20 individuals confirmed with chieftaincy titles during Igbo New Yam Festival

Hundreds of the indigenous Nigerian group known as the Igbos on Sunday thronged the Efua Sutherland Children’s Park in Accra to mark this year’s New Yam Festival.

The event celebrated by Igbos globally, marks the period of harvest of yam, which is regarded as the foremost staple food of the Igbo people.

The New Yam Festival of the Igbo people known as Iri ji, is an annual cultural festival by the Igbo people that is held at the end of the rainy season in early August.

Some tubers of yam were also symbolically cut to mark the start of the new yam season.

Many prominent traditional chiefs representing various Nigerian groups together with many other Ghanaian chiefs graced the colorful ceremony whose core objective is to propagate Nigerian-Igbo cultural heritage, strengthen their traditional values, and create synergy with the Ghanaian culture.

As part of the 11th edition of the event, twenty individuals from Nigeria, Ghana, and the Diaspora were honored on the day with chieftaincy titles in recognition of their service to humanity.

The palace of Eze Ndi Igbo Ghana handed down the certificates of chieftaincy title to ace Ghanaian broadcaster, Blessed Godsbrain Smart, also known as Captain Smart, and the others in recognition of their promotion of Igbo culture and tradition in Ghana and the diaspora.

Paramount King of the Igbo diaspora in Ghana, His Royal Majesty Dr. Ambassador Chukwudi Ihenetu Eze Ohazurume I together with his wife, HRM Queen Ugoeze Liberty Ihenetu Nana Ekua Tsetsewa I inaugurated the celebration.

The King noted that the event presented the people with another opportunity to honor their tradition handed down to them hundreds of years ago by their forefathers.

According to him, the festival would serve as a unifying occasion for the Igbos globally. He said, “It is a bond that will continue to keep us together here in Ghana and anywhere in the world no matter the differences we may have.”

Emphasizing that it was proper to impart the Igbo tradition to Igbo children born outside Igboland in order to maintain the culture, the chief underscored the need for the young ones to be abreast with the tradition to enable them to take after the elderly.

Dr. Ambassador Chukwudi Ihenetu Eze Ohazurume I recommended the establishment of an Igbo school in Ghana and other parts of the world where Igbos can be found as part of strategies to achieve this objective.

He was particularly impressed with the display of various African culture at the event which he noted symbolized the unity and the perfect platform to promote African culture.

On his part the Chief Imam of Ghana, Osman Nuhu Sharubutu while praying for peace and unity, said the event provided the perfect platform to embrace diversity, adding that diversity provided the opportunity for people to know each other, help each other, and appreciate each other’s difficulties.

Explaining the significance of the event, a member of the planning committee, Chief Bright Chiawalam said, “We cultivate yam and yam is being celebrated and it’s part of thanking God for a good harvest and another year of farming so it’s a way of bringing the Igbos together.”

He therefore urged both Ghanaians and Nigerians to live in unity and called on the latter to respect the laws of their host country.

One of the Ghanaian traditional leaders who graced the occasion, Nana Gyan Oduro Dapaah II, Akwamu Asebuhene, and Adontenhene of Senchi in the Eastern Region in an interview, expressed his satisfaction at the bond of unity being created between Ghanaian and Nigerian culture, adding that the festival strengthens the bond of unity, friendship and oneness.

He urged the Igbo people to not only use the festival to deepen the ties between the two countries but also strive to use it to erase the erroneous and undesirable global impression about the Nigerian people.

In attendance at the event were some prominent leaders of the Igbo community and those of other Nigerian communities in Ghana alongside a host of Ghanaian traditional leaders.