In the biblical Old Testament, not all animals were suitable for divinely prescribed sacrifices. And in real life, every head is neither equal nor ordinary. There are people you cannot dare to offend, fight, outwit, or stand in their way, and go scot free. If there is no justification, every onslaught and chicanery against them would be tantamount to hitting one’s hand on a tipper truck fully loaded with wet sand. What perhaps emboldens hedge breakers to attack such innocent persons is that their appearance and background may look like they would not amount to anything. They may appear weak, helpless, and less endowed, but belies the seeming powerlessness is the unseen finger of destiny. But blinded by hubris, arm of the flesh, excessive love for material things, and ‘Herodic spirit’ of power and dominance, the wheeler dealers strive to play God. Time and experience have however shown that such mindless overreach does not escape repercussions, which could be instant and/or grind slowly like the mill of justice.
The case of a 13-year-old girl, Ukamaka Okoronkwo, is instructive here. She hails from Umumba, Ndiagu community in Eziagu LGA of Enugu State. In the last week of May 2025, the poor girl accompanied her father to fetch firewood from a nearby bush. Their intention was to use the firewood to fry cassava after grating, and in turn, produce Garri (one of Nigeria’s delectable swallows). The assailants who came on a motorcycle pretended to be repairing the bike and requested for a matchet from Chiamaka’s father as a supporting tool. Little did Chiamaka and the father know that it was a trap for a marked prey or leash of a stalked ‘sacrificial lamb’. In the process, the poor girl was abducted, and to guard against any frantic cry that could elicit attention, they tied and covered her mouth. But Chiamaka’s never-say-die screaming exposed the wickedness. The local vigilantes got wind of it and traced the girl’s outcry to the house of the native doctor and alleged ritual killer, Levi Onyeka Obieze Obu, popularly known as, “E dey play, E dey show.” The destined teenage girl was rescued alive.
Quite expectedly, social media immediately became rife and abuzz with the story. The youths in the community mobilized to alleged perpetrator’s house where they reportedly discovered two decomposing bodies, including a pregnant woman, inside a concrete-sealed sewage pit. The vehicles in the premises and some parts of the house were simultaneously served a jungle justice of arson by the irate youths before the Enugu State Government arrived and demolished the house in line with the State’s law and zero tolerance for such dastardly crimes. The chief culprit, Obieze Obu, reportedly took off and was at large when the story started trending. By a quirk of fate, he was caught at Gbaji checkpoint along the Badagry-Seme border by a conscientious and an eagle-eyed officer of Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS), Mr. Ugochukwu Orji, while attempting to flee the country. The immigration officer who turned down the offer of ten-million-naira bribe from the alleged ritualist has since been honoured by the governors of Enugu State and his home State, Abia. It will therefore not be out of place if the highest authority of NIS grants the young officer a promotion based on his exemplary conduct and as a good ambassador of the institution.
Without equivocation, there is a powerful dimension of destiny in Chiamaka’s life. From a near-death experience, God used Chiamaka’s fate to turn around the fortunes of the family, delivered the community and those who could have been victims in the future, and brought the state government’s consolation to the family of the deceased recovered from the sewage pit. Chiamaka’s future has been brightened by what the wicked meant for evil. The Enugu State government has relocated the family from the village to the city for security concerns and authorized Chiamaka’s psycho-social rehabilitation to enable a quick recovery from the trauma. She has also been granted a full scholarship from the present level of education to university level, as according to the Commissioner for Children, Gender Affairs, and Social Development in Enugu State, Ngozi Enih, “Government wants to ensure that she fulfils her glorious destiny because she is a destined child.”
Although some persons may argue that that such incidents are mere coincidences, I align with William Shakespeare’s quote: “there is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will.” It is evident from antiquity that there had been a force beyond the physical that controls the affairs of men. How could one explain the miraculous survival of the three daughters of Ibrahim Idris, former governor of Kogi State, in the Sokoto-bound Boeing 737 operated by ADC Airlines that crashed minutes after takeoff in Abuja on October 29, 2006? They were among the nine people that cheated death out of about 105 passengers and the crew. Also, in the far-flung Amazon jungle forest, the incredible story of four Columbian children who got lost after a plane crash in early May 2023 and were rescued alive after 40 days of combing the 1,600 miles thick forest could not have been an ordinary happenstance. Instances abound.
During the military rule in Nigeria, Obasanjo was reportedly penciled for elimination behind the bars, like Alhaji Shehu Musa Yar’Adua and Chief M.K.O. Abiola, but when Abacha mysteriously died in June 1998, he was granted state pardon, released from prison and later, elected as the president of Nigeria. That is destiny at work.
Indeed, Chiamaka’s case raises issues that have moral and policy implications. First, it teaches that nobody should hold back from doing good when it is in your power to do so. The assistance could be part of destiny fulfilment. Second, there is need for a stronger legislation to contain obscene display of wealth and full disclosure of sources of wealth. Third, without the vigilantes, the criminal activity would not have been uncovered. Therefore, vigilante services should be mainstreamed in Nigeria’s national security strategy for detecting and fighting crimes in under-governed spaces.