There was this man from Ogbe Umuenem who didn’t envisage the impact of the unwarranted repercussion of his unbridled Utu Nkeni or sex drive on his immediate and his extended family. I will take liberty to call him Akwaraike which is not his real name. Akwaraike sat reclined on his wooden chair in front of his house situated around the present Enem Hall at the heart of Otolo Nnewi. He was watching those passers-by returning from Eke Ogwugwu market located behind Nnọfọ Hall along Igwe Orizu road, Otolo Nnewi. He was sure that Ada Ezeoguine would pass on her way to her marital home at Inyaba Umudim.
Just about the time the sunlight no longer bit harshly on anyone, that was when many people would be making their ways home from the market, Ada Ezeoguine saw Mazi Akwaraike beckoning on her as she walked closer. She was sure that Akwaraike had not given up. “Since you have refused to date me, sit down and enjoy this sweet palm wine I tapped myself with you in mind”, he said as he dashed into his obi or reception hut and returned with a keg of palm wine. He served the seated Ada a cup of wine and poured his own into a cup made from the horn of dead antelope popularly known as mpi atụ.
Ada was a beautiful, breast full and elegant woman whose beauty could make a man sell his yarn barns to covet. She was the first daughter of Ezeoguine, the warrior and the ruler of Nnewi. Her mother was Imediugwu, the first wife of the Nnewi ruler and the daughter of Dim Ogeli, the son of Dim Nagu, the great hunter ruler of Umudim in Nnewi. Ada’s only brother, Ezenwegbu was the third son of Ezeoguine begotten long after the second and third wives of the Nnewi ruler had sired a couple of male children. Incidentally, Ada Ezeoguine married an Inyaba Umudim man who was from the same village as her mum.
On the other hand, Akwaraike was the son of Ogbe who was the first son of Enem the first son of Otolo. History has it that Enem had somehow acquiesced his obiship of Nnewi to Nnọfọ his younger brother thereby denying the descendants of Enem, the Obiship of Otolo and Nnewi.
Even though the reputation of Ezeoguine as the most famous warrior was not lost on Akwaraike, he had allowed his utunkeni or erected penis to transport him and his family to a precipice. He had been disturbing Ada Ezeoguine for marriage but the young and beautiful Ada preferred another man from another village. She even volunteered to give Akwaraike one of her most beautiful maids that escorted her to everywhere but the man would not calm down nor accept any of that. He wanted a more intimate relationship with Ada or at least have a carnal knowledge of her even with her marital status. Ada wouldn’t see herself succumbing to his amorous supplications. She kept saying “No” but Akwaraike wouldn’t come to terms with reality. He wanted to dip his staff of office inside the honey lake of Ada Ezeoguine. Feeling a sense of loss or rejection, Akwaraike promised himself that if he could not have Ada, no other man would keep her; hence, he perfected his plans.
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Ada Ezeoguine enjoyed the palm wine. Done with the last sip, she thanked Mazi Akwaraike and left for home. The journey from Enem to her Umudim destination was becoming extended even as she urged her escorts to walk faster. She felt welling and episodic pangs inside her stomach. She persevered until she got home. She managed to tell her worried husband that she drank palm wine from Akwaraike on her way home. Suddenly, Ada Ezeoguine fell into the hands of her husband and didn’t get up. She died crying.
Ada’s husband was so inconsolable. He rushed to her in-laws to report what he had just witnessed. Under Nnewi custom and tradition, the husband of a dead married woman can’t touch the corpse without the authority of the woman’s paternal family. This is because an Nnewi woman still belongs to her father’s family. They are the first to know of the demise of their daughter. They will ask vital questions. An Nnewi wife is actually leased to her husband for companionship, to warm his bed and to have children for him. She needs not to change her surname. Until the turn of the 19th century, the dead body of an Nnewi married woman and (in most parts of Igboland) was returned to her father’s house for interment.
Hearing what happened to his first daughter, Ezeoguine grieved as a warrior would. Orie n’ude. He took a noisy breath, screeched his teeth in a grinding format, went for his snuff box and steadied his nose to fill it with anwụrụ. He then authorized the burial of his daughter and kept quiet. But the news broke out. The men and women of Umuenem deserted Ogbe for fear of reprisal actions of the fiery ruler of Nnewi. Acting with perfect reading of the consequential reaction of Ezeoguine, the wise men of Umuenem acted fast to pin down the lion. They immediately besieged the house of the fearsome ruler before nightfall seeking to be given few days to investigate how water entered the ear or the funnel of ụgbọgụlụ plant.
Akwaraike was reached at his hiding place. He acknowledged giving Ada a cup of palm wine but swore that he didn’t poison her. He was committed to following a nominated party to visit to a diviner who would lay the truth naked. Ezeoguine asked his two grown-up sons to join the ije ịta or “going to a diviner”.
“Akwaraike killed Ada”, was the verdict of the diviner. He was not done. “When his victim left, he artfully hung the cup on a severed branch of an Ụkpaka tree at the middle of Akwụ Ọgba in Okpunyo Otolo”, and he added, “if he keeps denying, go get that same cup. The poison left in the cup is still potent. Pour water or palm wine into it and let him drink it. He will die as well.” Akwụ Ọgba is the present location of St. James Catholic Church along Igwe Orizu road in Otolo Nnewi.
Akwaraike didn’t wait for the emissaries to return before he ran away with his wife and children. He temporarily settled in Uruagu Nnewi and later moved to Ibusa (also known as Igbo bi n’ụzọ) in today’s Delta State. The flight of Akwaraike didn’t deter the Otolo Nnewi youths from setting his house and barn on fire. Naturally, a murderer had to go on exile for 7 years as the punishment for murder in Nnewi.
To assuage the anger of the Ezeoguine, Umuenem people compensated the Nnewi ruler with a large swathe of land belonging to the murderer and his family; the land that has now been shared amongst and inhabited by the descendants of Ezeoguine namely: families of Ubajaka, Ndulue Nwosu, Nwosu Mbaezuogu, Nduka, Oruche, Njideofor, Uzodike/Ilonwa, Okonkwo, Atueyi and Nwosu Ezeonwaneti (my own family). This answers the question I’ve always been asked as per why I live in Ogbe Umuenem instead of my ancestral village in Ọkpụnyo Otolo. I live in the portion allocated to Ezenwegbu when the assets of Ezeoguine were shared. It was the land inherited by my great grandfather, Nwosu Ezeonwaneti who was the son of Ezewuzie whose father was Ezenwegbu, the son of Ezeoguine.
Ikenga Ezenwegbu
22 May 2022
