Oviode (Ofi-Oye) Festival in Ntezi community, Ishielu LGA, Ebonyi State

Oviode is the chief festival of Ntezi people which usually occurs annually with the first moon of February.

Oviode 2023 occurred on Eke day of February 5th, 2023.

Oviode is held annually on Eke market day, however before the Eke, a preceeded (oye) day would come with different villages of Ntezi showcasing their individual masquerades and cultural arts displayed at the Ode market as a threshold and preparation towards the D-day of Oviode Festival.

Ntezi people are K’orring speaking people found in the heartland of Northeastern Igboland.

Orring people are mostly classified and very related to the Igbo people, and would identify as Igbo individually. Igbo language is also spoken in Ntezi.

Ntezi share common names with other Igbo speaking groups and maintain similar institutions that are also found in other key igboid communities.

To the typical Orring person, especially those in Ebonyi State, Igbo is an ethnic identity that comprises different linguistic and cultural groups unlimited by languages.

To them, this therefore means that being Igbo is not limited to a linguistic identity. So Igbo is more a classification of the group of the Eastern Nigerian people with common heritage.

It was this common force that was behind the Biafran ideology of 1967 that brought about the unification of the peopling of this region.