Earth's Man of Color: Genes, Agenda or Jeans

By Dr. Oliver Akamnonu and Professor Ndu Eke

A distinction is drawn between two very similarities based on the two types of characters that the same type of society produced.

Orie, Puzo and Nmaku who hail from Angwa and the adjoining Ocha remained back in the village and made their lives almost permanently there rarely knowing what was going on in the outside world but being nonetheless greatly influenced by the latter.

Their daily chores are dictated by the daily basic necessities of the moment and they have little to worry perpetually about.

A lot of their life is controlled by the dictations and predictions of the traditional medicine man who occasionally misfires in his predictions which have no scientific basis supporting them.

His situation is often taken advantage of by the political class who have little or nothing to lose even if the polity collapses.

But Livinus on the other end of the spectrum emerges from the civil war and through a dint of luck and hard work studies hard and becomes a doctor.

He even proceeds overseas despite a close shave by arsonists. He specializes and returns home to Akunwanta town from where he is again catapulted by fate and focus to become the governor of his state after a battle between titans eliminates the principal contestants.

He at first meant well and had the intention of helping to reform society. Post election litigation and his lack of the economic leverage almost cost him his mandate.

But again fate plays a hard one on him and because of his lack of cash he gets tied up to the economic vampires of his society.

He is bailed out by a coalition of these vampires and narrowly reclaims his mandate only after colossal bribing of umpires who were least expected to soil their hands.
He decides never to go begging ever again and hence he delves headlong into the rot and decay, not by his will but by the circumstances prevailing around him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 30, 2009
• ISBN: 9781465324962

Dr. Oliver Akamnonu

Oliver Akamnonu is a physician and author of the award-winning poetry book "Rap to Mars" as well as the highly popular book "Arranged Marriage and the Vanishing Roots".An anesthesiologist by specialization he has published more than 15 other prominent books in the USA and these include: "Nation of Dead Patriots", "Bature", "The Pagans' Medals", "The Honorable", "Comedy of Naked Vampires", etc. A former school captain of his high school Government Secondary School Afikpo, former State Chairman of the Nigerian Medical Association, former member of the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria, member of the first Board of Federal Medical Center Owerri, decorated "Distinguished Medical Practitioner", Chairman Akamnonu Foundation for the Poor, Dr. Akamnonu is a dual citizen of the USA and Nigeria and is married to Dr. Chika Akamnonu and they have four children, Olisa, Chibu, Somto and Chuka. He lives in in Massachusetts USA.

Book preview

EARTH’S MAN

OF COLOR

Genes, Agenda Or Jeans

Dr. Oliver Akamnonu

and

Professor Ndu Eke

Copyright © 2009 by Dr. Oliver Akamnonu and Professor Ndu Eke.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance

to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

68128

Contents

PART A

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

PART B

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

A Child is Black, A Child is White

Together They Grow To See The Light

—Three Dog Night (1972)

PART A

To all men and women everywhere who see humanity as one big family.

We are engaged in a life and death struggle in the jungle

There is no time now to ponder…

As for me, let there be peace and security here…

—Ndu Eke

Let the man who spends a lifetime worrying about how to amass his millions at the expense of society and the poor ponder awhile and read the lips and the gaze of the billionaires.

Even in spite of the billions, they often seek for more.

—Oliver Akamnonu

There can be no lasting peace in the world;

There can be no enduring development,

For as long as the economic and technological disparities between the different peoples of the world are allowed to keep widening.

And, for as long as man still fails to recognize his fellow man as God’s creation, equal in rights and liberties,

They labor in vain who seek to make a unilateral paradise of our Earth.

