Pauline Onyibe 
As the people of Kalabari in Ijaw Ethnic Nationality celebrated their New Year Festival on November 16, 2025, thereby ushering in another year, His Royal Highness, Asari Dokubo, the Amanyanabo of Elem-Kalabari in Rivers State, has disclosed that New Year Festival celebrated by his people is a means of Cultural awakening.
The Amayanabo disclosed that the New Year celebration was not just about celebration but about the identification of who they are and about tracing their roots.
Celebrated at Elem-Kalabari, (Torusaramapiri) in Degema, Dokubo said that the celebration “is about re-creating ourselves and bringing us back from death.
“If you go to India in all hospitals, you see one image at the entrance, at the hotels, you see one image. You go to China, you see them in the morning with incense, they bow and they go in.
“Here in Nigeria, if anybody puts anything at any of our hotels, nobody will go there. They will say it is demonic. But they go to China and go to their hospitals and they won’t say, it is demonic.
“If it is not demonic to be in hotels in other places, we have to look at ourselves and our values too.”
He said that they are trying to rebuild the community known as SOURCE maintaining that “about one hundred and fifty years ago, this place was evacuated by our fathers and we are making a comeback.
The King revealed that there is a mystery lake at the community maintaining that “the mystery lake has been there before the settlement .
“They told us a lot of stories that the lake has healing potentials, barren women get pregnant when they take it adding that it has not been spiritually or medically proven, but the believe is very strong, that it has healing material in it and it has been healing people.
He also advised that there should be a Calendar produced that will also showcase his own cultural heritage.
“Let us take our own very important. Russia should not have the same Calendar with us, Russian New Year is different from Nigerian New Year even though they are all Christians.
“Ethiopian new year is different from Nigerian new year. So when we want to do our own, people will say it is demonic.
“For the Intellectuals, Geographers, Astronomers, I think we should sit down and draw a proper Calendar following the way our fathers calculated their own.
Others have lunar, Solar Calendar, our own is by the Water. So, we should be able to calculate our own by the movement of the Waters and have a proper Calendar so that by the time we come to celebrate next time, we know that we have a proper Calendar to show our children.”
Welcoming the happy participants of the event, Harry Awolayeofori Macmorrison, the chairman of Kalabari Renaissance Foundation, the organizers of the New Year Festival, maintained that the event was anchored on Peace, Unity and the Rejuvenation of everything that is good.
Disclosing that it was also the making of a great cultural rebirth, Macmorrison declared that the annual festival that used to be a solemn sacrifice in the individual communities only, “Has finally become a global brand that will continue to remind us of who we are, where we come from and the boundless possibilities of what we can become, working together.
He continued: “This year, the celebration brings us to Elem Kalabari, popularly referred to as the SOURCE, and reason is obvious, Kalabari took off from here.
“The choice of this place was almost divine and, of course, the significance is so very loud. By the grace of God, next year, we shall move the celebration to another great Kalabari community.
“In deed, the rotation of the hosting ground of the festival is designed to strengthen our bonds and ensure that every community feels a part of this growing renaissance.
“Let us consciously reflect on making Kalabari truly one, while taking time to genuinely eliminate words, acts and posturing that can make some communities uneasy.
“Clearly, it is only when we can all see our stakes in the Kalabari project that unity can be assured.
To achieve this, he said that all must continue to play and grow together in ways that will produce trust and mutual respect.
Also, speaking, Ibiba DonPedro, BOT member and Head , Media of Kalabari Renaissance Foundation, in her reaction maintained that the New Year is celebrated whenever the all mighty Atlantic Ocean (the Abagi), pushes back the flood waters from the fresh water and cleans the whole environment.
She said that all the fishes and the sea come alive from today (the 16th of November) adding that “it is a spiritual, cultural, ecological and historic event.
“From this day, almighty Abagi (the Atlantic Ocean), comes in and pushes back the fresh water, cleaning up the whole environment, so, it is so re-awakening.
“This is why our foundation is also known as Kalabari Resonance Foundation. We are coming to do what we ought to do as children of the powerful chiefs, the noble men and women who built the Kalabari Kingdom and the Kalabari people.”
The occasion was used to launch a 25 year Kalabari blueprint.
The New Year Festival with the theme “Celebrating Our Heritage, Honouring Our Waters, and Renewing Our Spirit, made the once deserted Elem-Kalabari Community come alive again with series of cultural displays, cleansing of the land among other activities that heralded the beginning of the new year.
