The Day God Confirmed The Potency Of The Powers Of Rain Makers In My Town – Anayo Nwosu

As written By Anayo M. Nwosu

Throughout his adult Mr. Josephat Ubajaka was a practicing christian known even to the Archbishop Francis Arinze as he was then known.

Josephat and his brother, popularly known as Oga Pius, worked assiduously with the catholic missionaries to convert so many souls in Otolo Nnewi.

Josephat was so spirit-filled that he feared no powers of Satan including those of juju propellers servants, witch doctors and chief priests of local deities.

Eke Okwu Udo, the revered serpent of a nearby Udo shrine that would creep in and out of people's homes in Ogbe Otolo undisturbed didn't not survive its ill-advised visit to the house of Josephat.

Josephat cursed and killed the Udo serpent and nothing happened.

The natives waited in vain for the Udo god to visit Josephat with vicissitudes and strange sicknesses but were disappointed.

Days passed as months did and nothing happened instead, Josephat, his son and entire family prospered. His son, together with a nephew even floated the second most successful passengers and goods haulage companies in Nnewi.

He braveness and goodness of Josephat led to the conversion of many more natives followed him to worship that God that defeated Okwu Udo.

The heroics of Josephat and his christian group ended up causing an acrimonious resentment in the undying adherents of Nnewi traditional religion.

Till this date, the humiliated Udo shrine is still in sorrow of the embarrassment Josephat and his God caused it as its shrine looks deserted.

The aura of this great spirit-filled christian was evident as many young people in and around Ogbe became Catholics. This continued until Bro. Josephat died in the 1970s.

Bro. Josephat died during the raining season and the rain makers and other traditional religionists in Nnewi decided that it was a pay back time.

All entreaties that rain makers be hired to prevent during Josephat's funeral by elders like Nnanyi Nduluo and Nwokafor and that of Chief Benedict Nwosu, Duke Anagbarizu 1 of Nnewi and the Obi Nwakanwa, (Josephat's Umunna or extended family) fell on the deaf ears of Oga Pius, the brother of the deceased who would not want to daint the saintly life of Bro. Josephat by procuring a rain maker he termed demonic.

As a custom, once a death occurs in Nnewi, friends and relations would visit the bereaved to commiserate with them.

Among the visitors are deceased's creditors, makers of coffins and rain makers.

Each comes around to steady minds of the bereaved to their importance and to market their services without openly asking for patronage.

That was how Nwokonkwo the rain maker from Ndicheke Umuenem and two of his colleagues namely: Sampson of Okpuno Umuenem and Milikwe Snr. of Abubuo Nnewichi visited Ubajaka family to offer their condolence and to ascertain how funeral preparations were going.

Elders who saw the rain makers visiting knew their real mission.

They had come to let the bereaved drive home or remind the bereaved of their menacing importance. They are like a bug perching on the scrotum.

Rain makers are paid to either remain neutral or be engaged to prevent rain from falling.

But Oga Pius, the brother of the deceased in control of the planning would not buckle to such satanic blackmail. No rain maker would be engaged.

For Oga Pius, nobody except God, had the powers to make or stop rains.

Knowing late Josephat and his surviving brother too well, the rain makers would have been surprised if they were engaged.

But, they decided to satisfy their conscience by visiting prior to the date of the funeral  because one cannot ply their trade without "ije ofor". And that they had done.

They left Ubajaka's compound saying to Oga Pius "nkehu otu nkemu ibuo". "Mbumsi unu ya akwa ozo nnekwu ya nesi agidi ana enene!" meaning that "the die is cast and it is going to epic".

It wasn't until the funeral mass ended and it was the time to commit the body of Bro. Josephat to the mother earth that the first thunder landed with a reverberating sound enough to cause a convulsion in a new born baby.

The heavens opened its flashlights  of lightening, each followed by clapping thunders as if they were being released from the nozzles of a Biafran canon gun.

The thunders nearly or obviously tested the faith of the members of Legion of Mary who never stopped rolling their unusually long chaplets.

Many of the Christians with their necks bent to angle 45 degrees in holiness, kept shouting "Chineke napu Ekwensu ike" meaning "may God neutralize the power of Satan" as the rains bellowed as they beat the ground and everything on top of it.

But the rain makers who were assembled at a safe distance at Enem Hall, which was screaming distance from the funeral venue seemed favoured by God as they intensified their incantations and certain abracadabra and it continued to rain.

It rained and thundered like no other day making those Catholics who didn't go for confession a week before think that Rapture was about to take place. Those with major sins were afraid of hell.

Both the members of the Holy Roman Catholic Church gathered, their pagan relations and Anglicans present were soaked in the torrential rain made by the vilified and neglected rain makers.

Able bodied young men had to use buckets to scoop out water from the grave to enable the pall bearers lower the casket containing the remains of the great Josephat Ubajaka in to his final resting place.

It was also very onerous a task for the youth of Umunwakanwa in Ogbe Otolo to lift very wet laterite sand in shovels and hoes to fill the grave of their illustrious son.

To ensure that christian propagandists didn't discredit their acts and allude the well orchestrated but embarrassing man made rainfall to natural elements, the rain makers halted the rain immediately the grave was completely covered.

It was a commercial victory for the Nnewi rain makers as they used the occasion of the funeral of a renowned christian to demonstrate that they could mess up any occasion without their engagement or due recognition.

It happened that the victory of the rain makers was a confirmation of an Igbo saying that "ngu onye ji eko akwanaghuna ya" meaning "may the legitimate source of living of all be preserved".

The rain makers were if why the Catholics demonizing their God's gift and source of their source of earning.

Just like in the era before Christianity came to Nnewi to spoil their market, no person planning for an important occasion during the raining season would risk not having a budget for the services of rain makers.