—Oliver Akamnonu

CHAPTER 1

CHARGE OF THE

AUNTIES’ BRIGADE

The family unit was strong. That strengthened the kindred and, consequently, the community. That was the way Ogbagi people were. Nwandu was born at the eighth attempt of his mother, Agom. She had lost the previous seven children. His father, Zaike, actually did not have any enemies. He was orphaned as a child. He would be considered poor. He lived it, serving his uncle Anokwute at the beginning and learning a trade by serving an herbalist later. His wife’s predicament could only be from her chi. Those were the days before the Anopheles mosquito was discovered. Its disease was known as akum, but the mosquito was not known by the Ogbagi to be the vector. It invariably presented with fever. But how could a baby complain of fever, akum? While Agom’s case was felt with sympathy in the community, it was her aunts that had to do something to break the chain of child deaths caused by Agom’s chi. Three sisters Orie, Puzo, and Nmaku were Agom’s aunts, married in the village to three unrelated men Ocha, Ebi, and Megbu respectively. The village was called Angwa. Ocha was from a part of the community across the river Aham. This river did not only divide the land mass of the village but was eventually to polarize the community into adversaries, all be it surreptitiously. Each side referred to the other as ofe-iyi, that is, across the river. Ebi and Megbu were from Ofe-iyi (for Ocha). Ebi blended his practice of herbalism with fortune-telling or soothsaying. A soothsayer was known by others to communicate with the gods. The soothsayer plied his trade by convincing others that he had spiritual powers. A measure of that conviction was the amount of awe with which a soothsayer was beheld by others. If the soothsayer was associated with some wicked achievements, that increased his awe rating and consequently the fear he invoked. Ebi was benign and leaned more to herbalism than to heathenism. Megbu was a thinker, never known for rash actions. He tapped wine, farmed crops, goats, and sheep and brewed the spirit kai-kai which strangers daubed illicit gin. The strangers had quietly infiltrated Ogbagi preaching their religion and converting any who had no strong faith in the native religion. In the native religion, each being had a chi. The stranger’s religion preached just one Almighty God. Obviously all the chis were automatically assigned an inferior, if any, status. The seed of confusion was sowed and the development of the Ogbagi tradition was truncated. Things simply began to go asunder and fall apart. Vocabularies were turned upside down. A soothsayer and his patronisers were daubed pagans and heathens. Chis were other gods

