CHAPTER
1
HE LEGENDRY JOURNEY OF FAME AGIDIFE
Birth
Famous Ufuoma Otunoakpowoke
Agidife; born on august 20th, 1977, at Afisiere, Ughele north local
government area of Delta State of Nigeria, an origin of Iyede-Ame in Isoko Ame,
Ndokwa East local government area of Delta State, Nigeria, to the family of
Elder Paul Agidife Omo-Owhe Egwe and Mrs. Rosaline Etokame Ajomewo. The
last among the children of eight; Oghale, first child and only daughter, firs
son Israel, second son Godsday, third son Efaedue(dead), fourth son Paradise,
name changed to Jopary (lost),fifth son Endurance, name changed to James-Paul,
sixth son Jahswill and Famous, eighth and the last child.
People call me several names base on what I
represent in each and every individual’s opinion. As a man trailed from his
mother’s womb with so many controversies I know
I might mean so many things to so many people bad or good whichever way
it represent in their life.
My father called me Famous, according to him my birth generated so much controversies and complications to my mother, always loosing strength, spiritual attacks and one premonition or the other, so they decided that my birth should not take place in our community and my birth took my parents back to township at their later years. But ironically, my mother’s elder Sister and my Mother’s Paternal Aunty stood strongly against the move, it was only grandmother that was in support even at the early morning hours of the day my mother was to travel out of town they came to the house warning my father to stop my mother from travelling, it was at that point according to my father according, he got angry and took a cutlass and chase them away out of his house.
On my birth at somewhere in Afisiere, Ughele north local government area of Delta
State, he was not living with the family at Ughele, he was managing a
particular fowl Poultry farm at Afikukuor, a few distant kilometers between
Warri and Agbarhoh. According to him, it was on his way back from work it
happened inside the vehicle he entered that some women were discussing about a
certain woman that gave birth on the early hours of the day at that Afisiere
area. The description was completely depicting my mother’s identity and as for him
he was just smiling and thanking God in his mind; “that is my wife and that
child will be very famous”, he said in his mind. And when he got home the news
of the child’s birth was delivered to him. “Yes I said it, he is Famous!” Meaning popular, for the reason that he got
the news of the child’s birth delivery from strangers; and it is this Famous,
majority of my friends usually shorten as Fame. And when I was opening my
internet account, the name Famous refused to be registered until a namesake
suggested the shorten form, Fame and it was accepted, since then I just stick
to it as my official name as it is that the shorten form that was being
preferred in that thought.
My mother called me Ufuoma, meaning liberty or peace of God. That she
almost died with me at my birth. That witches did not wanted her to give birth
to me, they were always pressing her at night and during the birth they pressed
her to consciousness and my head was revised and I was coming out on my bottom
until ‘the experience nurse’ noticed that She was dying and put on her hand
gloves and fixed her hand inside mother’s body and turned me round to my head
side and drag me out with my hair. And according to my mother after the birth
she got freed and finally experience peace. According her since then she
refused to sleep with my father for fear of not being pregnant again because
she did not what to experience similar ordeal again. And coincidentally this is
the only name that gives me peace among all the numerous names am given in this
world that does not really draw any unnecessary attention towards my life. The
rest names I hate them! Everywhere I go I cannot really hide my identity, same
reasons I refused to bear the name ‘Famous’ in both my primary and Secondary
Schools . Once people found out that my name is Famous, the next thing they
were always saying is, “and you are
going to be popular!” As if me that is bearing the name I did not know the
meaning of the name they are to tell me first for me to know. Now it is like,
“and you are really famous, you are going after your name”. I somehow preferred
this later one for the fact that though both sound as an admiration unlike when
the former was when I was just still a child not having even achieve anything
in life. But now I feel better, to me it sounds more like an admiration for the
work I am doing.
My maternal grandmother gave me Otunoakpowoke, meaning those who
life is good for. And according to her that was the name her grandfather was
bearing and he was a very prosperous person. And she kept telling us that she
gave the name to two children in the family, myself and one other child in her
town, Orie of upper Isoko, Where my maternal grandfather got her married from
she was not from our community. Although I have not really met the other guy bearing
the name, I would have love to or just to hear of him whether he too is
successful in life because till my grandmother’s death at around one hundred
and thirty something years that was the name she called me and she continue to
remind me both in the presence of all the children in the house and our mothers
throughout my early years in primary and secondary school till when I left
town.
Agidife is our immediate family name. It is the name given to my
immediate father by his father Egwe. And the name means “hastily rich” and so
many people like calling us by that name on the opinion that the way we pursue
money is just according to the name.
My friends call me so many pet names, majorities of such are styled
from my first name and what I represent in their mind or opinion through my
speeches, like ; Fame, Faraski, Faraski one million, Future Governor, Future
President, Prof, Barrister etc while my
brothers call me Egbe, Egbe1 and Famous. I think the name Egbe is derived from
my grand father’s name, Egwe. And likely, it started when I was in a very
tender age there was this my father’s brother, Laborth used to visit our house
at Ole and it is like he did not know my name and he did not care to know my
name he preferred calling his own name and the one he preferred calling is
their own father’s name. And the name seemed to be very popular because the man
was very humorous and we all the children love him because make us happy. And
it seemed I was not a very happy child during my childhood, but once this uncle
Laborth came around we will all jump around him and it was generally noticed
that once he came around I will be very happy and as the last child in the
house everybody wanted me to be happy and somehow due to my indifferent
character different from every other child in the family too much attention was
always given to me by my parents and my brothers. I think it was during that
process my immediate elder brother, Jahswill who was also learning to speak fluently,
instead of calling Egwe, he was calling, Egbe, Egbe and my other brothers now
follow suit until our second Son, Godsday who was in Lagos in one of his
visits, he printed the name on a light sky blue polo and it was given to me.
And then when I where it everybody start calling me Egbe, Egbe and I did not
like it. I hate people given me unnecessary attention and popularity. So, I
stop wearing the shirt, I wear it only when all my house wears are dirty and
that one hardly got dirty because I hardly wear it.
CHAPTER
2
CHILDHOOD
Mixed
feelings
I cannot say my childhood was
rosary and I cannot say it was sad neither can I say it was an average, all I
can say is that it was not a comfortable one. The reasons are my parents and my
older ones tried everything at their arsenal to create a certain impression to
us who were very tender that all is well, there is no cause for alarm, they are
in full control but I was not deceived. Part of this caused me childhood
headache, a certain inner sorrows and sadness. It was majorly, because of this
inner pains that caused me to abandon my Secondary School Education at class 5
to meet my older brothers in Lagos just to save the old man some stress and
pains over my enrolment fees for West African Examination Council. A decision
that was never comfortable with the old man, but I thought I was doing him more
good not knowing that I was doing myself more harm.
Agreed, at the end of the day
they will provide the food on top of the table and the school fees at the end
of the term but the pains, the ordeals and the agonies involved for them to
provide that were never to be equated with the aroma to savor them, neither the
ecstasies and hope of their continuous existence. Sometimes you do not really
eat because of sweetness of food but because you need to live to worry for
another day.
Living at Ole
I cannot really remember anything
of our stay at Ughele as such, either I was still being carried on hand,
crawling or learning how to walk. But I can remember things very clearly at
Ole. One of such was my crate of eggs my father used to send from the Poultry
Farm he used to manage at Afikukuor closed to Agbarho. They said when I was a
child I do not used to swallow and my father said I should not be forced and he
ordered that they should be using eggs to prepare all my meals separately from
others and he used to send those eggs to us at Ole.
I can also still remembered that
my cup drinking water was a stainless ash
colour and my mother will not allow anybody to use it even my immediate
older brother except me and that continued till I grew up, I do not shared cups
with people.
There was a certain preferential
treatment that was somehow being given to me by my parents and my brothers at
childhood. Although it was something I was not really comfortable with because
it was causing me somehow some inner embarrassment and tried to stop some but
it will rather amused them like when I started washing plates out of my own
initiatives at a very tender age, instead of my mother to appreciate my early
start up, she will rather say that those who are older never “feat do is it you
that want to do?” And it was not as if I was being pampered because I was
ruthlessly being flogged up by my brothers on the instructions of my mother due
to my dragging, crying and my incessant unhappiness. But I think I was the most
misunderstood child that had ever lived then.
I was only being looked upon as a tender child
that does not have the right to the way I was feeling and I do not need to
react over my own issues. For example,
if somebody hit me and I was a kind of retaliating, my mother will leave the
other person that had set me up and he will be chastising me over my own
retaliations although mine might be a bit stronger, they always believed the
other person was only playing with me, but I was not a happy playing child and
they ought to leave things the way are and let me be. But they will not always
want to. And to me this was a kind of the greatest injustices that have ever
existed and the heavens must fall for it until the first issue is addressed,
but who wants to give you that kind of chance in life?
My first day to school at Isoko Central School (ICS)
I cannot really remember what I put on correctly,
it was like a clothe rapper rapped all over my body crossed tied on my neck or
a casual shirt I cannot get it clearly as such with my slate on my hand. But
the major significant thing there was that I was not discouraged. I was asked to join people of my kind under a
certain mango tree because we were not due for school then, out of my
insistence my mother just allow me to
follow my immediate older brother Jahswill and prosper until we will be
matured enough, I and Enakeno. Enakeno
and Prosper were brothers, Prosper and Jahswill were age bracket and older
while I and Enakeno were age bracket and younger to them. Then, one’s hand had to torch the other side
of the ear first before you can gain admission.
Prosper parents were living opposite
our house in the same compound and they were our very close family friends.
Prosper father was a speed boat transporter. I can remember that Prosper father
named one of his speedboats after my little niece, ‘EDEJOROR’, when he did not
even named any of his children after any of his speedboat and that makes the
man very popular. And it was like the name used to give the man luck because at
the Evrogbor river shore he used to park the speedboat and along that Ase-Creek
people like calling the name “EDEJOROR SPEEDBOAT” and that really used to
attract so many customers. The man always liked to buy big scale fishes and he
used to share give us. And that is to tell
how close the Emegbo family was to our family.
Hometown Iyede-Ame
Unlike the Isoko Central School
where I was allowed to start to School alongside with people of my age despite
the fact that our hands could not torched our ears.
At home I was repeatedly sent
home because my hand could not reached my ears, my mother was a beat influential
in our village then for the fact that so many of the people ruling the community then from chairman to primary
School headmaster were either her school mate or her class mate . And they
respect her being that she was older than so many of them and also being a
woman. At a point she used that influenced to get me admission into primary 1.
The primary 1 teacher, one late Mr. Omogbe was my mother’s class mate and even
the headmaster, one Mr. Owere-Eva Esi was also my mother’s school mate at standard
school also my mother’s relation. So she just explained to them that am up to
the requirement age of six, it is just that I did not grow according to my age
and with that I was given admission into primary 1.
My first time examination at
School I failed. I cannot remember anything that happened whether I was not
taught or I just wrote only examination and without test I do not know, the
only thing I can still remember then is that when result was called I was among
those who failed and those who pass were dancing and laughing at those of us
that failed. And that was something that was never agreeable with my spirit to
accept and I do not know how to explain that to my mother and older brothers
who believed so much on my intelligent then even being as a little child that
had not even started school. They believed that I was an intelligent child and
when I start school I will do very well. So what I did was that I stylishly
withdrew from my immediate older brother Jahswill and others and I went back to
the back of the class and I kept my slate under my head, lied on top on a bench
and I slept off. Trust our house,
immediately Jahswill reached house everybody was just asking about me, not
concerning that much about my where about I think they were keener on my first
result. And as normal Jahswill was the scapegoat he was being chastised for
abandoning his younger brother at school. Our house was just some distant far
away from the local primary school. One of my other brothers I cannot remember precisely
followed Jahswill to look for me and I was found sleeping on top of a bench at
the back of our class. Trust me, the disappointment of the examination had
turned me feverish already, there were doted sport and cold all over my body
and I was taken home. The position of my result had been known already through Jahswill and nobody could
chastise me again coupled with the fact that I had fallen sick as well. Some
might claimed that the fever was a pretended but I can remember that was the
first and the last I failed in my entire school academic career. My subsequent
examination results from 1st,2nd and 3rd term
till primary 3 were 1st positions throughout until we later left to
spend like up to a year in the river Niger area with my father. It was there I
attended Utuoku primary School for a term or a year I cannot remember how long
I spend in that School but it was just only primary 3. And the only
examinations I can remember I took there, guess what; I was beaten for the
first time to third positions. And the most surprising thing was that the local
school was a very small one compared to the one in my community where I was
attending with a larger population.
