When a Delusional Woman Nearly Killed Her Son, By Anayo Nwosu

Ojionu Akudinfe was a special breed of a man. Until you follow him home, you would never believe that he was not as rich he claimed. 

Akudinfe was very handsome and well built. He looked as wealthy and healthy as a real rich man but his small house together with his yam barn was nothing but average. 
No reasonable young man would attempt to pitch for a lady with "Ojionu" or "he who wins with words" as his friends called him. Ladies fell within the first few minutes of his speech.

Why not?

Women flocked around Ojionu Akudinfe because he was very jovial and could paint a beautiful picture of his future wealth that could arouse envy in Ezeodumegwu, the richest man within the 20 towns from Nnewi.

His friends would call him "aku di nfe n'onu" meaning "a man whose signs of wealth  are more in words than in reality".

Ojionu Akudinfe would enjoin his detractors to wait to see a wealthy man he would become in the future even though his yam and coco yam barns could be traversed on foot within 20 minutes.

Akudinfe found his match in his wife Ogbenyeanu who was a beautiful daughter of a wealthy farmer from Nnobi, a neighboring town in today's Idemili South LGA in Anambra state.

During their era, married women were called after their village or town's names.

Therefore, many people called Ogbenyeanu "Nwanyi Nnobi" meaning "Nnobi woman".

Nwanyi Nnobi succumbed to the sweet tongue of her suitor and would not agree to marry any other man than Ojionu Akudinfe.

She was to find out that the man she agreed to marry was not as rich as he claimed but was hard working enough to take very good care of her.

Besides, Nwanyi Nnobi found more fulfillment in that which was greater than silver or gold; that which God had blessed her husband with and which he gave her every time and anyhow.

She was to discover in her chats with her fellow women that wealth alone did not make a woman happy. She had come to appreciate her husband's not-so-common bedroom abilities.

The couple's self-belief and profession of their future wealth which bothered on self delusion was not what earned them a place in history but a fallout of what the wife did to her children.

Nwanyi Nnobi was eating one evening with her three children after a whole day's farming when an idea came to her head.

The meal was a roasted "mkpuru ji" or small lobular yam tubers soaked in red palm oil and salt.

The small yams were essentially farm rejects condemned to be eaten with palm oil milled from palm nuts.

Nwanyi Nnobi chose the dining occasion to announce to her children of her intention to buy a dog from a market in her native town, Nnobi.

The market was and is still called Afor Nnobi.

Her children were so overjoyed that they would now have their own dog like many other families.

The enthusiasm caused by a prospect of owning a family dog led to a fierce debate among the children on what name to give the dog.

The squabble that ensued was so intense that none of the children would concede to the other as regards the name the dog should answer. They wanted their own suggested names upheld.

Ukaonu, the first son, had already seen the dog in his mind. His mother observed as he moved his oil soaked hands as if he was cuddling something.

"See what this stupid boy is doing with my dog", the mother muttered with anger.

His humming of the name he had earlier suggested as he cuddled the imaginary dog led to a fight with his other siblings.

Their mother ended the fight by giving Ukaonu, her son, a dirty slap.

Nwanyi Nnobi was not only angry with the son for causing a fight but for the fact that the boy was staining her dog with his oil soaked hands.

The slap was so loud and hot that the poor boy had to run away from the eating area into the open space under the pear or ube tree where the father and his friends were savoring an evening with a keg of palm wine.

Most Mbanagu men enjoyed moonlight gists after a hard day's job. In such gathering, information but never gossip flowed. "Men," they would joke, "don't gossip but discuss".

The men asked the boy why he was crying and the poor boy narrated how his mother slapped him for causing a fight and rubbing palm oil on the body of her yet to be bought dog.

Mazi Akudinfe instantly knew what the topic in the market the next day would be.

The story did not die in Mbanagu but was told at Nnewi-wide gist points.

Many of the conveyors of the tale neither knew Akudinfe nor his wife, Nwanyi Nnobi, but were sure that the incident happened "na be onye Mbanagu" or "in the house of an Mbanugu person."

Up till today, when people fight over a share of what has been promised but yet to be delivered, they are said to be engaging in "izo nkita onye Mbanagu" or "izo nkita nwanyi Nnobi" meaning that the person is engaged in a stupid struggle over an Mbanagu person's or Nnobi woman's dog that is yet to be bought.

Akudinfe's children were counting their chicken before they were hatched.

Nwanyi Nnobi, their mother had only told them of her plan to purchase a dog with no specific date.

But, the woman could have maimed her son for nothing.