Black History Month

October is the month when we, in the United Kingdom, celebrate “Black” History. His stories about Our Story, which is not a Mystery but My Story.
As a Cultural Connector for the BME Network of Greater Manchester and as a proud Nigerian born in Britain, I have to first of all talk about Nigerian Independence.  Nigeria got her independence in 1960 from the British colonizers – 59 years ago.  We celebrate the Nigerian Independence on 1st of October.
Nigeria s officially designated as the Federal Republic of Nigeria, a country divinely located in the western part of Africa, bordering Niger in the north, Chad in the northeast, Cameroon in the east, and Benin in the west.
We have over 250 ethnic groupings with a variety of languages and customs, creating a country, rich in ethnic diversity and cultures.  There are four main tribal ethnic groupings in Nigeria, which make up more than 70% of the population. These ethnic groupings are Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa and Fulani. Although we have numerous various languages our official language is English – due to the colonizers.
There are some amazing sights and places to visit and festivals to attend in every corner of Nigeria all year round.  Some of these festivals are displayed and enacted here in Manchester by our Nigerian communities.
I attended New Yam Festivals in August. This is a cultural festival normally held in August after the rainy season and mainly celebrated by Igbos. I can only liken it to a ‘harvest festival’ when we sing and give thanks and praises for the new yam we have harvested.
We also celebrate the, Durbar Festival: A Durbar festival is an annual festival celebrated in several cities of Nigeria. This festival marks the end of Ramadan and is also shared with eid el Kabir and eid el Fitri, Muslim holidays. Probably at this point I should mention that as a country religiously, it is almost divided equally into Muslims and Christians, with a tiny minority of adherents of Traditional African religions and other religions.
Calabar Carnival: Calabar Carnival festival in Nigeria, also tagged " Africa's Biggest Street Party", was created as part of the vision of making the Cross River State, Nigeria, the number one tourist destination for Nigerians and tourists all over the world.
Eyo Festival: The Eyo Festival, otherwise known as the Adamu Orisha Play, is a Yoruba festival unique to Lagos, Nigeria. In modern times, it is presented by the people of Lagos as a tourist event and due to its history, is traditionally performed on Lagos Island.
There are many more festivals of Nigeria, however, above I have listed a few.
I was invited as a Guest Speaker to celebrate the Nigerian Independence with the Nigeria Community Association, Rochdale on 1st of October.  I congratulated them on promoting the culture of Nigeria and for bringing so many different cultures together under one roof to bare witness.