The Widow's Plight

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 2

Another contributor to the discussion reminded the gathering that whenever mysterious deaths like this occur, the first step is to ascertain the innocence or otherwise of the widow. ‘Why are we not doing first thing first?’ ‘Just what is mysterious in the death of a man who went to an area where war was raging and got killed? Why do we mystify everything?’ Akuje asked. This provoked Chief Udu and he sought to stop him in his tracks. ‘Akuje, watch your manners otherwise, I will use the powers vested in me as the Spokesman of Oyiboma to send you out of this gathering.

‘And not only that, you will be ostracized. Have you forgotten that you are the black sheep of this community? Do you think that this community has forgiven you for the ‘sacrilege’ you committed against our gods? You acted in complicity with the widow of your late senior brother to contravene all that we hold sacred with regard to our mourning rites. You unilaterally exempted her from observing the mourning rites of your late senior brother. Are you even supposed to be seen in a gathering of this nature? How can we be performing rituals against deafness and the reptile Alligator, famous for its deafness, surfaces? He who has a festering sore should not give cause for people to remind him about the sore. A word is enough for the wise.’ Chief Udu almost bared his fangs. He ended his speech abruptly and took his seat. The Ochiligwe himself was livid.

Akuje, you ought to bury your head in shame. You took our tradition to the cleaners when you dubiously prevented the widow of your late senior brother from undergoing the mourning rites.’ Idoh, a leading chief in the community said. ‘I know that you, Idoh, cannot substantiate that allegation. However, to put the records straight. The widow of my late senior brother did not undergo the mourning rites for genuine reasons not out of any dubious act on my part or on the part of anyone. For your information, before the death of my senior brother, the woman was already a ‘walking corpse. She had been on the hospital bed for three weeks before my late senior brother was rushed to the same hospital for urgent medical attention.

‘And what is more, arrangements for her referral to India for further treatment were concluded a day after my late brother took a bed in the hospital. Indeed, that she was still in the country when my senior brother died was because of some discrepancies in her flight details. Unless in your warped sense of reasoning, you would have wanted the flight of the ailing woman canceled to enable her come and die along with her late husband to satisfy the tenets of your soulless and obsolete mourning rituals’, Akuje was a non-conformist and the traditional institution in the community has been tracking him. He is famous for his fearlessness and on occasions like the one at hand, he always has his quiver full of blistering arrows. He fired on.

‘In this jet age, when the attention of all should be focused on the development of man, we are here scheming how to subject our fellow human beings to the worst form of oppression and unmitigated human rights abuses.’ This candid candor drew the ire of the people of Oyiboma that gathered there. The Ochiligwe and Chief Udu were already seething in anger over Akuje’s outburst but maintained studied silence. It was as if the duo had silently agreed to give their fearless son a long rope with which to hang himself. But Chief Okpor, the assistant spokesman of the community could not take it anymore.

‘Akuje, do you realize that you are in the presence of His Majesty, the Ochiligwe? ‘I think I have the presence of mind to appreciate that’, Akuje replied. ‘And you also know that the Ochiligwe is the custodian of our customs and traditions?

‘Of course I do’, Akuje responded. ‘And you agree that it is settled that any attack on our customs and traditions is an affront on the Ochiligwe? Akuje wanted to respond but Chief Okpor was in no mood to give him the chance. ‘Do you realize that by describing our customs as soulless and obsolete, you are saying that the institution of the Ochiligwe is soulless and obsolete? Watch your tongue otherwise your end will be very disastrous. No well bred individual can resort to the language of a guttersnipe in describing the culture of his people.

‘Whatever we do here in the name of our customs cannot be questioned. You carry on as if you are the most cerebral in this community. In Africa, we know the danger the widows pose to our society and that is why we are tackling them without baiting an eyelid. We are at war with widows.’

