Onyeara Ogbete

KWENU! Our culture, our future

Onyeara Ogbete

At times like this, when you no longer make head nor tail of certain political ife-di-iche, you appeal to other sources of knowledge. The Bible. The Koran. Mao Zedung. Dalai Lama. Socrates. Olaudah Equiano. Shakespeare. Talmud. Classics. Echetere m, echeteghi m. Now, when I find myself wondering about certain things, I go back to the words of our ancestors as passed on by our estimable elders.

A recent posting on our square has made me wonder: am I reading right or is something wrong with the processing unit of my cerebral central system? Then I received mails and calls from netters who confirm that I was not seeing double; that we, Ndiigbo, are truly in for a long tortuous ride on the winding, dark road of coexistence with our neighbors. Call it envy, hate; whatever, it is there. But then you cannot smack a child and request he utters no sound; that is the height of perfidious pediatric persecution. Only a madman makes such a request.

Madness? What is that? Who is mad: the madman or the supposedly sane souls? Unfortunately, there is no set standard of sanity, but there are degrees of madness. Trouble is, you have to stand at some point in the sanity scale to assess madness. So, if you are a wee bit toward the center, the guy on either extreme is surely mad. If you are at one extreme, the guy further removed from you is mad. Complicated? Not to me, but then I am writing from some point in the wide-range of sanity-insanity spectrum.

And so it was that I saw the answer to my quest in Chinua Achebe's "The Madman" {Girls at War and Other Stories, Anchor Books, NY. ~ $8.00} In it, he tells the story of this stark-naked, mad dude. Every big market in Igboland has a mad person, or a village idiot. Ogbete Main Market in Enugu has popular Ekeemezie: he walks all day from Gariki, Okunaano, to Ogbete; and then he makes a detour, picking fruits and edible stuff from stalls as he passes along. Trust market women: they guard their goods with mother-hen agility. But this young man is (was?) a part of the hustle and bustle of our beloved Coal City. I am not only a witness to these facts, I knew some kinsmen of Ekeemezie; they certified that he was not born mad -- if "mad" he was.

Back to Achebe's "The Madman", I quote from the very beginning:

"He was drawn to markets and straight roads. Not any tiny neighbourhood market where a handful of garrulous women might gather at sunset to gossip and buy 'ogili' for the evening's soup, but a huge, engulfing bazaar beckoning people familiar and strange from far and near. And not any dusty, old footpath beginning in this village, and ending in that stream, but broad, black, mysterious highways without beginning or ending."

NOTE: "Ogili" is a nutritious native condiment with a delicious pungency all its own; the best being "ogili okpei" from Nsukka.]

And so it was that this madman discovered Ahia Eke and Ahia Afo. The two-day gap enabled them make the trips comfortable and convenient. But not without the "defilement" and "insults" from "fat-bottomed market women," "their menfolk.... hefty beasts of the bush," knucklehead operators of the popular mamiwagons and the "vagabonds" they transport who push him around for "holding [the road] in conversation"; and children, "little beasts on the way who, threw stones at him and made fun of their mother's nakedness, not his own."

At the other end of the spectrum was Maazi Nwibe. Sane. Successful. Polygamist. Kids, he got them. Ezeji. [Yam king] A man in his prime, a surefire candidate for the select council of "ndiichie." A very successful man, but then that success must be validated in a society where title-taking crowns achievements. So he applies to become an "ozo," a lord. The Ozo Society gave a nod, but initiation "is not a child's naming ceremony." He has to make sure he wants to make the move over several moons, or find himself foot-stuck in the arena dance.

Unu ma na-agwa mmadu ihe e ji-echi ozo, o si ka ya hakwa ka ya ha!

Anyway, Achebe writes that "Nwibe was such a sensible man that no one could think of him beginning something he was not sure to finish." So one market day, he went to oversee work at his farm early in the morning. On the way back, he stopped to take a bath in the unspoiled sacred stream. And that was where his fate took a terrible turn. The Eke-na-Afo Madman also came to quench his thirst, for even madmen do feel dehydration. Then he saw Nwibe and his "parted behind," and he remembered "the hefty beasts." He smiled, and he taunted Nwibe. Nwibe threatened fire and brimstone. The Madman had another laugh and took off with Nwibe's cloth wrapped "around his own waist"!

Anger. Shouting. Cursing. Chasing. Screaming. Threatening. Maddening anger! Nwibe ran after the man butt-naked! "Stop the madman, he's got my cloth."

