A renewed call for Africans to embrace their cultural identity and revive indigenous knowledge systems dominated speeches on Sunday as the Kalabari people, a major Ijaw subgroup in Rivers State, celebrated their New Year Day at Elem-Kalabari, regarded as the ancestral homeland of the Kalabari.
The Amayanabo of Elem-Kalabari and Torusarama-Piri, the Source, Alabo Dokubo Asari, in his New Year goodwill message, urged African intellectuals, especially geographers and astronomers, to work towards reconstructing the traditional Kalabari calendar, which he said was distorted during British colonial rule.
The Kalabari New Year is marked annually on November 16, a date tied to the community’s ecological cycle. According to tradition, the shift from freshwater intrusion during the rainy season to the return of saltwater from the Atlantic Ocean around mid-November signifies a cosmic renewal that allows the people to resume fishing and other marine activities.
Beyond the greetings, Sunday’s event featured vibrant cultural performances, a boat regatta, feasting, and exhibitions that showcased the heritage of the Kalabari people.
Speaking at the event, Chairman of the Kalabari Renaissance Foundation, organisers of the celebration, Mr. Awolayeofori MacMorrison Harry, announced that the hosting of the festival would rotate among Kalabari communities yearly to strengthen unity and encourage wide participation.
“This annual festival, which used to be celebrated quietly within individual communities, is now becoming a global cultural brand,” Harry said, adding that this year’s theme, “Celebrating Our Heritage, Honouring Our Waters, and Renewing Our Spirit,” reflected the people’s identity as a riverine nation and their desire for collective progress.
A member of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees and head of its media team, Ms. Ibiba Don Pedro, described the festival as “a cultural awakening,” stressing that the ecological interaction of saline and fresh water around November 15 and 16 had shaped Kalabari knowledge systems for generations.
She criticised what she described as the tendency of many Africans to detach themselves from their ancestral realities while adopting foreign cultural values uncritically.
“We are the only people ashamed of our ancestral heritage,” she said. “In India, China and Japan, business places proudly display images of their spiritual history. Here, if you do the same, people call it fetish.”
In his address as chief host, Alabo Mujahid Dokubo Asari challenged the people to move beyond celebration and work towards reviving abandoned but valuable cultural practices.
He questioned societal attitudes that demonise African spirituality while accepting similar practices abroad.
“If you go to India, you will see their images everywhere—hospitals, hotels, factories. In China, they burn incense before they begin work. But in Nigeria, try putting an ancestral symbol in a hotel and the business will collapse,” he said.
Calling for a revalidation of the Kalabari calendar system, he said:
“Our fathers calculated time by the movement of water. Other cultures have solar or lunar calendars. Ours is water-based. Let our intellectuals redesign it so that next year we celebrate with a proper traditional calendar.”
He further urged the people to take pride in their identity, citing how nations like Russia, China, and Ethiopia maintain their own New Year systems alongside global conventions.
The celebration also featured tree planting and the launch of a youth empowerment blueprint, signalling the Foundation’s intention to use culture as a tool for community development.
The Amayanabo prayed for longevity and prosperity for the Kalabari people as they marked the beginning of their cultural year.
“Happy New Year to all of us,” he said. “May God keep us alive to witness another one.”
