The amiable monarch of Issele-Uku Kingdom and member of the Delta State Council of Traditional Rulers, HRM Agbogidi Obi Nduka JP (MNSE), has revealed his plans to make the 2025 Iwaji Umuaka Festival a traditional ceremony of reckoning.
Obi Nduka gave this revelation when he held a meeting with the 2025 Ine Aho Festival Committee, where all plans were perfected to make the August 19 Iwaji Umuaka Festival a grand ceremony.
According to Obi Nduka, "The era where Iwaji Umuaka used to be a silent ceremony is now in the past. Our forefathers who created that time in our traditional calendar, when children in the community would have to celebrate their own new yam festival had reasons for doing so.
"Over the years, it has continued to be a quiet and unceremonial date, but not anymore. I have decided that henceforth, we must be able to give our children the opportunity to partake in our culture with a view to making them understand the nitigrity of our cultural and traditional intricacies. We have to celebrate them young and give them the platform to also celebrate themselves", the monarch explained.
Meanwhile, to mark the Iwaji Umuaka Festival on the 19th of August, 2025, Agbogidi in company of the chiefs, would visit two orphanages on that day, to donate foodstuffs and toiletries to them.
In addition, there would be a party for the children in the palace; and already, not less than six primary schools have been invited officially to bring their pupils to participate along side other children from within and outside the palace.
To make it a worthwhile event which will be a model for future ones, the Chairman of the Committee, Chief John Ochei Ph.D, has called on well meaning sons and daughters of Issele-Uku to support this initiative by the revered Issele-Uku King.