A STUDY OF LHMB ZAAR FESTIVAL AS A STRATEGY FOR SUSTAINABLE COMMUNAL DEVELOPMENT

A STUDY OF LHMB ZAAR FESTIVAL AS A STRATEGY FOR SUSTAINABLE COMMUNAL DEVELOPMENT

Abstract:

Recent approaches to community development are driven by some practices that fail to recognize the integral link between culture and development. For development to speak to the needs and realities of a people there is a need to re-conceptualize development as a process, one which examines how cultural forms such as festivals can inform development within a community.Using a discursive structure, this study assesses the LhmbZaar festival of the ZaarSayawa people of TafawaBalewa and Bogoro local Government Areas of Bauchi State with the aim to determine ways in which it could strategically function to foster communal growth. This was done to achieve the set objectives of the study which looked at the activities of the festival, challenges facing the festival in ensuring sustainable development and to suggest ways through which sustainable development can be achieved through the LhmbZaar festival. There has been a renewed emphasis on recognition of culture and communal participation by community members as important steps towards the attainment of sustainable development. Hence, festivals present themselves as veritable platforms through which endogenous development can be achieved when they are effectively utilized. The study therefore deployed community participation theory and qualitative research tools to collect and analyze data. Through focus group discussions, participant observation, and interviews with local community associations, local chiefs as well as community members, the findings revealed that festivals are culturally friendly tools capable of engineering community development. However, this function has largely been compromised in the case of LhmbZaar Festival due to inadequate participation and involvement of some important people in the community such as the youths, girls, and some traditional rulers. More so, the findings reveals that there has not been any attempt to set up an institutional structure with a mandate to consolidate all development projects usually discussed and initiated during the festival. Consequently, the study recommended that communal participation should be encouraged and structures should be put on ground to ensure continuity and sustainability in community development projects.

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

1.0 Introduction

This research was carried out with the desire to promote festivals as avenues to foster and engender positive development inZaar community. The perceptions among ordinary people have limited festivals to the realm of entertainment, cultural observances, and merrymaking. In the old society, festivals served to fulfill specific communal purposes but with the adoption of western ideas and globalization, there has been a decline in their observance as most festivals lost their essential religious or ritual values and purpose assuming secular functions. This is evident with the emergence of festivals created by group of individuals or organizations bothat the National and International levels. Example of such festivals are, Annual sport and cultural festivals in Brazil, the Abuja Carnival in Nigeria, film, music and art festivals as well as the recently introduced Global Citizen festival by the United Nations in 2015in relation to its Sustainable development goals which took place in New York and was open to all people of different races and Countries.

United Nations (2015) defines Global Citizen Festival “as a group of people who come together with the sole purpose of providing solutions to the challenges facing the world and planet at large”. This reveals that festivals can be created for the purpose of meeting certain needs just as existing ones can also be utilized to address some social problems in the society towards engenderingcommunity development. Therefore, thestudy assists peopleand community members to see festivals beyond the actual performance and cultural observances but as tools or raw materials tofoster communal development that could be sustained by the people themselves due to the communal and participatory nature of festivals. Consequently, festivals offer a forum for community interaction purpose as people can be involved in discussions; opinion sharing sessions and major decision making towards engendering positive social development that leadto improvements in the general welfare of their community.

1.1 Background of Study

Festivals play vital roles in the life of a people or communities‟ and their value cannot be over emphasized as they touch every area of a peoples‟ existence. Hence, many scholars, researchers and development planners have given various views and opinions about them. Festivals are believed to be the platform which theater evolved from in the ancient Greeksociety. Theatre festivals are among the earliest types of festivals recorded while discussing the close link and relationship that exist between festivals, theatre and community.

Classical Greek theatre was associated with religious festivals dedicated to Dionysus extending to the medievalperiod where mystery plays were presented at major Christian feasts. Festivals are celebrated throughout the world and they have grown exponentially over the centuries as people celebrate local and regional cultures, and more importantly seek to use them to stimulate and promote community development through the people‟s involvement and active participation in the entire process of the event.Contemporary theatre practice in Nigeria also grew out of a long tradition of masquerades, festivals and storytelling traditions. For instance, Hubert Ogunde (1916-1990) developed theAlarinjotheatreout of the Egungun festival which was celebrated with masquerades and performances which celebrated the link between life, death, past, and present. Embedded in festivals are a lot of theatrical activities or features characterized by communication, reenactments of some historical events, cultural displays, acrobatics, movements, costumes, music, songs and dance. Festivalas a cultural practice is vital to a people‟s development depending on how they choose to make use of it. Incorrelation to the above statement,Glen (2004:133) attests that “cultural practices may be important or unimportant for the survival of a culture”.The implication of this statement is that the way people see or view festivals will determine the impact and outcome it will have in their lives and community be it negative or positive. In the then traditional society,festival time was a period when the people of a community experience a kind of spiritual rebirth through cleansing and renewal of ties with the supernatural being for them to prosper in all of their future endeavors relating to leadership, farming and commerce.

