Feok Festival 2017 Review (Augustine A. Atano)

Augustine A. Atano

Feok Festival 2017 Review

(Adopted from THE ROAD TO SANDEMA, December 31, 2017)

This year’s Feok festival was organized at its usual grounds in Sandema in the Upper East region of Ghana. The celebration witnessed a variety of guests from both far and near. It was an interesting celebration, as attested by some of the attendees.

A loud applause must be given to the Feok Festival Planning Committee (FFPC) for doing a good job.
For the first time, the Feok festival celebration had a banner with a theme and stickers to promote it apart from the few T-shirts that characterized the Feok celebrations in recent times. For also listening to and implementing some of the suggestions proposed by citizens, they are worth an applause.
However, this year’s Feok planning has not been without challenges and some major blunders. First of all, why must the durbar grounds be watered on the day and at the time chiefs and dignitaries were all seated and the programme had kicked off? Why the grounds were not watered the night before the occasion still beats my imagination. This was the biggest blunder in this year’s Feok festival celebrations.
Secondly, on the eve of Feok, means of transport were sent to convey chiefs and their entourage to Sandema. In a conversation with one of the chiefs, he revealed that a 12-seater minivan was sent to convey him and his people who numbered over seventy. He said he thought the car would return after sending the first few people until all those interested were conveyed to Sandema but, to his surprise, he was told the bus was not returning and that he should find a means of transport for those remaining, including himself. He had to wake up early morning on the day of Feok to ride a motorbike to Sandema from his locality of several kilometers away, leaving the rest of interested members. Besides, guests were not catered for by the committee. Hence, he did not understand why such minivans were sent to convey them. He regretted paying the levies imposed on all chiefs for the organization of the Feok festival.
The third issue concerns the coverage of the Feok festival by the media. We know that Feok festival celebrations have always been promoted by citizens individually and not by media organizations. So, why restrict coverage of the programme to media organizations which will not even showcase it? Why not allow concerned citizens to take the first opportunity of getting a better view than a supposed giant media house which records and deletes everything the next day or week? And, let us not leave the promotion of the Feok festival in the hands of Radio Bulsa (although they are trying hard to keep their heads above the waters) because the station only covers areas which are often aware and informed about the celebrations. We need to target those far away from home who need to hear and know about the festival.
The Feok festival celebrations were unduly delayed till late noon for reasons best known to the organizers. People who gathered early in the morning to witness the celebration grew weary and had to retire. Maybe, dignitaries hadn’t shown up on time. But, do we have to leave the fate of our celebrations in the hands of supposed dignitaries who have no respect for time? We only hope there would not come a time when Feok would not be celebrated because we waited for some supposed dignitaries who later changed their plans.
Now, going forward, we hope the rest of ideas proposed by THE ROAD TO SANDEMA will be considered to bring about the needed dynamism in the Feok celebrations and help to drive the required development.

(Photo provided by R. Asekabta) Sandema Feok 2017: Woman in front of war-dancers. She is wearing the traditional pung-stone armlets on both forearms and a nabiin-soruk necklace. Between her head and s amall liik vessel (with millet beer?), we can see a tulik-carrying pad.