Nigeria being a country with diverse cultures and traditional customs, it is a home of many weird but interesting festivals which are celebrated at different times of the year.
Here are some of Nigeria’s festivals that have a lot of weird activities that you would definitely enjoy:
1. Sharo Cultural Festival
Sharo cultural festival is celebrated by the Fulani tribe of northern Nigeria, it is a traditional rite of passage for the young men who want to get married.
Fulani young men are led into a ring without clothes to endure harsh flogging from men armed with whips amid drumming, loud cheering from the crowd and singing.
Young men who endure the flogging without crying out wins the hand of the bride in question. This festival is so weird because it is believed that any man who can withstand the intense pain from flogging is a strong man, scars gotten are forever.
2. Osun Oshogbo Festival
At the end of the raining season in August, the Osun Festival is held at the creepy Oshogbo Sacred Forest for seven days, the Osun devotees celebrates the river goddess, Oshun where the deity priests conduct rituals for protection of the locals.
The Sacred Grove is a sacred forest along the banks of the Osun river just outside the city of Osogbo, Osun State, Nigeria. The Osun-Osogbo Grove is among the last of the sacred forests which usually adjoined the edges of most Yoruba cities before extensive urbanization.
Barren women are believed to be blessed with children when they attend this festival.
3. Eyo Festival
Eyo Festival is celebrated by the Yorubas of the Western part of Nigeria. In the past, the Eyo Festival takes place when they want to escort the soul of any departed King or Chief in Lagos and also in welcoming another king.
Clad in White, Eyo masquerades are seen in their thousands with some as tall as a palm moving around the city of Lagos.
This festival is celebrated in Tinubu Square Lagos and masquerades can beat up people who are seen with bicycles, motorcycles, suku which is a popular hairstyle among the Yorubas, those who are putting on sandals and anyone who smokes during the festival.
4. Sango Festival
Sango Festival is a celebration to honour an ancient hero, Sango – the god of thunder in Oyo State. In this festival the Sango faithful are decorated in a weird manner, all dressed in red while the Ifa priests are clothed in white regalia.
Masquerades, drummers and hundreds of traditional dancers still give this festival one of the most respected and experienced by thousands of tourists around the world.
5. Benin Festival
The Benin Festival is held every four years, at the end of raining season in Benin. Thousands of people gather together to witness this weird festival, where eligible men and women in the prime are put in this matchmaking festival as they become ritually acquainted. In the olden days, these young men come out nude, but nowadays, they are clothed and heavily painted. It is only the wealthy families in Benin who can afford this expensive ceremony. The ladies are beautiful dressed with heavy costumes.
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6. Leboku New Yam Festival
If you want to experience the New Yam festival that would involve the celebration of the ancestral spirits and the earth goddess, you should visit Yakurr in Cross River State where Leboku New Yam Festival takes place. This annual festival has a lot of weird activities which take place within three weeks. Activities such as engaged maidens are paraded, exchange of visits to families, the ancestors are appeased and no one is permitted to do any intense farming. Women dressed in beautiful attires parade new harvested yams at the beginning of the festival.
7. Argungun Fishing Festival
This colourful fishing festival is witnessed in a village called Argungu in Kebbi State. This festival is a sort of extreme fishing that is held for four days and thousands of competitors are seen inside the Malan Fada River to catch the biggest fishes with either traditional fishing nets or with their bare hands. Imagine catching fishes that weighs more than a human with bare hands; this makes the festival very weird.
8. Olojo Festival In Ile-Ife
The Olojo Festival is held in Ife, Osun State where the Ooni ( The King of Ife) separates himself from the world for communion with the spirits to make him pure before the festival and rids his palace of evil forces.
The King the lead his people to Okemogun shrine, where he renews his oath as an Ooni at the foot of Oketage hill by a priest.
9. Ivbamen Festival Or Ororuen Festival In Ozalla
You may have attended some weird festivals in different parts of the world, a visit to Ozalla in Enugu State would present you to the Ivbamen Festival where boys are initiated in a ceremony that involves some spiritual rites and rituals.
Like other festival celebrated in various parts of Edo state, Ivbamen is celebrated annually for a week in April or May by Ozalla clan in Owan to initiate young men between 28 and 30 years of age into manhood.
It also marks the end of one year and the beginning of another. The festival is as old as Ozalla clan itself. Each celebrant participates in it for three consecutive times so that by the time a man of 28 reaches 30, he must have completed the full turn.
No young man is allowed to participate in the festival less than twice and if any celebrant dies after performing the ceremony only once, for instance, it is regarded as bad luck for the person.
10. Onitsha Ivory Festival
We have talked about the festivals that are mostly dominated by the men, but in Onitsha Ivories Festival, it is the women who indulge in weird activities, wives of wealthy men are seen collecting ivory and coral that would be used to design their own costumes.
Any woman who has been able to acquired plenty coral and ivory to decorate her ivory costume will be given the prestigious title ‘Ozo’ – An Ivory holder.
To be qualified, the participant is expected to have two large pieces of ivory, which weigh 25 kilos each.
