Offinso: Mmoaninko Festival Leads To Ban On Funerals

Funerals are banned in Offinsoman throughout the month of November to enable the chiefs and people to observe the Mmoaninko Festival.

The festival would bring together all citizens of Offinsoman, both home and abroad, to formulate programmes to help accelerate the pace of development in the area.

The Offinsohene, Nana Wiafe Akenten III and his elders instituted the festival in November 1995 to replace the “Mangyina” festival, to bring into focus the wisdom, bravery and military genius of the ancestors of the Offinsoman.

This year's edition of the Festival, the eighth, since it was reintroduced in 1995 by the Omanhene, Nana Wiafe Akenten III, has been scheduled to take off with a series of activities spanning November 1 to November 30 2018, which explains why funerals have been banned.

The Festival, which was launched on August 21, 2018, would be heralded by special traditional rituals throughout the Offinso Traditional area and a three-day fasting and prayers for peace and unity from November 13, 2018.

According to a General programme of activities released by the Offinso Traditional Council, chiefs would visit selected mosques for Muslim prayers for Allah's intercession on Friday November 16, to be followed by prayers in Christian churches on Saturday and Sunday November 17 and 18, 2018, in selected churches.

Miss Mmoaninko Beauty Pageant has been slated for the EMAS Hotel on Saturday November 17, 2018.

Other activities lined up for the festival include; clean-up exercise in the Offinso town and surrounding villages, inter-schools quiz competition, marathon race, forum on education and health screening, durbar of fetish priests, cycle race, soccer competition and a grand durbar to climax the celebration on November 24, 2018, when the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and former Presidents, John Dramani Mahama and Jerry John Rawlings are expected to attend.