On 16/2/22, just after the commencement of the ASUU rolling strike and a medical check-up at OOU Teaching Hospital, I headed back to my roots. I had little choice because as a loyal employee, I have no other business apart from reading, writing, speaking and community service, all of which I could do from home.
So, I got home, went into the business of preparations for Nwamaka Muo’s (my sister in-law) funeral, and immediately thereafter, my uncle Cyril 404 Muo also ‘rejected food’ and so, the arrangements for his funeral commenced.
Between these funerals, I invested a large chunk of time on the Ezeozonka AAO Onwughalu Memorial and Book Presentation, of which I was the chairman of the planning committee and had the singular honour of writing the foreword to the book (Igbo-Ukwu: a Historical & Cultural heritage).
People readily watched their backs and every evening, one had to enquire whether there would be movement the following day before planning his or her programme
I also attended several village meetings and funerals, and participated in some of the activities of St Michael’s Catholic Church, Igbo-Ukwu. I spent some these days at Aba, where I now have a ‘branch-office’! (please keep it secret!), tendering my large farm (just 45 tubers of yam), receiving and exchanging greetings from passers-by from my balcony and visiting my neighbours, especially those who are not in a position to return my visit.
In between all these, I got used to life in ana-Igbo, under the vicious grip of the blood-thirsty UGM. From 16/2/22 to 22/5/22, I never ventured out on Mondays due to the self-destructive SAH (Sit at home), which has become a routine (I easily converted it to RAH: Read at Home). Even my regular walk to the market square stopped after my relations repeatedly ‘pulled my ears’ over my intransigence.
The SAH was not just on Mondays; it was any day that pleased the ruthless enforcers. It was either a Monday, or MNK was going to court, or he was returning from court, or there were rumours that he would go to court.
At Aba, the surest route to safety is to keep silent in public transport when MNKs issue was raised because it would be deadly to make any comment influenced by contrary spirits, like arguing that the SAH was counter-productive.
You would be lucky if you only ended up at the hospital! And these SAHs had made bank transactions worse than those days when we visited the bank with mats and had tallies.
My experience when I had occasion to visit First Bank Ogbor-Hill was better imagined. It was not because the staff were lousy; it was because three days’ business would be done in a day, especially when no one was sure that banks would open the following day. And due to the same ‘security situation,’ the bank usually opened, 10am.
At Igbo-Ukwu, stampedes were regular as the arrival or passing-by of UGM (real, imaginary) would lead to multi-directional stampede, with people running from whom and to where they did not know. Vegetables, fruits and fresh meat would be abandoned to rot at the expense of the petty traders and business would close abruptly for the day.
People involved in ‘uka-mgbede’ (evening relaxation/hospitality) businesses now closed earlier while some even suspended their operations. ‘Nataaed people’(returnees from the cities) sneaked in and out of town; they no longer came home with their cars; others patronised kekes and okadas while some deliberately bought derelict cars for home usage or even consciously dirtied their cars.
One of us came home with a car that was hitherto not good enough for refuse disposal in his house and in the spirit of the day, I asked him to launch it! One good thing though: we were no longer being oppressed by siren-blaring compatriots who had started competing with the length and quality of their convoy as well as the number and type of security that accompanied them.
People readily watched their backs and every evening, one had to enquire whether there would be movement the following day before planning his or her programme. People also regularly listened to all news sources, including RWB (radios without battery), consulted God, the gods and the mystic pots before scheduling their movements or activities.
The news about where ‘they struck’ the day before, enabled one to determine the appropriate route – that was if one must venture out. Night buses were reactivated, especially on Sundays and Mondays while those who dared to move on Mondays would leave around 3am. It was a life of fear, tension, uncertainty.
One day, I went to Okija for a traditional wedding and the parent of the groom took us through the notorious and deadly Ukpor, Azia, Ihembosi axis. People came for thanksgiving when we returned safely even though the man felt that there was nothing wrong with the route.
Two weeks later, he and his entire family were ‘arrested’ by a gang of 15 armed ‘liberators’! Luckily, he lived to tell the tale. One of the questions they asked him was why his youthful children were enjoying life rather than joining them in the struggle!
One of my townsmen spent three days in captivity and had to bail himself and his personal staff, whom they also wanted to conscript for the struggle.
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My mouth is too holy to mention the conditionalities he had to fulfil to rescue himself and his PA from his abductors who were 100 percent Igbo.
They were gracious enough to give him N2000 (less than 0.0000000000001% of what they extorted from him) for fuel after his release!
A Lagos-based home-friendly friend of mine, a Chief from Ukpor got to Onitsha, stayed almost one week but sadly, could not visit his people at home, a few kilometres away.
Two weeks later, he lost somebody and went with his family for the funeral. As if they had a special interest in him, they invaded his house but thankfully, they escaped. I don’t know when he will visit home again.
In some areas, people are billed for their functions (funerals, weddings) based on perceived capacity and in other areas, people in diaspora are asked to ‘drop something’ in absentia or else.
In the fourth week of May, Monday was the usual SAH day; school children were asked to stay away from school on 26/5/22 but were rather asked to ignore the earlier directive (as MNK’s trial was rescheduled) but most of them stayed away. 27/5/22 was the Children’s Day and as such, they had a two-day week.
The unusual had become the usual, a new-normal, because we live under the vicious grip of UGM, who are now called Unknown-Guvment. Some years ago, MTN came with a positive EYG (Everywhere you go). Now the UGM have become the negative EYG and Anambra has inexplicably, become the epicentre!
