Anayo Nwosu: I'm scared as my friend has become a fiery native doctor

By Anayo M. Nwosu

Yes it was him. He is parents were one of the first to become born again in my town in the 1970s. He too gave his life to pentecostal ways. 

I could recall our numerous arguments in the secondary school following his admonitions that I should stop worshipping "idol on the cross" and "mere human Mary" as a Catholic. 

We all called him Christopher at Nnewi High School but he is now known as "Imepu ichuba" meaning "you must solve any problem you create".

He took the new name himself and he is so called.

The white chalk he used to lace his two eyelids and the animal blood on his entire forehead could not confuse me from positively identifying him.

He is now a full time native doctor and a member of the executives of the Godian Religion Association which is an umbrella of all worshippers of Nnewi traditional deities.

Godian Religion Association now serves as a pressure group to fight against the oppression by overzealous pentecostal christians who move around the town, calumnizing traditional religion practitioners and destroying places of traditional worship or shrines in same manner Boko Haram do to the churches up north.

Christopher or "Imepu" for short, is now a new creation.

He came with his nwansi masquerade to pay homage to Nnewi traditional ruler during his yearly coronation anniversary known as  Ofala Festival.

Imepu masquerade's was adorned with awe-inspiring articles hung on the raffia palm strands of weavons used to build the masquerade known as "mmonwu".

Owners of the masquerades  do not necessarily wear it but fortify the wearer with "aju ebu or aada" meaning "an antidote against juju inspired dizziness or fainting".

While any other sickness inflicted on the wearer of the masquerade could be sorted out after outing, the masquerade must be prevented from falling down due to aju or juju-orchestrated dizziness because a masquerade must be disbanded if it falls on the ground while performing in an arena.

It is a calamity for a masquerade to have a free fall in an arena.

When a masquerade falls, all the juju used to build or fortify the masquerade will lose their powers and are earthed through the body of the wearer who is expected to die of the incident.

It is a form of electrocution or "jujucution" .

The power or the spiritual strength of any masquerade is measured by how it is able to wade off spiritual arrows directed at it by other native doctors in the crowd or another masquerade close by.

To hedge against the double jeopardy of losing a dibia or native doctor and the masquerade due to a fall, the owner of the masquerade refrains from wearing the masquerade. He carry his "akpa nsi" or the armoury of jazz or juju walking behind the masquerade.

He would move to the front of his masquerade upon sensing a threat to divert the evil darts.

The owner of the masquerade is easily identified by his armoury bag and a long sword-like staff known as "ojii"

There is only one exception in Nnewi whereby the owner of the masquerade risks adorning the masquerade itself.

This masquerade is known as Ajofia Nnewi or simply the "evil forest".

Ajofia has never been felled as it has the endorsement of all the deities in Nnewi conditioned on the very covanant that Ajofia should never be the first to shell out evil missiles to a competing masquerade or act without provocation.

Ajofia is a moving shrine and could compete in followership with a big Catholic Church congregation on Corpus Christi procession.

Ajofia's voice sounds like that of the ancestor's and its songs (now sold on CD) are laden with proverbs.

The songs could make fellow native doctors and followers fall under traditional anointing.

Ajofia has now displaced the Ijele masquerade which before now had the privilege to end an occasion.

That is, once the Ajofia is performing in any arena, no other masquerade would be allowed to enter or be allowed to perform after Ajofia leaves.

My inquisitive self pushed me to visit Imepu Ichuba's house to find out what led to a dramatic change in him.

"Nwokem hapu m aka. Ijuta isi nkuta iwere agba ya me gini?", meaning "my friend leave me alone; of what use is the import of your enquiry?", he jokingly said.

"All I can tell you is: na so I see am and I come take am like that", my friend barely said before a client came in and I had to leave.

I later gathered that my friend went to learn trade after secondary education and was doing well in Benin when he was called to the higher office of native medicine.

He would not sleep at night as a strange voice would be asking him to go back to Nnewi to establish a traditional medicine practice. The voice would also be revealing to him the usefulness of various types plants and roots.

To be fair to Christopher, as he was then called, he engaged in fasting and prayer to silence the tormenting voice until he went mad. That was when his relations took him home for an unorthodox cure.

At the border between Nnewi and Ichi, Christopher regained his senses and the peculiar voice resumed transmission now with clear instructions on how he would conduct his affairs as a new powerful native doctor.

O kwanu nku di n'mba na-eghelu mba nni meaning "a race are equipped by their creator with all they need to survive"