Check 4
They lined up in organised files each carrying different shapes and colors of carvings. The line was 3 km long. The people wore long faces and consist mainly of men and women in their late fifties, elderly people in their mid-sixties and few in late seventies. It was an Eke day at Ozuokwu town. At the far end of the line was a young man in his early thirties. He was known as the Igodo (the key). He was wearing a red gown with a white robe tied around his waist. He carried an elephant tusk and a brown leather bag. His left eyelid was painted with a local white chalk. He wore a native Igbo cap decorated with eagle feathers. It was the third day of the new yam festival and everyone is expected to march from the village shrine to the market square. The procession always begins at the Ide River where only a particular sect is allowed to bath and drink from. Non-members of the sect are to gather at the village shrine with symbols of their gods and wait for the sect to march from Ide River to the village shrine.
Lukeman and his fellow Corps Members watched from the primary school that was utilizing their inexperienced brains as teachers for almost any available subject. As the Corps Members stood there, they observed that each man and woman was actually carrying something. Some carried wooden images on their head while others leaned theirs on their shoulders. A particular god was carried by two heavy men in the early forties. "What are these" Lukeman asked Obiorah whose mother's grandmother is from a neighbouring village there in Anambra. "These are idols" Obiorah replied him. "Each family have a particular god that protects them from harm. On every new yam festival especially on Eke day, these idols are paraded to the village square and a great feast is declared to mark the new yam festival". Lukeman pondered on these and tried to picture the Ijo Sango celebration in his village west of Nigeria. This is exactly what is family lineage has battled with all their life. He came from a traditional home. His father's grandfather was a popular native doctor who spent most of his life in a cave at Oyo.
Suddenly a mad woman ran like Marion Jones from the far end of the line to the middle of the line. She stood there, looked at the men and women carrying their treasured gods and began to laugh sarcastically. She stopped almost immediately and began to twist her waist in a unified pattern. She smiled to an old woman who just filed pass with her god leaning on her weak shoulders and ran back to the end of the line and stood at the back of the Igodo. Already, Lukeman was beginning to shed tears and thanking God for delivering him from what would have become of him if not for a message from a radical evangelist that visited University of Nigeria on one of their campus fellowship HEAT for freshers. He was preaching on cutting off the past in order to move to the desired future. One of the issues he raised about the past was ancestral patterns and curses. Lukeman answered an alter call made on that day for such deliverance. He could remember few of the points that the man of God Evangelist Stone raised on that day;
1. Thou shall not have any other God beside the God of Heaven.
2. Thou shall not make any graven image for thyself.
3. The sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons and not God.
4. You are only making yourself a slave to nature which God gave you control over.
5. There is a generational pattern that can destroy your destiny.
6. There will be high demands of sacrifices which most times will not favour you.
7. The devil doesn't give anything for free.
8. The yoke of Christ is easier and lighter than the yoke of the devil.
9. Man was made to serve and worship God.
10. You are putting your unborn children into a cursed future.
Lukeman got back to the Eke day's ceremony. Obiorah was explaining the details of the ceremony to the others. A virgin girl will be sacrificed at the Ide River a night before the Eke ceremony. It used to be a public thing back in the old days but because of civilization and the advent of the Church, people claim that no human sacrifice was required any more for the sacrifice. Most of these worshipers hold big positions in the Churches and so believes on the scriptures that say "thou shall not kill" but Christianity will not stop them from their traditional worship. For them it is normal. "Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God. It's normal for a family conducting an occasion to invite the rain maker to stop the rain from disturbing the occasion and also invite the Priest to pray that rain will not fall. Obiorah explained that people believe and rumour that the powerful sect still carry out the human sacrifice secretly but this time they use strangers. "Who knows if someone is not missing in the village?" Damien asked with fear. "Abi oo" Lukeman looked at his wrist watch. "It's 12 noon and Ejiro is not here yet". "Ejiro? That's unlike her. She will be the first to be here with her camera. You don try her number?" Lukeman asked Obiorah. "Why be say na me you go ask first" Obiorah fired back and all began to laugh. Cynthia got her phone from her breast pocket and dialled Ejiro's number. "It's switched off" she told them. They tried for ten minutes and it was not going through. They called her roommate Biola. Biola told them that Ejiro left for Obiorah's house about 9pm last night and told her that she will be passing the night there and has not returned since last night. They all looked at Obiorah like "did Ejiro sleep in your room last night"?
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