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Tamale, Ghana – Fugu, the most distinctive and highly revered traditional attire, worn by thousands of indigenous people from Northern Ghana, is about to receive the biggest form of marketing since its invention many decades ago.
Though a highly revered attire, worn by different classes of people including traditional rulers, politicians, warriors and religious leaders and among others, fugu also known as smock, has not really received the kind of marketing or promotion that it deserves.
For some strange reasons, the fugu which has the potential to turn around the economic fortunes of a significant percentage of about 5 million people of the Upper West, Upper East and the Northern Regions – has not really received enough government support and media marketability over the years.
But thanks to the foresight and generosity of Danpee Enterprise and its collaborators, a festival has been identified to be the best platform to roll out a very superlative form of marketing that will propel the entire value chain of the fugu or its cloth to the desired heights.
The festival, christened “Fugu Festival”, is the first of its kind scheduled to be held in June this year in Tamale, the gateway to Northern Ghana.
Under the theme: “Preserving and Marketing Cultural Heritage for Tourism Development in Ghana”, Fugufest seeks to provide a platform for exhibitors and also an opportunity for all actors directly and indirectly involved the smock business to discuss opportunities emerging from government’s own initiatives such as one district, one factory agenda.
According to the Director of Vibe Consult, one of the organisers of Fugufest, Mr Isaac Appiah, Fugufest also seeks to project the potentials of the North as well as bring together key stakeholders to network.
Chief Director of the Northern Regional Coordinating Council, Alhaji Isshaku Alhassan, who launched the festival, observed that the smock had strong value chain that was capable of promoting economic development.
“if you look at the production of the smock, it has a strong value chain. From the one who cultivates the cotton, to the yarn maker, cloth maker, sewer and marketer and so on. So it involves a number of processes that are capable of promoting economic development along that value chain”, he explained.
Alhaji Isshaku stated that, Fugufest could also be an opportunity for government and the District Assemblies to boost tourism if it was held annually, because it would draw together visitors who had never been to the region.
He also described the festival as initiative that was perfectly in sync with government’s planting for food and jobs campaign, one village, one dam and one district, one factory.
“I think that all that we’re doing today also fits clearly and very timely into government initiatives. It is a product of cotton and today, the clarion that we’re making is for people to take advantage of the planting for food and jobs and the various initiatives like the one village, one dam which will make water available to promote agriculture.
“And if agriculture is promoted, the tendency is for us to have more produce of the cotton which can also in turn be used to produce more smocks for the people to utilise…..if you ask me what is the factory that should come up first in Northern Ghana, I think we should all agree that the fugu should be number one” he suggested
The launch of Fugufest was graced by members and executive of the Smock Producers Association, sellers of smock and their accessories, corporate Institutions and the media.
By Savannahnews
