This year’s Amaseikumor festival pulled eminent personalities and ministers to the riverine Oporoza Community, in Delta State, the home town of former Niger Delta agitator, Government Ekpemukpolo, popularly known as Tompolo.
The Minister of Aviation, Festus Keyamo, Minister of State, Petroleum Resources, Heineken Lokpobiri, the Ooni of Ife, eight senators, nine House of Representatives members, Bayelsa and Delta Houses of Assembly Speakers, as well as members, were among many other dignitaries who attended the festival.
The Amaseikumor festival, a yearly cleansing ritual, is one of the ancient traditional celebrations of the Gbaramatu people, which was handed to them by their forebears.
The pilgrimage-like festival and revival of Amaseikumor worship is believed to have been rekindled under the leadership of Tompolo.
Besides the land cleansing rites by the Amaseikumor, the festival also showcased dance troupes from various Ijaw kingdoms, traditional wrestling and tug-of-war competition.
The Pere of Gbaramatu Kingdom, HRM Oboro Gbaraun II Aketekpe Agadagba, while calling for unity among all Ijaw people in other states, said that the Amaseikumor festival is significant because, at the end of the celebration, the people of Gbaramatu kingdom usually enjoy unprecedented peace and unity within and outside the kingdom, and that the Amaseikumor is a deity of peace. He added that the festival also ushered in prosperity and protection.
Prof. Benedict Binebai, who presented a lecture on “religious festivals and the burden of social transformation,” said that the Amaseikumor festival is held in Oporoza, because it’s the modern Ijaw centre of liberation.
