Horrific images of women apparently stripped naked and molested on the street by hordes of men during a “fertility festival” in Nigeria prompted outrage globally this weekend — but when the incidents occurred, local Nigerian leaders justified the festival as a traditional practice and chided women for being outside at all.
The incident in question was the Alue-Do Festival in Delta State, Nigeria, a tradition among the Uruamudhu community in the Ozoro Kingdom. Delta state lies on the southern tip of Nigeria, along the Atlantic coast, in the half of the country with a predominantly Christian population. While Christianity is believed to be the most popular religion in Delta, a variety of tribal religions also thrive there, and anti-Christian violence has been documented in the state, though not to the degree with which it is common in the majority-Muslim north.
The Alue-Do festival does not occur annually, and locals told Nigerian media that the last such festival took place in 2022 without incident. Breitbart News could not independently find news coverage of sexual violence or other disturbances in the 2022 edition of the festival, nor evidence of it receiving any local coverage in the media at the time.
The festival is allegedly an event for couples struggling to have children to engage in rituals to attract fertility. For part of the festival, women are reportedly forced to stay indoors and chased away if they violate protocol.
Videos of the event this year, which took place in mid-March, do not show playful “chasing,” as some local leaders claimed. Throngs of large, violent men are seen shouting and apprehending random women on the street, taking their clothes off and molesting them. Some reports indicated that some women were raped, though police insisted they had not received any complaints of rape specifically. The videos began circulating once again this weekend at news outlets such as France 24, the New York Post, India’s NDTV, and Australia’s News.com.au.
Warning – Graphic images:
“Videos of the attacks have been viewed millions of times across Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly known as Twitter),” the Australian outlet explained on Sunday, “with many viewers shocked not only by the blatant violence, but how it was carried out in broad daylight and without intervention.”
Quoting a reported victim, the New York Post described a scene in which the mob descended on random women “like bees” to disrobe and violate them, some lucky women being retrieved from the scene but only after losing their clothing.
On March 25, in the immediate aftermath of the festival, the harrowing scenes had already begun circulating throughout Nigeria, reportedly causing embarrassment for the tribal leadership in Ozoro, which aggressively defended its festivals. Leaders insisted that a small group of alleged criminal outsiders were responsible for the chaos and police claimed they had not received any official complaints of rape, only molestation.
Tribal Chief Berkley Asiafa and Secretary of the Ozoro Kingdom Prince Obaro Egware issued a statement scolding the public outside of the region for their “wrong impression” of the event, apparently taking no responsibility for the violence.
“It has come to our attention that some youths misinterpreted and misapplied this cultural practice in a negative and unacceptable manner,” the leaders conceded, according to the Nigerian newspaper Vanguard.
“We wish to clearly state that reports circulating on social media alleging that rape and widespread atrocities occurred during the festival are false and misleading,” the statement continued. “No incidents of rape were recorded. The situation involved the harassment of two young women by individuals who took advantage of the occasion to act irresponsibly.”
The leaders went on to insist that the festival is “widely believed to be a cultural practice that brings blessings of children to individuals or couples experiencing difficulty in childbirth.” As part of the festival, they insisted, “the act of playfully dragging and pouring sand on married individuals” occurs, conflating these acts with the incidents documented on video.
“We urge the public to disregard false reports and refrain from spreading misinformation that may tarnish the image of our cherished cultural heritage,” they concluded.
The Daily Trust, another newspaper in Nigeria, quoted Asiafa, the chief, as dismissing the possibility of public rape in Africa.
“It is not easy to rape a woman in public in Africa. About 30 boys raping one woman? It is not possible because they would be arrested,” he allegedly claimed. The Daily Trust quoted the chief as placing the blame for the incident on “some boys who were drinking and smoking Indian hemp.”
Defenders of the fertility festival, according to Vanguard, blamed the victims for staying outside after a “town crier” announced that they were now forbidding women from being outside. The newspaper added, however, that those loudspeaker messages were made in the local Isoko language and reportedly not understood by many of those attacked, some identified as students at a nearby college who did not grow up in the area.
“Announcements are made within the community during the festival that women should be indoors at a time,” an unidentified “netizen” complained. “To make it more effective, that is why they use the word rape to scare the women from moving at that particular time of the festival. Any woman or girl who is a victim may have her own explanation as to why she is on the street at that hour of the night.”
Evidence has surfaced that even this thin justification of the official “town crier” announcement is disputed. The Daily Trust quoted a local, identified as “Samuel,” who insisted “there was no formal notification, clear guidance or community-wide sensitisation.”
Authorities confirmed that they had arrested 18 people as of late March in connection with the incidents, but also stated they had not had any women come forward with rape allegations.
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