Enugu Centre for Memories receives $125,000 grant for preservation of the historic Lejja iron-smelting site
Once more, Lejja is in the news on account of its heritage, an ancient iron-smelting site that has attracted scores of researchers, tourists and explorers for the past 50 years. The news has been made more joyful by the mention of accessible cash: $125,000 awarded by the United States through its Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation.
On August 20, 2026, the United States Consulate General in Lagos awarded the $125,000 grant to support the conservation, digital documentation and physical preservation of the historic Lejja iron-smelting site. It was part of the Nigeria-U.S. cooperation aimed at protecting the country’s cultural heritage.
The $125,000 grant will, however, not be converted to naira (N160m) and donated to the Lejja community in Nsukka LGA of Enugu State. It will be managed by a non-government organisation, the Centre for Memories (Ncheta Ndigbo), Enugu, through its “Nchekwaba Project”, that promises to support the archaeological conservation with three-dimensional digital documentation, preservation of the site and documentation of endangered oral histories.
The project was formally launched at the National Museum in Onikan, Lagos, at a ceremony attended by United States consul-general Brandon Hudspeth, deputy governor of Enugu State Ifeanyi Ossai, representatives of the Federal Ministry of Art, Culture, Tourism and Creative Economy, National Commission for Museums and Monuments, Smithsonian Institution and other cultural heritage organisations.
Ossai, who represented Governor Peter Mbah at the award ceremony, expressed gratitude to the U.S. government, adding that the grant underscored the importance of preserving the Lejja archaeological site. Its protection would require sustained collaboration among government, heritage institutions and the local community, he said. “The people of Lejja must remain at the heart of the preservation process, as their knowledge and participation will be central to the site’s long-term sustainability and resilience,” he added.
The deputy governor claimed that the Enugu State government was already preparing an Executive Bill to be forwarded to the State House of Assembly to provide a legal framework for the protection, preservation and administration of the archaeological site. The proposed legislation, he noted, would complement ongoing efforts to properly document and preserve the historical significance of Lejja and ensure that its heritage is protected for future generations.
On the occasion, Mazi Iheanyi Igboko, executive director of the Centre for Memories, gave a background to the story: “It was while serving as founding programmes director of the YALI Network, Enugu chapter, that I met Professor Damian Opata who introduced me to Lejja. He connected me with his younger brother, Professor Christian Chukwuma Opata, who had been researching the site since 1994 as an undergraduate at the Department of History at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Professor Opata opened the door to a remarkable community of archaeologists, historians and custodians who had been studying and protecting Lejja for decades.”
An excerpt from Igboko’s address:
Why Lejja matters
Lejja is arguably the most extensively studied archaeological site in Nigeria, and it has produced some of the strongest evidence of early iron production on the continent.
Research led by Professor Pamela Eze-Uzomaka of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, together with the African Archaeology Network, Professor Felix Mabunda of the University of Dar es Salaam, and radiocarbon analysis carried out at the University of Oxford places iron-smelting activity at Otobo Ugwu, Lejja, at approximately 2000 BCE. This is among the earliest evidence of organised, large-scale iron production anywhere in the world, and it challenges older narratives that assumed ironworking in Africa was not independently developed. Lejja gives us scientific evidence that predates the famous discoveries at Igbo-Ukwu — not to diminish Igbo-Ukwu, but to expand how far back, and how sophisticated, African technological knowledge truly runs.
But the archaeology is only one part of the story.
Lejja belongs to the Igbo Omaba tradition, and its religious life is closely tied to iron and to ancestor worship. The community reveres the god of iron, known as Ekwefisa-Uzu or Okoro-Udume, and before every smelt sacrifices were offered for a smooth process, peace in the village and a good harvest. Otobo Ugwu Dunoka square remains the political and ritual centre of Lejja: specific slag blocks are reserved as thrones for the Eze Lejja, the Eze Uwani and the Eze Akaibute, and six sacred structures within the square — Odegwoo, the shrine of fertility; Oshuru, the war temple; Utu Udeleigwe, the place of justice; Oya Ogwuu, which dispels curses and keeps the lunar calendar; Okiti Akpuriagedege, the furnace-house of ancestral spirits; and Eze Mkpume, a slag block over a metre and a half high that only elders may touch — all these together embody the weight this community places on iron.
At its spiritual centre is Adada Nwabueze Ezema, remembered as Nwanyi ji igwe ata atu, the woman who uses iron as her chewing stick. The tradition surrounding Adada, the Nkwo Adada Festival, demonstrates that iron was not only a technology. It was, and remains, spirituality, economy, governance and identity bound into one place.
Iron shapes Lejja’s masquerade tradition: the Omaba spirits emerge from a furnace-shaped house, wear iron rods, knives and bells, and re-enact the smelting process in the square, while ogene and ivom instruments forged from iron still announce the arrival of important people and important news.
