The 2016 edition of the annual Osun/Osogbo festival may have ended, but the takeaways from the event have not faded off so soon.
NAIJ.com crew visited the palace of the Ataoja of Osogbo, the sacred grove in Osogbo, the Osun state capital and captured every interesting moment from the colourful ceremony.
The Arugba (the young girl who carries the calabash with Yeye Osun’s authority on her head) made her entry into the palace with every one who had come to the state for prayers immediately presenting their cases to the deity expected to answer their prayers.
After her appearance inside the palace, she went to the sacred shrine to carry the calabash on her head and after some sacrifices and ceremonies, leaves for the sacred grove (about 1 kilometre from the palace) on foot with a crowd of people following her.
Her arrival at the grove is met with a lot of excitement as people are always seen putting their hands over their heads, casting and binding all the evils in their lives off with the hope that their prayers would be answered with the authority of the goddess.
Our sources at the grove revealed that the young girl is a teenager who is about 15 years old and as is the tradition, was carefully chosen by the oracle to determine her eligibility to carry the dreaded calabash.
With the celebration reaching its climax on Friday, August 21, a lot of people thronged the Osun state capital, especially the devotees of the goddess, as they mark the end of another successful Osun year.
But sources in the state revealed exclusively to our correspondents how Pr@.$t!tutes come to the river goddess every year to get blessings for their business.
“Like every other businessman or woman, Pr@.$t!tutes also come here every year to pray for success in their trade since that is where they make their daily living from,” the source who preferred anonymity told NAIJ.com in Yoruba.
Speaking further, the lady informed that because the river goddess is quite kind and gives blessings to those who request for them, the commercial S3@.x:’ workers seem to come every year.
She added: “The ladies often dress like routine people and come to make their demands as soon as the Arugba appears. They fetch water from the river and take along with them to their residence. I have met a few guys who have told me that they have had a fair share of the Pr@.$t!tutes who come for the annual festival.
“This is a place where people cannot just make promises and fail to fulfill them with the assumption that goddess will forget about them. Anyone who reneges on his promises will be severely dealt with by the Yeye Osun.”
NAIJ.com crew also gathered that several people have been ripped off their phones and possessions during the period of the festival.
“I lost my phone to some of the hoodlums that come here every year, especially as there is a large procession that follows the Arugba to the sacred grove as well as those who go to the river to offer sacrifices to the Yeye Osun for blessings.
“It is painful that such things could happen during a festival expected to unite us as indigenes of Osun and one where we expect to receive blessings from the goddess. I just hope that those guys who come here for the purpose of stealing will have a change of heart some day.
“I am totally pained by this terrible act by these people,” the young man lamented.
During the visit also, our correspondents saw several young men smoking Indian Hemp and were in compromising positions as people kept pouring into the venue of the event.
People were seen meeting with different devotees of the goddess to ask them for prayers and different other requests during the week-long event.
Below are photos from the different prayer sessions:
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