It was a special day as old Onyenje-enu was due to leave – having stayed up to two months in the city of Benin Nigeria – that I visited her. She had come for omugwo for Uzo her grand daughter. Omugwo is a practice where a mother visits her daughter who had just put to bed to help her. She may spend as many months as possible but usually more than or just one month. old Onyenje-enu had come for Uzo due to the long time demise of Uzo’s mother who was also her daughter. It is a practice that is rampant among Igbo tribe of Nigeria.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!When I saw her, I noticed a beautiful smile on her face and the smile had been so consistent that she appeared to have forgotten how to frown. She had worshiped Ozom and offered sacrifices to the river goddess all through her life until just less than twenty years ago when she finally gave her life to Christ. She would say “if only I did it earlier”. All through her time with the goddess was a lot of predicaments from childlessness to death of her children and the ravaging experience of the Biafran War. While I saw her smiling i was moved to ask her source of constant happiness but she would say “onye munahukeru m?” a question in Efulu accent of Igbo meaning “who actually have more children than me”. She had found an expression to stabilize her peace following successive deaths of her children.
I began with questions on her experience of the war. old Onyenje-enu would be quiet for sometime and then twists her head with regret while maintaining her smile. She would mention one name, “Christian Okeke”; her younger brother who became so traumatized following the persecution of the Igbo people who were trading in Kano, Northern NIgeria. At the last quarter of 1966 Christian Okeke had been settled to start his own business after serving his boss for 10 years so he rented a shop and bought shoes to start his career as a trader. Unfortunately for him the Northerners were still angry of a military coup which was generally referred to as Igbo coup and so they started rioting and destroying shops owned by the Igbo people in the whole Northern Nigeria. Christian Okeke had managed to escape death and found his way to the East through different means of trekking and running and boarding but he was completely different from what can be sane. Accompanied by Onuorah his friend, he met Onyenje-enu at Nkwelle where they had fled to due to heavy bombardments of their village. Onyenje-enu begged Christian to tarry and eat from the cocoa yam which she was cooking but Christian had just one thing in his mind. He later joined the Biafran army and was caught up by an air raid carried out by Nigerian Arab mercenaries at Umuagu forest in 1968. This she said was her first painful experience that made her weep and lamented “Onuorah, where is Christian that you took from us?”.
Onyenje-enu married but without a child for so long into the marriage and she constantly sought for child in different spiritual ways. She may have to get into stringent covenants to get children. Later on she got her first child; a daughter she named “nwaato” meaning “baby is sweet”. She finally gave birth to three more daughters and another concern had arisen quite seriously for a male child. She would intensify her sacrifices to various gods and goddesses just so she could have a male child. “If only I knew every good thing – including the ones I have – came from God”, she would lament. As fate may have it, she gave birth to her fifth and last child and it was a male child; she named him “Chukwuma” which means “God knows”. Onyenje-enu loved Chukwuma so much that she wouldn’t see any bad behavior that people complained about him. Chukwuma consequently grew to become a stubborn and ever contentious boy who no one could control. He fought everybody including older people and stole articles from neighbors and would finally land in prison for an armed robbery attempt. In-spite of all these he was not a lover of women and alcohol. God later arrested him in Calabar Prison yard through his longtime sad countenance and he began to preach hope to his fellow inmates. Onyenje-enu prayed all night calling Chukwuma to God all through his time in the prison. When he regained his freedom, he picked up the bible but while without adequate discipleship and sense of discernment he fell in love with a girl he later discovered to be a witch who turns to python in the middle of the night. That was the last lesson remaining by God to tame Chukwuma’s uncontrollable beating attitude. He would beat the girl all he wanted during the day knowing that she is in control of the night. Chukwuma devised a way of escape by leaving her with her little baby in their small room to consider sleeping with his prayerful mother Onyenje-enu in her own room. The girl would follow him to farms to torment him during the day not physically but spiritually. That familiar huge python would chase Chukwuma from the farm and all his effort during the day will be wasted. After sometime he could not even be able to talk to the girl again not to talk of beating her. He had learnt in a very difficult way. The girl was later divorced by the help of God having finished her mission and Chukwuma remarried and was later ordained a pastor.
But even before Chukwuma’s pathetic story, Onyenje-enu’s predicament had begun. There was a cycle of death upon her daughters which was seemingly arranged after each one had given birth to her fifth child. She said “I was really heart broken when my first daughter died and I new they would come for the rest, but after the death of my second daughter, by then I have given my life to Christ and was operating to another spiritual authority, but then God gave me a heart of stone. When I tried speaking to my second daughter on her sick bed she looked at me and exclaimed ‘Inwe nwa?’ meaning ‘do you have any child’? but now I ask ‘onye munahukeru m?’ meaning ‘who actually have more children than me?'”.
It was a testimony that three of her daughters died but the fourth one broke the cycle through devotion and constant daily prayers. This is for those who may be doubting the authenticity of the power of Jesus to save but the truth is that my generation being so free have become so weak and arrogant, constantly criticizing Christianity and tagging it a slavish religion. If we eventually miss this opportunity to establish Jesus in this continent, we may fall back to the spirits that demanded lives before kings could be buried. Not responding to such authorities renders them of no effect, so chose the higher authority and save your soul.
Onyenje-enu’s husband loved her so much and trusted her but that didnt prevent him from marrying three more wives owing to her negative plights in child bearing and most consequently her male child plight. As at the time of the omugwo when she counted her children and grand children and great grand children it was totaled 23 children – including the one she had come to carry – much higher than the total bore by other wives of her husband. And there lies her peace, her never ending smile and her famous slogan “onye munahukeru m?”. Onyenje-enu is currently a high ranking intercessor in her village. You can take everything away from her but you cannot take her daily thanksgiving and nightly intercession hours. Always praying in her old soprano voice.
It may be hard but if you don’t give up there is always going to be a happy ending to all your predicaments such that will guide you into the grave in the last days. Jesus says that men ought always to pray; who may have read into the soul of old Onyenje-enu the scripture? nobody! but she prayed all nights and it became part of her. If she had started praying from her young age, she may not have seen the battles which God had fought on her behalf but believe me it is palpable. Do not ignore prayers, no battle will be won without prayers, that you don’t pray does not mean your mother is not praying for you. Do not be so weak that you become ignorant of the need to pray and become so lazy that eventually you start criticizing the process.
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