Sometimes one wonders if the excesses of culture and tradition are above
the law, especially in our society where emergence of some unbelievable happenings. Our recent focus on Okpowo Okpo town in
Igbo-Eze North Local Government area of Enugu State in South East Nigeria has revealed that there is urgent need to probably send another batch of white missionaries and the members of Human Rights Organizations to sensitize communities on some of their barbaric and heinous occurrences obtained in this century.
In other parts of the country and even globally it’s an enviable position to be born in a royal family but for the members of the Royal family in Okpowo Okpo it’s a different ball game; especially when one adopts Christianity as his religion. The adoption of Christianity has resulted to several infractions against the culture of the people of Okpowo-Okpo community who are still very much deep rooted in their cultures and traditions and would not spare anyone or group opposed to it.
The case of Mr. Eze Kingsley Chinedu is one of such; a Prince by birth to the royal family of late Eze Obike Ogbonna of Okpo Enugu-Ezike in Igbo-Eze North LGA of Enugu state. The Okpo community revere their age long Igba-Ekpe custom as it is required of every male child to partake and highly compulsory for male members of the royal family, as it is described as a means of ridding off weaklings from its royalty.
Indications are that the Igba-Ekpe custom requires two levels of initiation before one becomes a full fledged member and it involves some heinous sacrifices, rituals and blood oath but Mr.Kingsley, a crowned prince who had decided to quit the Ekpe fraternity for the love of his new found faith-Christianity, hence had gone ahead to fix date for his Church wedding having denounced the group hence failed to present himself for the second initiation and his botched marriage on February 24,2019, became his greatest offence to his community.
At this point Mr. Kingsley had crossed the red line and Ekpe fraternity was not ready to allow this act of sacrilege committed by a crown prince .The cult group responded with unimaginable spiritual attacks . According to reliable source Kingsley’s fiancee died mysteriously a day to their wedding with strong believe by Kingsley that the Ekpe fraternity is responsible for her death. Information at our disposal reveal that Kingsley went on self exile while his mother and siblings have been ostracized by his community for his actions.
A native of the community who spoke on condition of anonymity emphasized that EKPE is ruthless; hence that there is no hiding place for anyone who goes against it. Hitherto; government, civil society groups as well as religious bodies are called to exert efforts to eradicating all kinds of inhuman, primitivity and barbarism in some communities. There is also an urgent need for the Enugu state government to investigate and act accordingly the case of KINGSLEY EZE and many others before grievous damages are done.
