Wedlock of culture and religion: Igboukwu Community takes Igbo planting season to church

In furtherance of its resolve to encourage and promote Igbo culture that are not in

conflict with Christianity, the Mbido Igbo Association recently marked the Iba Ubi, an Igbo national festival signifying the flag-off of the  planting season for the year.

At the National Yam House, Igboukwu, Anambra State, venue of the occasion, it was the celebration of Igbo culture at its best even as the people yearned for more when the organizers drew the curtain for the day.

The festival had all the trappings of the days of yore before the advent of Christianity when the average Igbo man depended on fortunetellers and diviners who are regarded as the link between the living and the spirits.

But this time, instead of visiting the native doctor, dibia or ezemuo, the chief priest, the organizers consulted Most Rev. Dr. Jonas Benson Okoye, the auxiliary Catholic Bishop of Awka, as alternative to the ancient practice.

The bishop on arrival was consulted with a live goat, nine pieces of kolanuts and a gallon of palm wine as he was appealed to consult the Almighty God as a high priest so as to know whether the people would experience bountiful harvest after planting this year.

The bishop who neither poured libation on the ground, drank the palm wine nor chew the kolanut rather received those items, looked up to heaven and after mumbling a silent prayer asked the organizers to proceed on the programme since the heaven has answered their prayers.

In a welcome address, the Chairman, Mbido Igbo Association, Mazi Ugochukwu Okafouzu, noted that the occasion was regarded as the New Year’s Day for the Igbo people, which started with the first Eke market day in the month of February in the Gregorian calendar of the world.

He remarked that this year’s celebration was shifted because of the general national elections. He assured that all the features of the festival would be marked.

He said it has always been the mind of the founders of the association who are the organizers of the Iba Ubi and Iri Ji Ndi Igbo national festivals to bring in the Christian community to be at the helm of affairs both in planning and execution of the great festival handed down to them by the great ancestor called Igbo.

He urged the Catholic Diocese of Awka to be in the lead and guide them properly because, according to him, the Igbo people are now Christians who cannot revert to idol worship, which led their ancestors to nowhere.

“This festival was designed by our ancestors to ask for God’s blessings on the farmlands, crops, farm implements and to ward off any evil or accident in the course of crop cultivation until the harvest time. In it, they also ask for God’s blessings for good and clement weather, which they believe help the crop to grow well.  If this festival is not well marked, they believe things worse could happen and our efforts at the farmland will yield nothing.

“We humbly thank His Lordship, Most Rev. Dr. Jonas Benson Okoye, the Auxiliary Catholic Bishop of Awka Diocese who accepted to be the Ezemuo of this year’s festival which started today and will culminate on 29th August 2015 being exactly one year of his Episcopal ordination. God is wonderful and his one-year anniversary will bring more blessings to the Igbo race and nation.  We humbly ask him to help us convince the diocese to make this festival a diocesan function where all the cultural outfits of all the parishes within Awka Catholic Diocese will feature with their costumes and regalia for the church and Igbo people are the same,” he said.

Okafouzu also called on the state and federal governments to look into the deplorable condition of the road that led to the only National Yam House in the South-East of Nigeria and give it a facelift.

He also prayed that those who emerged winners from the general elections be good leaders who would steer the country to greater heights and stop further bloodshed.

The traditional ruler of Igboukwu community, Dr. Martin Eze, in his remark said that the Igbo had a well-structured pattern of cultural life even before the coming of the white men.

He called on Nigerians to embrace farming as a solution towards eradication of violent crimes, kidnapping and all other vices even as he lamented that the total dependence on oil revenue have caused great harm on the Nigerian system.

Governor of Anambra State, Chief Willy Obiano who was represented by Mr. Peter Okafor, director of culture in the ministry of information, culture and tourism, described Igboukwu community as a pacesetter in Igboland.

He disclosed that the community had built two standard schools, a post office, a museum and the Shaw Institute for Cultural Arts, donating all to the government.

He described farming as life and encouraged the people to continue in the same positive direction.

Different crops like yam seedlings, cocoyam, pumpkin seeds, cassava stems, among others were all presented for blessings by the bishop.

The local farmers in the community later lined up and collected those seedlings from the bishop for onward planting in the farm.

The train later moved to nearby farm where the bishop after another round of prayers and blessing of the land planted a yam seedling. He was followed by the traditional ruler, the Ononobi Igbo and other stakeholders.

After planting the major seedlings, a Catholic nun, Rev. Sister Cecelia Eze who represented the female folk planted the cassava stalk and other accompanying vegetables thereby completing the symbolic farming ritual.

In a chat with Oriental News shortly before he left for Awka, the Auxiliary Bishop, Okoye said he felt greatly pleased to be invited to the great ceremony to kick off the beginning of the year according to the traditional Igbo society.

“This community has tried to recapture what used to be. In recapturing, they mark the beginning of the planting season which is so much treasured among our people. If you have read the famous Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, you would have understood what Unoka did and it was somehow dramatized here today.  At the time he  (Unoka) came to enquire from the gods that he has done all he could to farm and it was not yielding any fruit, the oracle told him that he has not laboured hard and must go back to labour and work.

“From that perspective, one can see that the bane of our society today is that people are no longer ready to work. People should learn to invest before they reap, and my warning to the young people is that they should engage themselves positively. There is dignity in labour and I did give example with myself because I laboured too. It may not be possible for all of us to engage in commercial farming, but at least, we can try subsistence farming. I do it in the parish community and the rectory where I live.  Living psychedelic and cosmetic life is not the proper way of living,” the bishop counseled.

By Aloysius Attah