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By Young E. Freeborn, Warri
The ancient kingdom of Uwheru in Ughelli North Local Government Area of Delta State has ended her popular Ade traditional wrestling festival with a call on indigenes of the kingdom to give their support in various capacities or positions so as to “promote and protect the ancient cultural festival.”
The Ade wrestling festival, as was narrated by the highly respected Ade traditional chiefs (Ilorogun Ade) during the four-day cultural tournament, is celebrated every year to honour ‘Onidjor’, one of the powerful deities of the Uwheru people.
The festival is prelude to the harvesting of farm produce, especially the popular ‘Uwheru groundnuts,’ and also to mark the beginning of the raining season with the “pouring from the heavens of fresh and living water as symbols for blessings and health for the people.”
In a chat with our correspondent during the four-day cultural celebration which was held at the open field by the Uwheru local market, the president-general of the kingdom, Chief (Hon.) Macpherson Igbedi said, “The Uwheru Ade wrestling festival is an ancient and popular cultural festival in the state. It’s usually celebrated for four days and is highly competitive amongst all the major quarters that make up the Uwheru kingdom.
“It’s a time when our young and energetic youth display their wrestling skills and styles. The most powerful and most talented among them will always carry the day as the overall winner with different prizes and gifts. Each of the quarters that will meet each other during the wrestling contest have their own great wrestlers to count and rely on.
“This is why, I want to call on all Uwheru indigenes especially those that are doing great in businesses and those in government circles to always give us the needed support to promote this cultural festival and to also protect it from extinction. This cultural festival is our only identity, origin and history as a group of people in the country. This made us distinct and different from other people,” he said.
In the same way, Olorogun Cassius Okikie, one of the Ade traditional chiefs and a known Urhobo cultural promoter said, “We are known as Uwheru people because of the different cultural festivals we have and not by the number of churches in the kingdom. It’s the same in the whole of Urhobo land and also in the entire African continent.
“If we can make use of the present modern technology in the entertainment industry, this our Ade traditional wrestling festival can generate income for the community and also to make Uwheru a tourist centre every year. These are things many of us are neglecting or avoiding to do because if we do them, they may call us idol worshippers or pagans. This is one of the reasons why many of us especially those in the Diaspora, do not want to participate in this rich cultural celebration.
“It’s affecting so many communities in both Urhobo and Isoko ethnic groups. I want to call on the Urhobo Progress Union (UPU), the socio-cultural organization of the Urhobo people to do something meaningful about this ugly trend affecting the Urhobo culture and our general ways of life until all the Urhobo cultural festivals would be wiped away very soon,” he advised.
The Ade traditional wrestling festival ended at the Onidjor shrine in Egbo Quarters where prayers for peace, development, bountiful harvest, wealth and other abundant blessings were offered by the ‘Ogberha’ and ‘Ovie Ade’ (Chief priests) for the entire Uwheru kingdom on behalf of the other traditional chiefs.
