The origin of the Aba Cultural Festival is almost lost to memory due to lack of historical records. It is originally a celebration of victory by the hunters over the initial settlers of the land now known and described as Igarra-Etuno. That is why most of the songs are the original hunters’ songs of victory.

Eziakuta Family hunting expedition made them fearless, brave and bold. No wonder therefore that their role in the migration of ANETUNOS from Kwararafa (Junkun Kingdom) in Wukari, through Idah and other places to Ebira land and finally to Akoko-Edo is most undoubted. Apart from being reliable, even when fighting against the European colonial masters, they are owners and custodians of most Igarra rich cultures, among which is the famous Aba Festival.

The Aba Festival is the most spectacular/singular event in the celebration of Irepa Festival. It is the highest crowd-pulling of all the Irepa Festival events. Available records show that the event was first celebrated in 1789, even though we have a trace of it to 1678, long before the arrival of the Europeans and the creation of modern day Nigeria. It is an age-long and internationally acclaimed festival adjudged as the sixth most indigenous festival in the whole of West Africa by Total E&P in their 2006 yearly publications.

The celebration of Aba festival in Igarra marks the commencement of Irepa/Azebani title ceremony. And it takes place every seven lunar or six global calendar years and usually on the third day after the ENU – the New Yam Festival of the same Irepa year, and which is usually in the month of August. The New Yam Festival is an annual event. The main event of the 2017 IREPA Festival is on the 25th day of August, 2017 – which marks the graduation of the town’s (Legislative and law enforcement) Age Group, called OPOZE (Opa Avineve Age Group) to the highly revered Council of Elders called the AZEBANI.

The Opoze Age Group is unique in the sense that it is always the center of attraction during the festival because having been at the helms of affairs of the town (making laws and enforcing same) for six years, its members are the Chief Celebrants of the occasion.

On the day of the event, no other person is allowed to wear any white attire except the celebrants (the graduating Opoze) who would all climb a sacred Opoporiku Hills, the community’s Cultural Headquarters. This special day is preceded in the evening of the previous day by the shooting of ceremonial dance guns and cannons, first in the compound of the ODOVIDI i.e. the leader of the Age Group who must be the oldest celebrant from Eziakuta Opoporiku family by 2pm and followed by all the other celebrants by 4pm.

The morning of the Festival day is usually heralded with tremendous entertainment of food and drinks, usually prepared by the major celebrants, the graduating Opoze Age Group. A major delicacy is the pounded yam, which every celebrant prepares for members of his family and kindred. Assorted drinks and bush meat go with these, not to talk of drinks and this continues until everyone is exhausted. After this, it will be time to ‘let the steam off’ by each family member accompanying his celebrant(s) to ‘Ofumamo’, the cultural headquarters.

By noon movements to and fro the venue is usually regulated by special traffic squad, made up of EYA Traffic Marshalls, who are specially trained by the Federals Road Safety Corps (FRSC) for this purpose. While Ugbogbo celebrants gather at the junction leading to the venue of the celebrations, their colleagues from Utua and Uffa will meet them at the junction, so that together, they process, magnificently to ‘Ofumamo ’the cultural centre. By noon the celebrants clad up in immaculate white Agbada, white shoes and cap to match – assemble at designated places to dance to Ofumamo at Opoporiku along Somorika road, Ugbogbo. Celebrants from Uffa will gather at Uneh, enroute to Ofumamo who are joined by their Utua colleagues and move in the same convoy to Ugbogbo. At Somorika junction (Ugbogbo Central Market) they are joined by the Ugbogbo people then the “Great trek” to Ofumamo begins.

It is pertinent to note that the celebrants usually dress in immaculate white Agbada attire with bells/white horsetail, cap and shoes to match. As a mark of honour to these revered celebrants, no other person, (no matter how highly placed) is allowed to wear anything with a trace of white on that day.

At Ofumamo, in Opoporiku, the (Cultural headquarters) of Igarra the Aba drums which must have been set ready at the Iretuba – a stone at the centre of Ofumamo, by the owners and custodians (EziakutaOpoporiku family), are beaten for the celebrants to dance from where they are specially gathered. They are followed by Opoga the celebrants successors who had specially stayed on the Agidibobo rock. The celebrants dance and descend from where they stand, which symbolizes their relinquishing of their Legislative, other roles, powers and duties to their successors. This confirms the ascension of each of the other age group into the age group system of the community. At this point, the Azebanis (Council of Elders) will send message to the celebrants to pay the Irepa fees, and they will respond by paying the fees. This payment qualifies them (celebrants) to take the Azabani/Irepa titles from their various family heads at a later date. Although the Aba drum and Irapa are always kept in the custody of the oldest man in ‘Abara’ Onubeji House of Eziakuta Opoporiku Family but every ‘Opoporiku’ man has free access and have the right to beat the drum in every Aba Cultural Festival Day.

The forthcoming celebration is the 38th in the history of the peace-loving and highly amiable Igarra community. Igarra people from all walks of life, nooks and crannies of the globe with friends and well-wishers will come home either to witness or take part in it. The festival has witnessed a huge upsurge in the member of tourists attending the festival particularly the last edition; the 37th series witnessed over three hundred and fifty thousand local and international tourists.

The Aba 2017 Cultural event, the fourth since the return to civil rule in Nigeria, promises to be the biggest, largest crowd-pulling and most spectacular festival ever as innovations and other activities have been introduced to the festival since it was first celebrated about three hundred years ago. With the new repackaging of the festival by Etuno Youth Association (EYA) and Edo State Government endorsement as partner in the Aba project, the number of tourists being expected at the 38th series will be well over seven hundred and fifty thousand people, as Opoze Age Group (Opa Avinebe) has over five thousand members as celebrants alone.

