Professor Catherine obianuju Acholonu A LITERARY AMAZON By M.M.Mbanaja Catherine Acholonu was born in Orlu to the family of Chief Lazarus Olumba and married to the Acholonu royal dynasty of Orlu. She attended secondary schools in Orlu before becoming the first African woman to gain a masters degree (1977) and a Ph.D. (1987) from the University of Düsseldorf, Germany She taught at Alvan Ikoku College of Education, Owerri, commencing 1978, a committed mother of four children. But this role has not stopped her from driving her ambition. With an overwhelming resume Acholonu dared to contest for the presidency of the country, even when her husband was still a deputy governor. Recently her works won personal appreciation by the former president of the United States Bill Clinton. Commending her on the thoughtfulness expressed in two of her books titled The Earth Unchained, a quantum leap in the consciousness and Motherise the Afrocentric Alternative to Feminism She is h founder of the Catherine Acholonu Centre for African Cultural Studies dedicated to the Research and Study of African Culture Professor Catherine Acholonu Former Special Adviser on Arts and Culture to the Ex-President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Professor Acholonu is a writer, researcher and former lecturer on African Cultural and Gender Studies. She is the author of over 15 books, most of which are used in secondary schools and universities in Nigeria, and in African Studies Departments in USA and Europe, the most notable of which are The Gram Code of African Adam: Stone Books and Cave Libraries, Reconstructing 450,000 Years of Africas Lost Civilizations which earned her the award of Professor of African History and Philosophy from Pilgrims University and Theological Seminary, North Carolina; The Earth Unchained - A Quantum Leap in Consciousness, A Reply to Al Gore; Motherism - The Afrocentric Alternative to Feminism and The Igbo Roots of Olaudah Equiano. Prof. Acholonus works and projects have enjoyed the collaboration and the support of United States Information Service (USIA), the British Council, the Rockefeller Foundation, Microsoft World and the World Monument Fund. In 1989, as an upcoming scholar, Acholonu toured universities in USA and United Kingdom, lecturing on her research findings and discovery of the Nigerian origin of 17th Century slave author Olaudah Equiano under the United States International Visitors Program and the British Council sponsorship Program. In 1986 she was the only Nigerian, and one of only 2 Africans to participate in the United Nations Expert Group Meeting on Women, Population and Sustainable Development: the Road to Rio, Cairo and Beijing, which took place in Dominican Republic, focusing on the mainstreaming of gender into the Plans of Action of the UN world conferences of Rio, Beijing and Cairo. Prof Acholonu holds several international awards and honours. She is the founder of Afa Publications, a Fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Corporate Administration, a Fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Chartered Administrators and a Fellow of the Whelan Research Institute, Owerri to name a few. She is the founder of the Lets Help Humanitarian Project, a charity-based NGO and the Head of the Catherine Acholonu Research Center for African Cultural Sciences based in Abuja, Nigeria. In 1990 she was honoured with the Fulbright Scholar-Writer-in-Residency award by the US government, during which she lectured as Visiting Professor at 4 colleges of the Westchester Consortium for International Studies, NY, USA. She is listed in the International Who is Who of world Leadership, USA; the African Women Writers, Whos Who of the Top 500 Women in Nigeria; Who s Who in Nigeria; and the International Authors and Writers Whos Who, published in Cambridge, UK. She was recently appointed African Renaissance Ambassador by the African Renaissance Conference with head quarters in Benin Republic. Prof Catherine Acholonu is Nigerias Country Ambassador for the UN Forum of Arts and Culture (UNFAC) instituted by the global Secretariat of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification based at the UN Building, Bonn, Germany. Before this new assignment, she was the Special Adviser on Arts and Culture to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria from 1999-2002. Under the leadership of Prof. Acholonu, UNFAC a number of ambitious programs aimed at creating an interface between cultural development in local communities of Nigeria and sustainable environmental development. Under this program, UNFAC has been partnering with Microsoft to give basic IT Training to under-served community dwellers in Nigeria under the Microsoft Unlimited Potential Program. The UNFAC team of culture researchers- linguists, anthropologists, historians, IT specialists, folklorists - led by Prof. Acholonu, are conducting research aimed at unearthing the hidden meanings of ancient Nigerian rock art/inscriptions known as Ikom Monoliths of Cross River State, which thanks to Acholonus research findings and nomination application, have now been listed by the World Monument Fund in its 2008 list of 100 Most Endangered Sites as a ancient form of writing and visual communication ... dating before 2000 B.C. Acholonu is seeking international support and funding for her monoliths research by which she has proved that Sub-Saharan African Blacks possessed an organized system of writing before 2000 B.C. (more than 4000 years ago) and a Pre-History recorded on 350 stones which she and her team of researchers are now transcribing and translating. (See The Gram Code of African Adam, the first in a series on the monoliths research.) She believes that the contents of these stone records will prove that Black Africans were the midwives of human civilization, and will change human history as we know it. Acholonu is an incurable idealist and a frontline political activist. She contested for the post of President of Federal Republic of Nigeria 1992. Acholonu is one of the founding member of the Peoples Democratic Party, a member of its National Women Mobilization Committee and the Imo State Woman Leader of PDP in the formative years of the party. She is the National Spokesperson of the Movement for Gender Parity, a gender-advocacy group that was in the frontline for the demand for and attainment of the post of the First Woman Speaker of the Nigerian House of Representatives. As a leading Nigerian political activist Prof. Catherine Acholonu is an advocate for human rights and womens rights and often expresses burning opinions in the national media on the need for government to put the people first. Monographs • In the Heart of Biafra. Owerri: Totan Publishers, 1970. • Nigeria in the Year 1999. Owerri: Totan Publishers, 1985. • The Springs Last Drop. Owerri: Totan Publishers, 1985. • Trial of the Beautiful Ones. Owerri: Totan Publishers, 1985. • The Deal and Who is the Head of State. Owerri: Totan Publishers, 1986. • The Igbo Roots of Olaudah Equiano: An Anthropological Research. Owerri: AFA Publications, 1989. • Motherism: The Afrocentric Alternative to Feminism. Owerri: AFA Publications, 1995 Articles and Chapters • Acholonu and Joyce Ann Penfield. Linguistic Processes of Lexical Innovation in Igbo. Anthropological Linguistics. 22 (1980). 118-130. • The Role of Nigerian Dancers in Drama. Nigeria Magazine. 53.1 (1985). 33-39. • Acholonu, Catherine Obianuju, The Home of Olaudah Equiano -- A Linguistic and Anthropological Search, The Journal of Commonwealth Literature. 22.1 (1987). 5-16. • LIgbo Langue Litteraire: Le Cas du Nigeria. (Literary Igbo Language: The Case of Nigeria.) Notre Librairie: Revue du Livre: Afrique, Caraibes, Ocean Indien. 98 (Jul-Sept 1989). 26-30. • Mother was a Great Man. The Heinemann Book of African Womens Writing. Ed. Charlotte H. Bruner. London: Heinemann, 1993. 7-14. • Motherism: The Afrocentric Alternative. Ishmael Reeds Konch Magazine. Online: ishmaelreedpub/CatherineAcholonu.html. (March-April 2002).
Posted on: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 21:28:13 +0000
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