Kamsi Anayo, Awka
Piqued by the current security situation in Anambra, the Okija Community in Ihiala Local Government Area of the state, has invoked all the deities in the community for protection of the citizens and spiritual warfare against gunmen and other people masterminding or perpetrating different kinds of crimes in the community.
A viral online video shows the villagers trooping out en masse to perform a ritual to that effect, during which they also laid curses on anybody or any group that would attempt to perpetrate or indulge in any crime in the community henceforth, be it killings, kidnapping or other related crimes.
Armed with about fifteen deities, including ogwugwu Okija, Ulasi and other deities in the community, the people were led in the spiritual cleansing and invocation ritual by the Spiritual Head of Ezi-Odinamma Okija, Chief Priest, Ozo Calistus Ahize (Onatara Dike Nma), who was accompanied by other traditionalists in the community.
Speaking on the significance of the ritual, the Chief Priest, Ọzọ Ahize said that the community had been fighting insecurity for long noting that Okija land has never been comfortable with gunmen and other perpetrators of related crimes, whom, he said, are not from the community.
He also assured that intensified spiritual warfare from the deities would be invoked upon such people, irrespective of their places of origin.
He said: “All the deities in Okija, about 15 of them, led by Ulasi and the Ogwugwu-Akpu, Ogwugwu-Isiula, Ogwugwu-Abogu, Ogwugwu-Miri, and the rest, have been invoked to fight against kidnapping and ritual killings by the ‘Unknown Gunmen.’
“We have been fighting them and they know that Okija has never been comfortable with them, and these people are not from Okija; they came to our community to cause trouble and we have given them a good run for their money. Some of them who claim that they are real native doctors have run away and there are some that felt that nothing would happen.
“But, today, they have become history because the deities have carried the war to them, and more heads would certainly roll in Okija even if there are natives from our town who are involved in this act of criminality.”
Some suspected native doctors allegedly working with Gunmen fled the Okija Community to evade the wrath of the deities.
Reports have it that a recent gun duel between ‘Unknown Gunmen’ and the operatives of the Anambra State Joint Security Task Force at Ihiala town, in which some of the Gunmen were killed and arrested, made some of their native doctors to relocate to Okija, which is a neighbouring community to Ihiala.
They have continued perpetrating their evil acts from there thereby making the community to invoke their deities to engage them and their accomplices in a spiritual warfare.
