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Akwete fabric returns as Soludo warns up for governance

In those days at Ojike Street in Umuahia of old Imo State now Abia State, the long stretch of women from a town known as Akwete in Ukwa East Local Government Area, sat on their kitchen stools facing four long palm bamboo weaving a combination of colourful cloths into a master piece of cloths The product is a local well galvanised cloths that has no name but the name of the community Akwete and it came to stay.

More than 50 years later Anambra State Governor-elect, Prof. Charles Soludo, announced that he has adopted the good old Akwete cloth as an official cloth for him as well as the use of other locally made cloths encouraging all and sundry to patronize the product.

This development has thrown village women known before the Nigerian Civil war for the local weaving of Akwete cloth could not hide their joy for the Governor Elect of Anambra state Prof Charles Soludo who recently announced that he has adopted the Akwete fabric as his official garment urging all and sundry to patronize local industries and locally made goods. Already, the women of Akwete who under the inspiration of the pioneering works of Dada Nwakata, gave the world this fascinating fabric are smiling to the bank due to the association of their products with an iconic figure who many look up to as a role model. Akwete is a town in Abia State, of the Ndoki sub-group in Igbo land whose dialect is close to that of Opobo and Bonny towns, both in Rivers State.

One of the women who gave her name as Monica Okoro expressed their joy noting that it would go a long way in encouraging the industry and also provide a money spinner for the producers. Mr. Simon Eze, a business man in Onitsha, who is from Akwete, told this reporter that the local fabric is almost going into extinction because of lack of patronage but expressed hopes that with the Soludo”s policy of supporting locally made goods would jump start the recovery of the good old fabric.

He added: “This is good and we the people of Akwete are ready to work with him and all that we need is financial assistance and state of the art machines to mass produce the cloths . The idea is still there and if he can establish cottage industries in Anambra state we shall partner with his government and even introduce more of such similar fabrics and also creat employment for our younger generation.”

Pa Timothy Uzoka who worked and retired at the Kaduna Textile Company told the story of how the Akwete fabric dominated the fabric industry. He said: “In those days Akwete was more popular than the Ashe Oke Yoruba fabric and it was a thing of honor for the Igbo person to wear the cloth to attend functions and it goes with the traditional Igbo cap made popular by the Ohafia and Abrba war dancers .

“We tried in Kaduna to compete with the fabric and at some point some workers were sent to under study the use and procurement of the raw material for the cloth. “But soon after the war, everything changed and people now see those wearing Akwete as low class people and the patronage dwindled. “But with what Soludo is trying to do Akwete would surely bounce back to life and he is doing it by wearing the cloth himself which is a good beginning at this stage,” he noted. “Aba the centre of commercial fabric production in the sub Saharan Africa is already brazing up for the challenges of going into Akwete production as according to Mr. Uchenna Okonkwo.

“We have been meeting with some of our importers to fashion a way to import machines for the production before non Igbo people take over our God given business. “All that we need is uninterrupted power supply and if possible a power station built specifically for the production of Akwete cloth and we will excel beyond Soludo”s expectations. “If all our governors in the old Eastern Region can put their heads together and support our local economy this over dependence on crude oil would be a thing of the past as far as we are concerned,” he posited. For the women of Akwete town, it is a new dawn and a point of departure from gory tales of penury to an era of plenty.

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