"They've got his cloth he says," some market people joked, because strange sights are common in great markets.

"That's a new one I'm sure. He hardly looks mad yet. Doesn't he have people, I wonder."

"People are so careless these days. Why can't they keep proper watch over their sick relation, especially on the day of the market."

To make the "short story" shorter, Nwibe's folks took him home, ignoring his suppressed anger and humiliating plea that a madman had taken his cloth. They got a good dibia well-known throughout Igboland, who said that Maazi Nwibe "has sipped the spirit waters of ani-mmo..... Nothing can be done."

Good news-bad news: Read Achebe tell it better:

"Nwibe was cured of his madness. That humble practitioner who did the miracle became overnight the most celebrated mad-doctor of his generation. They called him Sojourner to the Land of the Spirits. Even so it remains true that madness may indeed depart but never with all his clamorous train. Some of these always remain -- the trailer of madness you might call them. For how could a man be the same again of whom witnesses from all the lands of Olu and Igbo have once reported that they saw today a fine, hefty man in his prime, start naked, tearing through the crowds to answer the call of the market-palace? Such a man is marked forever."

Of course, as you all can see, the self-esteem of Nwibe was damaged beyond repair. When next he approached the titled men, they, "dignified and polite as ever, deftly steered the conversation away to other matters."

And so should we!

****

A befitting parting note: Folks have it that Ekeemezie was training to be a butcher at Ogbete Main Market Meat Stalls [also called Akwata, just downhill from Coal Camp]. He was set to become a successful butcher, like his folk before him. Then one evening he walked down to Mmiri Ani or Ngene, the stream that runs from Bunker Mines, parting Ngene Evu Quarters on the right, and UNTH/Ugwu Obed/Udi Siding Area (USA) on the left; it [Ngene Stream] mumbles down past Ogbete-Clerks Quarters deep divide into the "Urban Area" and localities beyond to meet with the other uwaana [or ofuana] streams and flow onto Ebeonyi lands.

Bathing there was a very powerful dibia from Ezeagu [most likely from Oghe.... I don't know for sure, just nosing J]. Ekeemezie took the man's clothes and belongings, including money of course, and headed home safe and sound with one of the luxurious Babangiri-type/Udoye/C-to-C/Small Joe buses. The Ezeagu medicine man did not give chase to Ekemeezie, who headed south via the four commonwealth communities of Nkanu and on to one of the near-Four Corner communities from whence he hailed. He [dibia] waited until some good Coal City citizens came around. The right thing was done: he got some clothes to cover his nakedness, and he headed home to Ezeagu quietly, safely, and with dignity on one of the popular fire-breathing Hiace or Nissan Urvan minibuses that ply the Enugu-Ninth Mile-Awka-Onitsha route.

By the time Ekeemezie's folks realized what had happened, one full "izu" had passed, and the poor guy had stepped onto all the big markets with his affliction. The Ezeagu "dibia" could do nothing, and no medicine man in the world could cure this six-footer stud of his madness.

Whatever the true story, everyone swore it was the Real McCoy of "remote jazzing": By late 80s, Ekeemezie still made the unending trip between Gariki and Ogbete Main Market and beyond to Aria (new/relief) Market. To the kids of the long and winding Agbani Road, Enugu, the popular route that has been surrendered to the little madness of bus drivers and their foul-mouthed ndigaadi (ticket collectors), Ekeemezie was the 80s version of our Coal Camp generation's 70's "Okey na Tire."

Remember the guy who rolled tires endlessly along Agbani Road and beyond? He "retired" in the eighties and lived with his folk in a house situated along Kenneth Eneh Road in Awkunanaw.... a walking distance from the bus stop on Amaechi Road, opposite Mobile Police Barracks.

And last words from our elders:

A di(ghi) akulu onyeara aka.
[You don't applaud a madman]

Onye ziri nwata jee nwuta nkakwu, ga-ekunyekwe ya mmiri o ga-eji kwoo aka ya.
[He who sends a child to catch a skunk should provide him with water to wash his hands.]

Mmadu nwere uche adighi anyu nshi n'uzo obodo si-aga ahia.
[A sensible person does not defecate on the road to the community market.]

Okenye anaghi ano n'uno eghu amuo n'elili; o'u alu.
[An elder does not sit at home and watch a goat deliver its kid tethered; it's abomination.]

Have a blessed weekend.