My mother was not disappointed
but she felt slightly of something over the results and she went to meet our
class teacher without my knowledge. Our class teacher one Mr. Power was my father’s
relation at Ofagbe where my grandfather, Egwe originated from. And she asked to
know from Mr. Power about the children that beat her child from 1st and 2nd
to 3rd positions. And she found out that those children that beat me
off my usual position were not from the local town of Utuoku but were
grandchildren a certain Hannah who was my father’s business associates and
those children just came from Lagos state, the most develop state in Nigeria
and with that her curiosity was satisfied. And that had always been my nature
right from my childhood till date for people around me to always over demand or
expect from me but am not always bothered because my best have always come from
when am under pressure and with that I have always learnt to put myself under
pressure first before others around me do.
CHAPTER 3
The Most Trying Time of My
Childhood
The most trying time in my childhood
could really be traced to when I was in primary 2. It was really a turbulent
time for me. though it was a short trying time but I can still remember the
picture of the emotional pains of how over forty years old teacher almost
scared me out of school in my entire life vividly in my heart.
It was one Mr. Oyibo Okwe who
happens to be our class teacher in primary 2. The man was emotionally a sadist,
I cannot say he was a natural sadist quite surely because he used to get drunk
and be harassing people on his way back to his house whenever time he went
inside town and was notorious at that. Virtually almost everybody in the town
knew he was a drunk. Sometimes once he got drunk and started harassing and
causing menace to people they will go and call his younger brothers to come and
get hold of him. He likes insulting people, “you are a mangle, you are a malu,
you are bloody illiterate, your father is an illiterate and the whole of
families are illiterate”, and he was known for that. Once boys noticed he had
gotten drunk, they will just tuned him like a radio and he will just playing;
“you are a mangle, you are a malu, you are bloody illiterate, your father is an
illiterate and the whole of families are illiterate”. Most times they will ask
him whether he can fight in that his
drunken state as he has mouth to be insulting people’s parents, he will just
fold his trousers up and he will start pursuing people up and down in the
community primary school. It was always a viewing drama to some of us whose
house was around that area. Our house was just a few distance from the primary
school teachers quarters.
My problem with him was that
there was a certain day that a particular song called, ‘Zacheous’ was raised in our class during closing hours.
It was a custom then that during school closing hours they always raised a song
from the C.M.S hymn book and it was something against my faith to participate
in other religious activities as it is consider as interfaith.
The teacher noticed that I was
not singing and he called me out to the front of the class to explain why I was
not participating in the closing song. I explained myself based on my faith
that we do not participate in interfaith activities being that they are
contrary to our faith and teachings, with that it was like hell almost gets
loosed. He asked me to pick my back and run out of the class before opened his
eyes and as for me I was like lucky because the news of the teacher was a gate
to hell for new pupils who are just promoted from primary 1 to his class. And
the story is like if you are a girl he flogged you on the hand and when you get
home your mother will fix your hands inside hot water to dry the circulated
blood on your palm and if you are a boy you cannot sit with your bottoms when
you get home. And he normally flogged pupils who failed his home works, those
who failed to submit and truants. And he set his arithmetic so difficult that
average pupil cannot even pass them. So, to so many children, to stop school at
primary 2 was the beginning of wisdom than to die in school. The next day when
I went to school I thought it was something I could just beg the man and let me
go, but guess what, immediately he saw me coming into his class, he started
folding his trousers, ordered all the big boys to chase me and tie me for him
so that he can flog me very well on top of a table, a child just around six
years of age. Trust me, immediately I held his command and saw him on his
folded trousers and those dogs were behind him some were in front him all chasing
me I need not be told before I improvised
feathers in addition to my legs and hands and flew across a low tunnel
that was demarcating our house and the primary school. This drama continued for
almost a whole term. My met him and he told my mother that as long as I cannot
sing the song he cannot live to me in his class, after all, am not the only
witness child in his class so why should mine be an exemptions, he queried.
Everybody got involved; my elder brother Paradise, who was at class 5 on his
final year in secondary school then was feeling the pain like a burning coal on
his skin because the man was using psychology on everybody that there is
nothing anybody can do to him in the entire community for his decision to
banned me out of school for whatever reason he feel like. And somehow you
cannot blame him because then teachers were seen and protected like demigods
and as government children. And my was kind feeling that it was not true that
man is only using his position as a teacher to oppress me on my religious right
as a child. And for that he was kind of having confrontation with the man
almost everyday even at a point the man’s younger brothers was always harassing
my brother, sometimes they almost got into fight, that he is insulting their
eldest brother .H e was his father’s first child with so many boys born behind
him. My uncle who came from Lagos, uncle Richard my mother’s younger brother
and my grandmother’s last born who claimed that Oyibo was his class mate that
once we take me to him and tell the man that am sorry he will just forgive me
for their old time sake, we got there the man was even looking at him as an
illiterate and he was even warning him that if not for old time sake he would
have not even allowed him to enter his house with me, that my elder brother had
been insulting him because of me.
The local congregation of
Jehovah’s Witnesses we used to attend even got to prevail on the issue with the
teacher but to no avail, until my mother involved the primary school
headmaster, one Mr. Owereva Esi, who was just newly transferred into the
school, though advanced in age. He was my mother’s school mate also her
relation. Interestingly, the headmaster was Oyibo Okwwe’s relation and it was
through the headmaster’s influence he got into teaching. The headmaster called Oyibo Okwe to his office
and asked him to allow me back into class or resign and he opted to resign so
the headmaster prepared his resignation petition and asked him and the rest
teachers to sign it, the rest teachers signed it but he refused to sign and he
spoke out of the school yard. He stopped coming to school because he said he
cannot teach a class which I am. I heard that he later worked his transfer to
somewhere around the neighboring communities in Aca-Iti, something or so.
My second most trying times was
when all of the sudden I was no longer seeing clearly, and that was in Jss
II. And my mother had to ask me to leave
town and meet my brother, Jopary, who was a Tradomedical Doctor so that I can
be taken care of there in Warri. That particular eyes problem took me like
terms out of school. I remember I came on third term so that I can write
promotion examination to JssII, and that examination I took a second positions
and everybody was kind shouting that upon the fact that I did not attend class
in first and second term I still took second, and all those kind of talks, you
know.
CHAPTER
4
Living in the River Niger Area
Living in the River Niger Area was
my most horrible and bored experience I ever had throughout my entire childhood
life. It was a short stay but it was damned horrible.
My father was a caretaker of a
certain lake called Onyeniche, he used to carved Canoe at the bush path and fished
in and around the lake. He used to rent the lake for fishing from Onyia people
which were just some few distant kilometers between Onya and Utuoku around River
Niger area. The lake is visible on the arable land portion of Onyia and linked
through a vast swampy area between Onyia and Utuoku into the River Niger.
Utuoku is on a shore by the river bank of River Niger while on the other side
of the island is Onyia at the river mouth linking Ase Creek River and River
Niger.
Onyia people did deify the
Onyeniche lake; they believed the lake has a very powerful god and goddess that
do hide the fishes during the period of fishing in the lake if they are not
properly appeased. And the major
occupation of Onya people is fishing. They liked leasing the lake out to none
indigenes due to fear of both the god and the goddess of the Onyeniche. The lake
is one of the deepest and largest in that river Ase Creek/River Niger Island.
Aviara and Igbide people of the upper Isoko were the major dominant people that
used to leased the lake for fishing, they have a high dominant skills in
fishing and a large proportion their people do engage in fishing occupation outside their
town.
The Onyia people had a lot of
respect for my father maybe because he was a very pious Jehova’s Witness man
even till his death. He made Onya, Utuoku, Warri-Iri, Itebie-Ige, Umuoru,
Adia-Awa, Ewho-Udhedhe, Ikpidiama and
across riverside of River Niger which is in river state were his preaching
assigned territory himself as areas where the work is needed. Sometimes the
habitants of that part of the island see him as an extra-ordinary man of God
and they revered him a lot, he preached about the good news of God’s kingdom to
all the community dwellers of that Ase Creed island. At a certain point in time the entire family
was forced to move out of that Onyeniche Lake by Onyia people of one of my
nephew called Odeh, happened to rape a woman he assisted on her way to Onyia along
the bush forest path to Onyia. I can remember clearly when Onyia youth invaded
our camp house just by the shore of the Lake. They came in mass, invaded, fought my brothers who were trying to resist his
arrest and they conquered by succeeding in whisking him at that very knight
without a single drop of knowledge from him on what he did in the earlier part
of the day to no one. Immediately my
father, mother and her mother followed them on their back to Oyia community
where the case was judged that same night. They asked him to leave the place
for the fact that he had defiled the land. And for my father he was given a
noticed of three months to provide a list of sacred items to carry out the
rites of sacred cleansing of the land or leave on exact expiration period of
three months thereof and they know that my father can never be involved in
anything idolatry; so, indirectly they have asked him to leave and that is the
only thing they could have done to my father due to the high esteem they him
there, he was also a closed friend of their ancient hero, great chief Agaba, a
man that was popularly known as one bone man, they said he wrestled and killed
a lion with a bare hands. He single handedly fought to capture their land for
them and even though the man had grown old then the aural and glory that was
following his name alone was enough to save so many souls who where not their
indigene from untimely death of their fetish traditional practiced, for example
the mere mentioning the name that you know Agaba alone is enough to free you of
whatever offence you might have committed from harm. And with that my father had to move on to the
southern part of Utuoku, just by the riverside of the River Niger.
CHAPTER 5
Night fall in River Niger
Whenever I remember the dreaded
night fall of River Niger It remind me as an African child.
Wherever place I found myself in
this World I will always remember myself as an African child.
How can I forget my bearing, my
root as an African child?
How can I forget the swift songs
of the nightingale at the morning shore?
How can I forget the sweet
smelling odor emanating from the morning shores of the largest river of Africa?
How can I forget the swift
banging tale of the nightingale across the beautiful morning face of the River
Niger?
How I can I forget the night bed
that flew across the dreaded 7:0pm evening face of the River Niger?
How can I forget the sounding echoes of the
blasted dynamites on the innocent fishes of the River Niger by the waterway
men?
How can I forget the dreaded night fall of the
River Niger; the continuous echoes of the owls echoing in my eardrum once it is
7:0pm in the evening reminding one the sudden night fall of River Niger?
Uhoo uhoo, uhoo uhoo, uhoo, !!! Uhoo uhoo, uhoo uhoo,oohooo!!! Such dreaded
sounds from the owls are the continuous rhyming tones that usually surrounded
the serene environment of our thatched houses at the riverside area of the
River Niger forest.
Piam, piam, piam, puoror!!! Piam,
piam, piam, puoror!!! Such dreaded noise are the regular rhyming tone from the
forest evil spirits of the River Niger forest who pretended to be tapping palm
fruits from the palm trees at night fall whenever son accompanied father for
snails collection.
At day time father will set
snails food on the thick forest and at night time father and son will always go
and collect the snails that normally eat from the snail’s food.
When son will asked father at
that dreaded cold time of the night, dad, who are those people tapping palm fruits
at this dead time of the night out there? Father will always say something else
to cover up the answer, maybe psychologically he did not want to reveal what he
knew for son in order not to scare son.
On one night as son kept being
curious who are those people that are always collecting palm fruits, cutting
and fallen trees at this dead time of the night?
Son knew right somewhere in his
heart without being told that whoever person that was doing that was not a
normal human being and somehow he new they were evil spirits after all son was
no longer a kid, he was a teen already, but he always wanted to know from
father his own views being a highly devoted religious person. Whether his
religious believes might not have blinded his thoughts and eyes to the common
reality of the night gripping fears into son’s life.
Father did seemed not to be
scared of anything in life and he was not used to tell son what he had on his
sleeves to defend himself in case something unexpected happened.
Father always kept everything to
himself. He did not used to say anything about his past challenges how he
failed, how he maneuvered and how he survived them.
No one knows how he managed to
live that kind of a modest and simple life stile, but at that very night, in
spite of his strong religious believe he jokingly said; “they are the evil
spirit of the forest, do not mind them they are very stubborn,” immediately
after saying that he entered a different subject and after that we stop talking
and we just walked home.
Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm!! Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm!! Were the
usual sounds of the River Niger forest’s mosquitoes!!!
How can I forget the drumbeat
from these River Niger forest mosquitoes, drumming the drumbeat of cannibalism?
At night fall! Night fall!! Night
fall in the River Niger forest will be my forever nightmare with poverty!!!
O poverty! Why did you ever exist
for the first place!! I can never speak good of you until death do me apart!!!
O poverty! You will always be my n0 1 sworn enemy
till forever more…
O poverty! Night fall under the
thatch bamboo house inside already failed mosquito’s net was not a funny
ordeal.
Mother was always awake blowing
off mosquitoes from our body while we are fast asleep.
Four to six children were constantly
sleeping inside one mosquito net and when one’s body torched the net, his blood
get sucked by those thirsty vampires who fisted their sucking pipe from outside
the net who are already tired of waiting for your blood to survive.
Mother was always awake blowing
off mosquitoes from the children’s body, sometimes son will get awake with
sense of pity on mother and he will asked mother; will you not sleep?
Mother will always respond with a
helpless tone; “if I sleep how will you people sleep with the mosquitoes
everywhere, you people did not sow the holes on the mosquito’s net when you
returned from school in the afternoon and this is the consequence, lie down and
sleep, tomorrow is school”
I am a victim of African poverty!
To forget my identity as a true African child is to forget the scars of poverty
all over my body!!
To forget my root as a true
African child is like forgetting my face on the mirror!!!
Forgetting my bearing as an
African child is like forgetting my shadow when I walk.
Africa! Africa!! Africa you will
always remain dear to my heart forever more o mother Africa!!!
CHAPTER 6
MY RELATIONSHIP WITH MY PARENTS
The relationship between my
parents and I is something I can only describe as something too emotional for
me to sit down quietly somewhere to write in prose or stories. The best way I
could have express this is music, but unfortunately for me am not a musician so
all that I could do to expressed how I feel my relationship with them look like
is to express myself in two of my poems; ‘A Letter to my Dead Father! And
MOTHER’S LEGACY’
A Letter to my Dead Father!
My dearest father,
I am writing you this letter immediately after receiving a
call from home about your sudden death, today 29th, January, 2012, about 5.0
clock pm concerning my un confessed love to you when you were still alive.
Now that you are dead, who is going to be the recipient of
this letter?
My heart is tied in between the bars of my conscience; a
prisoner of my own conscience I am!
How can my own
conscience forget and forgive me?
The possible had become impossible!
I was blinded by the deceptive power of the world's
philosophical knowledge; far differs from the perceptive knowledge of a true
spiritual child you had born me to become.
I was caught in between the world of fame and the world of a
true spiritual child; always an anticlimax between Famous and Ufuoma.
How could I have been so blinded not to have seen the un
dying love of father for son?
The very day I was born into this world you named me famous
because you wanted me to become famous, in spite of my personal dislike for the
name, that later turned my inescapable destiny.
How could I have forgotten so easily when despite the fact
that I was born into a poor home I refused to eat the normal food with others
and instead of you to order me to be forced just like the usual African
tyrannical parents, on the contrary, you ordered all my meals to be specially
prepared with eggs from others.
How could I have forgotten so easily all the old good
stories you used to gist for son at the canoe carving camps?
How could I have forgotten all the fishes you used to eat
remain for at the canoe carving camps?
How could I have forgotten so easily the good old
relationship you and I used to enjoy at night fall in the River Niger area;
when we used to go out and pick snails at the dead time of the night?
How could I have forgotten the dreaded sound of the owls the
noise of the night forest spirits and the beautiful morning songs of the
Nightingales of the River Niger we used to enjoy together?
How could I have forgotten so easily of how you suffered to
carve canoe just to see me through school?
On one occasion, I remember when I insisted to sow one
trouser instead the usual price of twenty naira (#20), trousers were sew, that
particular trouser cost forty naira (#40) because of the texture of the cloth
material, and when I was later feeling bad because of the ordeal it took you to
get that money outside my school fees, you rather told me; “no, son, you
deserve that one you asked for, it is just that things are tight for now”.
What else could you have done for a child as a father that
you did not do?
What a kind father you were to son! You amazed me dad!! How
am I sure my legs can size the shoes you left behind?
On your dying bed you sent for son; “Ufuoma, are you not
going to see me before I die?”
Son failed to come back home to see you before you finally
traveled to meet your ancestors at the great beyond just as son shall meet you
sometime someday to come.
When you realized that son will not be able to make it back
home before your final calling on earth, your undying love for son remained the
same, and you handed your symbolic cap to your wife for your last born.
How am I sure my head can size the crown you left behind?
How am I sure my shoulders can carry the leadership burden
you left behind? Father, son is scared! Father, son is weary!! Father, son
needs God’s hand for guidance; brevity, courage and wisdom!!!
Father!!!
You will always be in son till the end of time.
Felicitations!
Adieu!!
Fair well!!!
MOTHER’S LEGACY:
The relationship between mother and son can be best described as an oath of blood sworn onto a pang of distress by a pregnant mother given birth through surgical complications!
A tribute to my Mother and Mother Earth!!
Eulogy from a Primitive African Child to all Mothers across the globe!!!
I avow from the days of my little beginning to preach and spread this “MOTHER’S LEGACY” side by side with Mother Earth holding my hand like centripetal and centrifugal force counter balancing the West Wind.
I vow with the throes of pangs of distress mother gone through during my birth to spread the virtues of mother in me across all borders of territorial earth.
What other kind of moral virtues son could have gotten in the whole wide world that mother did not inculcate in a child?
Son was taught at the University of higher learning about the philosophical doctrine of Socrates and Plato centered on ‘virtue’ as the center piece of moral ethics which were idolized as the ‘Supreme God’ called the ‘god of Virtue’ that ought to rule ‘Man’. And to Son, this was like the simple normal teaching of Mother’s Legacy to Son back at home, ‘Son you must be good to your neighbors; them Adeniyi, Michael and Okaros because if you are not good to them they will not be good to you’.
See Shit! Mother will always take a half shovel and she will park them away. And I will curiously ask as poor innocent Child; “but they are not your Children Shit?” Modestly, She always answered, “if you do not remove them you will sill match them and enter your house and besides they are your brothers, also my Children too”.
I was tought at the University of higher learning about great thoughts and great works of great Men of literary history like William Shakespeare; Julius Seizer, John Don; Elegy in the Country Church Yard and Paradise Earth etc. And I found out that these were just the same simple modest futility teaching Mother used to teach Son; “Ufuoma, where ever you go always remember to attend your Christian Meetings, you and I must surely see in God’s Kingdom; Paradise. That is why I called you Ufuoma meaning inner peace God”. These teaching are repeatedly re-echoed in the eardrum of Son through letters, telephone calls and direct messages even when Son is out of the shores of his Father land.
O! Mother!! Seeing you is like feeling the inner weakness of the great dinosaur!!!
O! Mother!! Adoring you is like honoring my own inner weakness!!!
And with the Support of Mother Earth, I vow to blow this Mother’s Legacy to all the nook and cranny of the World like the ‘West Wind’.
Dedicated from the ‘deepest love of my heart’ to all Mothers across the World…
CHAPTER
6
RELATIONSHIP WITH MY
BROTHERS
My relationship with my brothers could
be best described as ‘the mixed passion among Joseph brothers’. It is the usual
mixed feelings, hate and love among average human families; sometimes it is what
some of us do described as the dangerous family love ties; it does happened in
relationship among brothers and sisters, but it is rarely found between parents
and children, it is always like you hate but not completely or it is what some
normally say blood is thicker than water. You love your brothers with a strong
passion especially when they are doing well but not as much as you will want
them to be better of than you or your children; something like, you love but not
completely due to certain inner ill jealousy within you. When it comes to the
outside family you love them completely but when it come to inside the family,
the law of natural competition does not just justify you, except only in a very
scares cases. You can get a case study of this kind of love on the biblical
cases of Joseph and his brothers, Cain and Abel and Jacob and Esau.
My case was not a different one
after all I come from a human family. Sometimes they pretend they love me even
beyond what I could imagine, while some other times they behave as if they are
the greatest villains in my life. Let me just say for a certain certainty to
avoid raising unnecessary animosity of how I was gang up and beat hell out of
me or how I felt betrayed on several occasions after all I still experience
certain unconditional love from them on several occasion too; ‘there is nothing
like parental love on the human planet, it is a picture of the kind of fun the
almighty God has for earthly man. As for me, I have never one day describe my
parental love without feeling a slight emotional headache or what you might
call slight emotional betrayal, or call it whatever, whatever, emotion is
always there.
How much do I love my brothers? I
know you will ask me am only talking about my brothers, do not I have sisters?
I have but just one, and she is the eldest of them all, there is no much headache
her, she is mama, two of her children even older than me and apart from that the
female folk are more easy going with lesser competition from them within their immediate
family circle, it is only at their marital family where they always believe
their destiny lies they normally like to perform all those their usual
witchcraft, unlike the male folk that like battle it within themselves on a
diplomatic mission.
I often do not consider myself as
a normal human being, that is why I do no mistake to judge my fellow human
being base on the way I feel or the way I am; but on the contrary, the way I
see things and how they are; I force no change into the human race base on what
I believe, but I work out change base on what I believe.
I love my brothers very
passionately just as I love my parents unconditionally; but surprisingly, the
same way I love every parents and brothers out there. Because I have this
people as a family and I know how passionate I am towards them, it transcend to
every other counterpart out there. Same way I feel towards children, having
once being a very emotional child, I know what it takes for a child to live
with certain inept imaginary emotions.
My brother that I love most, I
think I love all human being equally not even just my brothers, but among my
brothers, I do have a very strong sympathy for my immediate elderly brother,
God’swill, I do not know, may be because he seems to be the least, he is the
only one that has not really come out and prove himself to the world in terms
of life pursuit and coupled with the history of his health challenges. And I
also have a great history of moral attachments with my lost brother, Paradise,
name changed to Jopary. He was the big shadow behind my childhood success; he
was my childhood mentor and idol. He and my mother were the embodiments of my
childhood moral being; they fought for me as a duo and conquered as a duo. He
single handedly taught me how to read and write well in primary 2, he taught me
about the history of great men like Michael Faraday, voter, Socrates, Plato,
the great Galileo Galioleo and many of them as a very early age of my life, he
used to be very proud and fun of me; he single handedly introduced me into the
world of philosophy, and whoever I am today and will be tomorrow in the world
is merely a continuation of the seed he had sowed since yesterday. Even at a
time when I was in JssII, I was not just seeing well anymore and my mother had
to send me to him as a tradomedical doctor at his hospital base in warri and he
treated me before I came back to write my third term examinations to JssIII. It is unfortunate that he is no longer with us
here today to see what his godson is up to with his sown seeds, may his gentle
soul rest in peace wherever place he right now. I also had a great time with
our eldest brother, Izrel, he sent for me to leave Lagos to live with him at
his base in Warri, where he owned a school, so that he can sponsor me to university
from there; according to him he cannot live while his younger brother will be
hassling in Lagos . He took me as a son not as a brother, I remember when he
sworn on my affidavits at the Warri magistrate court for my joint matriculation
examinations form and how all his
friends used to asked me after him “how is my father” and I used to really play
the pranks well back on him by always answering friends; “he is fine” as if he
is really my father. But later on, the challenge of being taking as a son was
far more than the challenge of being an outcast. And Endurance, name changed to
James-Paul, is someone I have a relative sympathy for but not like what I have
for God’swill who has not really come out with his potentials in life as such
and with so many life health challenges; and on the case of James-Paul, when
you look at him very well, he is a man who is just like my father in terms of
physical structures life pursuits; he puts in so much when it comes to
creativity and dynamism and you hardly find where he is always getting it
wrong, but on the outcome, he will be strongly to survive his tummy and his
family. Sometimes when I look at him I will just be asking myself, what kind of
star is this? You know, all that kinds of imagination do really come to my mind
sometimes. And that is a tips on how can I can go on my relationship with my
brothers for now.
A Letter
to my brother on a Sick bed with Kidney Failures
A Letter to my
brother was a letter I wrote to my brother God’swill and sent it through my
phone to his wife phone by his sick bed after his phone had been switch off,
having been diagnosed at the general hospital, Ile-Ife, Osun State of Nigeria,
and it was found out that the cause of his incessant ailment was kidney
weakness.
