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The Iri ji (new yam) is an annual rich cultural festival reveredly held by the Igbo people at the end of the rainy season in early August.
The ceremony which is a very culturally based occasion, tying individual Igbo communities together as essentially agrarian and dependent on yam, is usually done as a thanksgiving for bumper harvest and symbolizing the conclusion of a harvest and the beginning of the next work cycle.
Most prominent of this celebration is the Iri ji Mbaise festival held by people of Mbaise nation in Imo State and beyond to showcase the globally-cherished Igbo traditions and cultural heritage.
Every 15th day of August of every calendar year, Mbaise sons and daughters at home and diaspora dedicate and converge to mark this great day which symbolizes their prowess in yam cultivation, and the event attracts personalities and tourists from all walks of life.
Apart from Mbaise people strongly upholding this festival, Iri ji Mbaise is over the years, held in high esteem by successive governments of Imo state. The governors go to show their respect and value for the Mbaise nation and their rich cultural values and heritage by honouring the event with their physical attendance. No matter how busy the past governors of the state were, they created time out of their tight schedule to be physically present at the invent.
The level of seriousness and honour past governors attached to the iri ji Mbaise and Mbaise people is such that they had to cut short their trips outside the state just to be at the festival and they were usually accompanied by their deputies and cabinet members.
However, it has become so worrisome to observe that the incumbent governor of Imo State, Senator Hope Uzodimma is conspicuously missing in action today in Mbaise as the Mbaise nation celebrates her 2021 iri ji Mbaise festival. Yes, anyone could argue in his defense that he was represented at event by his Deputy Governor, Prof Placid Njoku. Come to think of it, would he have sent his deputy to represent him if President Muhammadu Buhari was to be at the iri ji Mbaise? You and I know pretty well that if Mr President was to be at the event, the governor would have cut short his trip to be physically present instead of sending his deputy.
Could the conspicuous physical absence of Gov. Hope Uzodimma have explained the value he places on the Mbaise people as well as what he considers as priorities? Could it mean his disdain for the Mbaise nation?
I’m Rt. Hon. Michael Anyanwu, a concerned Mbaise and Imo son!
