The harvests of the August meeting

Even as we have long left August 2019 behind, a few communities would still hold their August meetings up to the end of September. The transformation of the August meeting from an activity with a fixed timeline in the calendar to a generic one is one of the significant changes ongoing with this contribution of Ndigbo women to the meetings and conventions ecosystem. There is much more ahead only if the stakeholders think scale and impact in larger spaces.

We canvassed in 2018 the need to make the August meeting a more prominent event and communication platform. A few groups held meetings that cut across local governments and towns. It is the way to go. We await the fruits of the August meetings in reports of the critical decisions and their implementation.

The August meeting of the women should grow in scale and significance for the valuable contributions the women continue to make in Igboland. They are usually a force for good, particularly in the area of peace-making.

The August meeting is noteworthy for several positives. It is one of the largest conventions in the world, holding simultaneously in many locations across the states of the South East. Some other persons would celebrate even the mere fact of the scale of this annual event that the Meetings Incentives Conventions and Events (MICE) industry ought to take into its calendar once organised convention-style.

The August meeting aggregates the development visions and agenda of Igbo women, both elites and the rural folks. It stands on existing communal democratic decision-making models. The Igbo are individualistic, yet collective and take decisions for the common good at open forums where all votes count. There is no preferred stock. Their highly educated daughters are furthering the cause of community development from their new homes as wives and mothers.
The involvement of the sophisticated daughters of Igboland has raised the stakes and profile of the August meeting.

“Igboland is reaping from the contributions of its large body of educated females and the foresight of the Igbo in educating women and tapping into this highly productive and replicable human capital. It strengthens the Igbo experience and skillset in running community development organisations”

They used to stay away and look askance at the ordinary folks who participated. Their involvement has brought cosmopolitanism in better-organised events. It brought a downside inevitably in the fashion contests that ensued, a regular occurrence where women gather.

Unfortunately, lazy Nollywood writers picked on the downsides of the August meeting and demonised this vital platform for community development. That narrative of a negative for the August meeting needs to change to a rediscovery of its essence and utility.

At the August Meeting, women of Igboland focus on community development projects. They tackle their projects or contribute to the ones outlined by the development association of the village, town or broader community. It is Akurueulo in practice. Their forebears played critical roles in the struggle for independence, including taking on the colonialists in the Aba Women’s battle.

With the August meeting, Igboland is reaping from the contributions of its large body of educated females and the foresight of the Igbo in educating women and tapping into this highly productive and replicable human capital. It strengthens the Igbo experience and skillset in running community development organisations.

The United Nations system in Nigeria has admirably promoted the recognition and involvement of community development associations in grassroots development. Ndigbo were pioneers in driving growth using community associations. They built schools, gave themselves boreholes, electricity and such. It is time to scale up and to modernise.

The call on the educated women increasingly involved in the affairs of their development associations is to turn this forum into a more focused development agency. The August meeting must resume its developmental urgency and walk back from a creeping elite flamboyance and exhibitionism. It must be depoliticised, from village to state and regional levels.

The women should think of organising the August meeting across tiers. The traditional village level one, followed by one of kindred communities, local government to state-level events. They can however, have the South East-wide August meeting rotated annually among the states.

The South East August meeting would be a high impact cultural event with influence on politics and economy. This event should be such that it brings the Igbo and their local and international friends to savour their artefacts, exhibitions and various aspects of culture. It should attract sponsorship of corporate bodies and stakeholders in the South East. Governors are welcome to sponsor.

The August meeting at every level should now work with what serves as the Women’s Wing of our town unions to become a gender-based NGO or CDC. They would register with the relevant government, international and multilateral agencies. They would define areas of focus and seek support and collaboration. They can become community development corporations, for instance, which are “non-profit, community-based organisations focused on revitalising their locations and neighbourhoods”. CDCs can drive investments in various areas including agriculture, health and social services.

We shall listen to the women of Igboland in August. With the recent exploits of one of their kind, President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, the fourth and current president of Croatia, at the World Cup, many ears would eagerly listen to what our women have to say and do.