This happened many years
ago..
Late in 1994, an 87 year old
man died in a village
close to Amai, Kwale, Delta
State. The late man's grand son,
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 colored
Peugeot 404 pickup heading for
Amai. He, however, had
to ride in the back of the pickup
with the casket because
two market women traveling 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
traveling to Amai boarded the
vehicle at the back and the same happened at
Ubiaruku where a man and a
woman traveling 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
reviving 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
realized that Ufiaka was
running towards them, they increased their speed and
shouted "ghost! 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 on
going and they had a hell of a time calming the people
down and explaining that …
he merely needed shelter,
while it was raining.

Lwkmd