Title: The Death of Mother: An Ogbanje Story.
Author: Cynthia Chisom Umezulike
Publisher:Troubador Publishing United Kingdom.
Year: 2024
Pagination: 304
Reviwer: Dennis Agbo
Coming and going these several seasons,
Do stay out on the baobab tree,
Follow where you please your kindred spirits
If indoors is not enough for you – JP Clark
The above verse of John Pepper Clark’s poem, “Abiku” captures the character trait of an Ogbanje, which in some African tribes is referred to as Abiku. Abiku means the same coming-and-going birth cycle of a tormenting child who prefers visiting the world and quickly going back only to be born again by the same mother.
Ogbanje or Abiku emphasises the reincarnation belief system in Africa, where it is believed that one who dies can come back to the same world in a resemblance to the previous dead person. However, Ogbanje, apart from reincarnating in the same world they left, has a unique feature of temporary life only to continue the cycle of being born again, unlike the reincarnation of coming back to life to live and probably complete an unaccomplished living, as believed in some African society.
While Ogbanje is mainly used for such ‘born again’ children in the Igbo society of the southeastern part of Nigeria, Abiku is a similar name adopted among the Yoruba-speaking society of Nigeria and thereabout.
It is known as Kosama among the Akan people in Ghana. JP Clark, an Ijaw man, having lived most parts of life in western Nigeria, was probably acculturated with the word Abiku, such as the Nobel Literate, Wole Soyinka, used in one of his epic poems, also titled Abiku.
In vain, your bangles cast
Charmed circles at my feet
I am Abiku, calling for the first
And repeated time – Wole Soyinka
Soyinka’s “Abiku” exhibits more of the arrogance of the devil-tormenting child, telling his parents that all attempts at holding them back with traditional African medicine employed to pin him down or meant to recognise his reemergence are futile. Soyinka’s character is more assertive and determined to break his parents’ efforts.
Whereas Clark’s “Abiku” comes from the weak position of a tormented parent, the Soyinka character’s impudence magnifies the repeated circle of life which the ‘Devil’s incarnate’ uses to destabilise families, cause sorrows, anguish and death in innocent families. He is boastful and stubbornly informs her earthly mother and presumably the entire member of his family of how extremely powerless the charmed bangles tied around his feet are.
In Cynthia C. Umezulike’s Ogbanje, Nonye is equally boisterous, though she looks like she has been tamed.
Her mother, Nneoma, refuses to be swayed and subjects her to a torturous ritual of making marks on her to make her stay back on earth. However, the Ogbanje is calm and poised for revenge, fulfilling her life cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. Umezulike’s Ogbanje is more tragic than the poet’s characterisation of the evil child. Through prose unlike Clark and Soyinka’s poems, Umezulike uses simple narrative prose to conjure the tragedy in the Ogbanje myth, in which her society is more or less powerless, even Ichie, the medicine man, meant to restrain the itinerant child.
The newly published short story opens with boastfulness, similar to Soyinka’s “Abiku”. Nonye, the Ogbanje in a flashback of her previous coming to earth, shows pride and is assertive, but handicapped of one who is not in control of the situation and is bound to suffer punishment for any attempt in disobedience to duty.
In his self-description of his character trait, Nonye discloses her ritual of macabre transition between the living and the spirit world and expresses pity for his grandmother, who loves her so much, but she must accomplish her mission, “Don’t worry, Granny, I will see you again… Don’t worry, I will return.”
In the next chapter, a precise setting of the story is unravelled through Nneoma’s use of Pidgin English in familiar environments such as in Igbo Enugu Ukwu, Emene, Aki Na Ukwa junction, Artisan market, Anamco and the dance of Osadabe and Oliver de Coque highlife music, depicting the Eastern parts of Nigeria, particularly Enugu, where characters such as Nonye are known as Ogbanje.
Environmental factors, such as marital quarrels, sports and family friendships prevalent in most families, are all brought to bear in this scene. Nonye’s father’s reading of the Eastern Independence newspaper also vividly conveys the period and setting of the story as against the 21st century of an internet age, where the use of android phones has become a source of information other than newspapering.
The second chapter reflects the child abuse underlying theme of the book, made very conspicuous by the maltreatment of Nonye by the mother, pouring pepper into her whip-lashed body at the instance of no help. There has been a constant maltreatment and exploitation of the child, probably because of her fate as Ogbanje, but she knows nothing and has no hand in the control of her spiritual and cosmic fate: “I thought my scrawny body had adjusted to the pain from the daily beating from mother’s whip, but today’s ache was different. Maybe Papa would hear my scream in Akwa, where he worked, and rush back to rescue me.”
Following is the theme of religiosity and fake spirituality as personified by the Apostle, who is also a tool in child abuse through his mysticism of Ogbanje deliverance that produces nothing but bodily harm, indignation, reduction of self-esteem for an underage child who has no hand in her earthly and spiritual destiny.
“The first time my mother left me in Onitsha with the Apostle for Ogbanje deliverance, he locked me in the car garage and beat me every day with his leather belt to drive away the evil spirits. One day, when nobody was around, the Apostle removed my underwear and inserted his hand in my vagina.”
Umezulike had the theme of child abuse in mind when she set out to write The Mother Dead, An Ogbanje Story. The author tells a story of a particular region, the Igbo, where the “Biafra wartime stories” still make the rounds even 54 years after the hostility with the Nigerian invaders, known as ndi iro, in the region. The Granny character in the book plays the role of an agent against child abuse and exorcism. Nonye laments that “Granny knew mother would insert raw ground hot ata rodo chilli pepper in my vagina at the slightest provocation. Nneoma starved me, and most nights, I cried myself to sleep with hunger pangs.”
There are also subplots of religious conflicts still prevalent in Igbo society, where some people believe more in prayer houses, others in traditional medical healing, and others in Western medicine. Nneoma chose the prayer house curative “…and vehemently resisted interactions that conflicted between the African Traditional Religion and Christianity.”
Umezulike uses Igbo idioms to buttress the nativity of her characters, which are created beautifully in prose with archetypical names and places. Umezulike also depicts the extended family system in Africa, employing Nedu as Granny’s relation with whom she is well-pleased as against her daughter, Nneoma, with her wickedness and abuse of Nonye’s child rights.
In a sudden turn of events, the book echoes retributive justice for their wicked acts and atrocities against Nonye, the Ogbanje. Yet, Nonye is not spared, waiting as she slowly returns to her spirit world-or maybe her spirit will float around humans for eternity.