This is the type of things we need to be hearing and be re-living as a people. Ohafia is not that unknown community from Adam. We have been here and we made impact. The market and oha odu fable was remembered by the government when the then government wanted to build the market now called ariaria in Ohafia in commemoration of that market old. The market was around asaga and eziafo. The Oha odu story was the war that pushed nkporo and item up to where they are now to make way for Ohafia to inhabit the land.
Thank you for the reminder.
Vincent Kalu
Interesting.
Another aspect of Ohafia history.
So Nkporo and Item once inhabited where we are now.
The Ohaodu fable I heard while growing up was that they invoked a curse following what Elu did to them
By Uduma Kalu
Thank you, my brother. We can only know our history by telling and retelling what we heard, remembered and read. I never believed the oha odu story but here you are giving it flesh, even adding an Ariaria market angle. I have been advocating a market between Asaga and Isiama which the new Ohafia master plan I saw circulated here I think by Chief Ojigwe inserted, without knowing that an earlier plan was afoot by an old Imo government. Why was it moved? For me, the Asaga axis serves those from the Cross River axis, fed by cargoes from the Calabar port. The River along the Asaga belt must be dredged, along with the Uduma river to boost trade there. It serves old Bende, our Akwa Ibom and Central African neighbors like Cameroon, Gabon, Equitorial Guinea, Angola, Congo etc.
I also hope that the akurumba festival can become an Ohafia national festival of masquerades as it can become a historically global and largest gathering of masquerades in the world. Imagine if every Ohafia compound with just 10 akurumba masquerades attending. You can't beat the thrill. The number. The colour. The cadence. The fun and the festival.
Thank you, once again. You can throw more on the Oha odu.
Do you know the Erinma story? I want to know and its Abiriba connection.
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