< Back | Home

(From left to right) Nnamdi Nwaigwe, Nigerian Student Association (NSA) treasurer, Amaju Ekwejunor-Etchie, president, and Obinna Osuka, co-event coordinator/historian, stand in front of the Nigerian flag inside a meeting room at the Student Union on Monday night.

Nigerian Student Association helps promote cultural awareness

By: Tara Duffy

Posted: 11/18/08

The Nigerian Student Association is an organization at SJSU that allows students to gather and celebrate their culture.

Amaju Ekwejunor-Etchie, a senior finance major, is the president of the association.

"Basically anybody who's open-minded and willing to come and learn about a different culture is welcome to join the association," he said.

The association holds several different social events throughout the year. One of its major events is Culture Day, which is held in the Student Union Ballroom. Culture Day usually takes place in the spring. This time, the club is shooting for the last Saturday of February, Ekwejunor-Etchie said. At some NSA events, members bring food so that people have a chance to taste some different Nigerian dishes.

A few of the association's officers feel very passionate about their organization.

"It means diversity," said Obi Osuka, a senior health science administration major who is the historian and co-event coordinator for the group. "When I first transferred to SJSU, I was told about the association, and I wanted to join it.""

"For the most part I feel like it helps me communicate better," Osuka said. "At first I was kind of shy, and it helped me come out of my shell a little."

Ekwejunor-Etchie said he takes being the president of the Nigerian Student Association very seriously and said that he enjoys the sense of family he gets from the club.

"You feel like you have people you can relate to," he said. "I will say that it's a better means of connecting with people."

Ekwejunor-Etchie also said he thinks joining the club is a good way to meet new people and can help students assimilate into college life.

"The association stands to bring Nigerians, African-Americans and other ethnicities together in the SJSU community in an effort to achieve excellence in school and life, to learn from one another," said Nnamdi Nwaigwe, a junior management information systems major, who is the treasurer of the group. "We are there for each other through the good and the bad."

Nwaigwe spoke about what being a part of the association means to him.

"It means opportunities," he said. "I think it's important that a strong network correlation is being promoted."

Ekwejunor-Etchie knows about the culture firsthand. He is from Lagos, one of the biggest cities in Nigeria, and moved to the U.S. when he was 9.

"A lot of people have misconceptions about Nigeria and the poverty there and that's true - it's a developing country - but not all of Nigeria is poverty stricken," he said.

"When I lived in Nigeria, I lived in a house, not a village or a hut. I lived a basic, normal life like I do here. There are nice parts of Nigeria."

Born in the the U.S., Nwaigwe said he has learned a lot about his Nigerian culture through the association's gatherings, and that the club has made him able to promote cultural awareness.

"It's a place where you not only can be yourself, but take your own cultural experiences and share with others. You can be yourself and be accepted," he said.

Osuka said he hopes that the association will be able to include other cultures as well in the future.

"We don't want to have the message that we are only about Nigerians and other African-Americans," Osuka said. "I would like to invite more cultures to our club to make our organization that much better, to have them come be a part of our club."

The Nigerian Student Association meets every other Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the Student Union's Ohlone Room.