Blood on Oghara Farm Road: Delta’s kidnap kingdom, where a trip to harvest cassava could cost your life

The once historic 'Gateway to Urhobo land,' Oghara Kingdom in Delta State, Nigeria, is now gripped by pervasive fear, transforming a farm road into a place of dread. What was once a path for transporting harvests has become a site of violence, with residents facing a constant threat of kidnapping and death.

Victims' stories paint a grim picture of the escalating crisis. One woman, Mrs. Adojor, learned of her husband Vincent Adojor's death not through official channels, but from a neighbor while she was hospitalized after her own abduction. Her husband was shot while walking home from the farm, a path they had traversed countless times before.

“

I never knew my husband was dead. I thought he had only been shot and was receiving treatment in a hospital.

"I never knew my husband was dead. I thought he had only been shot and was receiving treatment in a hospital," she recounted, her voice strained by grief. Her captors had brutalized her and pushed her deeper into the bush after shooting her husband, seemingly unfazed by the violence.

This pervasive insecurity affects every aspect of life in Oghara, a town that hosts a Teaching Hospital, Polytechnic, Naval Base, and Police Mobile Force Unit. The kingdom's monarch, Orefe III, the Ovie of Oghara Kingdom, expressed deep weariness, stating that kidnappings and killings have become a "recurring decimal" since January. "There’s no month since January to date that we don’t have kidnapping, killing," he lamented, highlighting the relentless nature of the violence plaguing the community.

“

Since January to date, every month, it’s become a recurring decimal. There’s no month since January to date that we don’t have kidnapping, killing.