Family, friends and associates gathered on Sunday, the 29th of October, 2023 at the Ikenna Stars Academy and Schools, in Ojo Local Government Area of Lagos state to celebrate with Eze Ikenna Onuegbu as he performed the yearly new yam ceremony.
In Igbo culture and tradition, yam is regarded as the king of all crops and as such celebrated with fun fare after every harvest to thank the God for a bumper harvest and for life. In the olden days, communities and households would organize a new yam festival during which relatives would gather to eat and drink after publicly cutting some roasted tubers of yam into shreds and eaten with well-garnished sauce. This was usually preceded in the morning by killing of some animals and cutting some piece of yams which was presented to the ancestors believed to be responsible for the bumper harvest.
However, some of these practices had changed as many now use the ceremony to thank God and ascribe bumper harvest to the God of Heaven and giver of life. This was the case as the gathering prayed and thanked God for his infinite mercies upon Eze Ikenna and his family and for being able to organize the ceremony annually.
Declaring the ceremony open, Rev. (Hon.) Rowland Nwachukwu, noted that God gave Ndigbo special wisdom and love and urged them to replicate that to their neighbours.
In his word of exaltation, Rev. Nwachukwu, who is also the Senior Special Assistant to the Chairman of Ojo Local Government Area on medical services, admonished the gathering to shun sin and its enticement because God abhors sin. He noted that God loves Ndigbo specially and blessed them with more wisdom and understanding. He cited the portion in Isaiah where God stated that His hands are not short to bless nor His ears deaf but because of our sins…
“Ndigbo have very interesting culture and tradition and often stand out wherever they are. Most Igbos in Lagos today who owns properties here came to Lagos with poly bags. However, some of them are using the special wisdom given to them by God in the negative way and God is asking them to return back to him,” he noted.
He also identified followership as a problem among Ndigbo, describing disrespect and disregard of seniors and elders as sins. He charged Ndigbo to return to God and make peace with him. He also charged Ndigbo not to abandon their culture and tradition. He reminded everyone about the love of God and wants them to replicate same to their neighbours.
“God hates sin, let us repent from our sins and love God,” he stated.
He prayed to God to continue to protect Eze Ikenna and his household and give him the strength to continue to sustain the annual new yam celebration.
In a chat with The Unique Model Magazine team, Rev. Nwachukwu said,” We have a very rich culture and tradition and God has endowed us with this and we should know that people from all walks of life are known by their culture and tradition. What do I mean by that, what you practice, your cultural values. They are so close to the issues in the bible, I mean biblical values and standards and these are the things that informed us that we are truly the children of God. That is the reason so many of our scholars came to the conclusion that we are from Israel.
“Followership in Igboland is poor and I’m speaking basically from experience. They believe that if you are leaders, you must have gathered a lot of wealth to share and so everything you want to do in the name of gathering my people based on leadership, everyone that comes to you is coming to eat what you have gathered already and when you now see the need for others to contribute for that need, you will not have it. That’s a very wrong mindset from followership and that also means that we are deviating from the original tradition of Ndigbo. In Igboland before, culturally, you bring, I bring and my brothers bring and we put it together and we eat more and be able to give out to those who do not have. But in today’s followership, we are emulating other tributes. If you are a wealthy man, that does not make you a leader. Leadership in Igboland is not given based on your wealth; it is given to people from a royal background, people who speak the truth.”
On the leadership of Eze Ikenna in Ojo, he described him as a good man that has compassion on the poor and less privileged and who is using his resources to promote Igbo culture and tradition through the Igbo new yam celebration.
On his part, Engineer Ambrose, one of the guests who hails from Delta state, said, “I came here to represent my association; Community Safety Partnership (CSP), it’s a joint venture between the Federal Government of Nigeria and the British Government.
“The Igbo culture of celebrating the new yam is awesome because we need to keep our tradition alive and our culture and tradition must not die, we must keep it alive and practice it when necessary so that we can pass the baton to our children born now and those yet unborn because any nation without culture and tradition has lost its identity because culture and tradition is about identification. If you look at some of the European nations like Italy, you will discover that some of our traditional practices are being done there and people fly from Nigeria and spend millions of naira to Italy to celebrate with them. So, we must keep our own alive, and develop it to the point where people from other countries will also come to celebrate with us.”
