Okrika in Rivers State Nigeria is known for the famous Irial ceremony. The popular festival is known for celebrating virgin chastity. The young women are kept in a fattening room, adequately fed for about 90 days in preparation for the D-Day when they would dance in a special way at Okrika town market Square — they dance half-naked.
It is a thing of pride for the girls so also it is a big occasion in thetown located in the Southern Region of the most populous black nation on earth.
The Iria Festival is regarded as a yearly competition, which families in Okrika look forward to with the aim of showcasing sexual abstention as parents present their virgin daughters and get them ready for the fattening room, where they are fed with body-nourishing meals, especially pounded yam mixed with pounded plantain.
As they dance round the market, their family members and well wishers appreciate the girls with the spraying of money. The virgins later retire to their rooms where suitors approach them for marriage.
Iria Festival which is one of the enduring cultures of the Okrika people is dated back to the 16th Century.
