History

My personal appreciation to the Urhobo men and women in the tri-states of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut who recently came together to form Urhobo Congress. In particular, I salute the hard work of the Planning committee, the Constitution Drafting committee, and the Election com- mittee. The men and women of these committees have demonstrated the very best of our people. My best wishes to the newly elected officials of the Urhobo Congress. I wish each and every one of the officials the very best during their tenure in office.

Unity among the Urhobo was and is the battle cry. We need every Urhobo man, woman, child, old and young to come together, united. For there is strength in unity. And strength in the Urhobo community translates to power. Power like we have it in many other communities in America, eventually translates to both individual and group success. We surely have more to gain coming together.

I was so impressed with the quality and intelligence of the Urhobo men and women in the last cou- ple of months during the formation of the Urhobo Congress. Individually, we have men and women who are able and capable of running corporations, potential governors, senators, president etc. Faced with daily battle of life, some of these dreams, may just be dreams. But, as groups and as community working together, the dreams may become reality.

Our coming together as community, come with many advantages to us as groups and individual- ly, we also benefit. We must learn to cherish our differences, while we celebrate those precious things we have in common. The language, the culture, the tradition and the special attributes of the Urhobo people are worth keeping alive. They are worth passing from our generation to the next generation. Our sons and daughters, although may be Americans by birth, are Nigerians by heritage. As a result they deserve to know, trained and brought up in our culture, tradition, lan- guage and our ways of life.

As some of us cannot or are in no position to impact these Urhobo norms to our off -springs, we therefore need cooperative efforts of the community at large. We need Urhobo community centers across America. In these centers, the emphasis should be in the Urhobo language, the culture and tradition. Our traditional ceremonies such as wedding, birth of new child, the naming ceremony, salutation, etc., should be practiced and in some cases taught in these Urhobo community cen- ters.

I call on all members of the Urhobo Congress as a matter of priority to consider the purchase of property to be named Urhobo House. The Urhobo House will be the Urhobo community center in the tri-states of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

Once again, my very best regards to the members of the Urhobo Congress. I encourage every Urhobo in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut to be a member of this newly formed dynamic organization.

Sincerely,

Daniel Kalegha New York City, USA

Courtesy (Urhobo Wadoo)