should take place, as a whole, in Kwara State with the programs spread out among the major Nupe communities of Kwara State but with a concentration of the major events taking place at Lafiagi. Architect Salihu made it clear that the Nupe people of Kwara State will not continue to fold their arms anymore while Nupe Day and other Nupe programs and projects of national significance are carried out only among the Nupe people of Niger State.

At the same meeting Ambassador Solomon Adama Yisa said the whereabouts of the N168,000,000 (One Hundred and Sixty Eight Million Naira) that was realized at the Second Nupe Day Fundraising Dinner Party in Abuja should be made known to members of the NCRC and the general public. The Ambassador said that this huge amount of money was raised in the name of building a befitting NCRC Centre but that the money disappeared into thin air just a few months after the fundraising with only N17,000 (Seventeen Thousand Naira Only) left in the account.

A visibly disappointed Ambassador Solomon Adama Yisa said unless there is accountability and transparency in the dealings and the activities of the Nupe elders and program organizers there will be no need for endless Nupe ceremonies and festivals that have no any real effect on the promotion of Nupe culture.

Ambassador Solomon Adama Yisa advised that the idea of raising N500,000,000 (Five Hundred Million Naira) at the next Nupe Day should be discarded as the Nupe Day is meant for uniting the Nupe people and promoting Nupe culture and not for raising huge amounts of monies that in the end disappear into thin air.

Author: Àmà Ndagi Abdullahi
Source: Nupe Cultural and Resource Centre, (NCRC)
Photo Credit: NCRC