The origin of festivals dates back to a people‟s history and some folklorists believe that festivals came out of the anxieties of early people to understand the forces of nature that controlled their environment and they are characterized by masquerade performances, rituals, dance, music, costumes and makeup as well as feasting. According to Turnner (1982:11) “people in all cultures recognize the need to set aside certain times and spaces for communal creativity and celebration”. This implies that festivals are people‟s creation and have long existed as significant cultural practices devised as forms of public display, collective celebration and civic ritual by the people themselves to maintain a cosmic balance. No people exist without a culture, which forms the integral pattern of their lives and the created cultural forms such as festivals are part of the preservation practices of the people.Additionally, Carla (2004:14) is of the opinion that culture “is a shared pattern of human behavior and interactions, cognitive constructs and effective understanding that are learned through the process of socialization. These showed identitypatterns of the members of a culture group while also distinguishing those of other groups.” This definition supports Turner‟s idea of festivals being product of people‟s conscious creations and it is a collective effort of people within the same community having same beliefs and ideas which are different from those of other communities.

Festival according to JenkeriOkwori, (1998)“is the process of bringing together performance elements like costumes, crafts, cooking, rituals, worship, artistic forms of expression and spontaneous acts by a group in a situation of celebration, fellowship or commemoration to express group solidarity and identity”.These events clearly project the differences in the performance patterns of communities which distinguish them from that of other tribes or communities.

In addition, communal celebration in its various forms is part of the lifestyle of all people and makes aninput to the living history of modern society as it does to the present community and embedded within it is the people‟s belief and practices. Hence, festivals that are held within Nigeria and Africa as a whole cover an enormous range of events from harvest to betrothal, installation of a new chief or king and also for funeral rite of some important figures in the society, naming ceremony, initiation and cleansing. This portrays that an African man sees a reason for celebration in everything that happens to him which can be death, birth, marriage, circumcision, worship and harvest.

In the past years, people‟s wellbeing and existence depended on festivals but in recent times, people attend festivals to unite with friends and generally to make merry, entertain and remind themselves of their cultural heritage in an attempt to save it from total extinction. These festivals that are celebrated now stand as an expression of the cultural identity of the people and the significance and meaning is mostly only known to the given people or community who celebrate them.

Festivals differ in context as some are religious, while others focus not just on the religious significance of a particular faith, but a secular public harmony to celebrate events of meaning to an individual or his community. In Africa at large, people celebrate different festivals which they exhibit through the performance of traditional ceremonies where they re-enact important events in their history. Most festivals are considered sacred and in them, patterns of man‟s religion, social or cultural institutions and activities are established and projected both within the neighboring communities and beyond.

One of the ways in which Africans have kept and preserved their rich culture and heritage is through indigenous festivals and performances in which some fading practices are re-enacted during these events to prevent them from extinction by reason of the influence of westernization. Westernization has to an extent affected traditional societies in the way they carry out their cultural performances, yet they are still very important and relevant to the people even though they are not done in their purest ritualistic forms. Ruth Gregory (2009) is of the opinion that as societies change, the characteristic of their traditional festivals and feast may alter also, new ones often emerge as others decline in popularity. From time memorial, they have been widely recognized as having potentials of providing benefits to the people that celebrate them.

Most likely therefore, some festivals will remain unaltered for generations because of the meanings they accord to the indigenes of the communities who practice them. Despite the significance attached to festivals and the roles they play in advocating for social transformation in communities, positive changes and development plans are hardly ever sustained when carried out as these events are sometimes not taken seriously in terms of development discourse and practice.

Social change deals with the idea of fostering positive development which is only possible when communicated through a peoples‟ language or cultural medium in which festivalsturn out to be a product of. To understand a peoples life and experiences, a critical reflection of their past is important in the comprehension of the present because it helps in reconciling the past with the present and assists to make provisions and projection for the future as community members come together to take collective actions that will promote positive change and enhance sustainable development.