Aba Festival is becoming a huge tourist attraction and one can only hope that someday it could become something bigger and even more revered than the Iwude Festival, the Osun Osogbo Festival, the Argungun Fishing Festival, the Ojude Oba Festival with international clout and flavour. Therefore, plans are on by the ETUNO YOUTH ASSOCIATION (EYA) to list the festival on the calendar of World Tourism Organisation (WTO) as well as on the World Heritage Festival of UNESCO.

Aba Festival. Igara, Edo State. 2017.
...I can say this is one of the best and the most organized festivals I've attended.

Source: http://lifedrama.com.ng/photos-from-aba-festival-igara-edo-state-2017/

So as at 1789 abi na 1678 when the ceremony was 1st celebrated and subsequently, there were white starched agbadas, wrappers and blouses with Gele to match, and even matching T-shirts.


Maybe by the year 2030, the celebrants will be wearing Yeezy tops, Timbaland boots, and Gucci gowns

If they can't maintain the attire the earlier celebrants wore, what then is the point of celebrating that culture?

Wow make sense and good for them.




Ndi/Onye Na Way Ha/Ya

ah!
4th to comment again?!?!
hian!!
it's like some people put their phones on AUTO COMMENT ahbi?!?!


haba!!

That last picture b like baba Iyabo

:dy

Op, it's Igarra not Igara

Seen.

I was there.

Live from Edo state.





King of Igarra town.

where are the maidens?

on my way

I greet you all, my AnEtuno/AnEbira brothers and sisters across in Edo.

From your brother in Kogi State.

hoodmenconcept:
the culture and the way of dressing is a lineage of Yoruba... either Edo people like it or not, you belong to yoruba nation...

From ''Unity begging'' to ''we south-south'' to ''Land Grabbing''...
Continue... We're watching

Do people still believe and practice these?

Just Look at this one that is eating Amala and Ewedu somewhere in Ibadan

scholes0:
I was there.

The King Of Igara Below with the ADA the Benin Symbol of Authority !!

Nice culture

God bless us all especially the Igbos.
The engine block of any developed nation,
scattered all over the surface of the earth.
the most traveled species on planet earth.
Peace loving and hardworking ppl who refuses to be intimidated.
The soul of every good and bad thing, yes i said bad too cos if an Igbo man is not in any bad plan,it wont work even the so called booko.h, to even defeat an Igbo man, u have to involve his like else it wont work. thts y d govt is fighting for their disunity, which when achieved, they will b defeated. and they re wondering y they re more united now than bfo.
therefore i urge all Igbos to remain as one, at which no one can defeat u.
Oh... love u me the Igbos
my o my
one love

for those quoting me
its is called
"IN ANOTHER NEWS"

Proudly IGARRA !

4:47pm On Aug 26

How to make good leaders in Africa- Political office holders are always sworn into office by the Bible if a christian, Koran if a muslim and affirmation if a pagan. Can u imagine the extent of hypogracy! If u ask an average christian (e.g our vice president)to swear by the bible to convince u, he will say the bible forbid him from doing that but when he want to occupy political office, he will never remember that he is forbidden from swearing. This mere boooks should be taken away from our oath system since the are impotence powerless and unable to punish those that goes against their oath. They should be replace with Ogun, Amadioha and other traditional dieties. The priest who will administered the oath will take blood oath not to be patial. I know some people will oppose me but I will tell u bluntly that many Nigerians politician are on traditional oath to do the biddings of their godfathers e.g God'swill Akpabio and Udom Emmanuel, Orji Uzor kalu and theordor Orji etc Why wouldn't these people sworn on tradition as well to gorven Nigerians well. .

the culture and the way of dressing is a lineage of Yoruba... either Edo people like it or not, you belong to yoruba nation...

Igbo must leave the north it's a decoy; the real target is the impending Yoruba presidency- Now, let's explain it out.

The whole idea is to cause a civil crisis by chasing the Igbo's around in inner northern communities, this will then lure the military in, to carry out a coup, and end the Osinbajo nightmare.

The northerners have recently lost all their strategic allies (middle belt, Niger delta and Yoruba, due to their serial abuse) and Yoruba are poised to, and will constitutionally take Over from a sick and incapacitated Buhari.

They need a civil crisis to bring in the military and hold on to power, waste some time, before planning a fresh democratic process that will favour them yet again. A kind of reset button. This must be the reason behind the recent coup rumours, and in testing that water, they realized it will be unacceptable to the west, as military intervention is fading across the world. But if you throw in a law and order breakdown, it will be justified.

Remember, Nigeria military is an all northern affair presently.

If their plans succeed and there's a civil crisis via the "igbo must go crisis", they expect the international community to even plead with the military to step in and restore normalcy.

Make no mistake about it, the northerners can't threaten to scatter Nigeria, because they need the present state of things like oxygen. So, this is a clear classic decoy

[[s]quote author=hoodmenconcept post=59871139]the culture and the way of dressing is a lineage of Yoruba... either Edo people like it or not, you belong to yoruba nation...[/quote][/s]






KEROSINE DEY INSIDE YOUR HEAD!!



YOU DO NOT EVEN HAVE A BRAIN AT ALL...

SHAME NORDEY CATCH UNA!!

Rich cultural festival, I witnessed it during my youth service year.

but where are the boobs ?

scholes0:
I was there.

Clown!!