“All events, no matter how earth-shaking or bizarre, are diluted within moments of their occurrence by the continuance of the necessary routines of day-to-day living. Men walking a battlefield to search for wounded among the dead will still stop to cough, blow their noses, still lift their eyes to watch a V of geese in flight. I have seen farmers continue their ploughing and planting, heedless of armies clashing but a few miles away.” – Robin Hobb, The Apprentice.
Every day in the news in Nigeria, one is likely to read of one strange occurrence or the other.
Strange as they are, these occurrences no longer shock people as they’ve almost become the norm or as Hobb wrote, they are diluted within minutes of their occurrence by the continuance of the necessary routines of day-to-day living.
About a fortnight ago, news broke that a native doctor, simply identified as Kehinde, had slumped and died during an alleged sex romp with a lover at a hotel somewhere in the Ikere-Ekiti community.
The deceased was said to have lodged in the hotel with his lover, identified as the wife of a pastor in one of the churches in the community when he unexpectedly lost his life in the throes of passion.
Community members said the woman, who has now been arrested by the police, may have been laced with a local charm, Magun (Thunderbolt), by her husband, a situation that may have led to the native doctor’s death.
This story takes the cake for recent bizarre occurrences.
Let’s unpack it.
The Holy Bible admonishes Christians not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers, how then did a pastor’s wife, a supposed believer end up being yoked with a native doctor?
What led a pastor’s wife who should be a model into having extramarital affairs and with none other than a native doctor?
What point was the native doctor trying to prove in having an affair with the pastor’s wife?
To the pastor, did he actually put lace his wife with “Magun” as alleged?
Magun, also called Thunderbolt, which literally translates as “do not climb” is a popular charm among the Yoruba’s which husbands put on their wives as a check against extramarital affairs. When a man has intercourse with a woman who has been laced with Magun, it results in what can be likened to penis captivus, and the man can only be broken free if the woman’s husband comes to undo the spell.
Why would a pastor use a charm on his wife and who prepared the charm for him? Is he serving God and mammon?
Hmmm! That native doctor! Is he a learner?
How did he not detect that the woman he was having an affair with had been laced with Magun, in spite of all the powers ascribed to him by members of the community? And even if he did not detect it from the beginning, how was it that the pastor’s charm outdid his? Bizarre!
But whether it was Magun that killed the native doctor or not, more people (read men) need to pay better attention to their cardiac health and desist from using performance-enhancing drugs which make them more susceptible to cardiac arrests, which could have been the cause of death.
In 2018, a 40-year-old French tourist, Jean Michel, was reported to have admitted to impregnating over 600 women in 6 African countries including Nigeria. Also in 2019, a fertility doctor was reported to have inseminated up to 100 women with his own sperm, while a certain ‘Joe Donor,’ had plans of impregnating 2,500 women.
Now, these are adults and one can understand that they know what they are up to but how do you explain the case of a 17-year-old boy, Noble Uzuchi, who allegedly impregnated 10 women in Rivers state?
Uzuchi who was arrested alongside his accomplice, Chigozie Ogbonna, 29, ran a baby factory alongside two women, Favour Bright and Peace Alikoi, in the state.
At 17, many children are just coming out of secondary school and considered minors according to the law, but here we have a teenage baby factory operator who has at least 10 children to his name.
What is a 17-year-old supposed to do with that number of children? How did he become a member of the syndicate? Where are his parents and what happened to his values?
These are some questions begging for answers while we try to digest this bizarre behaviour.
As if that’s not wild enough, a man identified as Ndubisi Uwadiegwu from Enugu State has allegedly beaten his wife, Ogochukwu Enene, to death over a loaf of bread. The incident occurred in Lagos.
According to reports, the first son of the deceased, aged 14, said his father beat his mother to death with a mirror, because she asked him to buy bread for him and his siblings but he said he had no money.
The son said after he refused to buy the bread, the deceased used her money to buy it but the father went into the kitchen and ate the whole loaf and when his mother asked why he finished the bread, he started beating her and it led to her death.
While the accused has denied any wrongdoing, the deceased’s body lies in the morgue while her family awaits the outcome of an autopsy to determine the real cause of death.
That’s not all.
A 49-year-old, Lawrence Itakpe, was recently arraigned before a Yaba Magistrates’ Court in Lagos for allegedly killing his wife, Rebecca, at their house in the Ajah area of the state, following an argument over sachet water. The couple were married for 11 years.
The accused was said to have in the heat of the argument, rushed into the kitchen and returned with a kitchen knife, with which he allegedly stabbed his wife multiple times in the chest and neck, causing her death.
In Lagos, a 36-year-old man, Mayowa Dele, is also facing the law for not only allegedly killing his girlfriend but removing her private parts and attempting to cook same for a concoction when he was arrested.
With all these strange occurrences, are we to continue the necessary routines of day-to-day living or do we ponder and ask ourselves where, when and how things went wrong?
How did human life become so worthless?
How did children become so involved in crime?
These and more are the things to ponder.
