The Ipe Akoko community in the Akoko South East Local Government Area of Ondo State comes alive last week with the celebration of the Chegba Festival, also known as celebration of first born.
The festival, which has been in existence from time immemorial, is one of the important cultural festival in the community. While the people of the area are poised to keep its flame burning in order to transmit it to the younger generation, the younger generation actually watches and observes its elders practicing the traditions as well as perform the various rites attached.
Chegba in Ipe Akoko means beans cake popularly known and called akara in Yoruba land and this is synonymous with the celebration of first born in the land. The festival is celebrated by women who had successful delivery of the first born in Ipe and it abhors any woman who had still birth or aborted her first seed from participating in this yearly festival.
Tracing the origin of the festival, an octogenarian, Madam Victoria Adeola, said its remains one of the oldest cultural festivals and that is highly cherished and celebrated among the people of Ipe Akoko. According to her, the celebration of the first born in the land is usually preceded by a special dance by virgins in the land. She explained that these virgins would dance around the town and market place, some five days before the First born festival.
The 86-year-old said the festival is the celebration of motherhood and it is specially designed for those who successfully delivered their first born. She explained that the celebration was designed to checkmate promiscuity among women in the land. She said “this festival was put in place to discourage immorality in the land. This is one of the reasons why we also celebrate our girls who are virgins and can proudly come out to publicly tell the world about their virginity “
Madam Adeola said apart from ladies who abort, any woman who lose her first born to sickness, or had still birth or diseases three months before cannot celebrate during the festival, adding “they are not allow to celebrate this festival. Those who abort their first issue are prevented from taking part in the festival as they have donated their first child to the toilet.”
She said the beans cake-making however took shine from the festival out of what to give to the proud mothers who usually celebrate their first, saying the akara was designed to entertained both the mothers and their friends during the celebration. She said “ this is not an ordinary akara, but usually the widest akara one would have ever seen in term of size during the annual festival.
The traditional ruler of the community said the festival is as old as the community itself and explained that the festival is usually observed by mothers who successfully delivered their babies and do not experience still birth. He also confirmed that the festival was designed to discourage and checkmate promiscuity and to keep a healthy environment.
“It is a day specially designed to celebrate motherhood and show gratitude to God for successful deliveries of our first born. The festival allows us to come together as a people and give thanks to the Almighty God for His faithfulness, goodness, mercy and great provision to our families.
“People rejoice , dance, eat and exchange gift for having successful deliveries and appreciating God for keeping their first born.
Speaking on the relevance of the celebration to his people and to the people of the community, “Children are the inheritance of God and that is why it is being celebrated. But in the past, food are so scarce to celebrate this festival and our people thought people should be given gifts during this festival
“We came up with the frying of the biggest and widest bean cake to entertain ourselves. This was designed because of the communal love and attachment with the people of that time. They came up with the traditional beans cake-making and it used to be the widest you can come across on the world. Our forefathers were doing this to give to the celebrants and also to keep body and soul together, because this beans cake can last more than 10 days.”
Enumerating some of the benefits of the festive celebration, Oba Apata said the festival has no spiritual attachments but it has greatly helped immensely in bringing the people of the community together, adding that the festival creates a good platform for the sustenance of their cultural heritage and makes it easier for it to be passed on to the younger generations.
“The benefits are quite huge. It creates a platform where we meet and share with our brothers and sisters who probably we may not have seen for a whole year and rejoice with the mothers who had put to bed in the last one year.
“This year’s Chegba festival is a unique one because we have never had it in this form. It is to showcase to the world the first widest bean cake being fried here and cannot be found anywhere in the world. It is a celebration of happiness, a celebration of good relationship and celebration of motherhood.
“It is a festival that is well accepted among our people and we intend to showcase this to the whole world. We are calling for sponsorship and we want to develop the festival to attract sponsorship,” he said.
The traditional ruler called on the indigenes of the community, both home and abroad, to support the community, saying Chegba Festival is very crucial to the socio-economic development of the community.
Oba Apata however, appealed to the relevant government agencies to enlist the event for world recognition by UNESCO.
He said “this is the only town where world widest bean cake can be found. Ipe Akoko is unique for this, we are happy that our town is making global history
“We appealed to government and corporate organizations to come in and start sponsoring our Chegba festival. This can attract global tourists, we are working gradually to make it more memorable in the future”.
“We appreciate our son, the convener of the festival this year who makes it distinguished from the past celebration. We thank him for showcasing our rich culture to the outside world. I pray God to grant him more wisdom to promote our town”.
Also speaking with newsmen on the unveiling of the world widest beans cake, the convener of 2018 Chegba Festival, Balogun Adeniyi Ayodele, described the event as a mission accomplished and said efforts were being made to ensure the annual festival attract global tourists as from the next edition.
“We want government to help our community in the sponsorship of Chegba Festival like it is doing for the Osun Osogbo Festival, Agungun Festival in Kebbi State. We have been fulfilled with the successes recorded in achieving the world widest bean cake,” he said.
The widest beand cake which took some three hours was however prepared by a group of aged women during the famous Chegba Festival, and measured 22 inches in diameter and 66 inches in circumference.
The Chegba festival which was held at St. Michael‘s Primary School, Ipe Akoko, attracted other events such as Uge -virgin- dance, opara troupe cultural display.
This year celebration of Motherhood and Chegba festival in Ipe-Akoko is targeted to place the community in the world map as a community where a huge bean cake is being made.
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