In order to be heard, Akuje interrupted Chief Okpor and the latter stopped speaking. ‘If by my solid stand against the annihilation of innocent widows you say I am an ill bred, I do not have any objection. I accept that name calling wholeheartedly. Your curses will amount to water poured on the back of a duck. They will not be of any effect.’ There was no doubt that Akuje has stirred the hornet’s nest by what the people of Oyiboma described as the base terms he used to describe their tradition. It was at this stage that Chief Udu consulted with the Ochiligwe in very low tones. At the end of the brief conversation, Chief Udu took on Akuje.

Chief Udu: Akuje, at the last count, this community has lost three of its high flying sons to the cold hands of death aside your late senior brother. Are you aware?

Akuje: I am aware of the debacles. I knew all of them. And incidentally, they were my very close associates when I was in the city.

Chief Udu: And you think there is no cause for alarm? And they are not mysterious deaths?

Akuje: Like I said earlier, they are very sad developments. I rightly called them debacles. But given the circumstances of their deaths, ‘mystery’ will be the last word to associate their deaths with. I will narrate later if I am given the time to do so.

Chief Udu did not consider this response apt.

Chief Udu: (turning to the Ochiligwe) Your Majesty, can we indulge Akuje?

Ochiligwe: Let’s hear him out.

Chief Udu: Akuje, the Ochigwe and all our kinsmen are all ears.

Akuje: Thank you your Majesty. Let us take the case of Fixala, the great architect as example. On many occasions his wife reported to our Town’s Union meetings in the city that the earliest time Fixala gets home on a daily basis (whether from work or weekends) was between 12 midnight and 1 am and that some nights it could be upto 2am especially on weekends. Worried by these incessant reports from his wife. We sat Fixala down on more than four occasions to discuss his wife’s fears. On those occasions, Fixala often warned us to steer clear of his private life as he was not answerable to any of us. Once he beat his wife to pulp for bringing his private life to the public domain.

There was this fateful Saturday night that he went clubbing with his friends. They all drank to a state of stupor and had all agreed that they will not leave the club until well after 5 am. At about 2am, Fixala told his friends that the daughter of his colleague was marrying later that day and so could not afford to stay on till 5am. As he left the Club, he ran into a police checkpoint. According to the police, Fixala was flagged down and in his drunken state, he bumped into the barriers at the check point.He was at very high speed and so the car somersaulted several times and ended up in a ditch. Fixala died on the spot.

Ochiligwe, Chief Udu, my great people of Oyiboma, is it in order to accuse the wife of being responsible for this death? And does this death bear the imprimatur (if any exists) of deaths caused by a widow? And in the case of Fixala, his wife, Lizzy, had been worried that the husband was living a dangerous life by keeping late nights in our crime-prone city. Can a woman who wants her husband dead go to this length? Of course, Lizzy, his widow died a month after the stringent mourning period? Your Royal Majestic, The Ochiligwe, my respected Chefs, I am sorry if I have exhausted your patience. I would have loved to also talk about Fuyewa whose death was another one that rocked this community to its foundation. Chief Udu asked him to go on.

Our late son Fuyewa was one of the very few Nigerians who answered the clarion call by the government that people should invest in agriculture in order to diversify the economy and provide job for the teeming unemployed youths. He had a vast farm where many of our unemployed youths were gainfully employed. Fuyewa was killed by herdsmen who invaded his farm. The wife who was in the farm with him taking care of the poultry narrowly escaped death but she was fatally wounded and left for dead. The wife was still recuperating from the wounds of that attack when she was compelled to re-locate to the jungle for the mourning rites.

Strong woman that she is. She completed the mourning rites but because medical attention was not extended to her in the jungle during her stint there, as customs demand, the right leg that she had bullet wounds had to be amputated. ‘Let her stew in her juice’ was the heartless statement someone in the gathering uttered. In this instant, is it fair to accuse the widow who almost died in the incident of being responsible for the death of the husband?

