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Owei Takes Birinimigha In Marriage

Published

6 years ago

November 22, 2019

Owei and his new wife in the middle

Freetown Pereama, the Grandmaster of Ijaw music in one of his albums sings, paraphrase: ‘izon mo oniye mo, oniye mo, oniye mo, kemetubo pagha yẹ ere nanagha egberi gbolo de yẹ; keme tubo pagha tubọ zigha ye egberi gbolo dé ye…’ Meaning: Ijaw and their ways of doing things/thinking, a man born to this world, he is not married as when due (matured), Ijaw will be called names, talk about him and owe all sort of erroneous beliefs about him; a man born into this world, he does not bear a child, Ijaw will call him all sort of names…

This lyrics may have perhaps prompted Owei Akpfagha to have approached Birinimigha of the Ekperu family, Taribo community of Ebijaw ward six, Odigbo Local Government Area of Ondo State, to ask her hands in a relationship and she said yes and so, the relationship matured to marriage.

Consequently, the next song of joy that must have probably filled Owei’s mouth is Pereama’s album ‘GOOD WIFE’. He must have sang Taribor otu/abu bo, Okubananaegbe Feruferu bo, Millionaire Muje bo, Double Chief Saidu Ogoba bo, Double Chief Adeyemi Ogoba bo, High Chief Ebi Akpofagha woni ye, I have seen my true love;I have seen my soulmate, Birinimigha Ekperu, na she be my true love na she I go marry.

Not want to go by the way being practised by some persons particularly in this part of the country, the Akpofagha family push for date for the traditional marriage wherein the Bride-price is paid. It is worth noting that Owei has royal blood flowing in his vein hence the family partucularly High Chief Ebi wouldn’t probably want the family name soiled through ‘credit’ marriage or say ‘marry, bear children and pay later’, as it is common with some people. Consequently, November 9, 2019, was fixed for the traditional marriage between Owei Akpofagha and Birinimigha Ekperu.

The_Ijaw_Traditional_Marriage_Proper

As early 11:00am of the D-Day, the family had converged on Akpofagha’s compound, Taribor community, to get the Ikor (Bride-Price) as it being called, paid. As usual, and as the tradition of this set of Ijaw speaking people requires, two men were chosen as messengers while elders in the family sit back to send them to the Bride family whom at the other end of the family had converged on the compound of the father to the Ayoro (Bride) to receive the Ikor. At this point, bargaining through these two messengers were done, and it was only when, in the course of the message, a question or request was beyond the messengers’ capacity to handle that the elders assigned other olders ones to go to the other family to bargain further. After the exchange of messages between the two families and all the requires bills paid, the Ayoro (Bride) was called by her family for questioning.

She was accompanied by some women from Owei’s family while her faced covered. At this juncture, some of the questions her family might have probably ask her are: if she was ready for the marriage; was she coerced/forced to marry him; if she was ready to stay in the husband’s house no matter what may.

She was thereafter brought back to the groom’s family. It was after this stage that the Tumo-tumo came in. Tumo-tumo is the stage the whole family of the Groom and well-wishers formerly accompanied the Bride and Groom to the Bride’s family whom in turn welcomed them. Owei and Birinimigha were accompanied to his wife home with drumming, singing and dancing while two young ladies (one for Owei and one for his wife) cover them with umbrella. Literally, the umbrellas too were dancing to the drums and the melodious Ijaw songs. The dancing and singing continued until they entered the room wherein the waiting bride family members were to welcome them.

Immediately they entered the waiting room came the next which the most glamouring stage. When the new couple got to the seating of the family, they (couple) sat on the mat apparently prepared for them in the middle of the people. Thereafter the drumming and dancing stopped for another level of dance. At this juncture, two young ladies who tied Igburu (rapper) came out to dance Awigiri/Owigiri. As the tradition requires at this stage, the ladies danced to three different occasions before the Bride family formerly welcomed them and there after moved to the next stage. The first dance to songs is ‘tugha’ (bonus or not counted) before they danced to other three songs to make it compete.

