By NZERIBE IHEKWABA

Amongst the Igbo, the New Yam Festival is an epoch that occupies primacy in the pantheon of its cultural mores, unchallenged in its space and time, as the exaugural harvest of the planting calendar. Its seasonal uniformity in schedule and thanksgiving theme exemplifies the uniqueness of the aboriginal nature of the race as well as demonstrates the ancestral ties and traditional bond of oneness. 

Within Nigeria’s East or West, North or South, the communal places of domicile of the Igbo strives to felicitate and celebrate this one event, bar none, as its people pray for renewed life, protection and benevolence of the Almighty God, as they eat the new yam. Depending on geography, the communities may choose to call it various names anchored on linguistic nuance or just dialectical nomenclature, such as Iri ji, Ike ji, Iwa ji, or other forms, based on local demographical hue. For simplicity, many qualify the event as New Yam, or Iri Ji Ohuru, denoting the fact that it is the spiritual consummation of the first harvest of the king or male crop. Nevertheless, it remains the same signature annual cultural thanksgiving festival and highlights the end of a successful farming season with its harvest debut. 

The spirituality, cosmological values, and other forms of cultural norms associated with Iri Ji Ohuru are traditional elements beyond the reach of the ordinary. But mention ought to be made of the significance of the deity or god of yam, which the Igbo call Ahiajoku, Ifejioku, or Ajoku, from which the male derivative names spring forth as Njoku, Nwanjoku, and others, reinforcing the bond of ancestry. And the bond is what we partly respond with the threshold of the season of Iri Ji Ohuru in Igbo communities.

Nkwerre is a community in Imo State known for its legendary niche with specialty gun smithing, hence the popular reference to it as Nkwerre Opiegbe, just like Awka in Anambra State is acclaimed for iron smithing. Additionally, its indigenes are formidable in trade and commerce, at least in the pre-colonial years, even as they have now ventured into the professions with global acclaim. As part of the wider Igboland, Nkwerre is celebrating this year’s New Yam Festival, or Iri Ji Ohuru, with pomp and pageantry, on August 16th and 17th. The event is slated to include the recognition of a select few of personages that have made personal choices or contributed in some ways to agenda setting that created pathways of recognition. There are yet some who have elevated their profile through indelible marks in their professions, contributed significantly to community or human capacity development and worked for the public good through various volunteering accomplishments, locally and or in the diaspora. 

A notable recipient of the honorific of distinction, being feted with a chieftaincy conferment during the 2025 celebration, is Dr. Godwin Ngozi Nnadi, a licensed chartered engineer, entrepreneur of note and employer of many, both in the USA and Nigeria. He is accomplished  with diverse experience spanning over 45 years in several jurisdictions, including  Nigeria, Sweden, Canada and the United States. In addition  to being  a committed husband to his adorable wife, Professor Ola Nnadi, to whom  he has been happily married to since 1980, he is also a doting father of four outstanding children.

In his professional practice, Dr. Nnadi founded the highly successful NADIC Engineering Services, incorporated in Florida, USA, as a full-service engineering  firm over two decades ago. He has used the corporate resources to sponsor expatriate engineers to visit and conduct geophysicial surveys, design and cost the development of site-specific potable water transmission and distribution for his Nkwerre community. Several years ago, as a means of giving back and offering employment opportunities to the youths, he ventured into corporate growth to address local employment challenges by incorporating Denadis International Ltd, with its main hub in Owerri. The factory still thrives and produces both YANA bottled water and WILLOW specialty bread, that are the toast of the local clientele.

In 2006 the Nnadis established the Grace Center, which is a non-profit organisation dedicated to helping the less fortunate with added focus on local widows and widowers. The Grace Center has performed thousands of eye examination to indigent widows, conducted successful cataract and glaucoma surgeries, and provided prescription eye glasses and medications as needed. In order to assure sustainability, consistency in expectation and to give impetus to this client-specific robust healthcare intervention programme, Dr. Nnadi executed  a continuous MOU a few years ago with St. Mary’s Hospital at Umuowa, Orlu, for a proactively planned, yearly eye clinic that is open to all and sundry in Imo State. In fact, every Christmas holiday period, since the inception of Grace Center, the Nnadis have provided certain life-sustaining essential material contributions to the local widows, and these have been well received as part of an annualised  philanthropy programme. The community development programme includes being major sponsors and funding contributors to local infrastructural improvements as well as projects of the ecclesiastical cadre for churches and other parochial organisations. 

A man of peace, under his tenure as the continental president of his community association, the Nkwerre Aborigines Union in USA, he spearheaded the organisation of the 2011 peace summit to resolve an intractable communal challenge that had lingered and to chart a course for harmony and concord. A benefactor and mentor to many, Dr. Nnadi has provided guidance, counselling and financial succour to  several people in aid of  their academic, professional,  and vocational endeavours.   

Many of today’s accomplished personages will easily confirm, with nostalgia, that Dr. Nnadi, as their teacher, is a talented treasure and a distinguished role model of note. Specifically, he has taught high school at different times in the early 1970s at St. Augustine’s  Grammar School Nkwerre and Ihube Boys High School, Ihube Okigwe,  prior to his postgraduate education. 

He is an alumnus of the University of Nevada, Reno, USA,  majoring in Mining/Geological Engineering, and Purdue University  in  West Lafayette, Indiana, USA, for his graduate studies. From 1983 to 1986, he was a pioneer civil engineering lecturer at  the  Federal University of Technology, Owerri. At the invitation of the Swedish Institute at Lulea University of Technology, Lulea, Sweden in 1986, he participated in a geotechnical specialty research programme with a concurrent faculty appointment. It was from this research engagement  that he proceeded to Queen’s University at Kingston, Ontario, Canada, to finalize his doctoral programme in 1990.

Dr. Godwin Ngozi Nnadi is a veteran of  many engagements, feted in diverse callings, recognized as a subject matter expert, and culturally endowed in the finest Igbo tradition, as well as being a member of the Ekwueme Age Group of Umulolo Amaegbu Nkwerre, and as patron of its community development union. A prodigious traditional stakeholder, titled to the hilt, he is ennobled as Nze Odumbueme, as a proud member of the prestigious Nze na Ozo  society, an Igbo cultural peerage of high repute. As Nkwerre community recognizes the great qualities of this man of the moment, we join in congratulating him and applauding his contribution to humanity and community development. Community builders like the Nnadis that engage our life-world and cosmological values with zeal and compassion deserve a keen salute.

As the Nkwerre community preserve the heritage and rites of Iri-Ji, like others, the great quality of this man highlights the esteem, values and prestige of Ndiigbo and their unique celebration of the thanksgiving harvest. We applaud the Eshi of Nkwerre, Eze Chijioke Okwara, IV, for extending a proper and befitting honour to a firm believer of the Good Samaritan precepts, during his 2025 New Yam Festival.

•Dr. Ihekwaba wrote from Obinocha, Nkwerre