Nanka New Yam Festival: A culture threatened by erosion
The 2010 event, as usual, drew the Ozuzu Nanka (sons and daughters of the town) both home and abroad, who traveled from far and near to their ancestral home and joined the regent of the town, His Royal Highness, Igwe G.N Ofomata, to felicitate and thank God for yet another fruitful harvest in the town. […]
The 2010 event, as usual, drew the Ozuzu Nanka (sons and daughters of the town) both home and abroad, who traveled from far and near to their ancestral home and joined the regent of the town, His Royal Highness, Igwe G.N Ofomata, to felicitate and thank God for yet another fruitful harvest in the town.
The festival had earlier kicked off with Iriji Igwe celebration on Friday, 20th of August, at the palace home of Igwe Ofomata. Iriji Igwe, usually a day before the New Yam festival, is set aside for the Igwe himself to celebrate his own New Yam festival. This is usually seen as a dress rehearsal for the grand finale. It, in no small measure, attracts a lot of attention as all the chiefs and titled men in Nanka are expected to be present. And as expected, it was a grand celebration of success and industry as the Igwe also took the opportunity to honour the illustrious sons and daughters of Nanka in different fields of endevour both in Nigeria and overseas.
The grand finale of Oririji Nanka 2010 was a grand success despite the rain that fell early on that Saturday. Fear had gripped many hearts when as early as 8 o’clock in the morning it started raining heavily. But as providence would have it, at about noon when the people were expected to start from their homes to the assembly, the rain stopped. Soon, all the town folks took the tracks and roads heading to Isigwunwagu, the venue of the ceremony.
The ceremony began with heavy drumming and dancing by the town folks, heralding the arrival of the seven villages of Nanka as each village was expected to come with at least one Igba (traditional) dance group. The seven villages of Nanka include Agbiligba, Enugwu, Ifite, Umudala, Amako Ubahu and Etti, with each of these villages trying to out do the others in displaying colours and dance. The arrival of the Igwe intensified the dancing and drumming.
Meanwhile, the drumming and dancing were temporarily stopped as the Master of Ceremony for the day took time to recognize the special guests who graced the occasion, which included Chief Polycap Emenike, Chief Peter Chinedu and the chairman of the day, Chief Kofi Obijiofo, all sons of the town.
With the arrival of the Igwe, other aspects of the ceremony took off in earnest, starting with a prayer of thanksgiving for the new harvest year and supplication to the almighty God for a successful New Yam festival. Then there was the breaking and sharing of the Cola nut, which was followed by the main event of the day; the cutting of the new yam. Usually, a roasted yam is used for this ritual which is performed by the Igwe in the presence of Ozuzu Nanka. Unlike in the days before the advent of Christianity when gods and goddesses were invoked to be part of the cutting and eating of the first slices of new yam, God Almighty was invoked through a Christian mode of prayer, to which the whole assembly chorused Amen, and the king then cut the new yam and ate the first slice. This ritual actually marks the very first eating of the new yam by Nanka, as no indigene of the town was expected to have eaten recently harvested yam before this time. At this instance, representatives of each Nanka village were called out one after the other (according to superiority) to come and pick a slice on behalf of their villages.
With the new yam cut and eaten, the assembly was set to wine and dine, as condiments were in large supply. As this went on, speeches were made at the high table. First to speak was the Igwe. Among the lot he said, he reminded the assembly of the menace and challenge of erosion in Nanka town, urging both the villages affected and the ones not affected to ensure to keep to erosion control measures that have been introduced in the town.
Also latching on the speech of the Igwe, a son of the town who donated some gmelina plants for planting on some of the many active erosion sites expressed the collective sadness of the whole of Nanka town to the continued negligence of Nanka erosion by successive administrations both at the federal, state and local levels. He stated that the nursery he donated had cost him a lot of money, but complained that it is too little compared to what is needed to check the Nanka erosion, since the erosion is reputedly the largest in West Africa.
“The truth facing us today is that if care is not taken, Nanka will eventually go extinct if government does not help us. All our efforts to check this erosion is still a far cry from what is needed,” he said.
Also in his remark, the Chairman of Nanka Patriotic Union, a socio-cultural group uniting all Nanka people home and abroad, Chief Damian Okoye noted that the Federal Government’s ecological fund has continued to be disbursed and expended annually “without a dime being committed to Nanka erosion.”
He said further, “We are beginning now to understand that past visits and promises of ‘doing something’ by government officials since 1960 were scams. This is in spite of the fact that Nanka remains the mother of the monstrous environmental degradation in south east Nigeria for the past 100 years.”
The event of the day ended with recognition and awards given to various individuals for their contributions towards the development of Nanka town, after which the drums boomed again and the dancing resumed. Soon, there appeared masquerades on the scene to the delight of the younger ones. Even the next day, Sunday, the whole town was filled with masquerades as the second day of the New Yam Festival is always exclusively reserved for masquerades.