‘What about late Tecdi, a Nuclear Physicist teaching in one of the most renowned Universities in the world and a leading light of the community. Professor Tecdi was home on holidays and after spending some time in the village returned to the city preparatory for his return trip to his base overseas. He was kidnapped on his way to the airport. And in his bid to escape from the kidnappers, he was gunned down. The wife came down from their overseas base for the mourning rites and because our environment is malarial, she could not survive the mourning rites in the bush. The woman died. Can we attribute the death of Tecdi in the hands of kidnappers to his late wife?

Chief Okpor, the medicine man and deputy spokesman of the community sort the permission of the Ochiligwe to caution Akuje. The Ochiligwe gave his approval. ‘Akuje, I found your narration very nauseating and I am sure I am speaking for everyone in this gathering’. This assertion was affirmed by the audience. ‘As you proceed with the rest of your speech, do not ask this august gathering any rhetorical question. What do you know about the mysteries of this world? You ask whether it was in order to hold the widow of Fixala responsible for the tragic death of her husband. Who can fathom the capability of women when it comes to the art of ‘re-making a man?’ A woman can transform a tee-totall-er to an alcohol addict if that suits her.

‘In one case of ‘deliverance’ I handled in my shrine, a woman confessed that because her husband was very stingy, she used her witch craft skill to turn him into an imbecile. In that state, the husband had no mind of his own and lived under the vice grip of the woman. Whenever he sold his farm products, he religiously handed over the proceeds to the domineering wife’ There was a chorus of condemnation from the audience. If we involve the oracles in the investigation of the death of Fixala. The ignoble role of his wife will come to the fore. Already before Fixala’s death, you told us that she had already spilled the beans as regards her husband’s addiction to alcohol (what was supposed to be a domestic matter) to the attention of members of the Town’s Union’. Akuje interrupted. ’Chief, Fixala’s perpetual state of being drunk was public knowledge’ Even at that’, Akuje continued, ‘she could not have stopped with members of the Town’s Union alone. She could have reported her husband to the coven of witches. And what you the uninitiated do not know is that for every evil plot a witch accomplishes, she wins accolades in the world of witches.

‘Fuyewa, Chief Okpor continued, was not the only farmer in that area, why did the herdsmen single him out for attack? And on Tecdi, I am sure, he was one of many people that plied that route to the airport that fateful day. In my over four decades in this business of wrestling with evil forces as a reputable medicine man, I have had first-hand experiences with the forces of darkness as represented by women who can change a man’s destiny. They stop at nothing to achieve their evil objectives. Indeed, but for procreation, ordinarily men should have nothing to do with women. Fixala’s wife died because our gods discovered that she had a hand in the death of her husband.

Chief Udu took the floor. He paid glowing tributes to the Ochiligwe for the able way he has handled the meeting. ‘We have not had a more nerve-wracking meeting like this in recent times. Thank you, our great Ochiligwe. Today, one of us has tried unsuccessfully, to convince us to abandon our tradition. It is easier for a river to flow upstream than for us to jettison our culture. This statement was greeted with general approval.

‘After the distraction of Akuje, we are proceeding to the subject of our gathering here today. And that is administering the Oath of Innocence and the very portent Agaba Oath on Nancy. ‘The Agaba Oath is the authentic medium through which we can confirm that Nancy was not a witch.’ The aim of the Oath of Innocence is to certify that Nancy does not have any hand in the death of Paul, this was applauded. The stormy petrel called Akuje interrupted the spokesman and asked: ‘will it not amount to an overkill to administer both the Oath of Innocence and the Agaba Oath on the same Nancy?’ He was shouted down. Chief Udu took on Akuje once more. ‘What is this your obsession about Nancy? Nancy extinguished our light and we are exploring ways through which we can take our pound of flesh and you are there trying to be a clog in the wheel of progress. If we were not a kind hearted community, Nancy would have, before now, paid dearly for this telling blow she inflicted on us. We are aware of all the evils she perpetuated culminating in the mysterious death of our son. ’