Stop anti-yam festival sermons-Clergy told

Mama Atrato II, Queen of Ho Dome has admonished a section of the Clergy in Ho to stop preaching against the Asogli Yam festival as idol worshipping to alienate their followers from the event. The Clergy must instead, help the traditional authority to rid the festival of indecent behaviors, which is a bother to the traditional rulers. Mama Atrato was speaking at the Asogli Yam festival Committee meeting with stakeholders in Ho. The theme for the celebration, which coincided with the 10th anniversary of the enstoolment of Togbe Afede XIV, is �Traditional Leadership and Development Refined.� The meeting was to discuss the activities of the festival and solicit the support of stakeholders towards its success. Some highlights of the festival include an inter-denominational Church service and Moslem prayers, panel discussions, lectures, youth forum, cultural night, street jams, musical performances and pilgrimage to Nortsie. Others are grand durbar, state dinner dance and awards, free medical screening and National Health Insurance registration, photo exhibition, food bazaar, football gala, tennis competition, children�s day and a health walk, among others. Traditional rites to be performed during the festival include the nubabla (purification), teyuyru (hailing of new yam), Vovlowo fe nkeke,( all souls day) and dzawuwu, (feasting on new yam), after which royals in the traditional area can start eating the new yam. Mama Atrato explained that such festivals are central to the identity and culture of the Asogli people, saying, �A country without culture is dead.� An elder of Ho-Bankoe said �all of us are baptized� with some of the chiefs being trained Pastors. �We are all giving obeisance to God, we are all servants, where changes are necessary suggest it and it would be examined. Father Patrick Delali Attah, of the Sacred Heart Parish, Ho-Bankoe, said some churches have been praying for the success of the yam festival, a thanksgiving to God for a good harvest and continuity of life. He said positive behavioral changes were manifesting as a result of campaigns by some churches against indecent behavior among the youth during previous celebrations. A Pastor of the E.P. Church observed that the Yam Festival has a biblical precedent in the importance which the people of Israel attached to celebrating their new harvests. He said aspects of the Yam Festival, which offend human dignity and decent behaviour, should be outlawed.