The Enugu State Executive Council on Thursday 5 October 2017 approved the proposal to set up an archival agency which will collate and warehouse historical information from the colonial period of the old Eastern Region till date.
Commissioner for Information, Mr. Ogbuagu Anikwe, announced this at the end of a 6-hour executive council meeting which ended last night.
Mr. Anikwe said the Enugu State Archives will become an invaluable resource for researchers and governments of the South-East and South-South regions that formerly constituted the old Eastern Region.
“As capital of the old Eastern Region, Enugu has many historical documents and artifacts that need to be gathered under one roof for the use of researchers as well as for governments of the current nine states that made up the old region.
“The Enugu State Archives will also operate as a Record Centre which offers centralized, safe, efficient and low-cost storage for declassified government papers and special multimedia records of the state government.
Mr. Anikwe disclosed that the Ministry of Information will supervise the agency which has been has been mandated to search, collate, classify, and file Eastern Region historical documents scattered in government departments and make these available to searchers in both hard and digital formats.
“In a short while, searchers will be able to find official classified or declassified documents from the Archives, including records of births, deaths, marriages, lands, censuses, speeches, budgets, laws, historical events, pictures and videos.
“These records will be available in hard and digital copies that searchers can access from anywhere in the world at the touch of a button.”
“Enugu State is the institutional memory of the old Eastern Region and the Governor of Enugu, Rt. Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, is fully conscious of this responsibility.
“This has informed the Governor’s readiness to play a lead role in facilitating the institutional framework for hosting the South-East Development Commission, as well as the South-East – South-South economic partnership that is evolving.
“Setting up the Enugu State Archives is one more demonstration of the readiness of Enugu to serve as the regional archival hub, following the rapid fragmentation of the old region into smaller regions and states.
