By Ogoh Titus
IGEDE- AGBA, the time honored annual festival is here again. It is a new day, a new hour, a new visitation in a brand new way. Straight from the womb of time, the new yam festival for 2022 has popped out. Fresh! Crip! Sparkling!
The morning sun of the new yam festival known as Igede- Agba has arisen with hope in its wings. The grandeur, essence, hallowedness of the annual event has a renewed enthusiasm, hope with each new edition, leaving behind a norm that few traditionalists struggle to keep out.
Even with economic climate that has changed the complexion of the festival, as English men may say, "creating change, enhancing lives".
Igede - Agba is one of the most significant and popular tradition of Igede- nation in Benue State of Nigeria. It is celebrated at the beginning of every harvest season to thank God for the blessing the people with bountiful harvest and to mark the beginning of another farming season.
In Igede -land, new yam cannot be eaten especially by "traditional -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 heavy eating and qauffing. Friends and visitors are lavishly entertained with delicacies like pounded yam ogbono and egbesi soup. During the new yam festival, great farmers with large bams of yam are recognized and rewarded with traditional tites at the ceremony.
Also with the incursion of civilization and its resultant effect on farming, the new yam festival has the meaning and is now another gathering of politicans who use the platform to expand their political frontier 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 acceptabliliy of the Christian faith, most tradions have been jettisoned as idol worship, including the new yam festival. It is no longer acceptable for one to abstain from eating new yam until it is offered to the gods of fertility, which the festival signified.
Even some of the traditional tited men have embraced the reality and can eat the new yam without observing the tradition nor considering the consequences
Today, the elites has tag the celebration of the festival as a victory over the oppression and betrayals of Igede people.
HAPPY IGEDE - AGBA!!!
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