Hanting story urbar
Similarly, this year’s Sallah durbar during the Eid-alAdhah didn’t hold, as the Emir of Kano was on the holy pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia.
According to the initiator who also poses as the emir during the corn stalk durbar, the idea came to him at a time when the people of the area were missing the real durbar. He added that the main aim was to alleviate their pain at its cancellation, and also to provide joy for fun seekers, to promote peace as well as entertain the community.
“When I and some of my friends were nursing the idea of initiating something similar to the durbar, we never knew it will become a yearly thing, and also well accepted like this. Our intent then was just to provide an avenue to drive away boredom and idleness during the Sallah festivities. But we later came to realize that the whole thing has gone beyond that, and now for three years we have been holding this corn stalk durbar festival consecutively. The good thing here is that even the community leaders and security operatives have come to approve the gesture, as they have given us their blessings,” said Mubarak.
What really distinguishes the real durbar from this stalk durbar is the absence of a live horse. The royal regalia, the royal songs and the colourful arrangement of participants reflects a genuine scenario of a real durbar. However, 95% of the participants are the youths, and also many of them were seen dressed in other attires of the various ethnic groups in Nigeria, to portray unity and prosperity.
It was also gathered that initially, the stalk durbar was not formally organized, but as the years rolled by organizing the festival became a task under a constituted committee headed by the initiators. However, selected individuals from different streets in the area who were also members of the organizing committee were given the title of district heads of their streets, and they represent their respective streets during the durbar.
However, during this year’s Independence Day celebration the youths of Giginyu town decided to use the stalk durbar to celebrate the day. The organizers suspended the usual Sallah stalk durbar just to be able to hold the durbar for 1st October celebration. The durbar was systematically organised to portray peace and also to replace the lost Independence Day parade.
“Some of us didn’t have the privilege of witnessing the independence parade, but we have heard stories of those blessed days when our townspeople went out to witness one of Nigeria’s important days. We have heard how our elders lament how they have been missing those days, and that is why this year we suspended the Sallah corn stalk durbar to hold this durbar for our nation. We hope that like the initiated Sallah corn stalk durbar, the independence day durbar will also be retained as a yearly activity,” said one of the organizers. It was a durbar that show cased the emir, the district heads, the governor and government officials all in caricature. It was all make believe and it was also a very colourful activity that witnessed hundreds of people in attendance.
Many spoken to, bared their minds that the durbar has really made the 1st October celebration a memorable one. Will the 1st October corn stalk durbar hold next year? Only time can tell.