Rotimi Ige
Members of the Anyiam Osigwe family have announced the return of the annual Anyiam-Osigwe lecture come Monday, March 27.
The annual lecture series, which is premised on the philosophical thoughts of the late philosopher, Emmanuel Onyechere Osigwe Anyiam-Osigwe is returning for a 16th edition and will this year have erstwhile United Kingdom Prime Minister, Boris Johnson as the keynote speaker.
According to Charles Anyiam-Osigwe, the topic for the 2023 edition is ‘Rehumanising Human Experience’, and it is all in the foundation’s bid to reengage with the world.
In the past, the event has had keynote speakers, serving presidents, former presidents of different nations, prime ministers, and elder statesmen of global repute.
Billed to be at the event this year is Chief Emeka Anyaoku, the chair of this edition, and the Governor of Lagos, Babajide Sanwo-Olu.
“When Anyiam Osigwe passed on in 1998, the family decided to bring his thought about human existence and living into the public domain to help see how his thoughts can influence policies for human development and human existence.
“Fortunately, in this regard, the philosophical department of Ibadan University thought that his philosophical pronouncement and thought processes were worth interrogation in academia and therefore thought it right to start interrogating his philosophy and that led to serval workshops at the University of Ibadan on Anyiam-Osigwe’s Developmental Philosophy. From then, there were local and international conferences on Anyiam-Osigwe Philosophical thoughts.
Several years after Ibadan started this interrogation, the Philosophical Association of Nigeria thought it appropriate to award Anyiam-Osigwe a posthumous honour as a sage philosopher whose thoughts were worth interrogating and put into the public domain,” Charles said.
On the choice of Boris Johnson as Keynote Speaker, Kenedy Anyiam Osigwe stated, “There might be conflicting views on why we are having Rt. Hon. Boris Johnson this year. But, in our analysis, we felt his richly harmed for the topic we want to engage which is Re-Humanising Human Experience.
We want to see from his glasses, from his thoughts. Controversial, as some may think, but we want to hear what he has to say. It’s coming from that aspect that let’s hear from not just the normal conventional. Let’s see someone who can expand the space and share his thoughts. That’s the reason we choose Boris Johnson.
“Our choice of Boris is because of the essentiality of the topic. As important as being a complete and loving human with feelings for people and empathy for one another, it is the hot burner topic in today’s world.
The recent experience of our recently concluded elections is even bringing the lack of human empathy to the fore. Growing up in the 60s, there was no iota of tribal identity. We were just young children growing up in love and peace. Where have lost it? For this reason, the foundation thought it germane to look at these critical issues. This is a very important subject on how to take practical steps to re-humanise human existence.
Speaking on the passing of the family’s youngest daughter and founder of AMAA, George Anyiam-Osigwe stated that it was Peace’s wish that the event hold, even before her death. “Life is an interesting journey. Nine years ago, when our younger brother Michael passed on, he was the DG of this foundation. It affected us as a family. We are a very close-knitted family. We are friends and business partners.
Peace was our only sister and the last of eight children. When Micheal passed on, we took a break because it affected us. For almost eight years, we tried to analyse a lot of things in our hearts.
“Our father was a philosopher but never talked to us about death. He said life is life alone and that personality transcends death and that there is nothing like death.
“Peace, our dear sister of blessed memory, was very involved in this. This lecture was meant to have been held in November 2022, even before she passed. She was a champion of going back to what we know how to do. It’s just barely a month since we laid her to rest but I can tell you it’s not easy without her. She was a pillar and an important member of the family.
“Life must go on. Mourning is a personal thing to deal with. If you are not careful when mourning someone, you might not get back into your stride because you can lose yourself in the translation of mourning. From our own experience, we advise anyone who’s morning someone to, as quickly as possible get back with the world again because if you don’t do that, you might enter a period of depression”.
