By: Ike Philip Abiagom
New yam festival ought to be a pride accomplishment of annual farming and ought to be observed in all nations of the world. It is celebrated in Nigeria in connection with the beginning of farming and harvesting season. It’s a celebration of accomplishment and life happiness and part of culture. A variety of festivities mark the eating of new yam. At this year’s Iwa -Ji the annual New yam festival, there is a sense of melancholy. Because only a few bothers to farm these days, and the ceremonial tubers are now bought from the market, rather than cultivated.
Very few people bother these days to till the soil and cultivate it. So, why celebrate what you no longer have any interest in producing as the forebears did? The grandeur, essence, hallowedness of the annual event is disappearing with each new edition, leaving behind a norm that few traditionalists struggle to keep.
Iwa-ji is one of the most significant and popular traditions of Igbuzo. It is celebrated at the beginning of every harvest season to thank the gods of the land for blessing the people with a bountiful harvest and to mark the beginning of another farming season.
In Igboland, new yams cannot be eaten especially by titled men, until the festival has been celebrated as a mark of respect for the crop that is regarded as the king of all crops, which can only be cultivated by men.
The feast is associated with much eating and drinking. Friends and visitors are lavishly entertained with various yam delicacies like pounded yam, yam porridge and roasted yam eaten with vegetable soup and smoked fish.
In the past, great farmers with large barns of yam were recognized and rewarded with traditional titles during the feast. But with the incursion of civilization and its resultant effect on farming, the New Yam Festival has lost its meaning and is now another gathering of politicians who use the platform to expand their political frontiers by making endless speeches without corresponding action.
Another factor that has continued to deplete the beauty and mystery of the New Yam festival is religion. With the growing acceptability of Christian faith, most traditions have been jettisoned as idol worship, including the New Yam Festival. It is no longer acceptable for one to abstain from eating new yams until it is offered to the god of fertility, which the festival signified.
Even the titled men have embraced the new reality and can eat the new yam without observing the tradition nor considering the consequences, especially when the yams are not cultivated anywhere in Igbo land but imported from the Northern parts of the country.
This year’s edition of the New Yam festival in Igbuzo, known as ‘Iwa-ji’ Igbuzo, confirms the fear that this rich cultural heritage may soon go into extinct like many others that have been termed obsolete and retrogressive.
Unlike in the past, where great yam farmers gather in their royal attires performing the tradition with precise caution to ensure that every detail is religiously observed, this year’s edition can best be described as a political exercise that fell short of all expectations.
Instead of the harmony and unity that had often hallmarked the festival, the titled men also avoided the traditional venue and observed the New Yam festival in their respective homes, an exercise that was lacking in meaning, scope and motive.
Although the Most Distinguished Senator Peter Onyelukachukwu Nwaoboshi dismissed the insinuation that the aura of the New Festival is diminishing. According to him, “the New Yam festival in the Igbo annual calendar is not all about cultivation of yam but rather a form of thanksgiving system to appreciate God for keeping the people alive from one planting season to another. Yam was choosing as the centre focus because it is regarded in Igbo land as the king of crops”.
Senator Nwaoboshi,said that the New Yam festival is another occasion to honour our culture and tradition as Igbos. It is not a surprise that year after year the great Igbuzo town, with friends and well-wishers assemble from different parts of the world to promote our culture and Identity as Anioma people.
Sen. Nwaoboshi, described the New Yam festival as a veritable tool of unity for the Anioma nation and a preservation and promotion of the people’s cultural heritage
. On the contrary, Bishop Peter Abiagom, holds a different view. According to him, the New Yam festival has lost its meaning and essence, “today none of these traditional titled men can boast of a tuber of yam harvested from their farm, so how can you be celebrating a crop you don’t produce. If you go to Benue state where most of the yam consumed in Nigeria is produced, they don’t hold such elaborate New Yam festival”.
He continued that, “the New Yam festival if for anything, should be a time of sober reflection on how our people abandoned the industry of their forbear, which is farming and to look for possible ways of re-launching into agriculture instead of leaving the false life of celebrating what we do not have”.
Bishop Abiagom said, “It is painful that every aspect of our public life has been taken over by politics. For instance, the New Yam festival in the past was devoid of any political partisanship but today you notice that PDP members hold their own differently from APC members.
“Another painful aspect is that our people have completely abandoned farming. In the whole of Igbuzo today you can hardly find a yam farmer with a rich barn of yam as it was in the past. Any tuber of yam you see today is bought from the market. In the riverine areas where the people engage in fishing festival, they don’t buy the fish used for the festival, they catch the fish by themselves and that is the beauty of the tradition”.
Bishop Abiagom, however expressed worry over the growing lack of interest in farming in the state, especially amongst the youths, adding that, “it is really worrisome that our people no longer cultivate the land because of selling of land by our youth but I am optimistic that with what the government is doing to revamp agriculture in the state, the people will soon return to farm”.
