The Chief of Anaji, Nana Ekra Kojo IV, together with his elders on Thursday launched the maiden Anaji Homecoming festival with a call on the indigenes to participate. The festival dubbed "AHOFEST" will be celebrated under the theme "Promoting our culture, Projecting our Development".

Addressing the people at the launch, Nana Kojo IV, said ever since the demise of the Sekondi chief, the family has not been united to find a replacement and this has rendered other communities under Sekondi powerless to celebrate the kuntum festival, which is celebrated annually by the people of Sekondi.

He said the people of Anaji have missed celebrating Kuntum and if care was not taken, future generations would miss out on the cultural values as the people.

Nana Kojo IV said it was as a result of these issue that they came up with the idea of celebrating a homecoming festival.

He explained that the festival was not to replace Kundum but to bring the people of Anaji together to undertake development projects and to also learn about their culture and pass it to the next generation.

He emphasized that Kuntum was celebrated in a space of three months beginning from June-August but that "Ahofest" would be marked for one week commencing on 3-11 August every year with the maiden edition coming off on 3-11 August 2019.

Nana Kojo IV admonished the people of Anaji to start with the tidying up of the town beginning from their homes and if possible, paint their houses to give the town a brighter look to mark the homecoming festival.

He called on all the indigenes of Anaji who were away from home, to come back on the 3rd-11th August to join in celebrating the festival and assist immensely towards the development of the community.

The Chief of Anaji said it was time for the town to own a community centre, which would be used to hold meetings, parties, funerals and other functions.

"To this length, it is part of the projects of Ahofest to construct a community centre, which will have enough space for such functions, offices and a community library," he stated.

Activities for this year's programme would include, community cleaning exercise, candlelight procession, football gala with neighbouring towns, food bazaar, musical concert, inter school quiz competition, durbar and a thanksgiving service to climax the occasion.

The Municipal Chief Executive of the Effia Kwesimintim Assembly (EKMA), Mr Kojo Acquah, special guest at the programme expressed joy about the community project and promised that his office would assist financially and through all possible means to construct the community centre.

He said, in addition, the Assembly would construct a drainage system in the community to control flooding in the area.

Mr Acquah indicated that the Member of Parliament for Anaji, Mr Joe Mensah has also pledged to support the building of the community centre with the MP's common fund.