Ekpe Festival Ekid: Glamour and glitz of EKPE FESTIVAL EKID

The various groups on parade

It was almost an incredible display of splendor, glamour, colour and style when Eket Local Government witnessed a unique cultural festival on December 29, 2011. The atmosphere was electric and the people ecstatic as they cheered endlessly to encourage the competing groups to victory. It was Ekpe cultural festival, the first of its kind in the entire Akwa Ibom State.
Expectedly, Idung Iniang, Eket, the venue of the festival, witnessed an unprecedented influx of human and vehicular traffic. Commercial activities stopped. The festival turned into a carnival of sort as about 12 groups competed for the trophy.
While the overall winner, Usoro Cultural Group, went home with the First Prize; Eket Cultural Group won the Second trophy and Nka Ekpin, Calabar Municipality won the Third Prize. Still, everyone become a winner as the remaining participants went home with mouth-watery consolation prizes.
Some prominent citizens of Eket were also honored on the occasion, including Chief Usoro, who was officially presented as Iyamba Idung Iniang.
According to Chief Usoro I. Usoro, the organizer of the festival, the idea was his “modest effort to help revive cultural values and provide maximum entertainment during the festive period for the people”.
The event, apart from its entertainment content, Usoro added, was also designed to appreciate and encourage some worthy and distinguished personalities from the area, for their contributions towards community development and promotion of culture.
The paramount Ruler of Eket, HRM, Edidem N. J. Aduenyie, while encouraging Eket people to imbibe their culture as their mark of identity, used the occasion to appreciate Governor Godswill Akpabio for reappointing Usoro, an Eket son, into his government, as the Senior Special Assistant on Print Media and Research. They also assured the governor of the continued support and loyalty of Eket people towards the success of his administration.

Annual event
The festival, it was gathered from the organizer, would be an annual festival. In fact, Usoro appealed to well-meaning citizens of the state as well as corporate bodies to jointly sponsors next year’s event, in order to make more rewarding. He also noted the potentials of the festival as a tourist attraction for the area and indeed, Akwa Ibom State.
On the whole, the essence of the Ekpe Festival Ekid, according to Chief Usoro, is to draw attention to the importance of culture to a people. Since every man has a root, everyone is therefore a cultural animal. Put another way, culture is truly a mark of identity for a people.

Culture as identity
According to experts, culture is a way of life. In fact, some say the term ‘culture’ refers to the language, beliefs, values and norms, customs, dress, diet, roles, knowledge and skills, and all the other things that people learn that make up the ‘way of life’ of any society. Culture is passed on from one generation to the next through the process of socialization.
However, according to Wikipedia, cultural identity can be expressed through certain styles of clothing or other aesthetic markers. Put differently, Cultural identity is the identity of a group oran individual as far as one is influenced by one's belonging to a group or culture. One analyst put it this way:… “ Culture to me is what made you the person that you are today. The background and history of a person is the reason of who he is and what he stands for. The world without culture or identity would be a rather boring place”.