…Laments deplorable road, as residents are trapped during rainy season
From Geoffrey Anyanwu, Awka
The Agabi Kingdom, Ihuokpara, in Nkanu East Local Government Area of Enugu State, recently held its new yam festival, which turned out to be a carnival of sorts, as every village in the ancient community rolled out the drums in celebration.
The festival, which was hampered by bad condition of roads, saw the people of the community from within and outside the country, friends and relatives coming home to savour the joyous event.
The traditional ruler, Igwe Fidelis Ogbu Nwatu, Eze Agabi II of Agabi Kingdom, and members of his cabinet started the celebration with a Mass at St. Mary’s Catholic Parish, Ihuokpara, where the Parish Priest, Rev. Fr. Jerome Okoh, called on the people to work hard wherever they find themselves.
Speaking on the new yam festival, the priest said: “Christianity is a cultural religion even though it transcends all cultures, but it brings in the good value we have in every culture and that’s what we see in the Catholic Church’s acculturation. The feast of new yam in a way celebrates in significant fashion the resurrection of Christ because Christ taught us, unless a grain of corn falls down and gets into the ground, decays and decomposes and brings in new fruits, it will die away. So when we celebrate our new yam, we are in a way thanking God for the gift of life and thanking him for blessing our effort throughout the year. Yam in the history and culture of Igbos remains the king of all crops.
“So when we celebrate the new yam, we are thanking God for the gift of life that the efforts we made during the previous year was not wasted, that he blessed our efforts with good fruits. So, we are in a way thanking God for giving us sustenance because you sustain life with food and, since yam is the king of all crops, we celebrate every other things that we cultivate in agriculture with the new yam festival; so we thank God today in a special way that he has given us life and something to eat.”
The ceremony continued after the church service at the palace of the monarch, where all the villages sat under canopies with their different cultural dance troupes and masquerades.
Also, friends, relations and special guests of the monarch, including former Aviation Minister, Chief (Mrs.) Cordelia Njeze, former Secretary to the State Government, Chief Onyemauche Nnamani, lawmakers and local government chairmen graced the occasion.
The villages took turns to display their uniques dance and masquerades, just as youths took time to enjoy their day, dancing as they ate and drank from the abundant provisions.
Addressing the crowd after preforming the official cutting of the yam (Iwa Ji), which was roasted, the Igwe commended his people for the peace and unity in the community.
He said, “The new yam festival in Ihuokpara has indeed come to stay. The people have finally accepted it as the Christian version of Aju festival. This is because even our critics have come to realise that it is good to give thanks to God Almighty for the abundant harvest of every year.
“Culture simply means the collective way a people live their lives, share their beliefs and values. It is the peoples’ customs, practices and their social behaviours.
“The people of Ihuokpara in the past and present are known to be respectful to their elders and parents. They show and prove this fact during Aju festival through the exchange of gifts for prayers. The younger ones or children go to their parents or elders with gifts (Ibie-Mbana) in exchange for their prayers for more blessings. This is in line with the command of the Holy Scripture, which says that those who respect their parents and elders shall live long and prosper.”
On the deplorable state of the community’s road, he said: “Our community is a big farming agent in the state. We farm rice, Fadama III participants are in this community, yam, cassava and other vegetables. Our Nkwo market attracts people from Enugu, Akpugo, Agbani, Nara, Ugbawka and other neighbouring communities, all of who need good road to enter Ihuokpara. Our dear governor, please, help your people in this part (of the state) to join in feeding the world with our farm products displayed in Enugu through good road.
“I want to encourage the entire Ihuokpara people not to relent. In these past years, since the beginning of the new yam festival in Ihuokpara, we have been able to restore our customary honours and values. We have also been able to consolidate these customary honours and values. We must keep pushing and refining until we showcase all our culture in the best light to the world.”
Speaking to Oriental News after the festival, the monarch said: “You have seen things yourself, there is no doubt that it turned out successful. You can see my people turned out and that is what they normally do because it is a yearly affair, we have been doing it, and I thank the Almighty God.
“I do not need to blow my trumpet, but one needs to lead by example, you’ve seen it yourself. In this community, I think, normally, I am the first to start harvesting yam and I don’t think there is any compound you go to now that has tied its yam, I am normally the first and we are still harvesting, we harvest our yam till March. I thank my people for their loyalty to me and their cooperation and I pray that God will continue to give me wisdom to lead them and to prosper our land.
“In the olden days, we used to do this celebration during the month of May and that time the yams were not there, and they bought yam; but we decided that there was no need deceiving ourselves, we must do this with our own yam, not going to markets to buy yam. So, we changed the time. But this one is coming late because the road is our problem. We have been appealing to the state government to come to our aid.
“The other road has been taken over by the Federal Government and the Federal Government constructed the road to a certain place at Akpugo. We have been talking to our representative at the Federal House of representatives, we’ve been talking to our Senator, but it hasn’t yielded anything. That road we are talking about is only about seven kilometres.”
Also speaking on the essence of the festival, an illustrious son of the community, Victor Okechukwu Chukwu (Ozo Nkekamkpa), explained that, “Way back, in retrospect, why are we celebrating Christ, knowing full well that Christ left us since 2,000 years ago? Why are we celebrating yam, knowing that yam is the king of all crops in Igboland? You don’t contravene it and it is not a subject of contradiction; so yam is the king of all crops in Igboland. Yam is an identity of strong men in communities, if you are a strongman the only way to identify you in the community is based on the number of yam barns that you have. It is on that premise that you can be known as a very strong man in the community, then you can be hailed, then you can be a principal to the subjects.
“So, new yam festival simply means it is gracious thanks to God for leading the farmers all through the process of planting season and harvest time, which particularly is pointing at yam. When you have a very good harvest of yam, you have a very good, healthy environment at that particular time. That is why when there is an introductory entrance of new yam in the season, it is celebrated, it is revered, it is accepted and cherished by all. That is the meaning of new yam festival.
“This is a community that is in union, it is a community that is bound by common love and understanding and we are proud of our culture.”
He called on the government to come to the rescue of the community saying, “our people common job is agriculture and there is very high quantity of agricultural produce in our environment and you ask yourself, how do you move these things out of the community? The most principal thing is road, there is no road and I ask why are our people being denied of road? We pay all the taxes and the royalties; it is the obligation and responsibility of the government to come and give us road.
“From June which is the thick of the rainy season to October, nobody enters this community and nobody goes out, it is a shame to the government and I want you to relate this deplorable state of our road to the government.”
The President General of Umuokpara, Chief Hon. Alexander Ogbonnaya Nnamani, on his part said: “We should have celebrated this in June or July, but because of bad road, that is why we moved it to December. We have been marginalized badly in terms of roads, people cannot access our community easily and our people are predominately famers.”
Nnamani, therefore, appealed to Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi to come and help the community lamenting that “during the rainy season, nobody comes home and our parents are in pains. When they produce things in their farms, no road to take them out to sell and make money.”