A Letter I later turned as an appeal to the world for a
financial support to finance him to India for a kidney transplant through my
internet platform, all were based on my audacious believe to life that no
matter the circumstances of man in life, no hope is lost until it is completely
lost and even after death hope transcend onto God as the final arbiter to man’s
hope.
My dearest brother Godswill,
I am writing you this statement of strength at this 01hour,
21minutes, and 25seconds late on the hours of the night of today, 05th,
September, 2012. And that is to tell you even I myself had long ago lost my
sleeping appetite since the heart break news of your current ailment.
I will want to start by first of all reminding you that you
are not just an ordinary man; but a child of miracle, and with that you should not
loose hope because no man is created to loose hope till death, and even at
death there is still hope of resurrection into a new world of God’s kingdom on
‘HIM ONLY, OUR ONLY AND ONLY HOPE’ as the final Hope Alive for all mankind.
I know your history very well and you need not tell me the
sharp pains ordeal you are passing through at night time, and that as well put
me into a very painful situation to tell the whole wide world your ordeal
battle with kidney failures even if it is to death. And I want to assure you
that am not loosing any single hope on you yet; you no me, you know my dexterity and audacity to
life challenges, the more sleeps I loose on you the more HOPE I have on you;
and I shall do my bit.
It has become so obvious that it is not out of human bargain
that you are called God’swill; but it is only the will of God that you are
called God’swill, and at that, it is not only the will of men that determine your
audacity to continuing surviving all these your various ordeals, but only the
will of God and not even kidney failures can stop God at that on your life…
My beloved brother, am writing you this not to console you simply
because I am better of than you, no, but to strengthen you up that the entire
human race has one problem or the other, and our only source of strength lies
in our genetics history in direct connection with our God. At this juncture, I
will like to remind you once more again that even when one has fought in life
with all his dynamism and there seems no other strength and hope left; then you
must burry yourself with strong heart in the deepest believes of your faith not
as a coward but as a hero to your own self and as the honorable man you are.
I will always be with you till the end of time brother,
remain strong at heart and take care.
N/B:
For your moral and financial support contact:
Direct messages @mailbox and wall on facebook.com
godswillinfos@famegroups.com
Thank you.
PART 2
CHAPTER 7
HOPE ALIVE YES WE CAN AND MY JOURNEY WITH THE
POOR!
Upon my head on my bed sometimes
around 2004,when I was running admission into University of Ambrose Ali University, I be heard a dream. I heard a
voice a certain wife my uncle, one Grace Omamoakpo, whose house is just side by
side with my father’s house in our village. And the voice was; “owoke”. Owoke
in my language, Isoko means a financial contribution by a group of people for
the sole objective of self financial assistance for the members of the group
only.
I woke up from the dream and I
told myself; “this is a divine revelation and no wise person plays with such
because they rarely appear and to only a few people of a kind as sacred”. And I took my pen and sketched down my vision in form of a
proposal. I later typed it down and showed it to my brother in-law who came on
a visit and after reading it he made his own little contribution by suggesting
that I should Break it down into a general business ideal in such a way that a
everybody can buy into it, and such is the first seed of working towards a
start of implementations of one’s vision, that it gives the idea the privilege
of undergoing the first test of public scrutiny which, its importance can never
be over emphasized because the death, the survival; the success and the failure
lies in the hands of the public views, and that does not really required much
money from me to achieve, and that is something worth much more than money and
any other thing that am complaining of. I worked on that and fortunately for me
I saw the handbill of my elderly brother, Izrel’s Co-operative Society he
formed, which he called ‘JOPTOP’ on the floor of the passage of his house, then
I was living with him. I took a glance at it and found out that, that is the
exactly the kind platform am looking for. The platforms that can give me a
broad base umbrella that can enable me serve the general needs of humanity
especially the poor.
I thought of writing a handbill
to enable me share the idea to people and be able to bring then on board on the
objectives of town hall meetings
discourse on the subjects of how the poor can come together and contribute
financially in groups by groups and help themselves financially. And funny
enough, I did not know the name to title the handbill, because I did not have
any experience neither idea about any none governmental organization nor
Co-operative Society, so, I just add my personal business name, ‘FAGLOMERATE’
to it and title it ‘FAGLOMERATE CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETY’, a name that was never
accepted for me, it was out rightly rejected by stakeholders who were later
showing up on the meetings, that it is coined from my first and surname;
‘Famous Agidife Conglomerate’.
I did not wanted to tell my elder
brother to know what am up to because I know he will never allow me to carry
such a cross at my early age of life for whatever reason on this earth and with
that he can go to every length to stop me just as exactly as it later happened.
“The irony is that he knows that whatever thing I set my mind on doing in life,
no one and nothing stops me not even money, except God did not sanction it or
else why should I stop, is it because someone ask me to stop or because someone
set impediments for me, come on those are normal challenges of life”, I said to
myself. So, I waited till when he was to travel with his family for a brief end
of year holiday to see my parents in the village. I know everything in life the
starting is the most intimidating time so I did not want to play with that
first meeting because it will be a day I know I will never forget in life. So,
immediately he traveled on Friday, December 28, 2005, I struck December 29,
2005, right there inside his school premises.
Those who attended were few as
expected, not more than five, highest seven and they were all somehow my
friends. Mrs. Ajiri Akpebe (closed friend) Mr. and Mrs. Mark Evawere, close
friend, Mr. Richard Egbekeremor, one Mr. Isaac and some of their friends; somehow
that was exactly what I expected, at least just to kick start the meeting
process for a reference purposes that we have started on so so date, such
numbers of people presents and at so venue just as they were written on our
minutes. So, somehow the objective the meeting was achieved that day to a large
extent. One significant thing that hardly escape my memory on that first
meeting was that the two ladies present at the meeting that day were heavily
pregnant, I can remember that the subsequent meeting when we sent for glass
cups, news followed the bearer of the glass cups that my friend’s wife, Mrs.
Elo Evawere had put to birth and on the following month, next meeting my
friend, Mrs. Ajiri Akpebe had also put to birth too, both babies Anointing and
Kevin were both boys. I always have the pictures of the two ladies on that
particular day in my memory due to how big they look like with their tummies,
even Mrs. Ajiri Akpebe, popularly called Mama Oreva after her first son, that
day her leg swelled up and I was kind of sympathizing for them, that is it because of the meeting they risked
their conditions and climb up the stairs of the upstairs, you know, it was
quite amazing to me with the kind of zeal they exhibited.
Subsequent Meetings: After that first meeting, we believed we have
started at least, so am expected to formally inform my brother on his returned,
after all we holding the meeting in his premises and I did not want a situation
whereby he would be confronted outside outsiders on what his younger brother is
doing, to me it will be embarrassing to him. So, I formally informed him when
he came back from his holiday from village with his family. He interviewed me
and I told him everything about the co-operative meeting and those who
attended, those invited and our anticipated projections and he seemed to
encourage me that was a good move, he told me the disadvantages and the advantages,
he had over fifteen years experiences in co-operative societies and he told me
that we can go on using the premises so long as our are to be only in the
evening and just once in a month and weekends only and with that it will not
affect his school business activities except if he had something special on our
meeting day he can only tell so that we can prearranged our meeting forward and
even at one point if he see how serious we are he will later join us just to
give me a boost and that will also enable him to monitor the organization for
me so that I can able to achieve my with it
from sabotages. All those sweet mouth agreement were merely a self
glorified gentleman agreement just to get me closer so that he can be getting information
from me to use at sabotage me later on even beyond my widest imagination.
We later attended only one other meeting there, after the
second meeting there at his premise, he called me that we should stop
organizing our meetings there that we should find somewhere else that the
meeting will be inconveniencing his school business, as for me one of my
greatest weakness in life is that I do not know how to beg. I always believe that
there is a reason behind everyone’s action on earth and whatever motive that
caused your actions it is always yours not mine. So, “I said it is ok”, and
right away in my mind, I said “this is what I have known before and there is no
big deal, and after all, it is a once in a month deal, before the next meeting
I should be able to make do with plan B because there was always an alternative
plans then, and that really saved me a whole lot from early heart attacks from
sabotages. Before the following meeting on the following month which was the
second Saturdays of every month our meetings were always held, I had already rearranged
with my in-law; my friend’s elderly brother, one Mr. Felix Evawere who married
my maternal aunt from Orie of Isoko-Ovo, aunty Iwu; who has the biggest church
in the whole of Enerhen community. After all I had told him before about the
possibilities of using his church premises sometimes for the meeting somehow to
come. I was somehow very closed to the man; somehow he was interested in my
talents to explore for his church and he always preached to me about the
possibilities of I joining his church, also possibly using me to build the
co-operative society for his church; just as my eldest brother wanted to use me
to build it for him to run. Somehow the major reasons behind the sabotages I
had from people both those who were my relations and friends was not as if the objectives of the organization
was not good but they all wanted to owned it while I run it for them for their
various subsidiaries’ interest to their various organizations. So, I too was
smart enough to be playing the game along with them, after all, in their mind
am just a boy, I do not have sense, and with that kind of pretended friendship
based on certain pretended interest of ‘being used, turned a spent and
thereafter skipped out or dumped
philosophy’, I was somehow getting my temporary request from them until when
they will found out that am not that a dull but am smart at what I wanted and
somehow they also did sense that I did understand their games and am only
pretending as if am playing along and at that they will not always want to
loose, so they always stopped me. So, after one meeting one at the man’s church
premises, he stopped us again. With the excuse that he will not like to mingle
the work of God with finance, but I later registered one co-operative society
for him from our state headquarter, Asaba on the name of the church; one HOLY
GHOST MULTI-PURPOSE CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETY which he was later running right there
in the church. Then I just know that my
brother must had met him concerning the co-operative issues; because then he
will just browse me or people whom were closed to me for information and that
he will use in following me up for sabotaging. Same thing he did to remove me
from the SEATRUCKS GROUP I was initially working. You know, one thing is to
understand the game of vampires and another thing is to have a matching
strength to withstand their game of wits and caprices because they will not
just come and use their mighty power on you, no, they do no such mistakes,
rather they will come to you one on one through their proxies, and they will
try first of all loose all your human integrity through tact and frustration
with the ultimate objectives of exposing your human weakness before the whole
world, thereafter they will just prey on you like a rousted chicken with little
or no human values before the world so that you will be make mockery of by
ordinary people who knows nothing about the root cause of your rising neither your
falling and nobody care to know any thing, why this or why that except to blame
you on your human weaknesses because that is what they are made to believe; after
all ‘the gods are not to be blamed for our own human weakness’.
The parameters of the
Meeting we held at the HOLY GHOST THE REDEEMER CHRISTIAN CHURCH OF GOD premises.
Although that happened to be the only meeting held there but it later turned one of the most
crucial meeting we held in the history of the organization. In that meeting I
really did a lot of campaign; I remembered I printed flyers, banners and
handbills all over the community and I still invited my childhood friend also
my primary and secondary school classmate, Ifado Ifado Atemeyo who had been
actively involved in the local politics and social activism of the state. The
turn out was not that much but it was really very traumatizing to me. My friend
Ifado whom I hope on to serve as a catalyst to boost the morals of our invited
guest with a talk on the topic: Retail Banking as a Key to a fast Rising
Grass-Root Entrepreneurial Development for Africa and Why we must get Involved!
