STAR FEAT Irewha: The great
Shafa-Abakpa community in Toto local government of Nasarawa state on Saturday, 30 December, 2017, witnessed the annual Irewha Hunting Festival.
The youth of the community came out under various age grades, adorned in their hunting garbs with locally fabricated guns slung over their shoulders. Their black hunting attire gave them a fierce look.
Chanting Egbura traditional songs, the youth filed out like ants from the bush to the playground, stamping their feet on the dusty ground as they proudly displayed their catches.
It was a dance of the brave and a display of gallant hunters to mark the popular Irewha Hunting Festival .The hunting festival observed yearly by the people, has its origin in Ikaka, one of the founding fathers of the community. Ikaka was said to be a great hunter, renowned for his great skills and bravery in hunting. As such, he was said to be given the nickname Ada-Ugbe, according to the traditional ruler of the community, (The Ohiemani of Emani Shafa- Abakpa, Alhaji Hussain Usman Kyafi).
He added that the story has it that Ikaka who was also a great warrior had instructed his son, Onda, to stage a hunting festival at his death, which should be accompanied with merriment.
He, according to the story, had warned that there would be no peace and animals would not be caught during hunting, if the festival was not organized to appease his spirit.
“And at his father’s death, Onda did as he was instructed ,and that was how the festival came into being,” the traditional ruler said.
Today, the community has taken the festival to a new level. The festival is the major factor that attracts natives of the community who are away from home, to come back every year.
Apart from the hunting dance and display by the young local hunters, there was a beauty pageant contest for Egbura maidens, known as ‘Soroniyya’ in the local dialect. At the end of the event, prizes were given to those who emerged first, second and third.
The Shafa-Abakpa community no doubt has a lot of advantages, especially when it comes to the area of having access to western education.
Our reporter gathered during the event that Shafa-Abakpa community was the first village where Christian missionaries came to settle during the colonial period, and this has placed the community above other communities in Nasarawa State.
The situation, our reporter learnt, has given opportunity to indigenes of the area to acquire western education, which has now produced prominent sons of the village at higher positions, that include, the retired Justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Suleiman Galadima, Architect Jafaru Isah of the FCDA, who is now a politician and currently a house of representatives member, representing, Nasarawa-Toto-Umaisha federal constituency. A former Rector of Kaduna Polytechnic, Engineer Isah Danjuma, Architect Abu Sheze, a private developer, and also retired President of the Customary Court of Appeal, Nasarawa state, Justice Jibril Idrisu, chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the FCT among other prominent sons daughters of the community.
Speaking at the event, National President of the Shafa-Abakpa Community Association (SACA), Barrister Muhammed D. Zubairu, said the festival had helped encourage the indigenes, including those in diaspora to come home during the last week of December. This in turn has afforded them the opportunity to attend the annual general meeting of the association and public lectures which precede the festival.
He said the association has provided a forum for unity, peace and progress since its inception. He added that there have been modest achievements on issues of our common interest and a lot has also been achieved in the areas of developmental projects and sociocultural developments.
He also hinted that the festival has provided a link for the living with their ancestral leaders of the land, saying the event is mostly significant in maintaining and sustaining discipline, respect, hard work and love for humanity.
He however called on the state government to urgently come to the aid of the people of the community in building an earth dam or alternatively, connect the community with Toto dam in order to reduce the perennial water problem at the community.
He said though the journey so far has been very fruitful and quite impressive, saying the association has been able to come together to unite among themselves, and made some remarkable achievements in the areas of socio-cultural, economic and political development.
According to him, the community was also appreciative for the peaceful coexistence amongst themselves, except for the recent worrisome menace posed by cattle rustlers, kidnappers and fraudsters.
“This development has greatly posed a challenge to our vibrant socio- economic activities in the area, as people fear to go to farms and attend to their normal trading and commercial engagements,” he said.
The SACA president, therefore, called on politicians to work in unity and create