Delta Community Declares War on Kidnappers And Criminals with Traditional Cleansing Ceremony

 

In a dramatic turn, and perhaps as a poignant reflection of the escalating security challenges in Nigeria, the Issele-Uku community in Aniocha North Local Government Area of Delta State has resorted to ancient traditions to combat modern-day criminality. On Wednesday, May 21st, the town publicly invoked a powerful ancestral ceremony the 'Ine Ubi' to lay curses on kidnappers and other criminals terrorizing their land.

The 'Ine Ubi' ceremony, a traditional practice for invoking divine wrath upon evildoers and their accomplices, saw all nine villages of the Issele-Uku Kingdom gather at the Royal Palace. With palm sticks, Bibles, and chaplets in hand, participants from Ukpai to Umueze-Issei united to rain down curses on armed robbers, kidnappers, those who plant poisonous charms, and all other purveyors of evil.

This drastic measure comes as a direct response to the alarming rise in kidnapping and killings that have threatened to transform the once "ever bubbling, hospitable and peaceful" Issele-Uku into a fearful community.

HRM Agbogidi Obi Nduka, the traditional ruler of Issele-Uku Kingdom, later emerged from the inner chambers of the palace to address the mammoth crowd. He expressed profound disenchantment, emphasizing that the 'Ine Ubi' had become "necessary and almost the last resort" for spiritual cleansing against the pervasive evil.

The Chi-Obi of Issele-Uku Kingdom, Chief Egbo Adigwe, with palpable anger reflecting on the faces of the participants, read out a list of criminal offenses, as the people repeatedly struck the ground with their implements, each strike echoing a curse. The exercise was replicated at multiple spots, even extending towards the Afor market place, led by the Ogbelani of Issele-Uku, Diokpa Isimchei Okonkwo.

While acknowledging ongoing collaboration with the government and security agencies, Obi Nduka asserted, "Government has not failed us because the wave of insecurity is everywhere; however, my advice is that they should step up their game..." He declared that as custodians of tradition, they could not "fold our arms to watch evil doers and their conspirators continue to have a field day."

This powerful display of communal resolve against crime through spiritual means highlights the depth of the crisis and the desperate measures communities are willing to take for peace.