Anambra Industrialist promotes Igbo culture, empowers youths through apprenticeship system
By Joy Mbachi
An Anambra Industrialist, Chief Onyeka Ifekandu, says he is committed to promoting Igbo core values such as the apprenticeship system to create economic independence for young people.
Ifekandu, who is the CEO of Mac-Akudiufu Nig. Ltd., a tailoring accessories business on Lagos Island since 1994, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that no fewer than 100 youths had achieved financial freedom through his company.
He explained that he inherited the legacy of apprenticeship from his forefathers and was now extending the same opportunity to today’s youth, helping both formal and informal learners succeed.
His humanitarian efforts also include the Ezendigbo Welfare Foundation, which he founded in 2021 to support the less privileged.
According to him, the recognition he has received has motivated him to continue serving the Igbo people and that he feels he has to preserve, project, and dignify Igbo culture with unity and integrity.
“Our forefathers left the legacy of apprenticeship for economic growth of the people of the zone, of which I benefited from.
“I decided to also extend same gesture to the youth of today, where both informal and formal literate persons can find their bearing in the social and economic world.
“I have through such gestures enjoyed various recognitions which have spurred me to do more service to Igbo people who come across my path.
“I feel I have preserved, projected, and dignified Igbo culture both at home and in the diaspora with unity, integrity, and reverence as my watch word.
“The formidable brotherhood and sisterhood drawn from every corner of the six Igbo-speaking states that are anchored in ancestral heritage, steadfastness in unity, helping one another, have bound us together with an unbreakable pride full of success”.
He said that apprenticeship skill activities he offered to people kept them together especially in Lagos where he resided, making him feel strongly to promote Igbo cultural values.
According to him, this is to ensure that modernity does not erode the ancestral beauty of Igbo culture.
Ifekandu disclosed that his efforts to promote Igbo values in Lagos gained him a title and that encouraged him the more to uphold the culture to help the less privileged.
He said that people in his homeland and the diaspora have benefited from his genuine acts of service and benevolence ranging from educational scholarships, empowerment of trained apprentices, widows economic support and community development. (NAN)(www.nannews.ng)
Edited by Vivian Ihechu
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