The Ikeji is the yam festival celebrated to mark the end of an old year. The Aro celebrate Ikeji in the month that coincides with the Gregorian month of September, although in some years the celebration timetable spills over into early October. The end of Ikeji does not necessarily mark the beginning of another farming season, as it opens a harvesting interlude that leads into harmattan and months of dry season when no one farms but yams and coco-yams lie in the barn, a period generally referred to in Aro as onwa ato Aro (the three months of Aro).

Several events are associated with the Ikeji Festival just as Ikeji signifies a number of things:

• The word, “Ikeji” means harvesting of yam, which is a significant food crop among the Igbo. Hence, Ikeji marks the end of one farming season;

• It also marks the end of the year. That is why it is characterized by general merry-making by people and sacrifices to Chukwu (God) for surviving the past year and prayers that they may be kept alive throughout the New Year;

• Pilgrimage is made to the Aro homeland by the Aro in the diaspora serving as re-union between the two. In the past, this re-union served as an opportunity for reviewing the conditions of Aros in the diaspora and for re-examining the strength of Aro influence and authority in the various Aro settlements;

• The Ikeji season afforded the Aro an opportunity for planning strategies of the Aro both at home and in the diaspora;

• It was a season for family re-union and settlement of family feuds;

• Authorisation for the eating of the New Yam given by the Eze Aro makes the appropriate proclamation, New Yam is not eaten by the Aro nation;

• Marriages are solemnized during Ikeji on a massive scale. Damsels are groomed for marriage in fattening rooms and let out on Eke Ekpe Day to dance at Amaikpe, the Aro celebration arena, from where they return to their parents homes and later join the bridegrooms after Ola Mgbede (anklets) have been removed;