Oganganmodu celebration stimulates development for Ido-Ekiti

It was the annual Ajodun Ido Oganganmodu Day of the Ido people of Ekiti State. The event brought Ido sons and daughters from within and outside the community together to celebrate their heritage, maker merry and also share ideas on how to move their community forward. The event was made even more pulsating given the fact that Ido-Ekiti is the headquarters of Ido/odi Local Government Area.

The Oganganmodu Grammar School venue of the colourful event was the climax of an array of week-long activities that had earlier commenced with the Olojudo, Oba Ayorinde Ilori-Faboro, addressing newsmen. Before the climax, there had also been community prayers at the palace of the Olojudo; environmental sanitation exercise, inter-school debate and the presentation of financial and material gifts to widows, termed ‘widows’ outreach’.

Also in the week, there had been sports activities incorporating Ajodun Ido marathon race, draught and Ayo Olopon competition while there was also a medical outreach in which the people received free medical examinations. The people of the community saw this as “all-important” because health professionals and experts drawn from the Federal Teaching Hospital Ido-Ekiti (FETHI), were on hand to administer the outreach.

There was also an interesting cultural competition for the aged; Arewa Ogangan beauty pageant, an award night, in which deserving indigenes and non-indigenes had been honoured for their contributions to the development of the community. In all of the events, there was the “family reunion” which took place on Friday before the Saturday climax.

At Oganganmodu Grammar School, elders of the community, known as Àgbà Ido, the Iwole, the Elegbe, the Jogun, women, youths, members of community development associations and groups; clubs and sundry groupings took the floor and made the day a true celebration of culture. These categories of native Ido people were joined by non-indigenous groups like the Igbo Community, Urhobo Community, Idoma Community and Ebira Community who were also resplendent in their traditional dresses.

Oba Ilori-Faboro, who is also Ajiboyede III, received homage from all the various interest groups in the town. An interesting aspect of the day’s homages was when the Olojudo’s wife, Olori Ngozi, led the women in paying homage to the Olojudo. Olori Ngozi, an Igbo by birth, again showed that she has imbibed all the cultural attributes of her husband’s people, who are obviously now her people.

The chairman of the Ajodun Ido 2016 Planning Committee, Comrade Sola Ogunsina, while welcoming people to the grand finale, said the purpose of the festival was to reunite all sons and daughters of Ido at home and in the Diaspora with the aim of celebrating their cultural heritage.

He noted that Oganganmodu Day also “stimulates engagement in development programmes that foster peace, prosperity and unity in the community through fund-raising and communal activities considered germane to the growth and development of their birthplace.”

Ogunsina noted that security, completion of the Olojudo’s palace, reunification of sons and daughters of the town and identifying and rewarding indigenes who had distinguished themselves in community development efforts, were among the major accomplishments of the occasion. He expressed satisfaction that this year’s edition was “a considerable improvement on the previous ones considering the massive participation and turnout of both the old and the young at every event held.”

He said: “Our town is growing at an impressive rate, making security a major challenge in the last few years. This cannot be left in the hands of government alone hence the town has been drawing from its coffers to support security needs so as to make our town a safe haven. The early completion of Olojudo’s palace was facilitated by the annual proceeds from this event. Apart from the great opportunity to meet with one another and exchange pleasantries, it also promotes the cause of helping those in need.” He lauded the people “for sponsorship of various programmes,” saying “it is heartwarming seeing people coming to show their interest in the sponsorship of one event or the other in this year’s edition a significant improvement over the past events.”

Chairman of the day, an accomplished legal practitioner based in Lagos, High Chief Agboola Akomolafe, stressed the need for brotherly love, peace and cooperation among the indigenes, saying they should work together for Ido to produce governors, ministers, senators, ambassadors to accelerate its development. He also advocated investment in commercial agriculture by indigenes and suggested the inclusion of an agriculture exhibition as part of next year’s Ajodun Ido.

Akomolafe said: “Our ancestors were able to buy horses through the sale of late maize which required accurate timing of planting but today, nobody plants maize at commercial degree for buying a car. It is my view that both the employed and the unemployed citizens of Ido Ekiti can plant maize at a commercially competitive level for tangible property. Ido citizens can also make money from the cultivation of rice, cotton, melon, watermelon, pepper, tomatoes which take few months to be ripe for harvest. I suggest an Agric Exhibition for Ajodun Ido 2017.”

The Olojudo, in his address said the Ajodun Ido was an avenue to review activities in his kingdom in the last one year and chart a new course for communal development in the next twelve months. “This is an opportunity for us to review what we have achieved in the past and what we hope to achieve before the next Ajodun Ido is celebrated. We have built a palace already and we want to build a city hall, a civic centre and other things with the money raised from this year’s edition.”

The monarch held that being one of the largest towns in Ekiti State, “Ido is an investor’s delight.” He therefore called on wealthy indigenes who had prospered elsewhere to bring their investment home to stimulate further growth of Ido-Ekiti. “Some of our indigenes have seen developmental strides we have made in this town. Now, people are building houses here, the Federal Teaching Hospital is here and it is helping to bring decent people into the town. So, I want to appeal to our sons and daughters to come home and be part of the development . If they don’t buy their land now, the longer they wait the more they will spend to buy land in the future,” he advised.

Oba Ilori-Faboro said in August, he celebrates the Owanuro Festival “and it is also an opportunity to bring people home. I bring my friends around to contribute their own quota to Ido development, for camaraderie, coming together and celebration. We are working hard to reach out to our people and communication is very key in achieving this. We are therefore on Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and other digital platforms to reach those in the Diaspora.”

The traditional ruler added: “We will continue to provide incentives to them like land, communal support, security and enabling environment to facilitate their investment in our community. Ido is no longer a village, it is now a prosperous town. There are activities everyday. We are expanding, security is improving, economy is improving. So, we invite indigenes and non-indigenes alike to join us to develop Ido because it is when we join hands together that we can achieve.”