Feok Festival Celebrations; The Missing Link

The Feok festival has always been celebrated in the same old-fashioned style, where everybody prepares and attends only the grand durbar. But, Feok is more than just the grand durbar. It could even be more if certain things are done right. Feok, being the signature festival of Northern Ghana, can be a great tool to drive the development agenda of Buluk. However, it needs to be made attractive to patrons to achieve this objective.

I believe incorporating certain activities into the Feok celebrations can make it more exciting and rewarding for attendees. We can include some of the ideas below for a better Feok festival.

Feok festival war dancers on display.

1. Health Week: For people to be in good health and ready for the Feok festival celebrations, there needs to be some health programs to achieve this. First, the general cleaning of all communities should be done. This should be supervised by the chiefs of the various localities. This should be followed by health screening activities by health workers in the communities. The week will then be crowned by health talks on common chronic ailments and communicable diseases.

2. Visit Historical Sites: To promote Buluk's tourism potential, people should be taken to some of the historical sites and the history behind these sites narrated there to them with evidence. Tourist sites like "Azagsuk" shrine, "Akumcham", "Kanjak piung" and other interesting sites and things should be exposed to interested patrons with the histories behind them told.

3. Display Of Local Artifacts and Foods: There should be an exhibition week to show the creative and artistic side of Buluk to the world. Local artifacts and staples should be displayed so visitors can get to know what Buluk has to offer the creative arts industry.

4. Feok Story Night: With the current distortions relating to the defeat of notorious slave raiders in the late nineteenth century in Buluk, there should be an effort to tell one comprehensive story to the world regarding how the celebration of Feok and the war dance came into being. There should also be a play re-enacting how Babatu was defeated by our ancestors. Traditional plays regarding the performance of funeral rites, marriage rites, puberty rites, and other traditional practices can also be displayed on the night.

5. Feok Fun Games: Fun games should be just that and nothing else. Fun games that breed animosity are never funny at all. Fun games should be organized to include everybody and not just those who know how to play. The current state of the games should be changed to suit their name. A table should be drawn and points awarded for matches played. Each community in Buluk must present a team each to play against the other communities. The community with the highest number of points at the end of the league gets declared as the winner. This way, the acrimony and open fights that greet the final matches will be dealt with.

6. Tug Of War: As part of the Feok festival fun games, a tug of war competition among the various communities and the winner awarded. This will help showcase the physical prowess of Buluk.

7. War Dance Day: Just as has been done in recent years, a day should be set aside purposely for the war dance. This will give every community ample time to showcase their craft without any accusations of bias.

8. Archery Competition Day: The day for the arrow shooting event should come before the grand durbar. This will allow more people to witness it.