More so, Baran (2004:16) defined culture as” world made meaningful through communication. It limits as well as liberates us;it differentiates as well as unites us. It defines our realities and thereby shapes the way we think, feel and act”. Since festivals deal with people and also serve as veritable communication channels, it can therefore be argued that when effectively explored, festivals can play a key role in the process of engineering social change in the community.

Yet, while these ideas have come to assume a central place in contemporary discussions of developmental issues as it is also seen during the LhmbZaarfestival, there have been little efforts towards sustaining the initiatives which highly rest or depend on the people themselves. This is due to the fact that most people, communities and some development workers do not see festivals in this line of providing an avenue or suitable platform for development practice. In this vein, Wahab (2001:21) states that:

Development planners and policy makers have also realized that it is cost effective to work with, and through indigenous organizations on any development programme. The scope of development has also expanded to include a process by which members of a society develop themselves and their institutions in ways that enhance their ability to mobilize and manage resources to produce sustainability and justly distribute improvement in their quality of life. Festivals have been and are still significant cohesive and informational devices for the continuity of societies and religious institutions and hence the need for utilizing them for developmental purposes instead of only entertainment and performances meant for the sole purpose of preserving culture. According to Bradly and Eric (2012:13) “culture is as much about novelty as it is about tradition, as much about changes as it is about stability”. These festivals illustrate a number of key factors that can propel social change through culture using its materials but goes further to also advocate its sustainability which is only possible when the people remain committed.

In addition, Holly (2011:1) is of the opinion that “culture and the arts are essential means by which all people explain their experiences, shape their identity, and imagine the future.

In their consistency and their variety, culture and the arts allow us to explore our individual humanity and to see our society as a whole”. Various communities celebratefestivals and ceremonies         yearly. This     presents           a          window           of         opportunity     where  the  people  can collectively work for the growth and development of their community. Consequently, there is a need for community members to leverage on festivals and initiate programmes and decisions that will stimulate change and future advancement of their community. The periodic nature of festivals guarantees that development projects and initiatives can always be revisited for re-negotiation.

Dandaura(2013:16) while discussing post-development in relation to communities and the strength indigenous societies have through their local knowledge, opines that communities have full control of their developmental decisions because “the beginning of post development thought is the conscious effort to free oneself from the preconceived ideas about what development ought to be and to recognize that every society is capable of improving its lot, at its own pace, and with its indigenous resources”. The indigenous resources here are the art forms peculiar to them like their folklore, songs, music, dance, ritual and other cultural modes of expression. He further argues that societies ought to develop along the lines and pace of their historical realities. This submission corroborates the argument of Rodney, (1973:3) when he states that “A society develops as its members increase jointly their capacity for dealing with the environment. This capacity for dealing with the environment is dependent on the extent to which they understand the laws of nature; on the extent they put that understanding into practice”. The implication of this statement is that first, people have to jointly understand their environment to be able to identify needs before seeking for ways to solve them.

The tools to engender and measure progress in any society therefore should be fashioned within and not from outside the society in question. This perception of development entails encouraging each society to harness its inherent potentials to better the well-being of its members regardless of whether or not such initiatives conform to conventional style. One of the major challenges festivals encounter is the nature of the new society which seems to be more individualistic than communal because unlike the old society where every member of the society has a role to play in the events, a lot of people today do not participate based on some acquired ideologies and beliefswhich also affects the process of development.

For instance in Nigeria, the Calabar Carnival is attended by both local and international communities. This has greatly promoted the country‟s tourism sector through economic and cultural promotion because CalabarCarnivalstands as one of the widely attended festivals in Africa. The festival has brought a lot of positive development to the people and the state at large. The Argungun fishing festival in Kebbi State is also another example of festivals that encourage economic activities and draw tourists from far and near. It also enablessocial interactions between them and the people of the community where vital development ideas could be shared. But the question here is, can these festivals be utilized for engendering sustainable development? How can they serve as platforms for political and social interactions? These are some of the questions that this study seeks to answer about festivals, using LhmbZaar festival as a paradigm.

The LhmbZaar festival of the ZaarSayawa people is done yearly at the end of each farming season to thank the supreme being (Chong) for a bumper harvest but the context of the festival now is to revive, promote and preserve the rich cultural heritage of the people as it draws sons and daughters of Zaar land from far and near to participate and witness the event. It is performed in TafawaBalewa Local Government area of Bauchi State and it also serves Bogoro Local Government as they are all ZaarSayawa speakers and all the villages which are under the two local governments participate equally and collectively in the event from its planning, organizing and actual realization.

