How a powerful man is boldly poisoning and killing my relations with evil ppwers

By Anayo Nwosu

Another man has just died in my clan and all fingers are pointing at the same direction: at a man believed to have acquired  juju to kill his kinsmen.  

Ichie Ogbungwu is said to also be responsible for the current sickness of Mazi Utudialo,my uncle. 

Utudialo could no longer achieve erection even if all his three beautiful wives undress before him at the same time.

What he initial thought was a joke has now snowballed into a serious matter.

A man can bear any other ailment with grace but not the loss of his ability to be a man to his women.

Chukwu aju! (ie God forbid!)

Despite the huge size of his manhood, Mazi Utudialo could not also urinate again with ease.

Utudialo was publicly threatened by Ichie Ogbungwu that he would lose his connecting pipe if he continued his unsolicited work of mercy in Ichie Ogbungwu's house.

Four months didn't pass before Mazi Utudialo started having difficulty in urinating. He also noticed  a swelling in between his legs but so close to his anus.

He is also finding it difficult to pass bowel.

This sickness is called "órsù" in Nnewi and it's believed to be a handiwork of wicked "umunadi" or kinsman.

Somebody must be responsible for that.

He was convinced that Ichie Ogbungwu was the cause of his woes because he threatened to "disman" him  for sleeping with his wives.

Was it not Ogbungwu's  wives that wouldn't let him be?

Utudialo is a gift to sexually under-serviced women in the community. He has a way of making women scream and they could not stop trooping to him. He is also very generous.

The villagers have also accused Ichie Ogbungwu of being responsible for Nono Asaoma's partial vision.

Nono Asaoma is a woman leader in the village who had the enfrontery to once protest Ichie Ogbungwu's encroachment, by one tongue of a hoe, into her dead husband's land.

Ichie Ogbungwu had told her that the eyes she used to see the land border would wither and it didn't take up to six months before the 74 years old Nono noticed that her vision had deteriorated.

She would feel a tissue-like mass covering her vision the way the arts theatre curtains are drawn and she had no doubt in her mind who was responsible for her plight.

Beside the general suspicion that Ichie Ogbungwu is a bad man, Pastor Whyte who the clan engaged to expose evil people in their midst and to destroy the effectiveness of their deeds singled out Ichie Ogbungwu as an evil man.

Smart man! Ogbungwu had an prior information that the pastor was coming and would be led to all the houses of the members of the clan for spiritual searching. So, he was able to get two policemen from his DPO friend to guard his house and to prevent the pastor and his zealous entourage from entering  his compound.

They could desecrate his ikenga (or the good juju that ensures that his power to achieve or to excel in his profession is live) while searching for nonexistent evil juju.

The pastor for want of unprovable evidence  could misled his principals to believe that his symbolic Ikenga carving and its "okuku" (meaning accoutrements) are the evil juju he was searching for.

After all, nobody questions any utterance a pastor makes while he is said to be "in the spirit".

Ichie Ogbungwu had maintained that he was innocent but nobody would believe him.

How can a man so reputed to have felled all manner of trees ranging from Iroko to Ngwu and so expertly too (and is still doing so even after the age of 65) be clean of evil juju?

The whole clan was amazed as Ogbungwu accepted to fell a particular tree obstructing a new Nnewi-Okigwe expressway under construction.

It was generally believed that "ndi muo" or spirits held meetings at night atop the Ngwu tree evidenced by numerous types of animals like owl, bat, vultures and squirrels that made permanent habitats on the branches, cracked stem and on the caved openings in between two branches of the Ngwu tree.

Many christan bodies had been seen in the past around the notorious tree praying, casting and binding all the evil spirits, witches and wizards that they believed met on the Ngwu tree at night to truncate the destinies of the villagers.

The community woke up one morning to see all the branches of the tree on the ground and the roots of the stem almost cut as Ogbungwu was aiming for the tap root.

Ogbungwu would assail very tall trees marked for felling, with the aid of ropes very early in the morning, dismember the branches before climbing down to uproot the trees.

