Issues as Egungun festival begins in Ogbomoso
PanNigerianNews
2 min read
The annual Egungun festival will, today, Wednesday, commence in Ogbomoso with an opening event of Olukotun masquerade and others staging an outing.
The event, which will have an amalgam of ‘Oje’ masquerades in Ogbomoso, is expected to take place at Olukotun compound, Taraa area, Ogbomoso this afternoon.
It would be recalled that the last year edition of the festival was not massively celebrated due to the COVID-19 pandemic that ravaged the world.
The Chairman of Egungun Parapo Association in Ogbomoso, Chief Ifatona Akinyemi, told newsmen that the one and a half week-long festival will kick off as it is the practice with a display by Olukotun, the Egungun trailblazer in the community.
He appealed to Egungun supporters to eschew violence and other criminal activities during the festival.
It is recalled that in 2021 the festival was characterized by lots of violence perpetrated by hoodlums who hijacked the process leading to brutal deaths of some followers.
“This was a measure considered last year before the demise of the late monarch, Oba Oladunni Oyewumi Ajagungbade, to forestall further violent exchanges among rival Egunguns and their supporters, on one hand, and street urchins, on the other,” a leader of Egbe Omo Ogbomoso Parapo Agbaaye, Alhaji Saka Bello Aremole, disclosed last year.
Amid the pandemonium, which is becoming a permanent feature of the once interesting festival that used to attract people from far and near, Okelerin indigenes are also turning against the micro-community continuing to serve as rendezvous for the unruly adherents of Egungun.
Earlier this year, a monarch, the Aale of Okeelerin, Oba Samuel Babatunde Amoo, convased for the replacement of the Egungun festival with “Okeelerin for Christ.”
Aside this, Okelerin residents generally are becoming increasingly averse to the pandemonium that now annually trails the festival and so now drive away troublemakers by pelting them with stones.
“What we were used to (in the past) was two rival Egunguns squaring up to each other, relying solely on supernatural powers for the confrontations amid cheering followers.
“They now follow Egunguns flaunting hard drugs and alcoholic drinks, which stimulate them to turn belligerent and wreak havocs,” Alagba Kasali added.
It is noted that the festival should have improved the economy of Ogbomoso and its environs because tourists are expected to throng the place, thereby adding to the economic fortune of the area.
There are special Egunguns like Danafojura with its balls of fire, Ajomogbodo with its space-sitting prowess, Kongba with its unequalled ability to pull unbelievably huge crowds, draw rain and attack enemies with bees, Ayilere that wallows in puddle of muddy water, Arenugbongi with its protruding mouth like beak of birds, Lobanika with its energetic displays, Lembe with its vast charms, Gbadebo Olokuneran, the one restrained by goat’s twine, Awodagbese with its magic of misfortune and fortune and so on, were real crowd pullers in the past.
….part of the story by Ogbomoso Insight.
