Ever wondered what may happen if festivals are not celebrated in Ghana?  Well, there are festivals but some are becoming more festivals than others.

Feasting and dining with the 77 deities of Oguaa in an ‘Orange meal’ is one great moment of excitement that goes beyond description.

This year’s like many other years brought a lot of feeling among patrons of the historic festival of the Chiefs and People of Cape Coast (Oguaa).

First, there was a pre festival fitness and health walk that galvanized almost everybody onto the streets of Cape Coast. The principal streets were filled with a sea of people who had two motives (as if I were in their minds); to keep fit and to prepare the way for the festival that many save towards its celebration.

People indeed save towards the festival celebrated every first week of September. The tailors and seamstresses have a burden to deliver attires of residents in time for the celebration while hotels and other hospitality industries undergo house cleaning exercises to receive visitors who book their services beforehand. No wonder all hotels in Cape Coast were fully booked.

The Fitness and Health Walk spearheaded by Candymanian Entertainment attracted the kenkey sellers, the fishermen, the fishmongers, the shoemakers, the university lecturers, the bankers, the pastors, the iced water sellers and many varied professionals.

The organizer, Candymann, remarked, “We want to help organize a festival that places responsibility on the shoulders of the youth. The people of Cape Coast need to be physically fit to take part in the Fetu Afahye Festival”.

As usual there was a display of traditional priests and priestesses on Monday night, which attracted a swarm of people mainly the youth and thousands of people including foreigners.

There was another significant feature ceremony “Bakatue" that involved the cutting through the sand bar separating the Fosu lagoon (the lagoon that is facing stiff competitions with weeds) and the sea to allow the lagoon access into the sea presumably to bring more fish into the lagoon.

The Omanhene (Paramount Chief) as part of the event, poured libation to the deity, Nana Fosu. The Omanhene’s net was cast thrice into the lagoon to signify the lifting of the ban on lagoon fishing.

Unlike previous years where various fishermen groups in the municipality organized a regatta or board race on the lagoon, this competition was conspicuously absent; lack of sponsorship fingered for the ‘no show’.

Then the ‘orange’ from nowhere surfaced. It started rearing its head into the celebration of the festival about three years ago. It has become a feature that is gradually becoming a force to reckon with in the entire celebration.

The emergence of the Orange on Friday has resonated and rekindled the spirit of the celebration. The orange knows no class, no profession, no age, no status, no sex and no ‘anything’. Masterminded by a Cape Coast based radio station, Cape FM, the Friday in the celebration of the Fetu Afahye has received a spark that illuminates and splashes beyond the boundaries of Cape Coast. 

An all-orange outfit is all one needs in order to join different groups of brass band musicians and masqueraders to dance, socialize and ‘fellowship’ through the principal streets on Cape Coast.

This year’s Orange Friday event attracted over fifty thousand participants who painted the ancient city of Cape Coast with anything Orange. “Cape Coast needed something like this to brand the festival. We are happy for the breakthrough and the responses. Orange Friday will never die”, remarked the ecstatic Cape FM Manager, Jimmy Kutin.

The Climax was almost orange as people were still in the Orange mood.