Och’ Owukpa VII Onomo Chief Emmanuel Ujah Odeh being dressed in the traditional power conferring regalia.
Traditional Masquerades entertained the
Okpachina Traditional dance group in passionate communication between humanity and the gods of wisdom.
Chief Matthias O. Abutu being honored with a traditional tittle.
A retinue of Idoma traditional power wielders who graced the occasion
Owupka district in Ogbadibo Local Government Area of Benue State, North Central Nigeria celebrated the coronation of its cultural leader 6th April 2015. In his speech at the well-attended occasion, the Chairman of Owukpa Development Association (ODA) which packaged the event. Chief N.I. Ejugwu lamented the all-embracing backwardness of Owukpa land as a result of the prevailing disunity which pervades the land. He appealed for complete change of attitude in this regard and the mainstreaming of Owukpa development agenda. He pointed the simultaneous payment for the take-off of the Onomo’s palace and the Unity Center at Adu Ai Ede as evidences of the organization’s determination to rise above previous debilitating development obstacles.
The Onomo, Chief Emmanuel Ujah Odeh, a retired banker and Financial Management Consultant expressed his great joy at the fact that throughout the chequered history of Owukpa, the community had never come together to identify with its Chief at the magnitude being witnessed at the event of his coronation. He promised to be ready to stand up to all challenges of cultural leadership that may arise in Owukpa in the future while thanking all who had contributed towards making the day the resounding success it turned out to be.
The district is a bed-rock of culturally induced zeal for socio-economic advancement. The prideful positions Owukpa sons and daughters have occupied in their collective contributions to national and regional development history of Nigeria in general and their fatherland in particular is known to have stood out magnificentlygg during the last few decades of 20th century Nigeria.
With their rich cultural background as appropriate firing cannons for launching them into various fields of human development endeavors, the Owukpa-parented male and female student stood out in blazing brilliance; the farmers used their natural ingenuity to bring in enviable harvests; the teachers taught their pupils as if all were their children; the civil servants and all those who held white-collar jobs were paragons of selfless service; and the poor bore their poverty with dignifying and ceaseless determination to break from the yoke.
When the unity of the Nigerian nation was put under serious stress by Nigerian civil war, Owukpa men and their families bore the brunt of their geopolitical positioning as a boundary land between the Northern and Southern parts of the war-beleaguered nation. The after-math of thatunenviable experience is reputed to be the season why the Owukpa man and woman is the most sought-after in Nigeria today where peace and harmony are badly needed. They are brave peace-makers.
However, at about the time most African nations and peoples are believed to have experienced a storming hit by Invading Cultures, Owukpa land and people were not to be spared. The Invading Culture sneaked on the people and their land with the noisy dean that accompanied the last few decades of the receding 20th century. The Invading Culture was clothed in greed, selfishness, legendary wickedness, wealth-worshiping corruption and most frighteningly, contempt for constituted cultural institutions.
As in other parts of Africa and Nigeria, Owukpa paid its tolls at the entry point of this sneaky invasion. Previous brother-hood gave way to sectionalism. Division assumed the color of development as in the creation of too many geopolitical entities whose “leaders” blindly fought each other for nothing more than the mundane. Owukpa nearly fell apart. As it happened in other parts of Nigeria, Owukpa cultural institutions took a bashing.
And then, THE GREAT THING happened. A new crop of development foot-soldiers emerged on the land. Warriors of development and socio-cultural renewals stood eye-ball to eye-ball with the Invading Culture. Insults and accusations were hauled at the new crops of leaders. They nearly crumbled. But perseverance and unrelenting encouragement from the youthful and the courageous finally won the battle. Level-headed Community-based Development Organizational leadership joined forces with selfless professionals to battle the Invading Culture to a halt. Impeccably credentialed Cultural Headship emerged and the masses agreed with the leaders to celebrate the deserved Socio-Economic and Cultural rebirth that is irrevocably bound to usher Owukpa people and land unto the mainstream of competitive development of the emerging 21stcentury Global Village.
It happened in the first week of April 2015, at the gods-bestridden home of the people’s culture, Ipole Owukpa. The land and the people took time out to bestow the soul-of-all Cultural authority on the Och’ Owukpa VII Onomo Chief Emmanuel Ujah Odeh. A protagonist of the new social rebirth, Chief Mathias O. Abutu was also honored with a hard-earned cultural tittle. The unassuming quietly resolute-minded heroes of the historical event are of course Chief Nicholas Idoko Ejugwu, National Chairman of Owukpa Development Association, his Vice, Barr Boniface A. Apochi and all the Executive Committee members of the organization.
The gallery of cultural leaders from the length and breadth of Idoma land who graced the occasion and colorful renditions by fabled cultural dance-groups as captured by Wind Sound Africa camera lenses speak for themselves.