The New Yam Festival of the Igbo people (Orureshi in the idoma area, Iwa ji, Iri ji or Ike ji, depending on dialect) is an annual cultural festival by the Igbo people held at the end of the rainy season in early August.
The Iwa ji festival (literally “new-yam eating”) is practiced throughout West Africa (especially in Nigeria and Ghana) and other African countries and beyond, symbolizing the conclusion of a harvest and the beginning of the next work cycle.
The celebration is a very culturally based occasion, tying individual Igbo communities together as essentially agrarian and dependent on yam.
The third day of Nnewi New Yam festival for 2018 ended in grief as a man was stabbed and killed in Umuogboo.
It was gathered that the deceased was trying to separate two fun seekers, who were fighting at Orie Agbo, Umuogboo, Nnewichi, when he was stabbed on the neck region by an unidentified assailant.
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