Agom became pregnant again. When she was nearing term, Orie started consultations with a native doctor, dibia from a neighboring village, Anchi. A dibia was consulted in crises attributable to gods. He was more of a fortune-teller. Orie used to go to a new one each time her niece had a bad pregnancy outcome. This time, she went before Agom got to term. She ardently believed in the native religion. She had to. Her husband had a wife who was turning to the imported religion. This Orie’s husband’s wife was baptized and was renamed Mary. Every Sunday while Ocha received his visitors, in-laws, maternal uncles, and village leaders, Mary would dress neatly, often in annoying white, and go to church, where they worshipped. The other wives had to ensure that Ocha had kola and drinks for his visitors and food for himself. Only very close friends ate in his house. Those he owed were occasionally, in placation, bribed grudgingly with food to buy some respite. One such Sunday, Orie had gone out of the house very early in the morning to find out about the niece’s forthcoming child birth. A stern creditor, Ugwo, had ahead of scheduled time, come to demand his debt. Ocha was stranded. All he had were kola and hot red pepper in palm oil as well as illicit gin he had bought from Megbu. He served his creditor the kola with hot red pepper sauce and a shot of Megbu’s kai-kai. To survive each raid on his illicit gin production line, Megbu had to make his kai-kai very strong to retain his clients. It was this very hot kai-kai Ocha filled a double shot for Ugwo. As a greedy creditor, he took a commensurate helping of the kola and the sauce. The sound of the first crack of the kola in his jaw was deafening. The admixture of the kai-kai and the pepper was to get Ugwo’s eyes protrude. His forehead was drenched with sweat. He opened his mouth to breathe and fan his tongue. His first thought was that, to evade his quest for repayment, Ocha had poisoned him. There would be no witnesses if he died. It would be Ocha’s word against his dead body. But Ocha had tasted the kola, sauce, and kai-kai before he offered them to Ugwo. The kai-kai was poured into one glass and used to rinse the second. So there was no poisoning. Ocha called Mary. She was singing in the church. Ugwo was told that the kai-kai was from Megbu. Although that information did not soothe his agony, he appreciated that he was offered the finest kai-kai. He beat his retreat to go and take an antidote just in case Ocha, whose wife was mixing with the gospel strangers, had acquired some tricks with poisons. He could have put an antidote in his own glass. Whatever, Ocha had a reprieve. But he was not done. Mary returned happy and singing. As Ocha made another of his crude copulation advances, Mary pleaded that she had just received the Holy Communion and wished to remain in good grace at least for the day. Ocha went to where he hung his wrapper and string cover for his perineum and said to Mary to follow him. He took her to the Imo River waterside. Waterside was the local name for the banks of the river used for commercial purposes. Both entered his boat, and he paddled for two days to Igwenga where the river emptied into the delta. There, he sold Mary to slave dealers. In exchange, he got a four-foot high mirror, a snuff box again with a mirror on the cover, and a white handkerchief. While paddling back alone, he looked at the white handkerchief. It reminded him of Mary’s new life and singing. He heaved a sigh and tossed it into the river. He remembered a fisherman cousin of his who went fishing in the rainy season when Imo overflowed its banks, and it was really dangerous to fish in dugout canoes. He slipped while trying to cast his net upon the water. In the process, his machete slipped from its leather hold into the deep river. Utterly disappointed, the fisherman tossed the leather hold after the machete and told himself that when he goes searching for the machete, he would also simultaneously look for the leather hold. Ocha thought to himself that when he would look for Mary, he would also look for the white handkerchief. On his return home to Angwa, he merely went to Mary’s father and announced what he did. By tradition, his wife was his property to dispense as he pleased. Mary had gone too far in her new religion. The other wives took note, Orie in particular. Her niece’s problem had nagged her for seven years or more.

The dibia told Orie when she appeared at his shrine and without saying what she came for, that he could see a young woman desperate for a child. There was a child being prepared for her womb. Orie became attentive and forgot what she came for. The dibia, noticing this, continued. The gods were preparing a child all right. Will it be a male or a female? he asked himself or the chi or agbara he was representing among mortals. He recanted what the agbara needed to reveal the sex of the child: a red-head lizard and a male baby chicken. Red heads were ubiquitous, but how does the mammy water determine a male baby chicken from a female? That would be cause for another consultation at the oracle. The dibia awoke from the trance, and Orie was now to address the issue that brought her. It was simple. She assumed the dibia knew all she came for. All she asked was, Will she be all right? Dibia answered that there was a small problem in the family with Zike’s uncles. The problems he could see would be sorted out at the appropriate time. The appropriate time meant appropriate offering. Orie understood.

Agom went into labor in the evening. The elder women in the kindred gathered one after another. They laid the banana leaves that were to be the delivery bed on the floor. As Agom broke out in sweats, a younger woman fanned with a fan made from dry raffia palm leaves. The veterans at delivery, some had delivered up to ten babies in the same circumstances, urged her on. As the head of the fetus showed, happiness shone on their faces. Puzo was there, with her own plan. Try hard, try hard. Then came the final push, and Nwandu emerged, blaring like one deprived of the comfort of the mother’s womb and exposed to an inclement world. The Apga score would be 8 over 10, denoting no birth asphyxia. Nmaku was there with her sister but ignorant of Puzo’s plan. As soon as the baby’s umbilical cord was cut with the cleaned kitchen knife, attention was turned to the mother. Puzo held the baby. Hot yam pepper soup laced generously with uziza as condiment was served Agom. She saw that Puzo held the baby. She was reassured. At each previous occasion, she could not recall who held the baby. Each time Orie was asked that question at the oracle after a birth debacle, she could not answer the question. It was hinted that the recurrent problems of Ago were from the people who touched the babies at delivery. So this time, Puzo took Nwandu away for safety to a secret hideout. Nmaku would be the emissary reporting to Agom about the safety of her baby. Milk was sourced from a nursing she-goat in Megbu’s herd. When the period of Agom’s previous infant mortalities was passed, Puzo, Orie, and Nmaku returned to Angwa with Nwandu. They kept vigil, and at every time, day and night, one of them was around keeping watch over the manger.

