It sounds weird but it’s true. In the South East zone of Igbo extraction, the people consider New Year celebration more important to them than Christmas celebration for obvious reasons. OKEY CHRIS in this piece gives the reasons for this narrative change.
Yuletide is a word usually employed to describe the Christmas and New Year seasons. Christmas, which is celebrated on December 25 every year, is a date most Christians all over the world set aside to commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ, while January 1 of every year is generally viewed as New Year day for almost every religious adherent because it ushers everyone into a new calendar year, irrespective of religious affiliations.
Available records show that these periods witness mass exodus of people from all walks of lives and regions to another area for merriment and other activities probably because government, private institutions, groups and individuals always declare those days work-free or official holidays.
The South East geopolitical zone is one of such areas where people, mostly indigenes and their friends travel to within these periods especially the New Year celebration which to them starts from January 1 to 15 every year. Investigation shows that much of the activities in the region hold within this period.
It is, therefore, not uncommon to see Igbo men or women and their families shut down their businesses and services in Abuja, Lagos, Kano and travel to their villages in Anambra, Abia, Enugu, Ebonyi and Imo states, respectively for the New Year celebration unlike what they will do in the Christmas season.
In villages, the ‘home comers’ would directly or indirectly participate in annual football competitions, marriage ceremonies, community cultural, social and religious events, child dedications, house dedications, charity works, etc.
Reasons
Mr Tony Oji, an ex-Catholic seminarian and chairman, Anambra State chapter of Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN) observed that New Year witnesses much influx of South easterners to the geopolitical zone than the Christmas season.
According to Oji, “Our people prefer to return home mostly in the New Year season due to many reasons. One is that the cost of transportations is usually high during the Christmas season which sometimes is caused by transporters or the fluctuating prices of fuel. Apart from that, New Year is usually packed full with activities such as traditional and matrimonial weddings, village, town and kindred meetings unlike the Christmas season.
“In the zone, people don’t usually excuse themselves from those meetings because of the consequences. It is during the New Year that wise decisions and laws binding on the community members both within and in the Diaspora are made. This is also where taxpaying male adults of most communities/kindreds share the lands inherited from their forefathers, accordingly.
“High fines which individual members of these communities and groups might find hard to pay are usually imposed on absentees to discourage them from staying away from homes (the meetings). This is why some will decide to attend the meetings rather to absente themselves and pay fine which they might not even recover from while transacting their businesses this period. You know also that workers are usually on holidays then.”
Corroborating Oji’s postulations, Comrade Dede Uzor A. Uzor, the Board of Trustees chairman, Human Rights, Liberty Access and Defenders Foundation (HURIJE), posited that South Easterners visit homes for the New Year season because it is generally celebrated by people from all religious backgrounds.
Uzor, who is also, the chairman, Campaign for Democracy (CD), South east zone, added that people of his geopolitical zone prefer to celebrate New Year at homes with their loved unlike Christmas season where they hustle to make ends meet.
“People may transact their businesses from 25 to 29. But when it comes to 1st January, they will close shops to go home for prayers; to reflect over their lives and rededicate themselves to God and for merrymaking. Also, in some parts of Igbo land, some communities usually restrain or ban their members from organising burial and other events sometimes from December 15 to January 1.
“As a result, these individuals would fix their programmes and events they could hold in Christmas (December) to New Year. These include wedding anniversaries, birthdays, traditional or matrimonial wedding, meetings, social and other events. Most traditional rulers prefer celebrating their Ofala or Igu Aro festivals, and so on in New Year period”, he explained.
Little wonder communities like Enugwu-Ukwu in Njikoka Local Government Area, Umunya in Oyi Local Government Area, Amawbia in Awka South Local Government Area, Akpoga-Mbu in Isi-uzo Local Government Area of Enugu State, to name a few, held their ofala festivals between January 2nd and 10th, 2019.
Buttressing the fact, Hon Chiedo Chibuike, a community leader and public relations expert said, “Yes, Igbos return more for New Year than Christmas. They prefer to enter the New Year in their zone than anywhere else in the world; it’s a tradition that cannot be wished away.”
According to Chibuike, among activities that attract easterners back home for the New Year celebrations are harvest and bazaar sales, crusades, kindred/village and town’s meetings; social club meeting, etc.
Traditional events hold within the period
“Some Igwes always do their Ofala festivals after the Christmas celebration. Most people celebrate their traditional marriage and white weddings after the Christmas, precisely the in New Year. Sometimes, transportation fare is relatively cheaper after the Christmas. Traffic tends to be difficult during Christmas than New Year. Some believe that Christmas should not be celebrated because December 25 is really not really when Christ Jesus was born, for example, that is the belief of Deeper Life church members and Jehovah’s Witness members”, he submitted.
To the traditional ruler of Nawfia, Njikoka Local Government Area of Anambra State, Igwe Chijioke Nwankwo, the reasons most Igbo prefer the New Year homecoming is because they want to celebrate with their people; they want to be prayed for by their parents and elders. They believe that receiving God’s blessings from their homes will help them to prosper in the year.
Igwe Nwankwo, however, attributed the reasons most traditional rulers celebrate their ofala, igu, alo and other events within the New Year period is the advantage of the dry season which he said were mostly preferred for organising such events in the zone than in the rainy season.
South-east Nigeria, like other parts of the country, is a tropical rainforest area where rain drops mostly from February to November annually. It is also home to majority number of people classified as Christians in the country of which one expects them to attach higher importance to the Christmas season but because of the sociological belief of the people of the zone, the New Year holds more appeal to them than the day Jesus Christ was said to have been born.