Looking at the LhmbZaarfestival, often times, most developmental ideas or projects executed or planned are either not carried out within the stipulated time promised or those executed are not sustained. Most Efforts are not properly put in place after the event to sustain them but rather, every year seems to have its own agenda while previous ones are not adequately revisited to foster the change needed by sustaining them. There is a need for the communities to open up new vistas through which they can utilize and open the grounds these cultural events pose by understanding the socio-cultural values and important roles they play as it would for the generations to come.Consequently, people do attend the festivals, andlisten to all the speeches on the need for collective social advancement, and then leave the arena hoping to see next year‟s in order to meet people, re-unite with old friends from diaspora without really minding other opportunities the event presents. This is usually evident on the recurrence of same social and developmental challenges always discussed and have remained so atthe festivals for so many years.

1.2 Statement of the Research Problem

Ordinarily, festivals are perceived as mere traditional performances andmeans of providing entertainment;rarelyare they ever seen as prospective avenues for promoting communal development. Yet, festivals could and indeed do provide good grounds and avenues for the promotion of development initiatives and projects.By their very nature which is periodic and communal, festivals could allow for effective planning and evaluation of developmental goals and objectives because it enables issues to be revisited every year to ascertain the level of progress being made. Similarly, the periodic nature of festivals could allow for a follow through ormonitoring process thereby ensuring the effective attainment ofproject benefitsto the communities. Furthermore, because festivals are community based,

projects initiated through this means are more likely to be annually reviewed and thus guarantee sustainability.

Against this background, the intention in this research is to explore the potentials of the LhmbZaar festival as strategies for prosecuting development among the people as the changes the people desire is achievable through their own cultural platform which in this study is the LhmbZaarfestival of the Zaarsayawa speaking people of Bogoro and TafawaBalewa Local Government areas of Bauchi State.

1.3Aim of the Study

The aim of this study is to project festivalsaspossiblestrategiesforpromoting sustainable communal development. Using the LhmbZaar festival of the ZaarSayawa people of Bauchi State, It will explore the possible links between festivals and the various institutions in order to seek ways through which they can mobilize each other for the purpose of making social realities meaningful for the people and the community at large.

1.4 Objectives of the Study

The research is set to achieve the following objectives:

1. To interrogate the activities of the LhmbZaar festival and their implications for development.
2. To investigate the challenges encountered by LhmbZaar festival in bringing about sustainable communal development.

• To suggest ways through which sustainable development can be achieved through LhmbZaar festival.

1.5 Research Questions

The study will work towards answering the following questions:

1. What are the activities involved in LhmbZaar, and how can they foster sustainable development?
2. What are the challenges that hinder the attainment of communal development in LhmbZaarfestival?

• What better ways can sustainable developmentbeachieved through LhmbZaar festival?

1.6 Significance of the Study

This study reveals how festivals can be effectively used to enhance positive development in communities, thereby changing people‟s views and perceptions about festivals and the role they play. This study further serves as a model for other students of culture to emphasize the need to appreciate and project these festivals to other frontiers beyond cultural practices and entertainment.

The study has served as a model to Zaar community and those in the culture and tourism sector on how the ministry can be expanded through the use of many other festival performances in the country that have not been given due attention especially those performed in the local areas and are richly embellished with cultural artifacts. This study further emphasizes on the need to utilizing festivals by communities and government for the purpose of instigating change which have social impact on the host communities by enhancing their reputation and strengthening the identity of the ethnic minority. The study has also served as a means of documenting the festival thereby contributing in the preservation and promotion of indigenous African traditional practices that are fast being submerged by the flood of globalization.

1.7 Delimitation of the Study

Festivals are performed in many parts of the world and Nigeria in particular have festivals that date back to prehistoric times starting from the arrival of new religions as well as westernization and they cover a very wide range of events from harvests, installments, initiations, commemoration and transitions among others. This study therefore cannot cover allbut would capture the LhmbZaar cultural festival performed by the ZaarSayawaspeaking people of Bauchi State inTafawaBalewa LGA on 7^th November 2015.

This cultural performance speaks a lot about the people‟s history, culture and the importance they attach to it in their community as it brings the people under one entity with a common aim and desire to move the community forward. Like other festivals, the performance is sight captivating and entertaining as it collects and presents series of performances and activities which are heavily nourished with the people‟s practices, values and beliefs‟. Much attention and emphasis would be made on the forum it provides for the community for communal dialogue about the general welfare and wellbeing of Zaar community.

A STUDY OF LHMB ZAAR FESTIVAL AS A STRATEGY FOR SUSTAINABLE COMMUNAL DEVELOPMENT

Sharing is caring!