I woke up yesterday to the videos of the ‘Ozoro Festival’ on my Twitter (X) timeline, and my immediate reaction was shock and disbelief. I couldn’t even bring myself to watch the videos and I still have not. It felt too disturbing to process in full. At first, I could only make sense of it as a possible distortion of a cultural event into something deeply barbaric, because the alternative was too difficult to accept.
I also reached out to my dad, mum, and uncles, who all grew up in Delta (though not in Ozoro), to get a clearer sense of context. None of them had ever heard of any “rape festival” or any cultural practice where rape is a recognised or accepted part of a festival. That, in itself, is telling.
It suggests that what we are seeing may not be culture in its true sense, but rather the corruption or exploitation of cultural space by individuals acting out violent and criminal tendencies.
But then I started reading the comments, until this morning and a worrisome pattern stood out for me.
I saw people saying things like “thank God it didn’t happen in the North”, “Ozoro is not Igbo”, “Ozoro is different from Oleh”, “not all men in Ozoro”, or drawing careful lines between Isoko and Urhobo, as though the most urgent or important task was to distance identity from the act. And in that moment, my reaction shifted from shock to concern.
Because what that revealed was not just outrage; it revealed a lack of deductive reasoning.
In moments like this, what we need is the ability to move from what happened to why it happened and what it means going forward. Deductive reasoning helps us connect present events to underlying conditions, and then project what those conditions could produce in the future if left unchallenged.
But when the immediate response is to distance ourselves – by region, ethnicity, religion or identity – we interrupt that process. Instead of interrogating causes, we protect group image. Instead of learning, we deflect. And in doing so, we lose the opportunity to prevent future occurrences. We stop asking the hard questions.
For me, this is not abstract. I grew up in the South-West, where traditions like the Oro festival often restrict movement, especially for women. Growing up, it was normalised. But looking back, I cannot ignore how exclusionary practices like that create environments where certain groups are made vulnerable simply because of who they are.
And that is where my belief comes from: that culture should not be exclusionary. The moment it is, it creates a power imbalance. And where there is unchecked power imbalance, there is always the risk of abuse.
And history shows us that exclusionary environments often become breeding grounds for exactly that. When systems, whether cultural or institutional, create conditions where some people have unchecked control over others, abuse finds room to grow.
We see similar patterns elsewhere. During election curfews, for instance, there have been repeated accounts of uniformed officers exploiting that power imbalance to harass, assault, or extort citizens. The structure provides cover, and individuals with harmful intent take advantage of it.
The pattern is consistent: when accountability is weak and vulnerability is concentrated, abuse becomes more likely.
This is why deductive reasoning matters here. If we can identify the conditions; exclusion, lack of accountability, power imbalance, then we can also recognise that if those conditions persist, similar incidents are not just possible; they are predictable.
And if they are predictable, they are preventable.
So instead of saying “this is not us”, perhaps the more useful questions are: Where do these exclusionary practices exist around us?, what vulnerabilities do they create? and what are we doing to ensure they are not exploited?
This is not about blaming any one group or region. It is about recognising that no society is immune when harmful structures are left unexamined.
Because the uncomfortable truth is, the sum of many of our cultural practices, across regions, has historically –and presently– involved the marginalisation of women in one form or another. Ignoring that reality does not protect us from it; it only makes it easier for worse expressions of it to emerge elsewhere.
Almost a day after seeing the news, I am still unsettled. It is sad, shameful, and deeply troubling. But more than anything, it is a reminder that culture, if left unquestioned, especially when it excludes, can become a vehicle for harm rather than identity.
And that is something we all have a responsibility to confront.
