Monarch Makes Case For New Yam Festival

Igwe Emeka Ilouno, Eze-Dunu of Ifitedunu Community in Dunukofia local government area of Anambra has urged the state government to turn the annual New Yam festival in the community into a tourism event.

Ilouno told newsmen  at his Ifitedunu community that the festival would become more attractive and result-oriented if government organised a unified festival accompanied with adequate publicity.

“In certain clan, who we know are not even yam harvesters, we know that they are doing something. We know that they are encouraging the New Yam celebration.

“Take for example, you have something you call Leboku Yam Festival in Cross River State, but we also know that Cross Riverians are eating yams from Anambra State right now. So what are they celebrating? They are celebrating the yam we have harvested here; so why should they celebrate it more than us?

“It’s because, we have not elevated our own celebration to the clout of tourism and they have done so

“So we want Anambra State government to encourage various communities to come together and develop this New Yam into a bigger festival.

“Here in Dunukofia, we are at the verge of doing that; we are trying to make sure that all the six communities in the local government celebrate New Yam together, one community at a time.

“This year 2011, they celebrate it in one community, then 2012 we will shift to another community; so that it would be bigger ceremony that will attract more people and more masquerades and more of our culture, so that our entire culture will be on display on this unique day; so that people will now be made to come and observe us and see what we own and what we have as our tourism.’’

Ilouno noted that if the tourism potential of the New Yam festival was fully exploited, it would surpass any other single tourism event in the country.

He said that it would also avail visitors and indigenes of the state in the Diaspora the opportunity to visit other tourism centres in the hinterland to understand the state better.