After this stage, dried gin was brought by one of the messengers for the Bride father which he used to pray and gave to the couple to drink. Here the Groom served his father in-law with a glass of gin which he prayed on and poured on the floor. He served him another which he used to pray for the husband and wife and then handed the glass of the dried gin to the Groom who received it on his knees and drank and gave to his new wife. Worth noting, he stands to his feet before handing down the glass of drink to his new wife whom on her knees received it.

Next after the series of prayers was the first assignment for the new groom to the In-laws. His father in-law gave him the bottle of dried gin to serve the family and he started from the person at the immediate left of his father in-law and the serving went clockwise untill it got to his father in-law who is the last person to be served. He served both young and old and those from his family who were sitted while on his knees. He crawled from one person to another to serve. One important thing to note, the bottle of drink he started with must not get exhausted during the process of servicing until it (the wurutu/bottom of the drink) gets to his father in-law. If it gets exhausted in the course of serving, he has to purchase another dried gin and start, but Owei case was not so. He excelled in this by serving everybody successful to make sure the bottom drink got to his father in-law. He was hailed for successfully carrying out his first assignment. The in-law thereafter prayed for him with the drink before the event moved to the next stage.

The next stage is one of the crucial stage for the couple partucularly the Bride; it is a stage for advice and counseling from the family. The first thing the Bride father did was to remind his daughter that there are forbidden things binding a woman as far as the Ijaw tradition is concerned, saying such things are known to all and sundry, he stopped there but Double Chief Saidu Ogoba urged him to mention/list the ‘tonyes’ (forbidden things) for people particularly the younger generation to learn that after all, learning is a continuous exercise. He made mention of few. Interested in knowing such? Listen to King Robert Ebizimor (now late) Amatonye song. All what he mentioned can be found King Ebizimor’s ‘Amamaton-tonye.’ The family there after poured out pieces of advice one after the other, both male and female, all bothering on how to stay pieceful with her husband, family members and all that will make her a good wife in her husband home and before her husband family.

She was thereafter handed to the Groom family and in dancing and singing they danced back to their home and the party continued till dawn.

Happy married life to a brother, Owei Akpofagha and his new wife.

Joseph Ebitibi Kanjo, a journalist, critist and affairs analyst writes from Taribor community.

News

Edo Hospital Denies Complexity In Death Of Twin Babies

Published

7 hours ago

August 26, 2025

Editor

Management of the Med-Vical Medical Centre in Benin City, has denied allegations of medical negligence, secrecy and incompetence in the handling of the very ill extreme pre-term twin babies referred from another facility to them.

Med-Vical Medical Centre is specialized in paediatric and neonatal intensive care services with state of the art facilities for respiratory care and life support

The pre-term babies died on separate days at the neo-natal intensive care centre.

Parents of the babies, Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Sylvester had petitioned the Police calling for discreet investigation into the death of their babies.

They accused the hospital of taking one of the babies to the mortuary without informing them.

But the hospital said the babies were delivered pre-term in another hospital, but subsequently referred from a second private hospital to our facility at about 9pm on July 9th.

The Consultant Paediatrician/Neonatologist of the hospital, Dr. Enato Gertrude said she received the babies who were in a critical condition and diagnosed them to have severe prematurity, severe respiratory distress syndrome, severe neo-natal sepsis and peri-natal asphyxia.

Dr. Enato said despite the fact that the parents of the babies could not provide 50 percent of what was needed to start treatment, they commenced treatment in a race to save the babies.

She said the parents were counseled, informed and their consent sought on every step taken to treat the babies.

Dr. Enato said the first twin died after eight days of being admitted at the facility, while the second one died after three weeks.

According to her, “I wasn’t there at the delivery. I don’t know what transpired. I don’t know everything that happened until they got to our facility which was several hours after the children were born, because they came into our facility very ill.

