2022 oghu festival ends on sad note.
3 min read
The 2022 oghu festival celebrated yearly in Umuaka between the months of June and August has come and gone with a melodramatic sensation. Throughout the time the festival lasted, youths in the community were peaceful and were celebrating the festival in orderly manner until when the festival hit its last days. Several individuals had their own oghu events and all the communities also had theirs. Despite the day of the main event, every other village in Umuaka had its own special oghu dancing event on some special dates.
Politicians in the locality cashed in on the opportunity of making special appearances at several oghu dances in Njaba LGA where they used the opportunity and gathered support from the people. One of those events was the day the candidate of Labour Party in Njaba State House of Assembly Hon Nnamdi Dire met with Hon Ozioma Worship, the APC candidate for the same position in Isiozi during the celebration of a special oghu dance organized by Umuokwara Nwaneri youths. They embraced each other and took some photographs together.
Trouble started in the 2022 oghu festival in Umuaka about 3 days to the end of the event. Youths within the ages of 15 to 28 went brisk. Most of them armed themselves with cutlasses, short axes and jujus anytime their masquerades appeared. They did not stop at that; they also imported and infused another brand of masquerade (mmanwu) into the festival. Umuaka Times met some youths chanting egwu mmanwu along several roads in Umuaka, as they moved about with dangerous weapons. Umuaka Municipal Council does not celebrate i mmanwu festival but the youths, from Umuaka Times observations, are trying to sneak in the festival through the backdoor. Some prominent Akalites have voiced out their disapproval of this move by the youths, especially motorcycle boys into the festival.
One of the cultural rules of the oghu festival is that the masquerades do not expose their faces to anybody or speak in their ordinary voices but too bad, during the last days of the festival, several masquerades removed their masks (nwaokwa) at the full view of everyone while walking on or blocking some roads. This act was noticed in Uba, Obinwanne, Amiyi, Ibele, Umuele and other places Umuaka Times visited during the last days of the festival.
A day to the end of the festival, several motorcycle boys wore their masquerades and hit the roads with their motorcycles. Just make an imagination of this scenario; a masquerade riding a motorcycle carrying another masquerade on top speed. An okada rider who witnessed this scenario called on the police in Niaba to arrest such riders for traffic violations. As this happened, there were also little accidents and pockets of violent activities at certain quarters. Fighting reportedly broke out in some areas among some motorcycle boys and some were said to have sustained some machete cuts.
The cultural rascality associated with the last days of 2022 oghu festival took a new dimension when the police received a tip-off that some boys were blocking some certain roads and harassing passers-by and possibly dispossessing them of their belongings in the name of oghu celebration. The police went after them, tear-gassed them and eventually made some arrests. On the day of the appearance of the Ikenado masqurade, the police also fired teargas on some motorcycle boys who fought back by attacking the police patrol van with stones.
As at today, the oghu festival 2022 edition has come to an end but not on good note. Some people are confident that the 2023 edition of the festival will bring some positive changes while some others are of the views that those who violated the cultural rule of the festival should be penalized.
