MKPUKPA FESTIVAL....PRESERVING CULTURE AND UNITY OF NDI UMUDIOKA IN DUNUKOFIA LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF ANAMBRA STATE
Nkpukpa Festival is a major cultural celebration in Umudioka town of Anambra State. Within the same period, other neigbouring towns such as Ogidi and Ogbunike communities celebrates Nwafor festival,while Umunya also celebrate Isigwu.
Performed after the cultivation of yam to mark the beginning of a resting period, Nkpukpa takes a period of 11 days, starting from the first Friday (Afor) in the month of July and for the next 10 days (In some cases,where we have two Afor market day that falls in July, Umudioka people do choose the last Afor Friday in July to celebrate their festival as the case maybe last year being 2016)
A day to the festival, on Thursday precisely the Orie market day, ceremonial masquerades perform their traditional dance around the community, setting the tone for the main event. The highpoint is usually on Sunday when the people gather at the community hall (Umudioka Civic Center) to say prayers and thanks God for a successful cultivation period and also pray for a large harvest of the New Yam.
On the significance of the age-long festival that unites people of the communities, Nkpukpa festival is the highest cultural festival in Umudioka Community. It brings our people home for celebration, it is also economically beneficial to the community as there is increase in trade. Outside Christmas, only Nkpukpa festival brings Umudioka men and women together, it cuts across religious divide because everybody enjoys it.
There’s a popular saying in local parlance that an Ezebo should not be outside when Nkpukpa festival is being celebrated. This clearly points to the importance of the feast to people of Umudioka.
During Nkpukpa festival, people normally send word home, maybe by way of money or materials to support those at home to celebrate. It marks the end of the planting season. It’s kind of a transitional period after the planting, because by August and September, we will start talking of harvesting our yam, which will precede New Yam Festival.
Unlike other festival dates that could be altered,Nkpukpa festival has a fixed date well know to everybody, therefore giving enough room for preparation, nobody is taken unawares.
Thursday before the commencement of the feast is for the induction of new initiates into the masquerade group. That’s for young boys of around 10 years of age and above. And when he gets initiated, it’s assumed that he has come of age, when there’s a meeting in the family, you don’t send him away, because he is now a full grown man.
As part of the celebration, there are no funerals and wedding ceremonies in community or else the person died on emergency, it’s all about fanfare. Though other communities celebrate at the same time,Umudioka remains the centre of attraction during Nkpukpa festival, because we have only one central place where we do celebrate our own,whereas other communities have a decentralized venue for the celebration.
Because we live along the major road that connects to Enugu-Onitsha Express, other people like to come to celebrate in Umudioka. In fact, it has assumed a carnival atmosphere. Each joint you go to, you see live band entertaining people. This is one festival that brings Ndi Umudioka together.
However, not minding the level of popularity and acceptance Nkpukpa festival has enjoyed over the years, the Festival, in recent times, has come under severe attacks from some Christian groups, especially the Born Again Christians, who dubbed the cultural feast a fetish celebration. In a way to counter the acerbation, these groups have resorted to organising crusades and youth camp for the youths, as a way of taking their minds off the traditional feast.
Many people of Umudioka disagrees with the notion, saying, “as far as we are concerned, Nkpukpa festival is a period of celebration, just like when you celebrate Christmas. There’s nothing fetish about Nkpukpa festival.”
Using other festivals and carnival across the globe as case in point, the world is now a global village, it’s easy to access Brazilian carnivals. In their carnivals, you see masquerade with people wearing masks and costumes, they are all forms of celebration. It’s the same thing here in Umudioka, it’s just pure celebration. Time has come for Africans to rise and protect our cultural heritage.
In an interview with one of Chiefs in Umudioka, he says, “This is my 26th year as a lawyer, but I assure that I’m traditional man to the core. I still break kola nut and offer libation to my ancestors; I commune with them. Do you sometimes wonder why the Whiteman has to come back to this place and try to buy off our artifacts and oracles from the shrines? Why do they take them away? It’s because they’ve discovered there’s some potency about these oracles. So, they now go there and spiritually harness the powers; people are turning back.”
He also urged Christian leaders to desist from turning the people against their culture and traditions, adding that, “the problem we have here is ‘do as I say, not as I do.’ The Christian clerics, they will not tell you the truth; everything you do, they try to censor you and say you are being unchristian like. But then, at your back, those things they criticize, they all do it; I assure you,” he said.
The culture and tradition of a people is paramount in their development and must be guarded jealously. It’s very, very important, because you can never lose your values. Go to the Whiteman’s country, they never lose their values, they still cherish them. Even when you go to places like South America, all those blacks, those traditions and cultures from where they came thousands of years ago, they still remember them, you can never do away with them. If it’s that easy, maybe the Born Again folds would have wished that Nkpukpa Festival would have fade away, but it cannot.
A man’s level of education or religious affiliation shouldn’t be a barrier to practicing his culture. Many people prefer to think of what people will say about them, but it is good to prefer to think of what God thinks about you. Don’t make an exhibition of your believing in God, it’s those people that advertise their believe in God that make a mockery of it. When challenges come, you see that they don’t even believe in the God they claim to know. It’s God that knows who believes in him. Culture is a way of life, so, if you lose it, you’ve lost your heritage.

Mgbatogu Victor Chukwudi
(Observer)
Umudioka, Dunukofia LGA, Anambra State

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