Warri stood still as Awankere Festival begins

Around Nigeria,every village celebrates some kind of traditional festival. These festivals bring families together, and they are usually full of singing, dancing and rejoicing. Many of these festivals send praise to God, ask for good luck for the village, or ask for a good harvest. Though most of the feasts have spiritual and some form of ritual embeded in them, the over all goal is for every one in the community to be involved in thanking God and other deities for keeping them alive and for prosperity in the coming year.

The people of Warri today, gathered in their historical community of Okere to begin the celebration of the Awankere festival, popularly called the Okere Juju festival.

This festival is celebrated in June, and it has become the national festival of nigeria. Music, singing and dancing are all part of this celebration. During the festival, people sing to God and give sacrifices for a good harvest and for a steady Niger River. The first part of the festival is ritualistic and closed to the public, but the second part is a big party where people wear masks.

Like most African mythology this festival have two versions.One version is that its origin dates back to the later part of the 15th century when Ekpen, the Chief Warrior and founder of Okere introduced it, while the second version says that a certain woman, named Mogboruko went fishing along the Okere creek, near Ajamimogha and caught a strange object which is a symbol of Okiroro in her fishing basket on three different occasions. 

Most Okere people however tend to stick to the first version due to the great similarity between the Awere were festival of Benin and the Awere were ritual enactment, an integral part of Awankere festival. The masquerade and male participants of the festival holds "Ukpasha", the symbolic weep which represents the deity, Okiroro whose life is enacted during the Awankere festival. Community sources also explained that the staging of the festival during rainy seasons is due to the “therapeutic effect on all participants and spectators alike, as it washes off all sicknesses, ailments, curses and ill luck”.

Festivals as celebration of life is an integral part of our African existence