…Fears It May Go Extinct
The Amanyanabo of Abonnema, King Disrael Gbobo Bob-Manuel (II), Owukori (IX), has called on the Kalabari Lawyers Forum and the people of Kalabari in general to promote the teaching and learning of the Kalabari language to their children and siblings at all times.
King Bob-Manuel who is also the Chairman of Akuku-Toru Council of Chiefs and Traditional Rulers made this call when delegation of the Kalabari Lawyers Forum paid him a courtesy visit in his Palace in Abonnema, the headquarters of Akuku-Toru Local Government Area of Rivers State, on Friday November 29, 2019.
The monarch persuaded the forum in the crusade for saving the language from going into extinction, noting that the Kalabari language has been on the decline, saying it is almost dying a natural death, regretting that even many people from the communities rarely hear Kalabari language being spoken, saying it has become a disturbing trend.
King Bob-Manuel who was an active legal practitioner before his installation in 2014, also admonished the Kalabari ethnic legal forum to encourage the younger ones to see the legal profession as a noble course and endeavour to get as many to study the course.
He also implored the legal forum to always foster love, unity and the heart of being supportive amongst themselves and applauded the forum’s executives and its pioneers for forming and sustaining the organization.
The Chairman of the Kalabari Lawyers Forum (KLF), Chief Alu Long-John Esq. in his remark thanked King Bob-Manuel for his fatherly advice, love and support for the forum and prayed that the Almighty God will continue to strengthen, guard, guide and give him the wisdom to lead his subjects and the Akuku-Toru Council of Chiefs and Traditional Rulers.
He, however, informed the monarch that greater percentage of its members were not able to make the list of delegation owing to matters which needed their presence and assured the monarch of a larger number in its subsequent visit.
