By Paul Emerenini
Briefly put, Senator Ike Ekweremadu can be said to be one of the political leaders presumably chosen by his constituency or senatorial zone to represent their interests in the Nigerian upper legislative chamber called the Senate. He, out of the very corrupt indices of the Nigerian government, has abysmally disappointed the expectations of his people, shamelessly taking sides with the enemies to suppress and kill the very people on whose purported resaons he is sojourning in Abuja.
YAM on the other hand, is one of the greatest staple foods that is cultivated and even adoured across Biafraland especially within the Igbo speaking area. It is a generational inheritance from ancestry. It is a seed that endures seasonally if well preserved. And because of the surviving nature of this tuber seed, the Igbo nation uses it as one of the very symbolic items in great festivities like traditional weddings, visits to new born babies by both paternal and maternal in-laws as occasion demands, symbolizing wishes for longetivity of life.
The new yam festivals are occasions marked annually with funfair at the beginning of harvesting seasons across Igboland. This occasion as traditionally demanded, opens the door for indigenous, bona-fide sons and daughters to converge and give thanks to God Almighty for His favors, protections and bountiful harvests of farm produce. During this occasion, lavish thanksgivings to God are made and issues bordering on communities are deliberated on, while also proffering/initiating developmental ideas. Realistically, it affords opportunities to distant relatives to meet once again after a long while. The new yam festival affords the people, moments of reliving the customs of the land through tourism attractions and socialization.
NEW YAM CELEBRATIONS IN FOREIGN LANDS
Occasioned by wider spread of Igbos across the globe, the cultural event has also been carried overboard, making the revered cultural festival to be celebrated at home by those sojourning overseas somewhat alien. They no longer have the interest of coming back home or even thinking about their people. It is against the culture of Ndigbo for this festival to be celebrated outside their homeland. It is an anathema to even consider celebrating this annual event in the land of those who through their covert or overt involvements, participated in the gruesome massacre of innocent Biafrans. Over the years, the spate of injustice meted on the Igbos remains unimaginably painful and incurable. The hearts are yet bleeding with that heinous criminality against the people. Unfortunately however, the political representatives via their mad cravings for selfishness, have consistently being applying salt to the incurable wounds of this genocide through sabotage and wilful negligence to their avowed responsibilities. Criminally abandoning their people to die in penury, Fulani terrorism trade and other relative acts of violence while traveling abroad on demented celebration spree, culturally meant to be conducted at home.
POLITICISATION OF THE NEW YAM FESTIVAL
It is really a pity to say that a well respected culture like New Yam Festival, has been turned into a feast of the rich, corrupt and uncultured individuals. It has become a culture that encourages and teaches servitude and suffering before pleasures against a culture that teaches the importance of laboring during the planting season and bountifully reaping during the harvesting season but all that proudly bequeathed to us and cherished, have automatically lost their value and glory due to the moronic/corrupt antecedents of these Igbo politicians of shame. During the planting season, they care-less and exhibit no concern to that which troubles the peasant farmers even when there is nothing or little stocks of seed for planting. They totally abandoned the agricultural project because they hope to feed on the farm produce elsewhere at the expense of the people they shamelessly claim to represent.
The rampaging Fulani killer herdsmen (terrorist cattle herders) all over Igboland, resulted from the despicable negligence of these so-called political leaders and elites, claiming representation of the people at various government cadres. The farmers cannot access their farms anymore for fear of being killed or raped by the Fulani Islamic terrorists. There is no longer yam crops to harvest in the land. The politicians now gallivant globally especially within Europe, to celebrate the new yam festival. If this maladious antecedents are therefore allowed to continue unchecked, what then will be the fate of the revered culture of the Igboman and the poor masses who cannot afford to travel to the Western world in search of yam? The people who have unfortunately, been pushed to the wall, have to start off with a very definitive/commendable action through it’s species that are domiciled in Germany.
The politicians henceforth should realize that their games are up and that the wounded, the impoverished, the victimized and the humiliated have arisen in desperation, in search of permanent healing and rest. It is for your own interest as an Igbo politician to stay back and fix the problems you helped to create. All must partake in our rich culture as the opportunity beckons and enjoy the peace of the land only when the right things are done. You cannot be in a strange land and be singing the song of redemption. God forbids!
Written by Paul Emerenini