1.jpg

The admixure of the kaikai and hot pepper

made Ugwo’s eye balls protrude.

CHAPTER 2

THE VILLAGE SCHOOL

In the community of the village, people lived in compounds of cousins, brothers, and offspring. The houses were mud hut roofed with thatch made from the leaves of a raffia palm tree. In between huts, there could be land on which some cocoyam and vegetables were planted. The village was usually neat as special days were randomly designated for cleaning up of the community and dressing the footpaths. For disposal of human solid waste, one could use the bush. However as the population increased, there were fewer empty lands to use. Moreover one could only be free to defecate on his or her own land. The community also had a designated place in the open. This was constructed with a wooden plank elevated from the ground to enable patrons to squat and stool. A place was used until it became a pool of feces. In some large communities, this could grow to form a large lake. When the resulting lava threatened to run as a stream, the facility was relocated. Children were not allowed to use these to prevent them from falling into the pool. Flies around the latrine were green and fat as a result of plentiful material to suck from. Somehow, men and women used the latrine at different times. The bush around the latrine afforded some privacy. Sticks, the size of Chinese chopsticks, were used as toilet tissue to clean the anus. There was a small ritual involved in going to the otikpiri, the Angwa name for a latrine. To go to otikpiri had some common ritual with going to a dibia and this involved the number, two. To go to a dibia, a minimum of two persons was required. This was so that what one person forgot, another would remember. To go to otikpiri, two sticks were recommended. This was in case there was a second urge.

As a child, Nwandu played with his cousins, farmed and fished with them in peasant capacities. The strangers who brought their converting religion had started schools where young boys were spirited off to. This was to the chagrin of the fathers whose farms were thus deprived of cheap child labor. A few females, before they were strong enough to farm or matured enough to be married off, followed the boys to school. That was the lot and ruin of Mgbeke. She followed her cousins and brother to school, some ten kilometers away. At school, during periods of schoolwork, some pupils would be drafted to teacher’s houses for some domestic chores. The headmaster ensured that single teachers could only take pupils of their sex. The married ones were free to receive any pupil male or female. The headmaster was pandering to fears of promiscuity between pupils and teachers. When you think of one thing, another thing happens was a common adage in Ogbagi. Mgbeke was assigned to the second headmaster’s house quite often. The wife had put to bed a baby girl. The wife, Oyiridi, developed confidence in Mgbeke and pleaded with her husband, Nkuzi, to be sending or cause to be sent, Mgbeke to help her during schoolwork periods. Some Sundays, instead of going to the church where she was a chorister, Mgbeke would be invited by madam to visit her and her baby. She would leave early, trekking the ten kilometers from Angwa to Nkuzi’s house in the school. With the physical exercise of trekking ten kilometers to and fro daily, six days a week, Mgbeke was developing faster than her age mates. Her thighs became prominent and strong. Her bust attracted sundry attention. The second headmaster’s attention was not excluded. At each visit, as Mbeke bent down to do one chore or the other, her protruding gluteal attributes became second headmaster’s predicament. Each time the second headmaster saw Mgbeke nursing his baby, his eyes, like a heat-seeking missile, was directed to Mgbeke’s appropriately proportioned breasts. Each time, buttocks or breasts, second headmaster would say to himself, Tempt me not, Satan as found in the gospel of the new religion. On some occasions, he would invoke a phrase often echoed at festive or drinking parties, God forbid bad thing. However, the Ogbagis have a saying: As you caution a thief, he uses his mind to fashion a digger for other people’s yams. One Sunday, second headmaster’s wife went to visit a newborn parishioner’s child with her church group. The parents of the new baby were well-to-do. So it was not a touch-and-go visit. Assorted dishes were expected and were produced. Strangers’ wine, Coke, Mirinda, and others were provided and relished. There was Irish cream which no one had tasted in the village prior to this occasion. It was given to the ladies because it was sweet. Some took the same measure of it as they took Coke. The effect was a different measure. Second headmaster’s wife could not be bordered. Mgbeke could stay over and attend the school the next day from her house. That would at least save her a day’s trek to and from her village. Why not do Mgbeke this favor? After all, one good turn can deserve another. But Oyiridi was under the influence of the cream. Her husband was striving to yield to the temptation of Mgbeke’s buttocks, breasts, and all. In spite of Mgbeke’s pleas, in spite of recanting, Get thee behind me, Satan, he did not allow God to forbid bad thing. Second headmaster waited until Mgbeke put the baby to bed. Why was Oyiridi not back? Perhaps this was a chance he should grab. And he did. Mgbeke was confused. She had not received such a hostile attention before. Her protests were short-lived as second headmaster threw her on to the mat on the floor. In one deft move, he undid his trouser and pulled up Mgbeke’s skirt. It was a tearing pain as second headmaster thrust his manhood into the innocent Mgbeke. The agony was soon to be replaced by ecstasy. Both assailant and victim exploded in one loud groan, and it was over, for that encounter. There was fresh blood on the mat to be cleaned up by second headmaster, Nkuzi. Both remained silent until the madam, Oyiridi, returned. The Irish cream had taken effect on Oyiridi. She sauntered into her baby’s room and fell asleep. The following morning, Mgbeke helped madam as usual before going to school. She was to tell nobody about the second headmaster’s escapade. However, anytime she overheard young wives in the village discuss their encounters with their husbands or concubines, she paid furtive attention while feigning ignorance of the topic on the floor.

