By Patrick Ochei
Mgba-Ututu, meaning local wrestling in Issele-Uku parlance, is a date in the Ine Aho Festival calendar when our local boys and girls come into the ring to show their strengths by challenging opponents to a wrestling bout.
This is an age long tradition that has proven its worth and importance to the sanctity of human strength in a convivial atmosphere.
It used to be men’s affair, but these days, the young ones have taken over, thereby bringing funfair into it. Those days, winners of Mgba-Ututu were highly respected, because to beat a fellow man takes a higher power to achieve and it brings honour to the winner.
It was the result of the inherent glamour in this feast of strength that made the Abuja chapter of IPYA to demand an approval for sponsorship of the Mgba-Ututu, which they got and have kept faith with over the years.
This 2023 edition of Mgba-Ututu was unique, in the sense that prizes won were in food value, considering the times we are in economically. That means there is no strength lost without commensurate value in food, to replenish for another day.
In jubilant moods and ecstatic ovations, not less than 18 winners in different categories of the wrestling competition emerged, and prizes ranging from 50kg of rice, 25kg of rice and groundnut oil were presented to them by His Royal Majesty, Agbogidi Obi Nduka, and Her Royal Majesty, Anasi-Obi Chukwudumebi Rosemary Nduka.
