By AMINU Isa
I visited Budon on the 1st August, 2020 to attend the Nkwo of Agankyu. Nkwo mi Agankyu usually follows a day after Sallah.
I was in Budon a fortnight earlier for another different assignment. The experience of traveling through the road was horrible: A journey of just 38Km took us for almost 2 hrs ; travelling on motorcycle, walking through the river; crossing the river by boat due to the cutting off the bridge,were the routine one has to go through before getting to Budon.
Along the routes, one could not but marveled at the Agricultural potentials lying idle due to lack of access roads.The costs of transportation is equally very high .It takes close to Four Thousand Naira to travel to and from Budon to Lokoja at this time of the season.
So, when the need arises once again to travel to Budon for the Nkwo ,one can imagine the anxiety. But I was a little less apprehensive since the travelling by a speed boat may take less than an hour I gathered.
I arrived earlier at Jamata by 7:30 am to catch up with the boat as earlier arranged. Nostalgia took the better part of me as I flashed back to childhood experience. Nothing has changed significantly after more than 4 decades in our mode of transportation.
‘ the leadership should be blamed’ echoed my co- travelers . We finally concluded that the problem remains because leadership has failed due to the collaboration of the internal elites whose idea of development is self centred. But we need to move away from here and chart a way forward.
We arrived Budon after one and half hour. The Boat driver could not yield to our frequent rebuke to accelerate at a much higher speed. He was concern about our safety and we reasoned with him.
It was my first time of witnessing Nkwo, so I was curious. We were a bit late but the discussion had not gone far when we arrived the Palace of the Agankyu of Kakanda Kingdom .The Palace was filled to the brim with presence of Royal fathers from surrounding villages and title holders of the Agankyu.
The theme of discussion centred on education, health ,Agric financing, land tenure and conflict resolutions. All issues were debated and concrete plans put in place for actualization.
The traditional rites follows thereafter. The Royal fathers from surrounding towns and Villages( Apo, Gori, Ataji, Edo, Taraba etc) took their turn to pay homage to the Paramount ruler of Kakanda Kingdom, in the person of Mall. Muhammad Sani.
The occasion was climaxed with Royal dance.
It was indeed a memorable event one will always wish to be part of but the take home remains the need to make the community accessible by road.
