If you were in Arondiuzuogo, Imo State, recently at the annual Ikeji Festival as a visitor, you would probably not have had a room to stay as the hotels in the town were fully booked.
The crowd was so much. They were Arondizuogu indigenes, their friends, and lovers of culture who throng the town to celebrate the age-long heritage of the Aro people sustained for well over 300 years.
In the midst of the thronging crowd, people had fun without watching their back. Yet, there were no records of missing persons after the festival.
It clears the air for those who used to believe a few miscreants that go about painting the Ikeji Festival as a time people go to worship deities, and slaughter humans for sacrifice; but those are not true.
Ikeji, according to Mazi Chris Robins Okoro, president general, Arondizuogu Patriotic Union, means ‘we have been empowered to go ahead with the planting session.’
“In America, they say thanksgiving day, Martin Luther King Day, among others. In Brazil, they also have their festivals. Ours is a period when we access our roots. We pay homage to who you owe homage. The festival enables everyone to trace his/her root from the 13 autonomous communities/clans in the land,” Okoro, who holds the traditional title of ‘Okeoha Izuogu,’ explains.
The unique thing about the age-long heritage is that it is celebrated in all the 36 settlements the Aro people occupy across the Eastern states. Ikeji, which often kicks off immediately after Easter, is more of celebration and complements the Christianity as Aro people are predominantly Christians. “We respect Easter period. Easter is for the Christian faith, but Ikeji is traditional. But tradition does not impede the Christians belief here. Both enjoy harmonious coexistence,” he says.
The festival features traditional rites to thank and appease the land for a bountiful planting session. After the rites, the next day is for fun fare, cultural displays and masquerades. The various centres for the masquerade performances are major attractions in the festival.
However, the Aros in Okigwe enjoy their own on Afor market day, Arondizuogu in Ideator enjoys theirs on Nkwo market day, while their kinsmen in Onuimo celebrate theirs on Eke market day. “At the schools and market places you see different masquerades in attendance with our people enjoying themselves and different social clubs entertaining their guests,” Okoro explains further.
As the festival keeps growing every year, Aro people use it to pass salient messages across. “Any group of people that forget their origin do not have the need to exist,” the president general insists, while beckoning on all Aro people to always trace their root, no matter where they are, in order to truly appreciate the reason for their existence.
But, in terms of socio-economic development, the president general decries the poor state of infrastructural development in the town despite producing prominent indigenes in the pasty, such as Mbonu Ojike, Ike Nwenu, Kingsley Mbadiwe, among others, who contributed to the development of the state and Nigeria at large.
He calls on government at all levels to help the economy of the town be reviving the 11 industries in Arondizuogu that used to employ over 3,000 people, and also to rebuild the Onistha-Okigwe link road built during Shehu Shagari regime.
However, if you were not opportune to participate in the 2014 Ikeji Festival, the hospitable Arondiuzuogu people invite you to the 2015 edition, which they promise will surpass the past editions in excitement, variety, and attendance.
OBINNA EMELIKE