Later changed the subjects of his discoursed in the course of his discourse to
‘Why African Micro-Financial Institutions Fail and his firing points were on my
financial inability to run such an institutions such as co-operative society; that
day I remember after the four hours long seminal which was all about my poor
life, I was no longer of myself, I was completely devastated with a very strong
headache banging my head, gbanga, gbanga… One of my sister in-law, Elo Ame who was more
of a girl friend to me then, prepared us;
I, Ifado, Mark and one of my other friend a wonderful meal that day at
her house, it was our traditional food,
banga sup and eba, it is a food our people, Isoko do not joke with, it is
always our favorites but that day I could not found any appetite to even bite a
piece of fish. While them Ifado were still busying talking about my case of not
having money but I want to flout a financial organization and eating the meats,
fishes and savoring the taste of the banga sup and they were praising Elo that
cooked the banga sup and they were coursing me like drunks. And I was just
laying on top of the girl’s bed mopping in my mind that, that this cannot be
the end of all that have labored for so far neither an end to my vision. A
certain part of my heart was just telling me do not worry you will storm back
or do you not the kind of person you are, in spite of that little conviction
that to mind I was not still clear on my ability to still organize these people
again for further meetings because among the recommendations Ifado gave in that
seminal was that we should pack our files and destroy them or keep them very
far a away from the reach of people and I should go back and meet all the
important personalities we have informed about the organization who had indicated some certain
interest that we were no longer capable of forming the organization again while
I should be on my kneels begging them that they should forgive me that am
sorry. That running a financial organization and one did not have money, such
one is a 419; that is just like a pastor that is running a church without a
miracle power, that how do we expect the pastor to survive not to talk of
having followers, that only hungry of the mouth will kill him before his faith
coming to his rescue. Replaying everything in my memory on top of the bed was
like a home movie. The girl was teasing me around with her fingers, asking me
whether she should put food in my mouth and feed me, and she was playing with
hem Ifado that they should leave his bros alone, that I will surprise them with
millions which I from empower her in her business. I was a kind of mockery
stuff with all of them but one single word was not coming out my mouth I was just
waiting for them to finish their food so that we can see Ifado off back to his
base at Ozoro. Even at later time when
the organization had finally stood some women who were closed to me and were in
that particular meeting were still calling me sarcastically; “FAGLOMERATE, what
about that boy self, that your friend you brought that day when we held meeting
at daddy’s place”, I will just remember, and will say, Ifado, and they will say
“ehe e Ifado, that boy can talk, as we do think that Hope Alive can talk very well so, that boy
all most finish Hope Alive,” and all those kind of stuff, and as for me I will
only be smiling, but right there in mind I will say; “well, such is life”. Even
on the following month when I was calling people for meeting and was kind of
calling my friend Mark who supposed to be my vice ahead of date through a telephone
at his office base in port-ha-court, he was asking which meeting, and when I
reminded him that our co-operative meeting, he told me that, “but he thought
that Ifado had ask us to stop”, and was kind of telling him on phone, who is
Ifado, Ifado is just a resource person and he was not the one to tell us to do
something or stop but he only gave advice, and anyway when you come back we
will talk”, he then said; “it is ok”.
I later make arrangement through one of the community
chiefs, one pa Michael Onuahroro; the old man was the fifth oldest man in the
entire Enerhen community, he built the first story building in the ancient
Enerhen community, he worked and retired with United Nation Organization Office
in Lagos where he held the president of their co-operative society for so many
years and he was very influential both in the local Enerhen community and the
neighboring communities. I heard that the man later died immediately after I
have left the community for self exile in Lagos. As for me was a good man, may
his gentle soul rest in peace.
My Speech at a
launching Ceremony of a Branch of our Micro-Credit Scheme at Koko-Iri, Delta
State of Nigeria
Time has come for us to tell ourselves the truth about the
existing social injustice in every segments of our beloved world. Time has come
for us to look into the eyes of our late brother’s adopted child in our homes
and see the plights of molestations and oppressions that exist in our homes.
Time has come for us to look into the eyes of the orphanage
child, the poor widow; the less privileged people of our world and see the
agonizing pains of a dying people; inflictions caused by no faults of theirs
but societal greed and ill fate that anyone can be a victim due to economic
imbalance structures of our human society.
PART 2
CHAPTER 2
ISOKO-AME HOPE FOR A BETTER LIFE
At a certain time in history, a
certain group of able body strong Men felt detested and dissatisfied with high
level of corruption, injustice and oppression that was happening in their land.
The Nigerian-Biafran Civil War
The Nigerian-Biafran War, 6 July
1967 – 15 January 1970, was a political conflict caused by the attempted
secession of the southeastern provinces of Nigeria as the self-proclaimed
Republic of Biafra. The conflict was the result of economic, ethnic, cultural
and religious tensions among the various peoples of Nigeria.
The Biafra soldiers invaded the
island for war advancement and military consecrations. But before then the
rumor of the Biafra military prowess and the ugbunugue had spread to the
island. Those whom the missionaries had converted to C.M.S Christian Church,
Jehovah’s Witnesses and Catholic Church had fled the island on the reasons of
their Christian neutrality. Those who were left behind, guess what happened to
them, homicide. A great Armageddon massacre was launched on these poor native
islanders.
The Ugbunugue
The ugbunugue was an armor car
bomb that was invented by Lt Connell Chukuemeka Odumegu Ojuku and the Biafra
soldiers during the war. According to eye witnesses, the way it sounds and it’s
pointing mouth that it hit on the ground before explosion is the reason why the
local indigenes branded the destructive weapon, ‘Ugbunugue’. And as the story goes the fear of the
ugbunugue was the fear of God and the beginning of wisdom.
According to the story from the
survivals who fled to exile, that if the ugbunugue is shot in a particular town
it lands in another town and it burned down every lives irrespective of the
species exist there, may it be goat, lizard, fowl, humans, dogs etc.
The local warriors and the Biafra cannibals
The local warriors, who refused
to run to exile, felt that they can defend their communities. After all, they
have gun powders, cartridge guns, the local charmed cutlasses and the so much
believed African charms. But unfortunately for them, the Biafrans do not shoot
local guns like cartridge and gun powders, but they shoot bullet that burns red
and as fast as a speed of light and pierce hole into the body and pulls out
human logs. They shoot not water but ugbunugue that burned heat that consumed
every flesh.
The local community of Iyede-Ame
which is the largest among the community in the island, have three gods; Ogene
the god of war, Orewo the god of fertility and Oza the god of blanket. These
gods have their various roles they play on the indigenes of the local community.
The Oza the god of blanket shields the local warriors of the community from
their enemies at war front and the community itself from enemies at times of
war. Ogene the god of war whose shrine is at the center of the other quarter of
the town called Ushe, fortified the local warriors from weapons such as guns,
cutlass and he guides his children at war front. There is also this story that
he cries war cry in the bush when war is imminent and he works around the
community at dead midnight on white garment like tall huge old man. Orewo the
god of fertility is at Ughe an outskirt of Ogbodogbo, there barren women go and
share the tears of their barrenness and after they are blessed with the fruit
of the womb by the fertility goddess, they come back for celebration with
certain kind of soup mainly comprises of one particular long smoking fish
called ‘Eba’ with children and other women who joined in for the celebration at
the shrine of Orewo, the fertility goddess.
In spite of these strong faith on
their traditions and gods, the Biafrans cannibals invaded, guess what happened.
The Biafrans invaded this so much
cherished island with three missions; one, to consecrate able body young men and
local warriors into the Bianfra army, two, military advancement, and three,
food.
According to the tails of the
civil war, Chief Obafemi Awolowo,
popularly called the sage and the best president Nigeria never had who was the
minister of finance in the then general Gowon administration advised general
Gowon who was then head of state and chief-in-commanding officer for federal
republic of Nigeria, that the federal government should stop the supply food to
the seceding eastern part, then Biafra, with the tactical view that there is no
sea port in the east which was implemented.
As it later stood out that became the “final straw that breaks the
camel’s back”.
On the news that the Biafra
armies were marching towards the local community of Iyede-Ame, the local
warriors and all the able body men who refused to go to exiled went and in the
shrine of Ogene the god of war, eating native chucks for incantation and
cutting all over their bodies with cutlass for charms and the normal African’s
traditional shrine invocations.
It was a miscalculated war
strategy on the Biafra armies. The Biafra soldiers do not move in mass attack
from outskirt into town to form a battle ground like ancient Greece and Roman
gladiators. The Biafra armies fight gorilla wars; they walked round your town,
climbed trees, climbed your fence, climbed your rooftops, hide by your Yam
band, hide in your kitchen, in the shrine of your god, the churches,
everywhere, and then invaded and struck not with cutlass, not with cartridge
guns neither the usual gunpowder they used to know, but with real guns, real
bullets, real pump marching guns and they shoot at sight at humans; men, women,
children, goats, dogs, fowls etc and blood drips from their bodies not waters
from the bullet. Blood rained a reign of pool on the streets of my local
community of Iyede-Ame, ‘a gory act of homicide committed’. Those nonresistant
ones that happened to be captured by some human face soldiers were later used
as meals by the carnivorous Biafra soldiers. All they need to know is to ask them their
names and anyone that does not bear an Ibo name and cannot speak Ibo, served as
a better meal. And that stands as the fairy tale of my ancestors and every
other person who was a non-Ibo in that part of the mid-western Nigeria during
the civil war.
No Victor No Vanquished.
After the war Gowon said, "The tragic
chapter of violence is just ended. We are at the dawn of national
reconciliation. Once again we have an opportunity to build a new nation. My
dear compatriots, we must pay homage to the fallen, to the heroes who have made
the supreme sacrifice that we may be able to build a nation, great in justice,
fair trade, and industry."
Ojuku’s Deputy Philip Effiong of
the Biafra ranked army handed down the Biafra flag while the Nigeria flag was hoisted
as a sign of surrender. General Gowon the then head of state and
commanding-in-chief officer for federal republic of Nigeria, ‘held the olive
branch’ by declaring ‘no victor no vanquished’ as an indication of peace and
that no pride was derived from the wars brothers and it ought not to have even taken
place for the first place.
After the war Gowon said, "The tragic
chapter of violence is just ended. We are at the dawn of national
reconciliation. Once again we have an opportunity to build a new nation. My
dear compatriots, we must pay homage to the fallen, to the heroes who have made
the supreme sacrifice that we may be able to build a nation, great in justice,
fair trade, and industry."
Back From Exile.
The war that started 1967 and
lasted till 1970 had finally ended, and those who went to exile and their
kindred started returning back home little by little and turn by turn with hope
to start life all over again and move on.
After the civil war, the children
who happened to have ambitious parents and were privileged to have been sent to
the cities like Warri, Portharcort, Lagos and other places for Model Schools,
Teacher Training Colleges, Technical Colleges and other tertiary institutions
had read and seen the light how development had been used as an instrument of
turning people’s lot around in the cities and other places around the world.
They came back and started organizing unions, conference meetings and
developmental forums just to see whether they can replicate if not exactly then
at least something to what is being achieved in other places. And some of such that had stood to have
survive overtimes are; Iyede-Ame Progressive Union formerly Community
Development Union and Schools Development Conference.
In later years, the Progressive
Union turned the most powerful institution on not just initiating projects and
making decision concerning the development of the community but it also took over
the political will, the mandate and the entire political machinery of the
community. Therefore, diversionary and political interests were generated. And
in order to check and balance these various leadership interests, In
1978, Central Working Committee (CWC) was formed as an inner caucus central
organ of the Union which was lead by the late Atemeyo Agbor, who happened to be
one of the brightest son the community had ever got, may his soul rest in
peace. Together with his elite group; Emmanuel Utomudo popularly called Alaska,
Oviriwo, Nicolars Agadumo, Adrew utomudo, Benjamin Eke and a host of their group
which was commonly called the elite group. Although, they strived to have
achieved some major developmental feet such as the Pontoon in 1980 and a Secondary
in 1981, but it later became the greatest nightmare to the development of the
community due to struggles for political powers and interests for prominence.
The ‘CWC’; a clinch of cabals as it later turned, no appointed president for
the community can rise above these cabals and bring meaningful development to
the community without being sabotage except you have to gain their approval and
also doing it in their own way. And due to this lack of coherency and unity of
purpose caused by greed and selfish interest in their developmental pursuit for
the community and the government negligent of the people the people living in
that island over the years no meaningful development has really taken place in
the community.
