Fake Spirituality: The Ozoro rape festival, by Ugoji Egbujo

Despite every attempt to feign surprise and douse the outrage, this festival and its violence against women did not erupt overnight. If a fertility tradition had long gone cancerous, why wait for it to consume the community?

The pictures told the story. Hordes of boys marched through the streets of Ozoro like packs of hyenas hunting for girls to devour. When one was spotted—perhaps riding a bike—she was dragged down, her clothes ripped in broad daylight, and a thousand filthy  hands groped her. All the dogs sought their turn.

While the cornered girl begged and bleated, and her attackers poked and grabbed, across the street, the audience cackled and filmed. That complete absence of any sense of repugnance will scar the girls irreparably. On that day in Ozoro , tradition made every girl fair game—a sheep in the den of ravenous wolves right in her own community. Granted, this is not the original culture. But the idea that these boys invented the new one is nonsense. If a culture had mutated, why was it not promptly amputated?

This year’s festival may be the first to ignite national outrage. But it wasnt probably the most henious. Women who attended schools around Delta State have now come forward with their sordid ordeals from years past. A nurse recounted how, as a student, she was on her way to the market when her bike ran into a horde of boys. The Okada rider told her to cover her face and brace herself because he was not stopping. She knew nothing of the festival; she had no idea she was in trouble. The rider smashed through the blockade and blazed for safety . The boys gave chase. Only the security personnel at the nursing school gate saved her from the mob observing their rape festival.

It is not limited to Ozoro. Many communities in Delta now share this depraved culture. It was once a genuine fertility festival. Women seeking the fruit of the womb stayed indoors while older women performed the rites on them. The community beseeched the ancestors to intervene and banish barenness . Women found outside were simply chased home. But the moment enforcement began to include stripping and harassment, the communities should have realised the festival had become a rape feast.

It is heartwrenching to watch young ladies sent to school by their parents chased through the streets like animals while people cheer. That cheering reveals communal complicity. Traditional rulers, local government, police, religious institutions, state government—all stood by. A festival of mass sexual violence against women is not a paroxysm of mass stupidity.  It  is proof of chronic societal degeneration.

The Ozoro traditional ruler claimed he was not informed. So the chief priest acted alone? Did the chief priest also  invent the festival? The traditional ruler’s Pontius Pilate act was unsurprising, but he seemed far more troubled by social media’s exposure of the atrocity and the reputational damage than by the substance of the trauma inflicted on the victims and the womenfolk at large. That disposition however  is pervasive across every cadre of leadership in Nigeria, where optics always trump substance. This is why the demonic festival has survived. Twenty years ago the story would have been killed with a few bundles of cash dropped in the right places. Newspapers would have vanished from the stands.

The Student Union also claimed it was not informed too. Perhaps, if it had been, it could have hidden the female students indoors until the chief priest called it off or until the dogs had finished with the other unfortunate women in the community. And if any “stupid” student ventured out, she would bear her cross. These lame excuses explain why such festivals endure. Not once did the union leaders cast a direct, piercing  condemnation at a useless ritual that now delivers trauma instead of fertility. They sounded pathetic, announcing themselves as “the eyes and ears of their great governor.” In the midst of this monumental failure by society and state to protect female students and women, they shamelessly declared themselves stooges. How can a festival that seeks to selectively confine women indoors not be inherently oppressive in 2026?

The police were nowhere to be seen while the wild dogs and hyenas roamed the streets, hunting and devouring their prey. At the press conference held only after the President’s wife condemned the festival, the police announced that none of the victims had complained of rape. Do we care about police response time during an emergency? It was sad to hear the police cavalierly announce there was no complaint of rape. Suggesting that, without reported penetration, the entire episode was perhaps a storm in a teacup. What was the point of fixating on penetration at that moment? The psychological damage a girl suffers at the hands of thirty boys tearing at her while onlookers laugh as if watching a Roman theatre cannot be measured. The police should know that most girls will not admit penetration because of stigma, and that penetration should never have been the priority so early in the investigation. The videos showed clear attempted rape .  This is why the demonic festival has survived: institutions working tirelessly to deny its ferocity and perform late, self-serving damage control. The police should be ashamed that the boys did not even bother to cover their faces. 

Nigeria is a hyper-religious society, yet ethical consciousness is paper-thin. The chief priest declared a fertility festival he knew had acquired far darker connotations. As culpable as he was, no one saw him chasing and groping girls himself. Those who sexually assaulted the girls and those who cheered them on were probably not all devotees of his shrine. They included people who waste half their lives pretending to worship God or some deity elsewhere. This embrace of fake spirituality has ruined the country. Drug dealers and Yahoo boys do not simply commit their crimes; they beseech the gods with earnestness to help them. Rogue politicians are always in church giving glory to God after rigging elections and bribing judges steal power. That is why none of the youths feared that the Ozoro deity would send thunder upon them for perverting the festival from fertility rite to violent sexual orgy. What defilement of the land could be worse than mass sexual harassment and rape? On the other hand, what havent we successfully corrupted .  Haven’t we  come to treat gods and religions as perfectly compatible with fraud and deception too?

In the past, the deity of that festival would have dropped monkeypox on the bodies of the dogs who perverted a sacred festival. At least that belief would have deterred the madness. But now these expired deities are hired to do more harm than good—so much so that they no longer recognise evil. Authentic ancient spirituality is dead. It has lost both myth and potency. It has virtually been demystified and  replaced by rationality and modern beliefs.  That evolution would not have been problematic if the rule of law and the criminal justice system were as effective as Amadioha once was at deterring crime. We borrowed from the West. We got only the shell.   We now  have counterfeit, manifestly ineffectual spirituality and a corrupt, clumsy, impunity-propagating criminal justice system. Modernity killed the old fear of Amadioha without installing reliable rule of law. So we are toast.

We must ban or radically reform every festival whose “tradition” relies on terrorising or subjugating people—especially women. Traditions that cannot evolve to respect human dignity and women’s rights should not survive. If we do not amputate now, the infection will spread.

We must arrest and prosecute every act of sexual harassment—including whistling at and groping women in markets and bus stations. 

Nigeria must maintain and publish a sexual offenders register.

Communities and leaders must prioritise victims’ trauma over reputational damage and optics.

Women and youth groups must push back harder so that communal complicity becomes politically and socially expensive.

We have work to do.

The combination of fake spirituality and the near absence of predictable consequences for crimes is breeding a frightening society.

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