Winneba Fancy Dress Festival 2020

The Fancy Dress Festival (known locally as Kakamotobi) is a masquerade festival held on Christmas to the first day of January every year by the people of Winneba in the Central region of Ghana.  It is a colourful festival that features brass band music. Dutch and British traders at the Winneba seaport began the tradition of the festival in the 19th century. Wearing assorted masks, they danced and drank in white-owned bars celebrating Christmas. Janka Abraham, who hailed from Saltpond, also in the Central region, and worked as a bar attendant at one of these bars, thought of incorporating the masquerade tradition and festival into local custom. He founded the troop known as Nobles with his friend, pharmacist A. K. Yamoah, in the Alata Kokwado neighbourhood around 1923 or 1924. People who belonged to A. K. Yamoah’s football club and indoor games groups joined. Membership required the ability to speak the English language