Mgbeke’s body began to change, for the better, to the unknowing villagers and teachers and pupils in the school. Her skin looked healthier than it had been. The face was more beautiful and roundish. Her thighs had developed more athletically. As for her bust and buttock, second headmaster gave up the fight to resist the lust in his eyes. Mgbeke also offered diminishing resistances to Nkuzi’s continued desires. Yet his wife, Oyiridi, took no notice of whatever was building up between second headmaster and a standard five pupil. Mgbeke was now a close companion as her daughter, Dure, began to crawl all over the house, scattering and breaking up whatever was carelessly placed by her mother. The young child had developed a bonding with Mgbeke who fed her and cleaned her to make her comfortable. She also tickled her to make her laugh. Any weekend Mgbeke was invited to the house by either her mother or father, Dure would cry when Mgbeke was seen leaving. The invitations increased. Mgbeke, apart from the amorous attention splashed on her by second headmaster, enjoyed teachers’ food. Unlike in her home where rice was cooked only on market day, Sundays, second headmaster could ask the wife to boil rice and prepare the necessary sauce any day. Black-eyed beans frequently featured on the menu. The soup or sauce was always cooked with fish or meat or chicken unlike in her father’s house. While madam invited Mgbeke for Dure’s and her interests, second headmaster suggested and welcomed the idea each time for his selfish interests. Madam was not to know. One weekend, another visit was planned to christen another baby in the church. The church members would thereafter get to the house of the celebrant for reception. Reception was expected to be good. Therefore, Oyiridi booked Mgbeke’s visit in time. Second headmaster announced that the teacher’s union in the diocese planned a meeting to protest their poor welfare by their employer, the Church. Madam went to church before Mgbeke was expected to arrive. Nkuzi was to hand over care of Dure as soon as Mgbeke arrived and travel to the teachers’ meeting. Meanwhile Mgbeke was ill at her house. She woke up that morning, the nausea she had been having a few days earlier worsened to vomiting. She said she had abdominal pain and headache. The mother sent her younger brother to the dispensary to buy paracetamol and quinine. The diagnosis was fever.

