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By Young E. Freeborn, Warri
What looks like one of the greatest miracles of the 21st century has again happened at Uwheru town in Ughelli North Local Government Area of Delta State as a girl whose name was given as Miss Joy Ugbeta, 20, woke up from death after three days of being buried at her father’s compound in Urede quarters, Uwheru town.
Narrating the story to our correspondent during a visit to the scene of the incidence, the girl’s mother, Mrs. Alice Ugbeta, said, “I’m the girl’s mother. We are from Uwheru here, but we reside at Yenagoa, Bayelsa State.
“The father of these my children died long ago when my children were still very young. They were under my tutelage and parentage all this while. My brother, it’s a long story of pains and different challenges. To start with, the name of this my daughter is Joy Ugbeta. She is between the ages of 20 to 22. She is very hard-working and very supportive to me in the management of our home.”
The woman, whose face was drained with tears said, “On Friday 9th this month, after she returned from her place of work, we did together household chores, ate and went to bed peacefully and happily. In the middle of the night, she woke me from sleep, telling me that, she’s feeling cold. Truly, I saw her shivering seriously. There was nothing we could do that night than to pray. In the morning, we went to our pastor who also prayed for her. After that, we now decided to take her to the hospital for treatment. As the doctor was administering treatment on her, the case became worse and worse. Finally, she gave up the ghost around 6pm on that Saturday.
“There was nothing we could do again. We made arrangements and the corpse was brought home to her father’s compound here at Urede quarters. After both family members gathered, they called me and I also told them the story of what happened. On Sunday morning, the body was buried in this compound. Then, after three days of the burial, some of her friends in Bayelsa State and other places came to us with the news that Joy appeared to them in a dream telling them that, she was not dead. That she was only on a judgement before God. And now, she won and wanted to come out, but she was forced into the grave. They now said that, Joy instructed them to come to me and members of her father’s family to exhume her body from the grave now.”
“My brother, it was a terrible story. I was shocked because these people came from different places and at different times. They were people that didn’t know each other. We meet with the father’s family, but there was a little resistance as a result of unbelief because nobody has heard of such a story before. After a long time of debate, some of the members of the family now agreed that the body should be exhumed. Truly, the body was exhumed. The sand was removed from the grave, and when the casket was opened, she sat down on it. At that time, the body especially the head and the two hands were badly injured as she was struggling in the casket. At first, people ran because it hasn’t been seen anywhere. They later came back to carry her from the casket. They took her from the casket and put her on a chair. She was very weak and couldn’t talk immediately. But the body was very warm, fresh, strong and no smell of offensive odour from it.”
The girl’s elder brother and also the eldest son of the parents, Mr. Emmanuel Ugbeta, have this to add, “After all this, different prophecies and revelations started coming from different traditionalists and traditional medicine practitioners that, my sister is possessed by one of the community’s deities called Ophior.
“The Ophior is a female deity according to them. That the deity had chosen her as her priestess right from the womb; and ever since, my sister had been refusing to accept to worship her. After all this, we really went to the chief priest of Ophior called Ogboidje to do our own findings. Truly, he confirmed to us that my sister was possessed by the said deity. We now enquired of the solution to make her talk and strong. The chief priest now counted for us certain things to buy to make sacrifice and appease the deity. As I speak, we have bought those things waiting the day of the sacrifice. The chief priest also promised us that, the deity said after seven days from the day my sister’s body was exhumed from the grave before she would talk and become strong again. We have hope on this because the body is very warm and fresh, even till this very moment.”
This story was also supported by Dr. Oneki Onitsha, the chairman of National Association of Traditional Medicine Practitioners, Uwheru chapter and also a neighbour sharing common boundary with the girl’s family compound.
The meeting was also witnessed by some members of the Ugbeta family like Mr. Moses Eyoro and Mr. Ejakpovi Ugbesie. The visit by our correspondent to the scene of the incidence ended in the room where the body of Miss Joy Ugbeta was lying. The body was warm and fresh and no offensive odour was oozing out around the vicinity as of the odour of a dead person or animal. But there was no normal breathing coming from her as at the time of filing this report.
