Ojude Oba Festival in Ìjèbú Ode and Ibadan Cultural Festival: A Needless Comparison By Oloye Abiola Iyiola Ajia-Olubadan

Ojude Oba Festival in Ìjèbú Ode and Ibadan Cultural Festival: A Needless Comparison

By Oloye Abiola Iyiola
Ajia-Olubadan

This year’s Ojude Ọba Festival in Ìjèbú attracted a lot of admirable attention. The festival is usually one of colourful pomp and pageantry and over the years, it has become the envy of the people of other Yoruba towns and cities who think the festival should be replicated throughout Yorubaland because of its showcase of Yoruba culture, tradition and entertainment.

It needs be said that each place in Yoruba is unique in their own design, imagination and method of festivities. Ojude Oba Festival in Ìjèbú Ode started over centuries when a slave of the then reigning Awujale embraced Islam and the Awujale gave him all the support to practise their religion with the new converts. To show gratitude to the then Awujale, the former slave turned a Muslim decided to organise a yearly festival to be celebrated on the third of Ileya (Eid Kabir) where they would converge at the King’s Forecourt to pay homage to the Awujale. The festival has evolved with more innovation, metamorphosing into showcasing the glamorous capacity of the Ìjèbús. The annual festival is being attended by prominent and not so prominent sons and daughters of Ijebu at home and in the Diaspora while their friends and admirers join them in the epoch celebration.

After this year’s Ojude Ọba Festival, some concerned Ibadan natives have been raising issues on why Ibadan should have the kind of glamorous festival like Ojude Ọba. As I said in my response to an Ibadan brother, I opined that we must not start from the position of weakness and comparison as focusing on Ojude Ọba Festival will downplay our own imagination of a Greater Ibadan Cultural Festival which also holds every year at Obafemi Awolowo Stadium, Ibadan. A regular attendee to the Ibadan Cultural Festival would confirm its uniqueness covering all facets of Ibadan’s deep culture, customs, and tradition. This is where I give kudos to the past and the present organizers of Ibadan Cultural Festival Week. We have had Ibadan Cultural Festival events attended by the creme-de-la-creme in Nigeria, notably governors, senators, rep members, captains of industry and prominent sons and daughters of Ibadan from the Diaspora.

Highlights of activities at the yearly festival include march pasts by members of warrior compounds; the different Ibadan Egunguns in colourful costumes, representing compounds of masquerades and the hunters from compounds of hunters, chanting Ìjálá. Members of the compounds with different occupations are on hand to showcase their works, especially the smithing family of goldsmiths, blacksmiths and brasssmith. There are compounds in Ibadan called Onílù and their members troop to the events to beat various drums for dancing rhythms of the guests and well-wishers. It is always a glamorous event and a colourful sight to behold at Ibadan Cultural Festival Week.

Ibadan Cultural Festival has been an avenue where the natives showcase the cultural heritage of the anciently cosmopolitan city. The Ibadan Cultural Festival is never short of glamours of entertainments and colours of culture and tradition. Ibadan Cultural Festival will soon attract the attention of UNESCO as a unique destination for Yoruba culture, custom and tradition as there are plans in place to make the event more enlivening and culture hub.

While I admire the style, the colours and the glamours that Ojúde Oba Ìjèbú Ode has brought forth, there’s no basis for comparison between it and Ibadan Cultural Festival Week since the aim of establishment, the vision and the mode of organisations are different.

Oloye Abiola Iyiola
Ajia-Olubadan