“When the children came, we diagnosed them and put the babies on the machine and started treatment, there is a minimum deposit that is supposed to be paid. The babies needed tubings, surfactants and caffeine citrate, which are expensive. They are not even readily available over the counter.

“They’re actually specially ordered, specially packaged, and cold chain must be maintained with them. And they are quite expensive. I don’t produce them. I buy them to use for the babies. And it’s supposed to help these babies. So at this point, the parents didn’t have enough money for all of this. I think the father had less than 50% of the money because he said he couldn’t get the money at that time.

“He came to meet me and I just told the billing officer not to bother them, let’s attend to these babies first, collect what he had. So I think then he had just 250,000 or so for each baby. But we were not focusing on the money. We just needed to save the lives of the babies of which we continued the care.

“We placed both babies on the machine and we continued to give antibiotics and oxygen therapy. And at a point, we noticed that the respiratory distress was not getting better and we informed the parents.

“while on admission we noticed the babies had thrombocytopenia (low platelets) and immediately we told the parents to get what they call platelets. Due to the severe sepsis, we also requested for blood culture.

“At a point on day eight, we noticed that the thrombocytopenia for baby two was not getting better despite all that we had done. A diagnosis of severe neonatal sepsis with multiple organ dysfunction and disseminated intravascular coagulation was made.

“So we called the parents and counselled them that we needed to put the baby on the ventilator for complete life support but at this time the baby was bleeding from thrombocytopenia and we carried the parents along. They saw what happened. Despite all our resuscitation efforts for the baby, the baby succumbed to the illness. The father wasn’t happy after we explained everything to him. It was quite painful at that time for everybody.

“Following the passing of the first twin, the father became hostile and we tried to counsel him but he was difficult to get him to calm down. We even suggested referring the second twin to UBTH, but he quickly declined and pleaded for treatment to continue, as they had no where else they preferred to go to.

“We did a lot for these babies to ensure that the second baby continued to live but two weeks after the passing of the first baby, we noticed bleeding continued for the second one despite blood transfusion with platelets administration, and the baby needed a mechanical ventilator (life support).

“We counseled the mother and told the mother that at this point that the baby had poor prognosis. Chances of survival was slim and she said yes that we should continue to do everything she has faith that the baby will survive.

“On wednesday we saw a little bit of improvement but it declined again and the baby had to be continued on mechanical ventilator life support, but the baby succumbed to the illness.”

She said the parents were contacted, the mother came to see the corpse of the child, she left and didn’t return.

“Due to the delay in claiming the corpse after 12 hours of demise and after several attempts to reach the father to no avail, we decided to take the corpse to the mortuary. We never denied the parents access to their child’s corpse.”

The hospital further added that they are committed to transparency and accountability in their operations adding that at Med Vical Medical Centre, patients safety and well-being are top priorities as they strive to provide highest quality care.

News

OPINION: A Voyage To Caligula’s Rome

Published

9 hours ago

August 26, 2025

Editor

By Suyi Ayodele

Rome’s history offers timeless lessons for all nations to jealously guard their freedom. Consider one of its emperors, Caligula: Born Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, he reigned from AD 37 to AD 41. Known as Little Boots, Caligula’s four-year reign epitomised tyranny.

Albert Camus captured his ruthlessness in his 1938 play “Caligula”, while Stephen Dando-Collins’ 2019 book, “Caligula: The Mad Emperor of Rome”, and Kate Zusmann’s article, “Roman Emperor Caligula: The Mad Tyrant of Rome”, give vivid portraits of his excesses.

Zusmann wrote: “Caligula’s reign lasted only four years, but his cruel and unpredictable behavior earned him a reputation as one of the most notorious emperors in Roman history… He engaged in construction projects to emphasize his power and divine status. He humiliated senators by forcing them into menial tasks or public spectacles.”

Though he initially presented himself as a noble leader, he soon became Rome’s worst emperor. He wielded taxation and reckless spending as weapons of control.

