I am back to Lagos from my good hometown of Umuoma and I see that in a few weeks a whole lot has happened. It's almost as if my absense was the cue needed to kick-start these situations. What's with the toll collection at Lekki phase 1, the terrorist-style bomb blasts in Abuja and the sudden withdrawal of fuel subsidy from our budget? Like he-who-must-not be-named has forgotten his humble roots and started dining with the 'nobles'.
I know this is an apolitical blog but I thought I should warn that one day the poor will have nothing left to eat but the rich. GEJ a word's enough for the wise!
I was supposed to be back much earlier, however certain 'çurious' events took place at the good village of Umuoma that I decided to sit it out and see how it ends. But before I start, I should ask, how many us have a Will?
Yes, the legal document that shares your belongings when you proceed to the hereafter, no? Well that little item is one of the most underrated pieces of paper in the world today, however it is very important as you will soon find out. One thing, it is never too early to write one. So if you have a wealthy uncle or aunt somewhere, find out
So my story begins with one man, the subject of this post; Otenkwu Okeke. By the way Otenkwu as any Igbo person will tell you means palmwine tapper. But don't be misled, the mazi was quite rich by village standards. He had several acres of fertile timber land, two houses in Umuoma, one in Owerri and a fleet of five lorries that hauled wood from the village to Owerri and Onitsha everyday. He was a merchant and got most of his wealth from selling timber logs to funiture and paper factories in the city.
Hence the question, how did he get his name? You see Mazi Okeke had a favorite past time. Right from his teen years, he loved palmwine so much, that he decided that rather than wait for the tapper he would learn the tricks himself and do the tapping whenever he felt like it. Before long it became a hobby and carried on long into his adulthood even till he was in his late sixties. So it wasn't unusual to see Otenkwu in the evenings, park his Jeep in the bushy thickets and climb the nearest palm-tree to extract the sweet brew. But I tell you one thing, it was a very funny thing though.
As successful as Otenkwu seemed, he had a big problem that bothered him like a toothache every passing day of his life. The palmwine lover had six children; four sons and two daughters. The daughters he didn't bother much about (probably because they were women) but his sons were his biggest disappointment. Not a day passed that one of them did not bring him shame in front of his peers.
The first son Obioma, after several sojourns to Russia and Denmark for his education dropped out of school and decided he wanted to export cassava flour akpu to China instead. However when that failed, he settled in Onitsha and claimed to be a contractor for Julius Berger. Everybody knew that was a lie, because whenever he ran out of money he would show up in the village and make trouble with Otenkwu. Sometimes he would even threaten to send robbers to collect the money in his place.
The second son Chiedu was a hemp junkie. In his early teens he had started with plantain leaves and when that wasn't strong enough he graduated to marijuana and today he is a renowned dealer of the substance within several kilometers of Umuoma village. But the term "Don't get high on your own supplies" meant nothing to him as he was perpetually high. On many occassions he had been arrested but released based on Otenkwu's connections with the local DPO.
Ofor the third son unfortunately was a mental case. One morning, for no apparent reason he had woken up and run straight into Umudike market square. There would have been nothing wrong with that, if he had his clothes on. No one knew why he did it, but as village rumors would have it, it was believed that he had been cursed by the local dibia for raping his daughter.
So it was safe to say that all Mazi Okeke's three sons were riffraffs in the highest order and a big shame to a man of his timbre and calibre status (not that he had much anyways, not after the way he climbed palmtrees all over Umuoma).
Iheme was the name of the fourth son and last child. He was still a toddler of four years, born by Otenkwu's beautiful second wife. This one was Otenkwu's last hope of dignity in a son. So far he had hadn't been tainted yet and perharps that was why the Maazi loved him so much. He even prevented any form of interaction he might have with the previous three.
And so it happened, one morning I woke up early to take my grandmother to the local market and there were some women wailing loudly by the roadside. I stopped the car to find out what had happened and was told that Otenkwu himself was dead. He had fallen out of a palmtree during one of his tapping sessions the previous evening. He died indulging in his famous hobby. Why he continued to climb trees at sixty-five still beats me, infact I was surprised he made it to sixty years at all...
To Be Continued...
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