3 days deliverance ceremony - Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani’s Family Atoned For the Sins of Their Great-Grand Father Who Was a Slave Trader

In a recent article published in The NewYorker, “My Great-Grandfather, The Nigerian Slave-Trader” Adaobi revealed that her great-grandfather, Nwaubani Ogogo Oriaku was a slave trader who gained power and wealth by selling other Africans across the Atlantic.
He was well-known in the business that he was nicknamed Nwaubani, which means “from the Bonny port region,” and that became their family name till date.




In the late 19th century, he acquired a slave trade license from Royal Niger Company, an English corporation governing southern Nigeria and his agents were captured by slaves throughout the region and passed it to middlemen selling them to white merchants. Even if slavery was removed from the US and UK, his slaves were legally sent to Cuba and Brazil. According to Ayaobi, the chains of his slaves are said to be very heavy, his father may slightly lift them as a child. Ayaobi explained that when he was eight, he saw a row of ugly trees where his great-grandfather took his servants. His great-grandfather was very good as he was appointed leader of several peoples. He led court cases, set up churches and schools and built a guesthouse where he hosted British dignitaries. Her local leaders also give her daughters a change for her favor. At his death, a leopard was killed and six slaves were buried alive with him. Ayaobi grew up to learn about the exploitation of his great-grandfather. Infact, his name was found in a textbook on slave trade in the 1960s. Last year, Adaobi's father was invited by an Anglican church to his village to come and receive a tribute on behalf of his great-grandfather to ensure the safety of the first missionaries in the region. Nevertheless, Adaobi's long-lost father and father's disappearance, members of the extended family, especially the generation of Ayaobi, have become uncomfortable with their family history.
Meanwhile, Adaobi’s great-grandfather was also believed to have acquired spiritual powers from a shrine, which he used to control the white colonialists. His allegiance to the shrine mandated him to cut a human head straight into a pot, without it touching the floor and the people used were said to be most likely  slaves.
All of Adaobi’s great-grandfather’s actions in the past got members of the family worried especially with the growing enmity creeping in.
“Across Igbo land, wherever there was slave trade with the white people, things never go well. They always have problems there. Everybody has noticed it,” Adaobi’s cousin said, noting that their family’s history was coming back to haunt them.


So, the family decided to hold a 3 days deliverance ceremony. Family members around the world would fast and pray, while Adaobi’s father (he has never been ashamed of his grandfather’s involvement in slave trade because it was legitimate at the time) sent bible passages to them.
While some members of the family met in small groups in London, Atlanta and Johannesburg, some talked on the phone, and others chatted on social media.
“Thirty members gathered under a canopy in my parent’s yard. With tears in his eyes, my father explained that, in Nwaubani Ogogo’s day, selling and sacrificing human beings was common practice, but that now we know it to be deeply offensive to God. He thanked God for the honor and prestige bestowed on our family through my great-grandfather and asked God’s forgiveness for the atrocities he committed.
During the ceremony, I was overwhelmed with relief. My family was finally taking a step beyond whispering and worrying. Of course, nothing can undo the harm that Nwaubani Ogogo caused. Still, it felt important for my family to publicly denounce its role in the slave trade,” Adaobi wrote.




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