One account records: “Caligula squandered 2.7 billion sesterces in his first year and addressed the deficit by confiscating estates, levying fines, and even imposing the death penalty to seize wealth. He crippled the Roman Senate in the process.”

Freed from opposition, he built an extravagant bridge at Baiae and introduced crippling taxes on everything, taverns, artisans, slaves, food, litigation, weddings, even prostitutes and their pimps. Taxes doubled in just four years, leaving ordinary Romans broken and resentful.

Is this not eerily familiar? In some places in Nigeria today, task force agents harass even mourners transporting corpses. They must pay the State.

Caligula’s Rome is a warning. When opposition disappears, tyranny grows unchecked, and taxation becomes limitless. Nigeria is already on that path.

Read this report: “It was gathered that governors on the shopping list of the APC include the Enugu State governor, Peter Ndubuisi Mbah, Bayelsa State governor, Douye Diri, Plateau State governor, Caleb Muftwang and the Zamfara State governor, Alhaji Dauda Lawal.”

That was how the Nigerian Tribune concluded its lead story on page five of its Monday, August 25, 2025, edition, titled: “Tension grips PDP leaders as APC targets more govs.” Two riders followed: “South-East, South-South, North-Central govs on shopping list” and “Tinubu to receive another PDP gov on arrival.”

An average student of Nigeria’s political history should be deeply troubled by this report. The concern is not just the well-known fact that Nigeria’s political elite rarely show fidelity to principles, loyalty, or decency, but rather the imminent danger this trend poses to the survival of democracy and to the ordinary masses.

We must ask ourselves: what awaits the common man if Nigeria slides into a one-party state? Can the current wielder of power – the architect of this emerging no-opposition order – truly manage such a system? If today, under the pretense of multiparty democracy, impunity has already reached its peak, what happens when there is no one left to challenge those in power?

History warns us that we are about to repeat our mistakes. Nigeria has a peculiar habit of forgetting her sordid past. Some call it resilience; I disagree. What we parade as resilience is actually a battered psyche. Nigerians have been beaten into submission by those who weaponized poverty. With crumbs thrown here and there, leaders get away with political robbery. We have been conquered.

The sages warned us that thunder must not be allowed to strike twice in the same place. Their reasoning was simple: if bad history repeats itself, its second coming will be catastrophic – so tragic that no one will have the words to describe it.

That Nigeria is gradually sliding into a one-party state should raise an alarm. Euphemism has no place here. A one-party Nigeria under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is an invitation to disaster. The consequences will not stop with the opposition; even those within the president’s inner circle will eventually taste the venom. Tyrants spare no one—not even their favourites. We are headed down that perilous road.

Make no mistake: a one-party state will kill this democracy. It has happened before—not once, but twice. Some of us lived through it, others read about it. Nigeria lost two republics because those in power chose tyranny and crushed opposition.

The First Republic collapsed when the ruling Northern People’s Congress (NPC) attempted to monopolise political power. It formed alliances, coerced defections, and silenced dissent. Opposition leaders were detained on trumped-up charges. Resistance sparked the violent Operation Wetie in Western Nigeria in 1962. By January 15, 1966, the First Republic was dead.

What followed were the January and July 1966 coups, and then a 30-month civil war that consumed over two million lives. Yet we learnt nothing. When the chance came again in 1979, we squandered it.

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR:OPINION: KWAM1, KWAM2’ And Their Holy Water

By mid-1982, the ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN) had perfected its plan to decimate opposition. It swallowed the PRP in Kano and Kaduna, captured the NPP in old Anambra, and went after the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN). Oyo and Bendel fell to its onslaught, while only Ondo resisted—and that resistance produced bloodshed. By December 1983, the Second Republic collapsed, swept away by the military coup of Major-General Muhammadu Buhari. For the next 16 years, Nigeria was under the jackboot.

