OPINION: My Family And Ọgbanje Demons Connections, By Anayo Nwosu

When I left my home town for the University of Nigeria Nsukka, I did with a good understanding of the meaning and operational dynamics of Ogbanje until a lecturer of Biochemistry threw my long held knowledge into confusion.


I was sitting in a Biochemistry 201 class listening as Dr. Peter Uzoegwu was delivering his lecture on the origin, symptoms and prevention of Sickle Cell Anaemia disease. He said that the disease was predominant in black race and that its transmission could be prevented if only intending couples underwent test to determine their genotype.

Dr. Peter Uzoegwu (who is now a professor) advised that a person with AS genotype should not marry an AS or SS genotype; that even though an emergence of an SS or a sickler is by probability that there was a one in four chances that a baby born of AS father and AS mother would turn out an SS. And a couple who are SS or sickers would only sire sickled children.

The lecturer was so mastery and dramatic in his teaching method just as he encouraged disruptive questions from his students.

And the questions came in torrents and he answered all using relatable illustrations. He disclosed that majority of sickler children die at infancy and that many of the children were mistakenly termed Ọgbanje or Abiku by Africans.


Dr. Uzuegwu concluded that with good management which included periodic blood transfusion, personal discipline, good disease like malaria control and by constant medical checks that, few adults  with the disease could live much longer.

Quite unlike me, I didn’t ask any questions. I was rather pensive and was rather relived as I had just received an insight into what could have been the causes of the death of my six siblings.

Obiora is not the first child of my mother. There was an Ifeoma before him and as many as four before me and one other after me that died inexplicably. Of my mom's 13 children, only 6 lived above 33 years, others died before their eighth birthday.

I was further to confirm what happened to my late siblings when I got my mom to do her genotype test.  She is an AS. Most of my six surviving siblings are AS. It was possible that my father, who died before the knowledge of sickle cell anaemia disease became readily available, was an AS genotype.

At least, Prof. Peter Uzoegwu had helped to resolve the probable causes of the death of my siblings who died mostly at infancy. They might not have been Ogbanje but could have died of sickle cell anaemia.

But that wasn't the case as that of my cousin named Ịgadị which means "you shall live".

She was so named after her mother lost four children before her in a row under the similar but curious circumstances. The children would die just before their fourth birthday. Both my uncle and his wife have AA genotype and as such couldn't have been siring sicklers.

Elders had enjoined my uncle, named Afụnanyaekwe, to consult a known Ọgbanje dibịa to solve the nagging infant mortality in his household.

Only Dr. Ifeoma popularly called Ifeoma Ọgbanje could help.

My uncle had to agree to approach Dr. Ifeoma as he was tired of burying his young children.

Ifeoma Ọgbanje, a native of Egbu Umuenem Otolo Nnewi, was so called because she had a traditional medical facility where she treated Ọgbanje patients. She was well known in Nnewi and environs and was patronized by christians and pagans alike.

Religious differences in my town disappear when a believer is confronted with liquidating sickness. The biblical Job surely was not an Igbo man. No Igbo person becomes a member of Cherubim & Seraphim Church ordinarily. Membership is problems-induced.


While examining baby Ịgadị, Dr. Ifeoma Ọgbanje began to speak in a weird language only her or apprentice dibịas could understand, just like today's pastors do when they are under influence. She was heard persuading the particular demon inhabiting the baby to name its price and leave the baby alone since the parents had suffered enough. She was appealing not decreeing or commanding as Igbo demons or evil spirits get more difficult or stubborn if commanded. They however, respond to appeasement and negotiated sacrifice.

At the end, Dr. Ifeoma Ọgbanje used a sharp blade to give the baby two one inched parallel marks on the face in between the eyes and the ear. She also incised three inched horizontal lines on the left wrist of the baby. She rubbed a greenish mixture on the wounds to prevent excessive bleeding.

It is believed in some quarters that a wound inflicted on a baby Ọgbanje is deemed as a difilement by her Ọgbanje group; it is enough for the demon to leave the host alone once  blood has been shed.

Some sacrifices were prescribed by Dr. Ifeoma Ọgbanje but my uncle elected to provide the money instead, persuading the doctor to perform the sacrifice on his behalf since his new christian faith forbade him from so doing. Dr. Ifeoma Ọgbanje understood and collected the money from her townsman with a mischievous smile on her face.

Good christians would rather have a proxy  perform a critical sacrifice for them. All, which have to be done needs to be done after all, some of the problems that beset a man are not christian in nature. It's like paying tax to Caesar while remaining a God worshipper.

And baby Ịgadi lived.

Her mother had many more children and none of them died as infants. It's like Dr. Ifeoma Ọgbanje had fixed the problem.

Not all that are afflicted with Ọgbanje demon die so early. Some of them mostly ladies, die when they are just ripe for marriage. Before they finally die, their fellow students, play mates or siblings who have close interactions with them would noticed that there is something queer about them.

An Ọgbanje girl would be seen sometimes discussing and laughing with unseen people. She possesses an ability to influence people to get whatever she wants.

It sometimes bewildering to the friends of an Ọgbanje on how she gets money to spend. Someone who was broken in the night would have enough to spend in the morning. Her spiritual friends provide all she needs.

Anybody who offends and Ọgbanje is in deep trouble. Their curses on people that find their trouble are with immediate effect.

This group of Ọgbanje are not beyond deliverance.

But something must be done first.

The lady or Ọgbanje must be persuaded to divulge where her "iyi anị" or covenant preparation is buried.

Iyi anị is a covenant sealing the Ọgbanje agreement between a girl and his fellow demons that she would never betray them by opting out of the union no matter the persuasion of her earthly parents. She is supposed to die as agreed to break the heart of her parents.


It takes a powerful Ọgbanje native doctor to manage the deliverance process of a girl possessed by Ọgbanje demon.

The dibịa or native doctor has to fortify himself and his hosts against the ferocious resistance attacks by Ọgbanje demons who would arrive to mount pressure on their member not to jump ship.

For the love of her earthly  parents who are instructed before hand by the dibịa to cry as they plead with their possessed daughter  to choose them and ditch her Ọgbanje group and the dexterity of the dibịa, a daughter may decide to reveal where her iyi anị is buried. Once it is exhumed and burnt, the possessed is freed.

But the dibịa would have to perform propiation sacrifice to appease the aggrieved party that have lost a member.

Most people have come to accept that after the civil war in Heaven, Lucifer and his host of rebellious angels were cast down to the earth to inhabit. While Lucifer was enthroned as Satan their king, his angels became demons.

One doesn't know whether some of Lucifer's partner angels turned demons have rebelled against Satan and have launched their own independence. One rebellion begets another.

But seriously, has one ever wondered how all those demons cast out by Jesus, his disciples, today’s men of God and traditional exorcists enter their human hosts?

Some humans are possessed by various types of demons at birth or midway in their lives whilst some willfully make themselves a vessel for habitation of demons.

Many demons upon interrogation had revealed that they incarnated humans by inhabiting the foetus of a pregnant woman  or right in the hospital as the babies are born. They wear the human bodies as clothes and would be ready to discard the bodies through death and inhabit another.

A particular demon may decide to punish a woman or a young family by repeatedly incarnating into the newborn babies and dying at infancy until the demon is expelled or debarred.

Ogbanje demon is that one that would possess a new born either in the womb or at birth, makes the child sickly and attention demanding in a bid to drain the financial resources of the parents, later dies and is reincarnated in another pregnancy of the former mother and would continue repeating the cycle until a deliverance is done.

For appearing (ọ gba) and departing (nje) a child could be dubbed an Ọgbanje.

It is mostly a feminine demon.