From Wilson Okereke, Afikpo
Traditional bone setting is a way of life in Ogboji, whose people are interspersed in Ezza North and Ishielu local government areas of Ebonyi State. The Ezza people reputed for bone setting irrespective of the severity of the fractures; dislocations or the location of the problem on human body are divinely spread across all the kindred/families of the community.
Truth is that the people are synonymous with bone setting. A community leader, Nwankwo Christopher, told Daily Sun that endowment has brought the community to limelight, provided employment for people and boosted the economy of the area: “The skill of bone setting is a blessing to my community right from the time immemorial. It is so efficacious that when one encounters fracture of any kind in the entire South East, the first place that usually comes to people’s minds is Ogboji community in Ebonyi State.
“In every family or kindred, one must see between one to three persons with the gift. If any person for whatever reason refuses to answer the call of healing people with the gift, the person is bound to be facing series of problems in his preferred endeavour.
“It is on this note, that some people who do not want to be mere traditional bone setters under orthodox capacity normally strive for formal education. In the end they will answer the perceived divine call through orthopaedic practice.
“There are bound to be natural signs to show that someone has the gift of bone setting. It does not mean that the work is fetish. Rather it is a call for service to humanity which everybody, community and country is endowed with one form of gift or another from God.
“And once one discovers his and works in accordance with God’s plan, the person’s fortune will change. I’m saying it affirmatively because God’s gift of traditional bone setting has brought my community to the limelight. One hardly talk about bone setting in Ebonyi State and South East in general without mentioning Ogboji as the preferred place to get cheapest and fastest healing.”
Virginia Ijaga, runs a homeopathic healing centre: “I am 58 years old. I have practiced this skill for 30 years. I do use my fingers as an alternative to x-ray. By God’s grace, after attending to patients, their healing is always perfect and permanent.
“My practice is divinely. I normally get inspiration from God on how to attend to every patient according to the peculiarities of various fractures.
“Bone setting is my major talent which did not allow me to go beyond Primary Six or do any other business but before now. Two of my children have inherited the skill.
“One of them who did not want to be an ordinary bone setter went further and studied Anatomy in the university. The other one is here with me. In fact, currently, the latter seems to be getting more inspiration on how best to do the job more than myself.
“People do come here from far and near for bone setting services. Sometimes people who are booked for surgery or amputation at the University Teaching Hospital (UNTH), Enugu and Alex Ekwueme Federal University Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki (AE-FUTHA), usually come here to get healing.
“In all these, I use only natural materials to massage and set the bones. Since I yielded to the calling and commenced this work, I don’t fall sick any longer.” She appealed to government for financial and material assistance to enable her upgrade the healing centre to world standard.
Mrs Nwoba Janeth said she inherited the expertise from her mother. She started practicing at the age of 15, right from her father’s house. She held that the efficiency of their endowment has many advantages over the present day orthopaedic in terms of faster healing processes, cheaper in cost of treatment and easy accessibility.
On the notion that traditional bone setting processes exposes patients’ open injuries to infections which often lead to amputation, the 50-year-old woman agreed that “inasmuch as the service is cheaper and guarantees faster healing processes, there are some areas demanding improvement and synergy with the orthodox medical practitioners.
“The orthopaedic has some advantages like availability of x-rays, use of record keeping, proper pain management and improved management of open injuries. Government should stop fighting against traditional healers. Rather, the officials should support us so that we will work in synergy. When someone goes to the hospital with fractures, it takes longer time and money to heal.
“When it finally heals, the person after some years, will need more money and time to undergo another surgery to remove the metal which they always use to hold the bones in place during the healing process. But for traditional bone setting, once one it is healed, it is always complete.
“Based on the few impediments which I discovered over the years, I adopted the idea of engaging the services of patent medicine dealers popularly known as chemists to take care of open injuries and bleeding cases before I will commence my work.
“I am not thinking of going into any other business or trade. I am a good farmer too and because of that, my family and I barely buy things from the market. I rear animals, cultivate crops of all varieties, and pay my children’s school fees comfortably courtesy of this my divine endowment.”
Nwoba claimed that the longest period a patient had stayed in her homeopathic home was two months: “This is because the locations of the person’s fractures were so delicate.
“Other less delicate and complicated cases lasted some weeks or a month. The person will go back to his home especially, if the person is still young.
«I do attend to my patients mornings and nights depending on the stage and extent of healing.»
An already recuperated patient, Peter Oginyi, was involved in a road crash in 2020. He was taken to the hospital where the injuries were treated before he was moved to a traditional bonesetter in Ogboji despite that his wife is a matron in a hospital.
At Ogboji, he said that he got healed within weeks: “One evening in the month of December 2020, I had an accident involving a hit-and-run driver. As a result, my left leg and hand were fractured.
“I was rushed to a hospital in Abakaliki where my wife is a matron. At the hospital, the bruises and bleeding were taken care of. My wife made move for my discharge. Immediately, I was taken to Ogboji where I was treated within weeks.”