Love Lost
Crave for prominence and family
pride were what initially started in form of everybody’s child must be an elite
or prominent in one way or the other. It brings certain pride to the parents,
the family such
Individual come from and to a
larger extent, the entire community. This supposed to create a healthy
competition among families so long as it brings social development to the
society of mankind but as it later turned, revised was the case. Some people
started bewitching other people’s children. There was this case of a woman
whose grandchild was sick and he was taken to the nearby community of Lagos
Iyede where we have a local hospital clinic. According to the grandmother
story, the child’s ailment resisted every form of treatment and there were a
lot of witchcraft pressing people all over in the clinic upon the holy ghost
fire they were shouting the witchcraft were not still deterred, the child was
actually dying off until the old woman said,” no, this is not true, am I in a
dream? I can no longer take it, I cannot continue to sit down here and allow
innocent grand child to die in my hand like this”. She left the clinic at that
night in spite of the flood that flooded the road between Lagos Iyede and our
community and she took a condemned trail with a wooden stick and she continued
smashing it up and down the front road of the family house of the stepmother of
the dying child all most throughout the night shouting, “leave my child o, I do
not eat person pikin o! Don’t chop my pikin o, I don’t chop person pikin o, I
nor dey when o nar dey chop o nar pikin
o! Anybody when chop my pikin all her children go die too o!” Sometimes she
smashed towards the parental family house of the dying child. She was just
disturbing everybody out of sleep at that night. As an innocent child that had
not really know much about all these African way of direct and indirect
antagonism, I was kind of asking my mother, how did she know who was killing
her ground child? But my mum could only gave me a vague answer and just to
shout on me to close my eyes and sleep! But how could I sleep when the old woman
is disturbing everybody out of sleep? But to my greatest surprised when one
would have just termed the night drama to unnecessary suspicion and reaction,
the child got up the next day morning smiling, playing with people at the
hospital, sound and healthy. Our house is just along the road between that
grandmamma and the other woman family’s house.
There were this other cases of
these guys; Jonah and New world. Jonah was my best friend and brother, he
studied my baptism book. He was one of the most brilliant among his sect of
students during his days in Secondary School. I remembered he was awarded and
sponsored throughout his Secondary School by Shell Petroleum Company (SPDC) due
to his brilliant performances at SPDC annual Post Secondary School Examinations
for the community. It was a horrible nightmare for me to later learnt I have
left town that Jonah saw his paternal aunt at somewhere around their backyard
performing witchcraft and the woman bewitched him an illness that later lead to
his death some years later. Newworld was the same village witch stories who died in a car accident on
his way to secure an admission into the prestigious university of Ibadaan, U.I.
The list of the stories go on and on; but, unlike now when our so much
cherished beloved community was a center for peace, a peaceful serene
environment for culture and tradition, even a model of a simple traditional
African Society. Even in spite my pains for love lost, I can still remember
when I and my younger niece, Sarah, used to visit my mother’s elder Sister at
her husband’s family house, when we were still very tender, together with my
cousin Ogho, my other niece Ethel and nephews Freeborn, Lucky and Cornelius their
last born; they are my auntie’s grandchildren, all of us used to curled round
one big trail where my aunty used to share pieces of cooked yam and fish from
traditional prepared red oil sup in a mortal bowl. And my mother too used to do
similar things when she took some of my uncles, cousins and nephews to the
river Niger area where my family once resided to live with us. And even my
father too, also used to provide and accommodate everybody without really complaining.
Sometimes I do suspect myself that somehow it might probably be that through
this genetic instinct that I might have copied my humanitarian genes. And at
that when one look at it discretely, one is about to have his own reservation
on the present system of living why everybody is scared; everybody is full of
fear of what her fellow person will do to her or her child..
There were also some of these cases
were some local chiefs were kidnapped, a woman strangling her step son to death
and pinning him under water with sticks. But before now we were enjoying a free
peaceful community; there were nothing like police arrest, no kidnapping, no
terrorism, no eco-pollution and all these social headache and madness we are
presently experiencing all in the name of sophistication and complex society.
The Birth of a Nation
As with many other African nations, Nigeria was
an artificial structure initiated by former colonial powers which had neglected
to consider religious, linguistic, and ethnic differences. Nigeria, which
gained independence from Britain in 1960, had at that time a population of 60
million people consisting of nearly 300 different ethnic and cultural groups.
More than fifty years earlier, Great Britain
carved an area out of West Africa containing hundreds of different ethnic
groups and unified it, calling it Nigeria. Although the area contained many
different groups, the three predominant groups were the Igbo, which formed
between 60–70% of the population in the southeast, the Hausa-Fulani, which
formed about 65% of the peoples in the northern part of the territory; the
Yoruba, which formed about 75% of the population in the southwestern part.
The semi-feudal and Islamic Hausa-Fulani in the
North were traditionally ruled by an autocratic, conservative Islamic hierarchy
consisting of Emirs who, in turn, owed their allegiance to a supreme Sultan.
This Sultan was regarded as the source of all political power and religious
authority.
The Yoruba political system in the southwest,
like that of the Hausa-Fulani, also consisted of a series of monarchs being the
Oba. The Yoruba monarchs, however, were less autocratic than those in the North,
and the political and social system of the Yoruba accordingly allowed for
greater upward mobility based on acquired rather than inherited wealth and
title.
The Igbo in the southeast, in contrast to the two
other groups, lived mostly in mostly autonomous, democratically organised
communities although there were monarchs in many of these ancient cities such
as the Kingdom of Nri, which in its zenith controlled most of Igbo land,
including influence on the Anioma people, Arochukwu which controlled slavery in
Igbo land and Onitsha. Unlike the other two regions, decisions among the Igbo
were made by a general assembly in which men could participate.
The differing political systems among these three
peoples reflected and produced divergent customs and values. The Hausa-Fulani
commoners, having contact with the poli tical system only through
their village head who was designated by the Emir or one of his subordinates,
did not view political leaders as amenable to influence. Political decisions were
to be submitted to. As in every highly authoritarian religious and political
system leadership positions were taken by persons willing to be subservient and
loyal to superiors. A chief function of this political system was to maintain
Islamic and conservative values, which caused many Hausa-Fulani to view
economic and social innovation as subversive or sacrilegious.
In contrast to the Hausa-Fulani, the Igbo often
participated directly in the decisions which affected their lives. They had a
lively awareness of the political system and regarded it as an instrument for
achieving their own personal goals. Status was acquired through the ability to
arbitrate disputes that might arise in the village, and through acquiring
rather than inheriting wealth. With their emphasis upon social achievement and
political participation, the Igbo adapted to and challenged colonial rule in
innovative ways.
These tradition-derived differences were
perpetuated and, perhaps, even enhanced by the British system of colonial rule
in Nigeria. In the North, the British found it convenient to rule indirectly
through the Emirs, thus perpetuating rather than changing the indigenous
authoritarian political system. As a concomitant of this system, Christian
missionaries were excluded from the North, and the area thus remained virtually
closed to European cultural imperialism, in contrast to the Igbo, the richest
of whom sent many of their sons to British universities. During the ensuing
years, the Northern Emirs thus were able to maintain traditional political and
religious institutions, while reinforcing their social structure. In this
division, the North, at the time of independence in 1960, was by far the most
underdeveloped area in Nigeria, with a literacy rate of 2% as compared to 19.2%
in the East (literacy in Arabic script, learned in connection with religious
education, was higher). The West enjoyed a much higher literacy level, being
the first part of the country to have contact with western education in
addition to the free primary education program of the pre-independence Western
Regional Government.
In the South, the missionaries rapidly introduced
Western forms of education. Consequently, the Yoruba were the first group in
Nigeria to adopt Western bureaucratic social norms and they provided the first
African civil servants, doctors, lawyers, and other technicians and
professionals.
In Igbo areas, missionaries were introduced at a
later date because of British difficulty in establishing firm control over the
highly autonomous Igbo communities. (Audrey Chapman, “Civil War in Nigeria,”
Midstream, Feb 1968) However, the Igbo people took to Western education
actively, and they overwhelmingly came to adopt Christianity. Population
pressure in the Igbo homeland combined with aspirations for monetary wages
drove thousands of Igbo to other parts of Nigeria in search of work. By the
1960s Igbo political culture was more unified and the region relatively
prosperous, with tradesmen and literate elites active not just in the
traditionally Igbo South, but throughout Nigeria.
The British colonial ideology that divided
Nigeria into three regions North, West and East exacerbated the already
well-developed economic, political, and social differences among Nigeria's
different ethnic groups has been described as a "deliberate ethnic and
religious gerrymander to keep the nation weak, unstable and open to the plunder
of its vast oil reserves by UK companies, led by British Petroleum (BP)".
The country was divided in such a way that the North had slightly more
population than the other two regions combined. On this basis the Northern
Region was allocated a majority of the seats in the Federal Legislature
established by the colonial authorities. Within each of the three regions the
dominant ethnic groups; the Hausa-Fulani, Yoruba, and Igbo respectively formed
political parties that were largely regional and based on ethnic allegiances:
the Northern People's Congress (NPC) in the North; the Action Group in the West
(AG): and the National Conference of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) in the
East. These parties were not exclusively homogeneous in terms of their ethnic
or regional make-up; the disintegration of Nigeria resulted largely from the
fact that these parties were primarily based in one region and one tribe. To
simplify matters, we will refer to them here as the Hausa, Yoruba, and
Igbo-based; or Northern, Western and Eastern parties.
During the 1940s and 1950s the Igbo and Yoruba
parties were in the forefront of the fight for independence from Britain. They also
wanted an independent Nigeria to be organised into several small states so that
the conservative North could not dominate the country. Northern leaders,
however, fearful that independence would mean political and economic domination
by the more Westernized elites in the South, preferred the perpetuation of
British rule. As a condition for accepting independence, they demanded that the
country continue to be divided into three regions with the North having a clear
majority. Igbo and Yoruba leaders, anxious to obtain an independent country at
all costs, accepted the Northern demands.
Military coup
The causes of the Nigerian civil war were diverse
although, in his memoir, journalist Alex Mitchell blames "involvement of
the British, Dutch, French and Italian oil companies whose battle for the rich
Nigerian oilfields started the civil war and kept it going."
On 15 January 1966, Major Kaduna Nzeogwu and
other junior Army officers (mostly majors and captains) attempted a coup
d'état. It was generally speculated that the coup had been initiated by the
Igbos, and for their own primary benefit, because of the ethnicity of those
that were killed. The two major political leaders of the north, The prime
Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and The Premier of the northern region,
Sir Ahmadu Bello were executed by Major Nzeogwu. Also murdered was Sir Ahmadu
Bello's wife. Meanwhile, the President, Sir Nnamdi Azikiwe, an Igbo, was on an
extended vacation in the West Indies. He did not return until days after the
coup. However, evidence exists to the contrary. For example, the coup was not
only generally applauded in the Northern region, it was most successful there.
The fact that only one Igbo officer, Lt Col Arthur Unegbe, was killed can be
attributed to the mere fact that the officers in charge of implementing
Nzeogwu's plans in the East were incompetent, the coup, also referred to as
"The Coup of the Five Majors", has been described in some quarters as
Nigeria's only revolutionary coup. This was the first coup in the short life of
Nigeria's nascent 2nd democracy. Claims of electoral fraud was one of the
reasons given by the coup plotters. This coup resulted in General Johnson
Aguiyi-Ironsi, an Igbo and head of the Nigerian Army, taking power as
President, becoming the first military head of state in Nigeria.
The coup d'état itself failed, as Ironsi rallied
the military against the plotters. But Ironsi did not bring the failed plotters
to trial as requested by military law and as advised by most northern and
western officers. Ironsi then instituted military rule, by subverting the
constitutional succession and alleging that the democratic institutions had
failed and that, while he was defending them, they clearly needed revision and
clean-up before reversion back to democratic rule. The coup, despite its
failure, was wrongly perceived as having benefited mostly the Igbo because most
of the known coup plotters were Igbo. However Ironsi, himself an Igbo, was
thought to have made numerous attempts to please Northerners. The other event
that also fuelled the so called "Igbo conspiracy" was the killing of
Northern leaders, and the killing of the Colonel Shodeinde's pregnant wife by
the coup executioners. Despite the overwhelming contradictions of the coup
being executed by mostly Northern soldiers (such as John Atom Kpera later
military governor of Benue State), the killing of Igbo soldier
Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Unegbe by coup executioners, and Ironsi's termination
of an Igbo-led coup, the ease by which Ironsi stopped the coup led to suspicion
that the Igbo coup plotters planned all along to pave the way for Ironsi to
take the reins of power in Nigeria. It also ignored the fact that the army was
largely composed of Northerners at the private level, but Igbo at the officer
level, and thus promotions would have to draw upon a large body of Igbo
officers. As the officer corps of the army was dominated by the Igbos logic
would have had it that mainly Igbo officers could have been killed in the coup
if there wasn't an "igbo Conspiracy". On the contrary, the murdered
victims of this coup were mainly northerners. The reason for this coup has
never been made clear. If it was a revolutionary coup as some have claimed why
were the prime minister and premier of the north killed? It has been proven
that they both died with less than ten pounds in their respective personal
accounts and with one village home each to their names. This was a young
country trying to find its way and that way was abruptly scuttled by
overzealous army officers numbering above twenty.