That is why NCHEKWABA, an Igbo word for preservation, is designed to protect both the physical evidence and the living knowledge that surrounds it. Through this project, we will focus on five key areas: conserve and protect priority features of the site, digitally document its archaeological landscape, record endangered oral histories, build community capacity, and open new ways for people who may never visit Lejja to encounter its story. We will work with archaeologists, conservators, the community and national institutions. And with NCMM now fully engaged, we hope one of the earliest milestones of this partnership will be the formal recognition of Lejja as a national heritage site, on the road to UNESCO recognition.
A journey built by many people
This project did not begin with the AFCP grant. It is the product of decades of work by many hands. I acknowledge Emeritus Professor Edwin Emefesi Okafor and the wider community of archaeologists whose research on Lejja is foundational. This proposal was written, quite literally, in the offices of Professor Christian Opata and Dr Chioma Ngonadi at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Professor Pamela Eze-Uzomaka, whose work led to the site’s carbon dating at Oxford, Professor Elochukwu Nwankwo, and the broader UNN archaeological community. I thank my mentor, Dr Oluwatoyin Sogbesan, whose guidance from a personal note and with the many engagements with ICOMOS Nigeria shaped this proposal from its first day, and also my colleague Dr. Ijeoma Onyejekwe, whose advocacy helped secure Lejja’s state recognition in 2024. I also recognise the Heart Disease Prevention and Training Centre (HDPTC), who have worked for years toward this site’s protection and eventual UNESCO nomination.
The Centre for Memories stepped into an ecosystem that already existed. We did not discover Lejja. The community was already there. The researchers were already there. The knowledge was already there. Our role is to help bring these efforts together and build the institutional and technical framework through which Lejja can be preserved and shared with the world — a task we cannot do without our partners: Enugu State government, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Commission for Museums and Monuments, the National Council for Arts and Culture, ICOMOS Nigeria, the Museum of West African Art (MOWAA), the Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies at UNN, and the Lejja community itself.
I thank the Federal Ministry of Art, Culture, Tourism and the Creative Economy, under Honourable Minister Hannatu Musa Musawa, for its support of Nigeria’s cultural sector, and for standing with our Things Fall Apart Festival in 2025. I thank the Director-General of NCMM, Mr Olugbile Holloway, whose commitment to heritage preservation continues to show all of us the way.
Lejja’s hope
With the $125,000 grant from the U.S. government, something tangible may be coming the way of Lejja. The federal, state and local governments have neglected the ancient town especially since 1999. The Enugu State government led by Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, for instance, promised to develop the Lejja heritage project in 2018; it declared readiness to construct a 12km road from Nsukka urban to the heritage site. But Lejja benefitted nothing from the state government under Ugwuanyi. The main roads to Lejja remain unpassable. In 2020, however, Dr Sam Ekwueme of Aku attracted a federal ministry’s feeder road through the town to Aku. But 5km of the road to Nsukka has not been touched by asphalt. Senator Okey Ezea included it in his 2025 constituency project; it hadn’t been started (obviously because the Bola Tinubu-led federal government hadn’t paid contractors for even 2024 projects) when Senator Ezea died on November 18, 2025.
In 2021, the Lejja community promoted another self-help project: the Lejja Hall of Fame secretariat. A proposal to build a befitting secretariat just by the site of the iron-smelting heritage project was preceded by a ceremony to honour the pioneer inductees to the Hall of Fame: Rev. Monsignor Raphael Eze, Hon. Cletus U. Opata, Sylvester Madubuattah, and Bishop Emeritus Dr Francis O. Okobo.
This year, the Lejjans have launched a N250m appeal fund for the Hall of Fame secretariat. Professor Chinedu Athanasius Eze, chairman of the fundraising committee, said the N250m fund would be used “for the construction of an excellent facility that will stand as the permanent home and proud face of everything Lejja represents.” When completed, he stated, “the Lejja Hall of Fame secretariat will house a 1000-seat capacity hall, four administrative offices, four lodging rooms, a cafeteria, two conference rooms, and recreational facilities.
“Beyond its physical structure, it will serve as a living institution — preserving our history, immortalizing our heroes, equipping our youth with skills, receiving distinguished visitors, and standing as a powerful complement to our world-renowned Lejja iron smelting centre.
“This building will tell the world: Lejja remembers. Lejja honours. Lejja builds.”
It appears the world has started responding in the right ways. In December 2025, Felix Asadu Esq. led a delegation of an NGO to Otobo Ugwu to interact with the town’s elders over the heritage project. At the end of the meeting and tour of the site, the NGO promised to do a perimetre fencing of the site. It has kept its promise — the fencing is nearing completion.
Now that a charity will administer America’s $125,000 grant, many Lejjans hope the state or Nsukka local government will, at least, show interest in the road to the Lejja heritage site. Empty promises won’t be acceptable any longer.
Also, Lejjans expect that the Enugu Centre for Memories would support the construction of the Lejja Hall of Fame secretariat (already started by the Lejja elite) at the heritage site with funds. When completed, the secretariat could accommodate an annex of the Centre for Memories as well.
— By Aniebo Nwamu
