Kaiama Town, on Monday, went agog as the abandoned home of the revered hero of the Ijaw nation, Major Isaac Adaka Boro, was refurbished and commissioned as part of events marking the 54th anniversary of his demise towards the end of the Nigerian Civil War.
A philanthropist, Endurance Amagbein, reportedly brought down the old dilapidated Boro’s house which he saw as an eyesore and built a magnificent 21st-century apartment to replace it.
Excited David Jasper Boro, the younger brother of Isaac Boro, and the oldest member of Boro’s family said Amagbein came to last year’s Boro Day and the family showed him the old house Boro.
He said: “Amagbein came and said it was a shame that the house was standing like that and people were celebrating Boro, heaping praises on him, yet his house was decrepit.
“He wondered why Ijaw leaders did not do anything about the house all these years they have been celebrating. Amagbein took it upon himself and spent over N13m to rebuild the house. No government has done it, yet it was an individual that took it upon himself to save the family room shame.
“People in government are benefiting from the sweat of the Adaka Boro but they will not look at the family. They started the anniversary abroad but former Governor Seriake Dickson brought the celebration back to Nigeria. But even at that, what are we getting? Amagben has changed all that. We are eternally grateful to him for what he has done.”
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The first daughter of Isaac Boro, Esther, said the significance of the Boro Day celebration was knowing where the Ijaws were coming from and where they had gotten to today and the changes they had to make within themselves.
She stated: “You know we still need to work on as individuals, not as government. What we need to do to get to the promised land, we have to implant in us Boroism.
“True Boroism is unity, peace and love. Without those components, we are nobody, we are not ready to fight or identify our needs let alone talk about what others expect of us.
“So, it is very vital that we signify those aspects of what the entire struggle is about, what this young man died for, why did he go to fight the nation, have we achieved that? Yes, we have achieved a lot but we are not where we want to be yet. We still have many rivers to cross.”
Hundreds of Ijaw youths comprising Amagbein Peace Movement (APM), the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) and the Movement for the Survival of Izon Ethnic Nationality in the Niger Delta (MOSIEND), in the hours of yesterday ensured that businesses were shut down in honour of the Ijaw hero.
National spokesman for IYC, Comrade Ebilade Ekerefe, noted that the remembrance celebration of Ijaw hero, Boro had impressed on the minds of youths from the Niger Delta region that he was not just another folk hero, but a university student’s leader, a teacher, policeman and Nigerian army officer.
The MOSIEND, through its National Secetary, Amb Winston Cotterel Amain, described the celebration as another avenue to observe, commend, instruct and where necessary criticise especially in an event of outright contravention of the fundamentals and vision of the actualization of the Reorientation, Repositioning and Recovery of the lost grounds in the emancipation of the Ijaw nation.
The Coordinator, APM, Okadi Abraham, said: “We are here to celebrate and also to pray to the gods and send a message to the Ijaw nation. We are here because Boro from his youthful age sacrificed his life for the Ijaw man to live a good life, to have light, to have good roads and other things that make life worth living.
“Thousands of persons have used the name of Boro to benefit, to go abroad, to build houses and nobody remembers Boro family and nobody remembers that boro had a house in Kaiama.
“Today, Amagbein is significant to Boro, to the Ijaw nation. He has built a house, made it a modern standard for his family. Nobody in the Ijaw nation has remembered that house.”
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