The Day Children of a Foremost Chief Priest Made a Public Show Repentance in Nnewi

By Anayo M. Nwosu

The passersby comprising mostly of the trading public in Nkwo Nnewi International market and the teeming hordes of school children returning home from school were held in awe as the wealthy children of the Ezeana Nnewi, the chief priest of the “Ana” or “Earth” deity were making a show of their conversion to a new brand of Christianity.

Even though they had since left the traditional religion of their father having been converted to Anglican Church while in the missionary school at St. Thomas, Akwudo Otolo Nnewi, they had further been over-converted to a Pentecostal Christianity, the brand known as “Ndi Uka Electric” or “Ndi Kwere Na Jesus” in Nnewi

The two fully grown male children of Ezeana Amaolisa had been bitten by Pastor W.F Kumuyi’s bug. They had converted to Deeperlife Bible Church.

That was in the mid-1980s when Pastor Kumuyi, the founder of Deeperlife Church was teaching his followers to throw away any holiness polluting household items like TV, video players and stereo music sets. Hence, the new converts from Nnewi decided to make a public announcement of their life-shaking conversion.

With the zeal of people in a hurry to board a heaven bound airplane, the children of Ezeana Nnewi were dutifully offloading their electronic house effects they had removed from their houses and loaded same it a pickup van for this show.

They were throwing the holiness preventing items into a big refuse dump on Nnobi Road in front Izuchukwu park in Nnewi. They sang to the praises of God and insults to devil as they disposed their assets.

The eagerness on the faces of these new converts portrayed a strange happiness to the amazement of the onlookers who believed that “ife nkea agbaghi aka” or that “they were acting under an influence of a yet to be determined substance”.

While the crowd were worrying themselves in commiseration with the ageing Ezeana Amaolisa, whose children had oblivious gone mad, some smart young men were busy struggling to collect the thrashed items for free. Hence the items changed ownership in a second.

As Deeperlife Bible Church matured, members and their leader learnt that the overzealous and sanctimonious doctrine of a sterile or overly ascetic lifestyle was a journey into primitive age or simply an atavistic voyage.

After nearly two decades after, not only that all the members of the church replaced the very same household items they had deemed corruptive but the church now uses the items to spread their messages.

The church was unfazed by the refusal of the modern children of the ageing pastors and members to practise the christianity that dims the beauty of a woman and makes their men people of small or no ambition. They would query, “why make a long term plan when Jesus is coming soon?”

The suppressed voice of the youths of the church was given a vent when the son of the leader of the church and his wife wedded in a manner in contravention to the church’s stipulated policy. Worst still, the Pastor Kumuyi himself attended the wedding and didn’t protest what he naturally wouldn’t condone.

The love of a child probably trumped a longtime conviction.

Not a few were surprised when the founder of Deeperlife Bible Church, Pastor W. F Kumuyi himself told an audience of his senior clergy and workers that before he dies that he would surely proscribed all those culture or doctrines he instituted to help members live holy lives which were no longer necessary.

But my uncle, Ozuomee has always warned me not to leave my commonsense at home while going to choice. He was convinced that a choirmaster that would run mad is usually detectable from the way he conducts his choir.

A pastor, native doctor or person of faith under a righteous zeal or anesthetic influence of his deity could lead his followers into stupid actions as we see daily in new churches.

I wonder how the children of Ezeana Amaolisa would in retrospect view their actions at Nkwo Nnewi in the 1980s.

One can now relate why the Europeans who brought the christian religion to Africans have since moved to more advanced religions of Education, Proper Planning, Good Governance, Science & Technology. In a grossly limited circumspection, we pity them, wishing that they would perish in the hell which told us about.

Nobody should get me wrong here. I’m a Christian but I think that Africans need to know that they can do for themselves many things they are told to pray into existence.

Nothing that is being done today in our places of worship including the doctrinal fraud and abdication of our roles in solving our problems that have not been practiced in Europe many centuries before now. They have seen it all and have resolved not bother God with their developmental and existential issues. They hold themselves accountable for their situations.

The way we are going, it will take us a long while to launch independence from our new religious colonial masters.

Are some people in Nigeria not praying for our country to be transformed by poorly prepared, semi-educated and incompetent leadership? The premise is that we feel assured that when we pray that God shall grant the wishes of our heart.