Chukwudi Idigo Onitsha
New yam festival in Igbo land is an age-long annual celebration of the arrival/harvesting of new yam and also a season for thanking God for a successful end of the farming season/commencement of a new farming season. In this interview with Chukwudi Idigo, some community, leaders/monarchs aired their views on whether the new yam festival is fetish or not.
In the words of the Head of the Nze na Ozo societal of Isuofia,Anambra State, Chief Ezeochinanweta Ezeonyedikawe, during the new yam festival of the their society there, “Ozo title holders first celebrate the new yam a day before the entire people of Isuofia community celebrated hers. We celebrated the new yam festival to thank God for the end of harvesting period and commencement of the planting/farming season.
It is never an occasion to worship idol or involve ourselves in fetish engagements. It is an age-long tradition we inherited from our forefathers which is also a period of mass return. During this period, friends and well-wishes including in-laws visit the celebrants with gifts and they in turn will present them with roasted yam first and then cooked yam that would be turned into different delicacies”.
A High Chief and member of the Ozo society in Isuofia who sponsored all the eatables and drinkables in this year’s new yam festival in Isuofia, Chief Paul Okonkwo, Chief Executive Officer, Kpoko Bros Group of companies, said, “there is nothing fetish in New yam festival, yam is the Chief crop in Igbo land. It is an age long tradition that our fore fathers embraced and thanked God for the harvest and commencement of a new farming season”.
To buttress his point he said, “monarch is not as old as the Ozo Title and the new yam festival that was in place before the existence of traditional rulers.
Igweship is a new development in Igbo land but in Yoruba and Hausa,it is old and a tradition. That the Igwes rule their various communities and present Kola nuts after prayers to God in their own native way does not mean they are fetish. Most of those who celebrate the new yam festival are Christians”.
Also the chairman of the Nze na Ozo in the Area Nze Ezeani Ezesinachi Aloy Okoye, and the Prime Minister, Onowu, Chief Pius Muoneme, described the new yam as a tradition that unites the people.
According to them, “what is fetish in eating new yam with friends and well wishers”.
The traditional ruler of Ekulieaka Obodoukwu, Ideato North council Area, Imo state, said, “during his new yam festival that, “it is an annual festival where all sons, daughters and friends of the community reunite in thanksgiving to God Almighty for being alive to witness the annual symbolic Royal ground breaking/ cutting of the new yam and harvest ceremony of yam the king of all crops after a successful annual planting season.
It is performed by the cleansed and worthy hand of myself, the Ekulieaka Ozodoukwu Monarch, Ezemadukaejiaka C.I. Ezika. “Yam farming and subsistent agriculture is embedded in our tradition which we inherited from our forefathers, it has no fetish connection in eating new with our people”.