Counter-coup
On 29 July 1966, the Northerners executed a
counter-coup. This coup was led by Lt. Col. Murtala Mohammed. It placed Lt.
Col. Yakubu Gowon into power. Gowon was chosen as a compromise candidate. He
was a Northerner, a Christian, from a minority tribe, and had a good reputation
within the army. Ethnic tensions due to the coup and counter-coup increased and
the sequels to the mass pogroms in May 1966 repeated later the same year in
July and September known as the large-scale massacres of Christian Ibo living
in the Muslim north.
Breakaway
The military governor of the Igbo-dominated
southeast, Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu, citing the northern massacres and electoral
fraud, proclaimed with southern parliament the secession of the south-eastern
region from Nigeria as the Republic of Biafra, an independent nation on 30 May
1967. Although the very young nation had a chronic shortage of weapons to go to
war, it was determined to defend itself. There was much sympathy in Europe and
elsewhere yet only five countries[who?] recognised the new republic.
Several peace accords especially the one held at
Aburi, Ghana (the Aburi Accord) collapsed and the shooting war soon followed.
Ojukwu managed at Aburi to get agreement to a confederation for Nigeria, rather
than a federation. He was warned by his advisers that this reflected a failure
of Gowon to understand the difference and, that being the case, predicted that
it would be reneged upon. When this happened, Ojukwu regarded it as both a
failure by Gowon to keep to the spirit of the Aburi agreement, and lack of
integrity on the side of Nigeria Military Government in the negotiations toward
a united Nigeria. Gowon's advisers, to the contrary, felt that he had enacted
as much as was politically feasible in fulfilment of the spirit of Aburi. The
Eastern region was very ill equipped for war, outmanned and outgunned by the
Nigerians. Their advantages included fighting in their homeland, support of
most Easterners, determination, and use of limited resources. The British and
Soviet Union supported (especially militarily) the Nigerian government while
Canada and France helped the Biafrans. The United States seemed to be neutral
but helped the Biafrans through the Red Cross.
Civil War
The Nigerian government launched a "police
action" to retake the secessionist territory. The war began on 6 July 1967
when Nigerian Federal troops advanced in two columns into Biafra. The Nigerian
army offensive was through the north of Biafra led by Colonel Shuwa and the local
military units were formed as the 1st Infantry Division. The division was led
mostly by northern officers. After facing unexpectedly fierce resistance and
high casualties, the right-hand Nigerian column advanced on the town of Nsukka
which fell on 14 July, while the left-hand column made for Garkem, which was
captured on 12 July. At this stage of the war, the other regions of Nigeria
(the West and Mid-West) still considered the war as a confrontation between the
north (mainly Hausas) against the east (mainly Igbos)[citation needed].
But the Biafrans responded with an offensive of their own when, on 9 August,
the Biafran forces moved west into the Mid-Western Nigerian region across the
Niger river, passing through Benin City, until they were stopped at Ore (in
present day Ondo State) just over the state boundary on 21 August, just 130
miles east of the Nigerian capital of Lagos. The Biafran attack was led by Lt.
Col. Banjo, a Yoruba, with the Biafran rank of brigadier. The attack met little
resistance and the Mid-West was easily taken over. This was due to the
pre-secession arrangement that all soldiers should return to their regions to
stop the spate of killings, in which Igbo soldiers had been major
victims.[8][12] The Nigerian soldiers that were supposed to defend the Mid-West
state were mostly Mid-West Igbo and while some were in touch with their eastern
counterparts, others resisted. General Gowon responded by asking Colonel
Murtala Mohammed (who later became head of state in 1975) to form another
division (the 2nd Infantry Division) to expel the Biafrans from the Mid-West,
as well as defend the West side and attack Biafra from the West as well. As
Nigerian forces retook the Mid-West, the Biafran military administrator
declared the Republic of Benin on 19 September.
Flag of the Republic of Benin
Although Benin City was retaken by the Nigerians
on 22 September, the Biafrans succeeded in their primary objective by tying
down as many Nigerian Federal troops as much as they could. Gen. Gowon also
launched an offensive into Biafra south from the Niger Delta to the riverine
area using the bulk of the Lagos Garrison command under Colonel Benjamin
Adekunle (called the Black Scorpion) to form the 3rd Infantry Division (which
was later renamed as the 3rd Marine Commando). As the war continued, the
Nigerian Army recruited amongst a wider area, including the Yoruba, Itshekiri,
Urhobo, Edo, Ijaw, and etc. Four battalions of the Nigerian 2nd Infantry
Division were needed to drive the Biafrans back and eliminate their territorial
gains made during the offensive. The Nigerians were repulsed three times as
they attempted to cross the River Niger during October, resulting in the loss
of thousands of troops, dozens of tanks and equipment. The first attempt by the
2nd Infantry Division on 12 October to cross the Niger from the town of Asaba
to the Biafran city of Onitsha cost the Nigerian Federal Army over 5,000
soldiers killed, wounded, captured or missing.
Stalemate
From 1968 onward, the war fell into a form of
stalemate, with Nigerian forces unable to make significant advances into the
remaining areas of Biafran control due to stiff resistance and major defeats in
Abagana, Arochukwu, Oguta, Umuahia (Operation OAU), Onne, Ikot Ekpene, and
etc.[13] But another Nigerian offensive from April to June 1968 began to close
the ring around the Biafrans with further advances on the two northern fronts
and the capture of Port Harcourt on 19 May 1968. The blockade of the surrounded
Biafrans led to a humanitarian disaster when it emerged that there was
widespread civilian hunger and starvation in the besieged Igbo areas. The
Biafran government claimed that Nigeria was using hunger and genocide to win
the war, and sought aid from the outside world. A Nigerian commission,
including British doctors from the Liverpool University School of Tropical
Medicine, visited Biafra after the war and concluded that the evidence of
deliberate starvation was overplayed, caused by confusion between the symptoms
of starvation and various tropical illnesses. They did not doubt that
starvation had occurred, but were unsurprisingly not clear of the extent to
which it was a result of the Nigerian blockade or the restriction of food to
the civilians by the Biafran government.
A Pictures child suffering the effects of severe famine,
hunger and malnutrition as a result of the blockade by the Nigerian government,
the blockade garnered sympathy for the Biafrans worldwide.
Many volunteer bodies organized blockade-breaking
relief flights into Biafra, carrying food, medicines, and sometimes (according
to some claims) weapons. More common was the claim that the arms-carrying
aircraft would closely shadow aid aircraft, making it more difficult to
distinguish between aid aircraft and military supply aircraft. It has been
argued that by prolonging the war the Biafran relief effort (characterized by
Canadian development consultant Ian Smillie as "an act of unfortunate and
profound folly"), contributed to the deaths of as many as 180,000
civilians.
In response to the Nigerian government using
foreigners to lead some advances, the Biafran government also began hiring
foreign mercenaries to extend the war.[citation needed] Only German
born Rolf Steiner a Lt. Col. with the 4th Commandos, and Major Taffy Williams,
a Welshman would remain for the duration. Nigeria also used 'mercenaries', in
the form of Egyptian pilots for their air force MiG 17 fighters and Il 28
bombers. The Egyptians conscripts frequently attacked civilian rather than
military targets, bombing numerous Red Cross shelters.
Bernard Kouchner was one of a number of French
doctors who volunteered with the French Red Cross to work in hospitals and
feeding centres in besieged Biafra. The Red Cross required volunteers to sign
an agreement, which was seen by some (like Kouchner and his supporters) as
being similar to a gag order, that was designed to maintain the organisation's
neutrality, whatever the circumstances. Kouchner and the other French doctors
signed this agreement.
After entering the country, the volunteers, in
addition to Biafran health workers and hospitals, were subjected to attacks by
the Nigerian army, and witnessed civilians being murdered and starved by the
blockading forces. Kouchner also witnessed these events, particularly the huge
number of starving children, and when he returned to France, he publicly
criticised the Nigerian government and the Red Cross for their seemingly
complicit behaviour. With the help of other French doctors, Kouchner put Biafra
in the media spotlight and called for an international response to the
situation. These doctors, led by Kouchner, concluded that a new aid
organisation was needed that would ignore political/religious boundaries and
prioritise the welfare of victims. They created Médecins Sans Frontières in
1971 (Doctors Without Borders).
In September 1968, the federal army planned what
Gowon described as the "final offensive." Initially the final
offensive was neutralised by Biafran troops by the end of the year after
several Nigerian troops were routed in Biafran ambushes. In the latter stages,
a Southern FMG offensive managed to break through. However in 1969, the
Biafrans launched several offensives against the Nigerians in their attempts to
keep the Nigerians off-balance starting in March when the 14th Division of the
Biafran army recaptured Owerri and moved towards Port Harcourt, but were halted
just north of the city. In May 1969, Biafran commandos recaptured oil wells in
Kwale. In July 1969, Biafran forces launched a major land offensive supported
by foreign mercenary pilots continuing to fly in food, medical supplies and
weapons. Most notable of the mercenaries was Swedish Count Carl Gustav von
Rosen who led air attacks with five Malmö MFI-9 MiniCOIN small piston-engined
aircraft, armed with rocket pods and machine guns. His BAF (Biafran Air Force)
consisted of three Swedes, two Biafrans and an ex-RCAF pilot. From 22 May to 8
July 1969 von Rosen's small force attacked Nigerian military airfields in Port
Harcourt, Enugu, Benin City and Ughelli, destroying or damaging a number of
Nigerian Air Force jets used to attack relief flights, including a few Mig-17's
and three out of Nigeria's six Ilyushin Il-28 bombers that were used to bomb
Biafran villages and farms on a daily basis. Although the Biafran offensives of
1969 were a tactical success, the Nigerians soon recovered. The Biafran air
attacks did disrupt the combat operations of the Nigerian Air Force, but only
for a few months.
One of the interesting characters assisting Count
Carl Gustav von Rosen was Lynn Garrison, an ex-RCAF fighter pilot. He
introduced the Count to a Canadian method of dropping bagged supplies to remote
areas in Canada without losing the contents. He showed how one sack of food
could be placed inside a larger sack before the supply drop. When the package
hit the ground the inner sack would rupture while the outer one kept the
contents intact. With this method many tons of food were dropped to many
Biafrans who would otherwise have died of starvation.
War's End
With increased British support, the Nigerian
federal forces launched their final offensive against the Biafrans once again
on 23 December 1969 with a major thrust by the 3rd Marine Commando Division
(the division was commanded by Col. Obasanjo (who later became president twice)
which succeeded in splitting the Biafran enclave into two by the end of the
year. The final Nigerian offensive, named "Operation Tail-Wind", was
launched on 7 January 1970 with the 3rd Marine Commando Division attacking, and
supported by the 1st Infantry division to the north and the 2nd Infantry
division to the south. The Biafran town of Owerri fell on 9 January, and Uli
fell on 11 January. Only a few days earlier, Ojukwu fled into exile by flying
by plane to the republic of Côte d'Ivoire, leaving his deputy Philip Effiong to
handle the details of the surrender to General Yakubu Gowon of the federal army
on 13 January 1970. The war finally ended a few days later with the Nigerian
forces advancing in the remaining Biafran held territories with little
opposition.
Aftermath and legacy of the War.
The
war cost the Igbos a great deal in terms of lives, money and infrastructure. It
has been estimated that up to three million people may have died due to the
conflict, most from hunger and disease. Reconstruction, helped by the oil
money, was swift; however, the old ethnic and religious tensions remained a
constant feature of Nigerian politics. Accusations were made of Nigerian
government officials diverting resources meant for reconstruction in the former
Biafran areas to their ethnic areas. Military government continued in power in
Nigeria for many years, and people in the oil-producing areas claimed they were
being denied a fair share of oil revenues. Laws were passed mandating that
political parties could not be ethnically or tribally based; however, it has
been hard to make this work in practice.
Igbos
who ran for their lives during the pogroms and war returned to find their
positions had been taken over; and when the war was over the government did not
feel any need to re-instate them, preferring to regard them as having resigned.
