"Late in 1994, an 87 year
old man passed on in a village close to Amai, Kwale, Delta State. The late
man's grandson, Ufiaka (26 years old and fairly educated), was given some money
and asked to travel to Agbor to buy a fine casket for his grand pa's burial.
Ufiaka left base early and arrived Agbor in good time to purchase the casket
and make the return journey same day.
He was fortunate to get an open
back white coloured Peugeot 404 pickup heading for Amai. He, however, had to
ride in the back of the pickup with the casket because two market women
travelling to Amai were already seated in front with the driver.
On the home journey, they ran
into a heavy rain storm close to Uronigbe and Ufiaka quickly opened the casket,
lay himself nicely in the well padded interior, covered the lid and used the
folded newspaper he had with him to leave a small opening between the lid and
the main body of the white casket to ensure adequate ventilation.
The interior of the casket was
very comfortable and Ufiaka soon fell into a very deep sleep.
The rain had subsided at the time
the pickup van arrived at Umutu and during a brief stop there, two men
travelling to Amai boarded the vehicle at the back and the same happened at
Ubiaruku where a man and a woman travelling also to Amai entered the vehicle.
All this while, Ufiaka was enjoying his beauty sleep inside the Casket
completely unaware of the new passengers who boarded at Umutu and Ubiaruku.
The pickup van arrived Amai just
after 5p.m. and the driver, who was now very hungry, stopped in front of a busy
bukataria to have a quick bite before proceeding onto the next village.
The sudden stoppage and revving
of the pickup's engine woke Ufiaka who then opened the lid of the casket and
rose up.
Trouble come start!
The passengers in the back of the
pickup jumped out of the vehicle from various points and took to their heels in
various directions.
The people eating in the buka (including
the mama-put and her service girls) who saw the white casket open, and a
"ghost" step out, ran off all over the place some with balls of eba
and akpu in their hands.
Ufiaka, seeing people running
'helta skelta' was convinced that armed robbers were operating and decided to
take-off in the direction three of the passengers, including the woman, were
running. When the three passengers realised that Ufiaka was running towards
them, they increased their speed and shouted "ghost! ghost!" and, to
further worsen the situation, Ufiaka was dressed in white up and down with
white shoes to match that day.
With the shouting of 'ghost',
other people in their homes came out to see what was going on and on seeing
people running at high speed all over, they joined in the race for their dear
life and the number just swelled.
The driver and the two market
women were the only people who knew what was going on and they had a hell of a
time calming the people down and explaining that … he merely needed shelter,
while it was raining.
it was really serious...."
COPIED
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