2023 Anam Fishing Festival: Fishermen, Traders Decry Naira Scarcity Impact

By Olisemeka Obeche

Fishermen and traders, participating in the 2023 edition of the Umuoba Anam Communal Fishing Festival, have lamented the unusually poor sales at this year’s event. They attributed this to glitches in the current naira currency redesign scheme by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN. This, they say, has occasioned nationwide scarcity of cash for citizens leading to very low purchasing power among people who usually patronised the abundant fish harvest at the various fishing lakes in the area.

AnambraDaily gathered that thousands of fishermen, drawn from various Umuoba Anam farming camps in the Anambra East and West local government areas of Anambra state, participated in the Mgbabo Oku, the annual fishing festival that kicked off March 4, 2023 across many fishing lakes in the area.
The fishing lakes where the week-long fishing harvest take place in the community include Iwalla, Iwelle and Issaa.

Those who spoke with AnambraDaily at the Iwalla fishing lake expressed frustration over their inability to make sales and attributed this to the severe shortage of cash to carry out such transactions. “We are frustrated, not being able to sell the fishes we caught because customers do not have cash anywhere to carry out transactions. Also, fish traders did not come in large numbers at our base camps to buy fishes as they usually did because of this lack of cash,” Emmanuel Nwabunwanne, a fisherman, said.

According to Nwabunwanne Okeke, a member of the Umuoba Anam Development Council and Organising Committee of the festival, the cash drought dampened people’s spirits, adding that “Since I started attending Mgbabo Oku (fishing festival) for over 40 years, this is the first time that we are witnessing this kind of financial crisis and it was caused by this naira redesign policy of the federal government which has imposed scarcity of cash everywhere.”

Aniagbaoso Udekwe (Addico West), another distraught fisherman added that “Our expectations from this year’s fishing harvest was not what we witnessed as many people did not catch the quantity of fishes and that was made worse by the fact that we did not see buyers and the few traders that came had no cash to buy fish. At the end of the day, many people who came to this place hoping to make money off the festival through huge sales may end up selling them on credit and going home empty handed.”

Catherine Chiezie Onyenweife, one of the fish traders, told this paper on the sideline of the Iwalla Lake that there was plenty fish to buy off fishermen, but that there was no cash at hand. “We are here to buy fish as usual but, this year, we have no cash to buy them. There is fish everywhere here but there is no money to buy them. All our efforts to get money to do our business failed as we were told at the bank that there was no money. We are frustrated,” she said.

She urged the federal government to urgently release cash into society to help ordinary citizens. “We are appealing to the government to do something fast to ensure that we have cash for businesses in our areas because we have no [effective telecommunication transmission] network for online or POS money transfers as done in the urban areas. Here, cash is our only means of buying and selling goods,” she added.

Nnaemeka Kenneth Agbata, a primary school teacher in the area, who participated in the fishing festival also identified the lack of access roads as another major challenge faced by fishing festival participants and residents of the area. “This is an annual fishing festival attended by fishermen across the community in which all kinds of organic, natural fish are harvested and sold in the market. Unfortunately, one major problem in this area is the lack of access roads. Most times, before the fishes reach Otuocha, Awka or Onitsha, they get spoilt due to the time it takes to transport them through dangerous routes. That is why most farmers and traders often dry their fishes here to avoid them from getting spoilt.”

Sylvester Morba, also a teacher participating in the fishing festival, identified lack of fishing nets and potable water as a major problem in the area. Morba said that “This kind of fishing festival organised by Anam people usually provides residents of Anambra state, and Nigerians generally, supply of natural fish at this time of the year. For this reason, I think it will be encouraging for government to assist our people by providing them with fishing nets and pipe-borne water so that, when people gather for such important fishing expedition, they will have safe drinking water. We are equally begging Anambra state to provide access roads to the area through Iyiora Anam.
The fishing festival, according to local folks, takes place during the month of February and March every year.

This paper also learnt that preparations for the Ayoko Fishing Festival slated for later this month, the biggest fishing lake owned by the community, was already in top gear.