He is a huge man with heavy muscles and a lot of energy which his wives complain are all expended in felling trees with nothing left to fell them in bed.

For successfully felling the revered Ngwu trees and many others unscathed, Mazi Ukwachinaka was given the title of Ogbungwu meaning "the expert feller of ngwu trees".

Ichie Ogbungwu is known beyond our town as he was called upon to fell trees other tree fellers fear to near.

Many in his community thought that if Ogbungwu could silence evil spirits by destroying their meeting venues, afflicting his enemies with some illness would be so elementary for him.

Ogbungwu would always tell disinterested kinsmen (who had already made up their minds on him) that the juju he has is the one he applies to do his trade.

But his kinsmen are determined to do him in.

That was why his clan had to send an SOS to one of their illustrious sons in Lagos to come help before Ichie Ogbungwu killed all of them.

Chief Ogbunka ears are full and the David in him has been stirred to the hilt to go fight this devilish Goliat in defence of kinsmen.

He must do something as one cannot refuse to join the army because of the fear of being shot neither will he jump off a tree out of fear of a common monkey.

How can one man be responsible for many afflictions of his people and he would look the other way as if he is not the son of his father, the great warrior?

Mbanu! No way!

It is more painful as Ogbungwu's parents were freed slaves who were accepted as indigenes when slavery was abolished.

Chief Ogbunka has decided to confront Ichie Ogbungwu and damn the consequences.

Someone has to do it.

He left Lagos with a heroic fervor for his village to confront this devilish man head-on.

"Ichie Ogbungwu must be a very wicked man and is as guilty as accused", he concluded.

Arriving Nnewi, he decided to say hello to his childhood friend, a consultant physician at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital who enquired to know what Chief Ogbunka came home to do since it wasn't a Christmas nor an Afiolu period.

He told him.

Dr. Madumere kept laughing as his friend reeled out the devilish deeds of Ichie Ogbungwu.

"Can I come along with you to see these your sick relations together with my wife who is also a consultant ophthalmologist?", Dr. Madumere asked of his friend.

"Dr. Madu you can't cease to amaze me. That fact that your grandfather was a native doctor should have made you more circumspect even in your practice of Medicine. So you don't know or you have conveniently forgotten that many sicknesses are man-made?", Chief said with condescending tune.

"Can't you see the coincidence? This Ichie Ogbungwu would cry in the night and the baby would die in the morning. But, I can't stop you if you insist on following me.

"What is the value of my money if I cannot use my influence and connections to protect my people? I plan to use the army and police from Onitsha and Awka to arrest the wicked killer and get him killed off in detention. What nonsense!" Chief roared  with murder written boldly on his face.

Dr.& Dr (Mrs) Madumere patiently checked on all the afflicted persons who were invited to Chief Ogbunka palatial home and their initial diagnoses confirmed their premonitions.

Ichie Utudialo was suffering from enlarged prostate while Nono Asaoma was found to be suffering from cataract in her eyes.

Chief Ogbunka was persuaded to bring them to the teaching hospital for surgery and they were discharged accordingly.

Ichie Ogbungwu is innocent of all the allegations leveled against him even though he enjoyed being feared which he saw as a defence on itself.

Do you know that many of those accusations that some people are responsible for afflicting serious diseases or ailments on others are pure ignorance?

Even up till now, many village folks believe that Stroke (Utuluokala), Enlarged Prostate (Órsù), Heart Attacks, Gas Gangrene (Enyiule), Cerebral Malaria (Ogulu Osenie), Ulcer (Onya Afor) and Fibroid (Ime Enyi) are evil attacks.

Many delusional men of God of fortune everywhere our villages are not helping matters. They are busy reinforcing the primitive belief that someone is surely responsible for an uncommon illness.

Please take that sick relation of yours to a specialist in a teaching hospital. You would be surprised that that sickness could be very natural and so simple to cure.

Don't listen to those fake visioners, prophets and pastors of fortune. They make money from your fears.

The are the real dangers.

Most people we accuse of afflicting those sicknesses on us or on our relations are actually innocent.

We are most a times, victims of our worst fears or ignorance.