The tail end of last week up to this moment (Monday, June 16th, 2025) has been a violent regime, from Yalewata in Benue State to Kyiv in Ukraine, then Tehran and Tel Aviv. These are the latest sites of extreme violence, without forgetting Gaza.
Spectacle!
But it has also been a week of marital events, one of which Intervention attended in Abuja. It would be difficult to count the number of weddings that took place in Abuja alone that day, not to talk of Nigeria, Africa and even in the hottest sites of violence across the world. Perhaps, that is how the world works: the more we slaughter ourselves by inventing one reason or another for it, the more is the need for more babies. Marriage is the mechanism most widely accepted mechanism for doing that at the moment.
So, it was the turn of Emmanuel and Kate to be wedded on June 14th, 2025. It was an interesting event, becoming a meeting ground where people separated by survival for years run into each other again. In one case, Intervention passed someone who was a toddler at the last seeing but now a seamstress in her own right.
A face of the Adulugba family at the wedding. Unfortunately, Intervention missed them dancing into the arena
Emmanuel and Kate were a spectacle with their pervasive circle of friends, all dressed in dark blue, irrespective of gender. It is all part of what makes weddings fascinating nowadays. The innovations are multiple. So much so that the cultural, the religious and the creative have fused into what doesn’t appear to have a name yet, certainly not an Idoma name. There isn’t that difference anymore between how they dance at weddings in Idomaland now from how they do it at burials and inside the church. Whoever can dance well in one of these places can do so in all the rest, be it ‘aja’, ‘alime’, ‘oglinya’ or whichever.
The only exception is probably Israel Okere’s number – Gwumolo l’Owoicho’ which moves everyone, including non-Idoma, irrespective of where it is played. Children born to Idoma parents in Australia, Canada, United States, United Kingdom and what have you who do not understand Idoma find themselves on the floor when Okere’s ‘Gwumolo l’Owoicho’ is played. The narrative verve there, the beating and the danceability are simply incredible.
Yet another face, Madam Orchii!
It was not the number that Emmanuel and Kate danced. It was the other Idoma musical anthem – Amalia – they danced. Emmanuel was obviously so fulfilled, if his bodywork in rocking the number was anything to go by.
What a very exciting thing meeting many members of the Adulugbas family from Edumoga District in Idomaland at the weeding. That is the bride’s maternal side, particularly Oganya aka Orgii, the bride’s mother. In Kano years back, these were children with nicknames mocking each’s peculiar mannerisms – Tobos, Longer Throat, etc. Today, some are Honourables, others are very well established seamstresses and even newly wedded! The young have grown. Who says we are not making progress, in spite of everything?
