• New Yam festival rekindles Abia clan’s bond with Akwa Ibom
From Okey Sampson, Umuahia
The Igbo celebrate new yam only next to Oji (kolanut). Every year, they usher it in with a festival that holds between July and September depending on the community. And lately, albeit criticisms, such celebration is staged beyond the shores of Nigeria.
For Ibeku people of Umuahia North Local Government Area of Abia State, the New Yam festival is beyond the cutting of yam and the associated rituals. It is indeed a feast of love and opportunity for oiling the bond with their kith and kin outside Igboland.
On August 28, that opportunity presented itself again for the people made up of seven large villages, namely: Afarata, Afara Ukwu, Amaoforo, Emede, Isieke, Ndume and Osaah.
Ibeku Uruan who migrated to Akwa Ibom State from Ibeku, Abia State, also sent a large delegation to this year’s event.
Led by their Crown Prince, the Akwa Ibom delegation stormed Umuahia with over 12 masquerades.
Asuquo Akpan, one of the delegates said they came not only to add colour to the event, but also cement the bond that held both people together over the years: “The relationship between the two people, Uruan-Inyan Akakpo in Ibeku Uruan and Umuahia Ibeku dates back to 1781. So, we came here this 2023 as we have been doing over the years, to join our brothers in Umuahia Ibeku, Abia State to celebrate this year’s festival with them.”
With their unique masquerades, the Ibeku Uruan people witnessed the rites at Umuajiji, the traditional ground of the Ibeku. The masquerades later performed to the admiration of the people.
The Crown Prince of Ibeku, Benjamin Apugo who plays a central role in the traditional festival spoke on the significance of the visitors from Akwa Ibom State: “These people who came for the New Yam festival, were originally from Ibeku before they went and settled where they are presently living. They come here every year for the festival.
“I have told them and they know that Ibeku is their home, no man runs away from his home and that’s why you see them coming here every year to celebrate with their people, not minding they migrated to where they are staying now.”
To further cement the bond, Apugo said he was prepared to provide land free for any of the people from Akwa Ibom State who decides to come to Ibeku to build a house: “Let me tell you something, my son, Okechukwu, went to their place in Akwa Ibom to establish a football academy, immediately he told them he was from Ibeku and the son of Apugo, they gave him land free where he built a mini-stadium. Such is the bond which the Ibeku New Yam festival is oiling every year.”
He reiterated his dissatisfaction with Igbo leaders traveling abroad to celebrate the new yam. He declared that it was an abuse of Igbo culture and tradition: “Yam is the king of crops in Igbo land, we value it and that is why we celebrate it.
We can go to the market, buy rice and eat, but you cannot go to the market and buy yam that will be used for this type of celebration, it must be from your
farm.
“It follows therefore that since a king cannot go to another kingdom to celebrate Ofala or any festival for that matter in another kingdom, anybody who travels outside the country to celebrate new yam, is not doing the right thing.”
For him, it was laughable that someone could travel to Europe where yam is not planted to celebrate New Yam festival.
It is customary that before the festival is celebrated in the area, Apugo as the Ochiagha/Oparaukwu Ibeku would perform some traditional rites.
The two-phased rites are performed at Egwu Ibeku, located at Umuajiji, Isieke. The first is performed by midnight, proceeding the day of the New Yam festival, while the second one is performed between 9.00am to 9.30am on the actual day of the festival.
Among the traditional rites the Oparaukwu Ibeku performs is the cutting of the yam into seven places, representing the seven villages of Ibeku. This is preceded by the traditional gunshots and the sounding of the Ikoro (the wooden drum) which alerted the whole of Ibeku of the beginning of the festival. Without these traditional rites performed, no Ibeku man will eat the new yam.
Apugo lamented that the rites had been whittled by modernity: “The tradition I performed at Egwu Ibeku was part of the culture I inherited from my fore fathers, whenever I die, one of my sons whom the “Ofo” falls on, will take over since it is hereditary.”
Daily Sun learnt that after the cutting of the new yam, the festival proper then commenced in the various communities that make up Ibeku clan at a day they chose for it.
Chief Eme Uwa explained that the yam cutting ritual must be done by midnight because “It is the hour that births the day for the New Yam festival and we don’t allow it to cross even by a minute.”
Another Ibeku son, Obinna Onuoha, who travelled home from his Abuja base to be part of the event said that “it is equally wrong to celebrate the New Yam festival outside Igbo land because no other tribe in Nigeria honours yam as the Igbo.”