Chief Nwode Ihunanya Louis, (Ezi enyi k’ Ajo Nwanne) in Ojo and the financial secretary of Igbo Council of Chiefs in Eze Palace described the event as a normal yearly ceremony of harvest just as it is in Igbo culture.
In his explanation, “There is time for farming and there’s time for harvest which is to reap the fruit of that which was planted. According to Igbo tradition, yam is the king of all crops. In fact, if you are a grown up man and you do not have a ban of your own, it means you are a lazy man. So, every year, we celebrate the new yam, celebrate Igbo tradition and thank the God of harvest for keeping us alive to harvest what we planted; we cook the yam, we roast it, we fry it and in fact, we prepare it in any form we choose and present it to people to eat and we always do it after Eze Igbo of Lagos has done his own every other Eze in every local government can then celebrate theirs and that is why we are here. The fact is that we have not eaten the new yam but we have been eating the old yam”.
He commended Eze Ikenna for consistently organizing the ceremony every year and prayed to God to grant him more strength.
Also speaking on the essence of the event, Chief Chidozie Anusionwu, the Obi of Igbedeland said, “it is our culture. There’s time for everything, now is the time of harvest and celebration. This is like celebration of New Year after which every family can start eating the new yam.
“We are Ndigbo, some may have eaten the new yam and others may not according to their own culture because we have different traditional rulers, different towns and different practices. I’m from Akokwa and we celebrate our new yam festival in the month of August 30th and before that time, I must not eat the new yam because I’m a chief.”
Asked what he had achieved as the Obi of Igbede over the years, he said, “We have achieved peace in the community because peace is the number one thing every community needs especially between us, Ndigbo and our host community, we work with the Baales and leaders of other communities to ensure that whatever will bring problem, we sit down and trash it promptly and we also help our people especially when they have accommodation or rental challenges.”
Speaking on how to ensure that the Igbo language and culture are sustained, he stated “We are collaborating with Igbo parents in this area because we cannot handle it without the parents, we encourage them to always teach their children Igbo language and culture because it is their identity.”
He described the leadership of Eze Ikenna in Ojo as a good man who is making very serious impact in Ojo, assisting Ndigbo who need support.
Chief Solomon Nnorom, Managing Director of Blessed Solo-Solution Limited (Udo bata 1) in Ojo, in his contribution described the occasion as a symbolic way of celebrating the yam which is the king of all crops.
“What we are doing today is a celebration of the yam. In the olden days, our forefathers would kill animals to appreciate their gods for keeping them alive but today, we no longer kill animals to the unknown gods but to the God of Heaven who we serve. We actually use it to observe the year and appreciate God for keeping us alive. So, we use it to celebrate the grace of God in our lives and having known Christ as the way, the truth and the life. So, everything is now done in the name of Christ and not in the olden ways. If any man, a farmer cultivates yam and harvests same in due season, that man has every cause to be grateful to God,” he stated.
He described Eze Ikenna as a well-loved Eze by his people in Ojo.
“This ceremony is observed yearly and he uses the occasion to assist many people who are in need of one form of help or the other especially the widows, the orphans and the less-privileged people and he does it every year,” he added.
Also speaking, Chief Joseph Udude (Ego Nwere Efe 1 of Ojo) said, “We came in group as Igbo Council of Chiefs in Ojo. New yam ceremony is our tradition. Any farmer who plants yam and harvests same in due season should appreciate God for the grace to be alive. So, such a farmer should be thankful and observe the tradition and celebrate because it’s not everyone who plants that can stay alive to harvest his produce in due season, so it is a thing of joy for seeing another year of harvest.
“So, we are happy today that we planted and God gave us the grace to be alive to harvest because some planted but were not alive to harvest it.”
The highlight of the well attended event was the cutting of some roasted tubers of yam which was eaten with well garnished sauce.