Whichever way we spin it, the truth is clear: the destruction of opposition in both the First and Second Republics laid the foundation for their collapse.

Those who defend the current defections as freedom of association miss the point. We are not disputing that right. What we warn against is the danger of acquiescing while political and economic power concentrate in the hands of one man. As Aesop warned: “Those who voluntarily put power into the hands of a tyrant must not wonder if it be at last turned against themselves.”

Those who think they can collaborate with the ruling party, pledging loyalty in opposition but serving power in secret, should think again. When tyranny consumes a nation, no one is spared. As the proverb goes, when heaven falls, it falls on everyone; the rain has no enemy.

Caligula reigned until his own guards turned on him. Tyranny and rebellion are monozygotic twins. Let today’s plotters of a one-party Nigeria take note.

Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, in “How Democracies Die” (2018), explain it best: democracies rarely collapse through external invasion. They are destroyed from within, through the slow erosion of norms and the ambitions of authoritarian leaders. Nigeria is walking that path again.

Chude Jideonwo and Adebola Williams, in How to Win Elections in Africa (2017), observe that political parties in Nigeria are not built on coherent ideology but on opportunism. The APC, they argue, never stood on any deep philosophy; it merely capitalized on the weaknesses of the PDP. That explains why even serving PDP governors are defecting in droves to join it. But what exactly is the attraction? To answer that, let us revisit one of our old moonlight tales.

Long ago, when animals behaved like humans, Ikún, the deaf squirrel, desired to live as long as mortals. It went to a diviner to seek the Oracle’s blessing.

The divination was swift and stern: for Ikún to live long, it must avoid anything sweet that came from the enemy.

Ikún protested. Why should it shun sweet things when everyone knew it delighted in them?

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR:OPINION: Tinubu And His Northern Teachers

The Oracle replied with finality: What is sweet kills faster than anything else.

Ikún left, troubled. It wondered who its enemy could be. The only one that came to mind was the groundnut farmer, whose produce it relished. Resolving to obey the warning, Ikún avoided the groundnut farm.

The farmer soon noticed that Ikún no longer raided his crops. Suspicious, he tried several tricks. He attempted to smoke Ikún out of its burrow, but failed—for as elders say, òrò burúkú kii ká ikún mó’lé (misfortune never meets the squirrel at home). He tried hunting it at night, but that too failed—for ikún kii jé l’óru (the squirrel never ventures out at night).

At last, the farmer set a trap, using ripe banana as bait. The fruit was carefully placed over the blade, waiting to spring at the slightest tug.

Not long after, Ikún wandered by and spotted the banana. Overjoyed, it rushed forward. Banana was a delicacy, and its sweetness irresistible. Ikún took a bite, wagged its tail, and forgot all about the Oracle’s warning. It bit again, wagged its tail, and then tried to carry the whole banana away.

In a flash, the trap snapped. Ikún was caught between the jaws of death. Too late, it realised the truth: the sweet gift from the enemy was a lure to destruction. With its dying breath, it remembered the Oracle’s words.

Our elders, who preserved this tale, summed it up in the saying: ikun ńjẹ ògèdè, ikún ńrè’dí; ikún ò mọ̀ pé ohun tó dùn mà únpa ènìyàn (the squirrel wags its tail while eating banana, not knowing that what is sweet is what kills a man).

And that, precisely, is what the defecting governors are doing today. The banana from the ruling APC is sweet, but beneath its sweetness lies a deadly trap.

News

PHOTOS: Brazil Welcomes Tinubu With Full Military Honours In Brasília

Published

23 hours ago

August 25, 2025

Editor

Brazil on Monday rolled out full military honours at the Planalto Palace in Brasília to receive President Bola Tinubu.

Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, disclosed this on X on Monday.

Onanuga said Tinubu was welcomed by his host, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

He wrote, “More photos of the official reception for President Tinubu at the Planalto Palace in Brasília, Monday, August 25, 2025. Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva welcomed President Bola Tinubu with full military honours.”