Former aviation minister seeks to promote Igbo culture

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November 3, 2016 2:03 PM

In Obosi, Anambra State, the Obiora ceremony was recently celenbrated to mark the new yam festival.

Chidoka cutting the yam

Former Aviation Minister, Chief

Chidioka, who is also a former Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) said that the Igbo culture should be promoted worldwide.

Since the former minister became the Obosi, the Obiora festival has been celebrated with fanfare.

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The Obiora day is set aside for Ichie people to celebrate after the traditional ruler of Obosi, Igwe Chidubem Iweka, has marked his own new yam festival.

Obosi saw an influx of friends, well wishers and politicians who had come to wish Chidoka well and celebrate the festival with him in his hometown.

Prayers were offered to God to show gratitude at the breaking of kolanuts. Thereafter, the new yam was cut and small children were fed with roasted yam and palm oil in a symbolic ceremony.

Chidoka urged all members of the Igbo nation to take pride in their cultural heritage and seek means to promote it worldwide.

He said: "Since our culture is our identity, we must always preserve and improve on it, irrespective of how educated or religious we think we are, because, if we allow our culture to die a natural death, then we shall be wallowing in the desert like sheep without shepherd."

"Every human being has an identity and once you have an identity it means you have a culture. For me, I am an Obosi man, an Igbo man, and a Nigerian and all of these are what I call our various categories and I make sure that, at every time in my life, I try to identify with my own identity and consciousness."

"As an Igbo man, I'm proud to be Igbo and I want to accentuate all that is good about the Igbo people and show all that is positive about the Igbo people. In all our interactions with the rest of the country, I feel a certain generational burden to re-interpret Nigeria to Ndigbo and to interpret Ndigbo to Nigerians because there is a lot of misconceptions about who we are and why we are the way we are, but understanding our history and our culture will enable people appreciate the Igbo people better in Nigeria."

Chidoka also stressed that the new yam festival has a lot of potential to generate tourism revenue. He also mentioned the need for the government to harness this potential.

The evet was well attended by traditional rulers such as Igwe Bob-Vincent Orji of Ezinifite Aguata community, Igwe Peter Ezeamama of Enugu-Umuonyia, Igwe Emmanuel Nnabuife of Isseke community, Igwe S. O. Uche of Ezira and Igwe Jonathan Okpalaezeocha of Akpo community.

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