ABA FSTIVAL

ABA FESTIVAL

This is the most popular festival not only in Igarra but in the entire Edo-North Senatorial District. It has been rated the sixth most popular indigenous West African Festival as the inflow of guests in attendance shoots up the population of Igarra so much that hotels in Igarra and environs get fully booked for the one week through which it lasts.

It is a crowd pulling festival which attracts both natives and non natives from both within Nigeria and the diaspora. The festival officially marks the graduation of Opoze age group members into Azebani status.

It involves the beating of the over two hundred and ninety year old Aba Drum to the dancing steps of the Opoze age group graduands dressed in an all-white apparel on that day to the admiration of the younger men who wish that one day it would be their turn or their husbands' in the case of young women.

The event takes place at the Ofumamo area of Somorika Road in the Ubobo quarters of the town. The sole custodian of the Aba Drum is the Eziakuta clan whose members do the beating of the drum that day on top of a rock known as Ireta Ubah and equally located at Ofumamo. Custodianship of this festival is exclusively of the Opoporiku subgroup of Eziakuta clan. They fix and announce the date of the festival without any input from any other clan or non-member of Eziakuta-Opopriku group.

They preserve the drum in the house of one of their members throughout the six years when it is not in use. During this period of non-use, it is not tampered with. Violation of this attracts consequences which could defy appeasement. Likewise, making bodily contact with the drum on the festival day without being a member of Eziakuta clan could attract consequences.