Thus, madam went off to church, and her husband kept watch over Dure, expecting the arrival of Mgbeke. She did not arrive. Second headmaster, as a beggar, had no choice but to stay with Dure. Madam had gone for the reception and, thinking that all was under control, lost control of herself on Irish cream again. On her return to the house in a cheery mood, she was to confront her husband who was not amused. The problem was not the wife leaving him to look after Dure as well as missing the meeting on a Sunday. Dure had been put to sleep. Second headmaster, left alone with his inebriated wife now lying in the bed, was expected to join her. Dure was already holding things to stand, a signal that a new baby should be designed. That was furthest from second headmaster’s mind. He pulled Oyiridi up from the bed and unleashed a flurry of slaps on her. He did not even know why he did that. His frustration was consequent upon Mgbeke’s failure to show up. He had merely transferred his aggression to his happy-go-lucky wife. The eyes were swollen from her husband’s fist of fury, and her eyes were bloodshot from alcohol. The following morning, Mgbeke came to the house before reporting in the school. As someone with privileges of teachers’ house helps, she did not need to go to school until after schoolwork. She explained to madam about her nausea followed a few days later with early morning vomiting. That rang a bell. She had that feeling not long ago. Yes, when she had lost her period. She glanced at Mgbeke. Had she started seeing her menses? Mgbeke admitted this innocently. Mgbeke’s mother, Ogbedi, had told Mgbeke that one often has amenorrhea at the initial phase of menarche. Mgbeke’s breasts continued to enlarge to the admiration of second headmaster. Her buttocks were enlarging to the consternation of madam. One cannot hide a pregnant stomach was an Ogbagi adage. It soon became clear to all that Mgbeke was pregnant. Her mother, Ogbedi, had been worried about this prospect since the early morning vomiting started. She eventually had to confront Mgbeke who surrounded herself with an impregnable wall of lies. All efforts by the mother to get her to confess, including beatings and starvation, could not breach that wall of denial. As for starvation, that failed woefully with the clandestine support of second headmaster. At the appropriate time, Mgbeke went into labor in the village and delivered a baby boy, supposedly fatherless. Sooner than later, second headmaster visited Mgbeke’s home with accompanying elders from his village. They brought drinks and a goat. The visit was unannounced. After the rituals of welcome, they stated their mission. It was to claim their son. In such matters it was not helpful to beat about the bush. First, Mgbeke’s mother was summoned to hear what the visitors came for. After all, she had failed to protect her daughter, Mgbeke’s father, Amadi, thought. He had seen what happened in his house. He knew that one day all would be clear. As a man, Amadi had come to know that there was nothing new under the sun. He was a man who would be described as the son of his father. He ordered the drinks to be transferred into his own containers and the goat taken to his pen. In Ogbagi, for bad or good, a drink or other gift taken to a person for a request had to be drunk irrespective of whether the request was to be granted or not. Second headmaster and her companions were bade farewell without a response to their mission beyond I have heard what you said. Both sides understood that matters will arise.

2.jpg

Second headmaster visited Mgbeke’s home with a goat, a chicken

and some tubers of yams. We have come to claim our son.

CHAPTER 3

ANTING, HUNTING,

FISHING, FARMING

Nwandu successfully reached school age when Agom delivered a baby girl. There were now four mouths to feed. Zike was a peasant farmer, palm wine tapper, and hunter. Hunting was probably a hobby as they hunted in groups. On the appointed day for a hunt, the hunters would assemble at the market square early in the morning. Some would be armed with spears, den guns, and machetes. Zike and a few agile hunters had dogs. Once in the bush, the dogs would be unleashed and let loose. It was their job to sniff out hiding animals including snakes. The hunters arranged themselves in a way to confront animals escaping from the dogs. They would attack any such