This reasoning was also extended to Igbo owned properties and houses. People
from other regions were quick to take over any house owned by an Igbo,
especially in the Port Harcourt area. The Nigerian Government justified this by
terming such properties abandoned. This, however, has led to a feeling of an
injustice as the Nigerian government policies were seen as further economically
disabling the Igbos even long after the war. Further feelings of injustice were
caused by Nigeria, changing its currency so that Biafran supplies of pre-war
Nigerian currency were no longer honoured, at the end of the war, only N£20 was
given to any easterner despite what ever amount of money he or she had in the
bank. This was applied irrespective of their banking in pre-war Nigerian
currency or Biafran currency. This was seen as a deliberate policy to hold back
the Igbo middle class, leaving them with little wealth to expand their business
interests.
The Ibo returnees
Igbos who ran for their lives during the pogroms and war
returned to find their positions had been taken over; and when the war was over
the government did not feel any need to re-instate them, preferring to regard
them as having resigned. This reasoning was also extended to Igbo owned
properties and houses. People from other regions were quick to take over any
house owned by an Igbo, especially in the Port Harcourt area. The Nigerian
Government justified this by terming such properties abandoned. This, however,
has led to a feeling of an injustice as the Nigerian government policies were
seen as further economically disabling the Igbos even long after the war.
Further feelings of injustice were caused by Nigeria, changing its currency so
that Biafran supplies of pre-war Nigerian currency were no longer honoured, at
the end of the war, only N£20 was given to any easterner despite what ever
amount of money he or she had in the bank. This was applied irrespective of
their banking in pre-war Nigerian currency or Biafran currency. This was seen
as a deliberate policy to hold back the Igbo middle class, leaving them with
little wealth to expand their business interests.
On
Monday 29 May 2000, The
Guardian (Nigeria) reported
that President Olusegun Obasanjo commuted to retirement the dismissal of all military
persons who fought for the breakaway state of Biafra during the Nigerian civil
war. In a national broadcast, he said that the decision was based on the principle
that "justice must at all times be tempered with mercy."
CHAPTER
8
THE FEMALE ANTELOPE
There was a certain hunter who went for
hunting at one particular day. On his usual path inside the wide forest he saw
a certain shadow that looks like an antelope that ran across his front from one
tree to another. He conked his gun and adjusted his torchlight on his forehead.
And he was advancing closer to the particular tree the antelope ran to and on
getting there he looked round the tree he did not found any antelope and he
continued to look round other trees around that spot also thinking that maybe it
was just a mere sight illusion but to his greatest surprises, a certain big
female antelope pounced on him from the back and he fell backward with the gun
on his hands, hunters bag across his shoulders and his cutlass sheath tied on
the other side violently.
On his sub-consciousness he found
out that his penis had risen out of his trousers and it was inside the red
vagina of the female antelope already making love to him; sitting on top of him
and grabbing his hands on the ground fucking him hot seriously. The hot banging
and lashing gained him his consciousness but as he tried to raise his eyes and
find out what is happening to him he saw a very fair beautiful young with long
hair wearing the skin of an antelope with bouncing breasts uncovered crying,
shouting and violently fucking him. Immediately she saw his eyes opened she
slapped him on the face and spat on his mouth, raised him up and kissed him
violently.
She got up from the man while he
was still sitting in his bewilder dream. She went and pick the gun from where
it fell off from the man’s hand and pick it up and gave it to the man to shoot
her dead. The man was like saying in his mind that “if you want me to shoot
dead why would you have to fuck me the way I have never been fuck before in my
entire life, you little witch!”
At the time she got up from the
man to pick up the gun for the man, the man had noticed something like a
tinning black thread tied round her waist through his flashed light. As she got
closer to give the man his gun the man jumped up grabbed her on his body and
cut off the thread and folded it in his hands and took his gun away from her
and attempting to walk away from her but she broke down grabbed the man on his
kneel and started begging the man to give him back the black thread and that he
will give the man whatever thing the he asked of her that without it she can
never turned back.
The man winked his left eye and
smiled, “yes I have gotten your weakness” said in his mind“. The hunter felt
weak towards her, he used his left hand to arrange her fallen hair on her face
back on her hair and rubbed her hair arranged for her. “Who told you will ever
turned back to an antelope, from this moment you must follow me home and become
my wife or I will kill you myself you witch.”
She frowned and raised up her
head, looked into the hunter’s eyes determinedly unshaken towards his
resolutions and she rested her bitten chest and head on the hunter’s lap and
she remained silent for a while, tears dripping from her eyes. She wiped tears
from her eyes with a center finger, drew nose, “and you must not revealed my
identity to no one till death do us apart” she said faintly. “It is alright my
little witch angel”, said the hunter.
The hunter took her home that
night and made her his wife.
The man started calling the
female antelope angel. She used to give the man advised how to carry his daily
activities, how to relate with both leaders and others in the community and
most importantly he stopped the man completely from hunting. Among the things
the man should not do at no circumstances are; he should not kill neither eat
an antelope. She asked the man to go to the companies around the community and
look for a supply jobs. Two companies gave the man go ahead to bring food items
for offshore crews and a third company asked him to bring sharp sands and
granites. She sent the man to meet one particular chief who after drinking his
usual Ogogoro(native whisky) he sit on top of his story building and he will be
laughing at poor people; “see, see these lazy he goats, their father was lazy,
their grand, grand fathers were lazy and the whole of their genealogies are all
lazy monkeys. They are not mongo parks and they can never be mongo parks, the
greatest adventurer of all time. The man that discovered the great river Niger,
he died in busa”. He will always cursing
people, talking, talking as if he knew when people’s grand, grand
fathers were born and he does not help
used to help anybody he enjoyed his money with his children and plenty wives
alone. But surprisingly, on meeting the high chief, he received him with warm
hands. The chief started heaping commendations and praises on him that since he
married that he foreign wife he had started behaving normal and that he had
stopped killing all the remaining antelopes his grand, grand fathers and his
father killed remain. The man cuts in, “high chief, that is not exactly why am
here”, ”that is my son, so, speak on am hearing”, said the chief. “On the
advise of my wife I have stopped hunting for antelopes like my fathers just as
it had come to your noticed yourself and there are some of these supplies I
have already secured down with the help
of the recommended letter I got from Okpako-Orede 1, ( paramount chief) with
one or two of these companies around”. The chief called one of his wives to
bring his check book and he gave the man a check of one million naira and told
him not to bother about the time return the money that whenever time he is done
he can return it.
The man became a successful
business man, having interest in shipping and Real Estate home and abroad.
Every piece of advice given to the man by the female antelope always turned
successful .The man later became a prominent chief in the elder’s council. The
man called her, ‘my angel’.
The man had a wayward Son from
his late wife as only child; the female antelope did not bear him any child. At
one particular time the man called his wayward son who had refused to settle
down and tell him about the wisdom of a certain female antelope but he refused
to tell him he and his wife are the ones in question and he should go to that
forest to get a piece of wisdom before he can will him his inheritance.
The wayward son went and start
shooting every antelope he saw at the wildest forest of the town and bringing
them to his father. The man was mad at his son; “let me warn you for the last
time young man, when next time you bring any antelope to this my building you
will not only seized to be my son but I shall kill you myself just as the way
you killed these antelopes, take these things out my house before I change my
mind you fool”.
The young man tried subsequently
but failed to deliver on his father’s instruction. After a while the man fell
sick and he requested to be taken out of hospital and returned back to his
house. While relaxing his head on the lap of his wife in his inner bedroom, he
sent for his Son. ”You must not in any reason dispute anything concerning my
assets or anything whatever with your stepmother, Angel, you understood?”
Son; Dad but why that are you
going to die? Father; you can take your leave.
The man turned and fixed his hand
inside the virginal of his wife, it was feeling warm and he demand once; “ promised me you take care of my Son and
protect him just as you had done to me my goddess”, he turned his hand inside
and as the woman turned her bottom to feel the orgasm he breath off. He could not wait for the woman’s answer to
his demands before he died as that seemed to be his final strength when he was
on earth here.
The man was embalmed into a
mortuary for a period of three months while his burial arrangement was being
put in place to be buried as a great man by the entire community.
The bereaved woman usually slept
in the man’s bedroom. Every night when the woman is asleep she will be feeling
the warmness of the dead man’s hand inside her genital continuously at one
point she started turning into a female
antelope and be making love with the wayward son in dreams. At one point the wayward Son said to himself,
no I can no longer take this; he sneaked in gently into his father’s room which
the woman was sleeping and fixed hand direct inside the woman’s private part in
exact manner of a wayward child. The woman that had already wetted before felt
the hand just as his father did it. The woman rose and grabbed hold of the
boy’s pajamas; “how dare you coming you coming to my room and make attempt to
rape me Brozie?” She fumed! Brozie fidgeted;
“please let me explain, please, please, am very sorry”. Step mother; explain
what? That you did not sneak into my room, not fixed your hand into my vagina
or you did not attempt to rape me that means it had been in your mind even
before your father died to be sleeping with his wife, what an abomination,
wonder shall never end! First thing tomorrow am going to report you to the
council of chiefs because I cannot be here and there preparing for a funeral
while there is a rapist living with me in the same house skimming day and night
how to sneak into my room to rape me, She blackmailed.
Brozie; “no, no please aunty
please, am sorry it is not the way think”; he broke into tears.”Am not as bad as
the way you and Daddy took me”; he sobbed. I know father told me not to have
any dispute with you and I cannot understand why immediately after he had
died I started seeing a female antelope
always coming to make love with me every night in my dreams and it is this same
female antelope my father sent me to look for in the forest for a piece of
wisdom that caused both of us almost irreconcilable differences and why is it that
when he had died that I started seeing it and just to caused dispute between you
and I, he queried and bust into tears and started sobbing again. The woman felt
weak in her continence and she extended her hands towards Brozie and rested his
face upon her breasts, he felt mother’s love and protection again in life as he
continued wetting the woman’s breast with tears dripping from his eyes.
“It is ok, it is enough, I have
forgiven you my husband, and she raised his head from her breast and sucked his
wetted leaps with tears tasting like salty water. By mere mentioning Brozie as “my husband” and
kissing his leaps, that long thing that did not need an ear to hear and ayes to see before answering had
already responded from its initial shrunk and the woman grabbed hold of the
warm long strong thing and slot it
inside her warm cunt; Brozie did not need any sorcerer or any wild forest for
any piece of wisdom to be told of what his long thing is screwing inside the
deep forest on his late father’s wife body, they make a warm and soft love and
slept curled round each other like husband and wife on his late father’s bed.
Within
the intervals of the three months preparation for the funeral ceremony the
woman had conceived a pregnancy for Brozie; at least Brozie had been able to
score a crucial goal his father was unable to score for so many years. The
woman started advising Brozie how to go about things the exact manner she used
to advise his father. Things started flowing well for Brozie. Before the
funeral, Brozie had already taken over his father’s company, and had started
looking into all the inventories of his father’s company, working side by side
with the woman as they ran here and there for the funeral preparations.
The great man was finally buried in the
deepest shehol for all mankind along his ancestors. The long weeks funeral had
come and gone.
The Will:
The man’s will was read; “On this
day of ******** I Chief Peter Igbunu
Ikpogiri 1of Ewhoahwa land hereby willed my darling wife Angel Igbunu Ikpogiri
as the rightful executioner of both my company; Ikpogiri investment ltd,
Ikpogiri real Estate home and abroad; and all other personal properties
belonging to me shall be shared between my only son, Oghenebrozie Igbunu
Ikpogiri and my wife Angel Igbunu Ikpogiri
50% each. Cash money in my private accounts and proceeds from my
companies should be used to set up wild animal reserves and a foundation for
the protection of the right for wild life in my name and jointly managed by my
wife, Angel Igbunu Ikpogiri and my son
Oghenebrozie Igbunu Ikpogiri .This will was written and signed by me, I Chief
Peter Igbunu Ikpogiri 1of Ewhoahwa land, under a sound and healthy mind;
so, Every segment of this will must be
respected and be executed as stated by me.”
Among the things shared for both of them by the family
elders as part of the funeral rites and as tradiction demands was the dead man’s wife for his only son;
unknowingly to the elders the woman and her step son had secretly done theirs
with a child inclusive. What the elders only did was just a formal proclamation
as tradition required.
The woman gave birth to a
bouncing baby boy and both live together lovely as a married couple.
The piece of wisdom Son could not
found in the wild thick forest was found in the deepest forest inside the body
of his late father’s wife.
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