The chiefs and people of the Asogli Traditional Area in Ghana celebrated their annual Yam Festival with a grand durbar at Ho, the Volta Regional Capital, about 165 km northeast of Ghana's capital, Accra on Saturday.

They were joined at the durbar by the Defense Minister Lt. General Joseph Henry Smith, government officials and dignitaries and tourists from within and outside the country including some ambassadors.

The celebration of the festival was brought down from Notsie in neighboring Togo from where the people of the area migrated several hundreds of years ago.

The festival is usually held in September at the end of the rainy season to mark the end of hunger, usher in the celebration of new yam harvest as well as serving as thanksgiving to ancestors for a bumper harvest and offer prayers for good health and prosperity for all in the coming years.

The festival, besides being a symbolic commencement of harvest time, is a huge homecoming event where both human and material resources are mobilized for job creation and wealth creation.

When Xinhua correspondents arrived at the town at about 10:00 a. m. GMT, thousands of people from the local communities and tourists were leaving for the durbar grounds to celebrate the day with rich culture, tradition and music.

The smartly dressed chiefs, led by Togbe Afede XIV, the paramount chief of the Asogli Traditional Area, wearing the traditional clothes, were ushered into the meeting place in a multicolored majestic procession amid drumming, singing and dancing like brides marching meticulously to meet their grooms at a wedding at around 10:45 a.m. GMT.

The festival is named after one of the most common foods in many African countries- Yam, a large root vegetable that looks like a tube.

Several programs are lined up for the celebration of the event but the most notable and colorful among them is the gathering of Chiefs and their subjects at the durbar grounds where a number of cultural activities take place to climax the week-long activities for the celebration.

In attendance were numerous chiefs, traditional rulers from Ghana and Togo.

The theme for the 2012 festival is "Political Tolerance, a Prerequisite for Peace and Development".

Togbe Afede XIV asked Ghanaians to uphold, preserve and protect the peace in the country that had made Ghana the toast of all nations where it is regarded as the oasis of peace and development in the sub-region and across the world.

The defence Minister of Ghana, Lt. General Joseph Henry Smith also urged the entire citizenry, to in unison, make the December 7 elections peaceful in honor of the late president John Atta Mills who died on July 24.

According to some residents, business operators in the regional capital city have taken the opportunity of the festival to reshape their businesses which hitherto were dormant or had even collapsed for some time.

Awards were presented to farmers who harvested the heaviest yam after they had been weighed by the traditional authorities.