Biafran Activists, Simon Ekpa & Carolyn Petition US Embassy Over The Exclusion Of Igbo In FLTA Program

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The United States Embassy in Nigeria had, on Monday, announced the commencement of its Foreign Language Teaching Assistant Program (FLTA) that kicked off application from February 8 to close on June 1.

The FLTA program is mainly designed to offer young foreign teachers an opportunity to teach African cultures and languages to American students in universities and colleges.

However, Igbo language being one of the major languages in Nigeria was excluded from the scheme as only Yoruba and Hausa were added.

"Field of Study:  Competition is open to applicants who major in English Language, Education, Hausa, Yoruba, Linguistics and Languages"._part of the statement reads

Apart from teaching in the foreign languages, eligible participants are also entitled to some grants benefits from the FLTA program which covers the grantee’s round trip airfare to the U.S., a settling-in allowance, monthly stipend, housing allowance, health insurance, and tuition scholarship for their coursework.

Some Igbos, Biafran activists have expressed their discontentment over the missing of their own indigenous language from the FLTA in the US schools.

Carolyn Uchenna Okoroafor, who is acting in the capacity of a principal secretary to the IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu has been eager to know the rationale behind why among the three major tribes in Nigeria, it was only Igbo language that was excluded from the list of the Foreign Language Teaching Assistant Program (FLTA).

The Biafran activist and liberation fighter chose to take the fight to the microblogging platform (Twitter), calling out the US Embassy over its perceived ill-treatment of marginalization and discrimination as being observed in its recent job announcement that involved two out of the three major languages in Nigeria.

"Dear @StateDept and the US Embassy, your current post for the Foreign Language Teaching Assistant Program (FLTA) position in Nigeria is ONLY opened to Yorubas and Hausas applicants. Why are the Igbos excluded? #marginlized @SecBlinken".Carol tweeted

However, she also used the medium to call on all Igbos to sign the petition against the US Embassy and Consulate in Nigeria for excluding Igbo language in the aforementioned program. The petition was created by Simon Ekpa, and she implored Igbos to this petition and equally retweet it.

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