The story of a man who practised compassionate adultery in the service of his people, By Anayo Nwosu

Ikedi would pass for a human sperm bank. Why he had remained unmarried was still a puzzle to his kinsmen and many expectant spinsters alike in my village.

This man called Ikedi was very fair complexioned, tall, handsome and gap-toothed, making his fellow men to call him "Asa Nwoke" or a "beautiful man".

It was once rumored that he had a blood oath with Nkiruka, the beautiful daughter of Mazi Okweagba before he, Ikedi was conscripted into the Biafran army.

Ikedi survived the Nigerian civil war only for him to return home when the war ended and learnt that Nkiruka, his sweetheart had married a young Hausa Major three weeks before he returned.

The Major was so kind to Nkiruka's family and ensured that nothing happened to them during the mop up operations in various Biafran towns.

Mazi Okweagba, had persuaded his daughter to agree to the Hausa soldier's marriage proposal lying that he heard that Ikedi was killed in the war front when Owerri fell to Nigerian forces.

The old man planned to use his daughter as an economic seed that would germinate survival in the post war Nigeria.

Nkiruka and her army husband settled in Kaduna after the war and it was not long before the army man became a military governor in one of the northern states to the benefit of his wife's family.

Ikedi couldn't get himself to love another woman even though his manhood would not join him in any enmity with, or protest against womenfolk.

Strange enough, Bro. Ikedi would not consider becoming a catholic priest but he chose to be involved in another missionary work i.e. to help women whose husbands were impotent and couldn't help their wives achieve conception.

His bubbling cosmetics business made it easier for women in need to reach out to him without raising an eyebrow from nosy neighbours or busybodies.

Women naturally understand themselves and are ever willing to help each other as such those who benefited from the impregnation services of Ikedi would quietly tell another needy woman to seek.

That was how Ikedi became a filling station, play station and fertilizer.

Bro Ikedi the fertility missionary surprisingly didn't feel any sense of guilt as he believed that he was providing solutions to fellow needy human beings free of charge; a service doctors charge their patients an arm and leg.

Could it be that Ikedi is surreptitiously replicating himself in many people's homes and as such fathering children to be raised by other men?

Ikedi was to find the need to forget his heart ache and marry when he was in his late sixties.

He had three children none of which was more than 13 years when the great Ikedi died.

At his funeral, many women who Ikedi helped were mourning him not only for the diligence with which he made them enjoy the act as they were being treated with his huge manhood but also for his mastery of women's physiognomy and the way Ikedi delivered entertainment and fulfillment while on top of them.

The beneficiaries of Ikedi's assistance knew what he was to them and would remain grateful for his selfless service to "womanity"

I came to appreciate Bro. Ikedi when I learnt how much fertility challenged women whose husband cannot produce good quality spermatozoa now pay for medical assistance.

It now costs more than N800,000 for an uncertain artificial insemination with donated sperm.

Ikedi was a good man because he manually inseminated the needy without collecting a dime. He never even moaned on duty as he subordinated his ecstasy to the usual screams of the women receiving his seeds.

As a matter of policy, he never came before a woman came or left. He would patiently wait to come with his women.

Ikedi would always tell his women that a child is conceived when a man and a woman arrive together at "ugwu nwa" or "sweet mountain full of babies" in a unified scream. And he had a way of achieving that.

Bro. Ikedi was an unsung great man because he gave for free what he received for free.