Cultural  Value/Practices and Festivals 

The cultural practices of the people of the District are closely linked with religion especially with traditional and Islamic religious. Some of the colourful cultural practices can be seen in marriages out-doorings, funerals and festivals. The man festivals observed by the people include: Damba Fire and Yam festivals.

DAMBA

The Damba festival is often celebrated to mark the birth and the out-dooring of the Prophet Mohammed (Peace be upon him). The celebration is in two phases, the first phase signifies the birth, whilst the second which is celebrated a week later is for the outdooring of the Holy Prophet. The festival is an accession for merry making, drumming, dancing, eating and presentation of gifts to loved ones. The period also creates an opportunity for family members to solve family issues.

FIRE

There are two schools of thoughts underlying the celebration of the fire festival. One school links it to the period when Moses crossed the Red Sea (Holy Bible). Whilst the other links it to the search party that was organized during the loss of a beloved daughter of one of the Moslem Missionaries. It is alleged that the missionaries used to propagate the religion, so there was fierce resistance, which led to the loss of the girl. To find the girl, a search Party lit bundled grass throughout the night. Similarly every year participants in the festival light bundled grass and parade the principal streets to the outskirts in the nights.

YAM

The yam festival is celebrated to usher in the new yam, it is usually done before the clan elders who have to perform some rituals and sacrifices at their various fetish groove or to their gods to signify testing the new yam. The activity is not organized with durbars but done on clan basis.

Some Social Implication of Festivals on Development

The festivals are just not periods of merry making, meeting of Old friends or making of new ones only but also:

1. Periods of showing gratitude to one another through the exchange of gifts
2. Periods when the citizens make development decisions.
3. Periods when the natives come home to help in development projects through mobilization of funds.
4. Periods when family issues are resolved 
5. Periods when the cultures of the people are clearly exhibited through drumming, dancing, costumes and display