His Home Rerurn
Ifegwu, meaning a horrible thing, was a promising and vibrant young man. His mother gave him that name because, at childbirth, she went through such a horrible experience that she would die. So he named her son, Ifegwu. Ifegwu had grown up with such a name; he was twenty-three and no one had told him what was behind the name that he answered. Unlike most of his age group in Okwo, he seemed to have little awareness of the implication of his name as well as its potency. One thing that had not occurred to him was that one's name had a direct powerful impact on one's life. When one is named, just like Ifegwu, it is not only one's flesh that bears the name, but also one's soul and spirit. That is why when one is in a dream, one is acknowledged by a name, the reason being that there is a force behind which controls both the spirit and the soul of the bearer of the name. This is the belief of Africans, especially the numerous tribes in West Africa.
A long time ago, a certain man lived in Okwo, where Ifegwu hailed from. He was a successful farmer and was well known throughout the eight villages of Okwo for his industry, which endeared him to many clansmen and attracted many friends to him too. His name was Kasimobi, which could be interpreted as 'console me'. He was seven months old when his father died. Then few weeks later, his mother joined his late father - that was how he became an orphan. People came around and consoled him for the tragedy that befell him at such a tender age, just as his name implied. He was eventually raised by his maternal grandparents, not his paternal people. Why was that so?
At the age of twenty-eight, he got married and the marriage produced three children - a daughter and two sons. One year after the birth, the second son, who was the last of the three children, died together with his elder sister. Therefore, Kasimobi lost two of his three children in one day under mysterious circumstances, they were not suffering from any illness. The people of Okwo came in their numbers and consoled him. Two months later, his remaining son also died without any known cause. It was as though he was the only one whose name was remembered by death. This time around, none of his folks came to console him. They rather teamed up one day, organized a naming ceremony on his behalf and changed his ill-fated name to Udokanma, meaning 'peace is better'.
That was once upon a time, long before Ifegwu was born. Ifegwu was the second child in his family of four sons, though the one that made it four went missing at the age of ten, and till now he has not been found. Ifegwu was slightly dark and of average height and equal body size. He had an admirable face with apparent dimples on both cheeks. His eyelashes were naturally very busy and attractive to many. Nonetheless, he was the constantly smiling type and had a demeanour that always got him attracted to people of the opposite gender. Despite his natural endowments and intelligence which would make many a young man go overboard, he was very responsible and every reasonable young woman would always love to hang out with him. Staying with his parents in the city of Aba was one thing he never anticipated.
Ifegwu was born in Lagos. His parents had lived there for many years before they decided to go closer home and therefore relocated to the city of Aba. He was at two hundred level at University studying English, but he stubbornly refused to go with them, insisting that he wanted to complete his education in Lagos. Although he was still a child, his father saw reason with him and decided to allow him to stay with a friend named Mr Owolabi. Ifegwu's mother was greatly worried. She preferred the boy stay with her husband's people, rather than staying with a Yoruba or an Ilaje. Her husband's people refused to take Ifegwu; they turned down the request when Ifegwu's father brought it up to them, saying that the boy belonged to his mother's people. They condemned him for being ignorant of their culture, the matrilineal descent culture, that a child belongs to his mother's people.
That was how Ifegwu's mother accepted him to stay with Mr Owolabi, the Ilaje man. It grieved her that her people could not take up the boy, especially because she knew too well that none of her people could hardly make it up to two square meals a day. She was troubled leaving the Ifegwu behind in Lagos, especially in a notorious area like Makoko. She knew the area too well, that it was known for great juvenile delinquencies. That knowledge caused her to feel further worried. Leaving her twenty-two-year-old son with a stranger was equal to sacrificing the boy to the Yoruba gods - to destruction. Her husband had argued that if Ifegwu had not derailed so far like other children whose parents were much around, he would not have done so, even when they were absent. He knew he had raised him under strict moral principles. His mother had no choice but to accede to her husband's decision and let Ifegwu stay.
Whoever grew up in Makoko with his or her morality intact would never become depraved anywhere else under the sun. That was the belief held by a lot of people back then. People went out of their way to refer to the area as Sodom and Gomorrah. Nonetheless, amid the notoriety of the area, Ifegwu tried his best to remain within the confines of morality, no matter how strong the temptation might be.
However, he was not having it very easy with his foster families in Lagos in the absence of his parents. Those were not very happy years for him because of what he had to endure. He lived with Mr Owolabi for two years before the heat became unbearable. He moved on to live with another friend of his family, who accommodated him for only three months before he also left them. From there he moved to yet another family, his paternal uncle, who accommodated him until he finished his university education in 2019 and easily secured a teaching job afterwards. Then he started having problems with the wife of his uncle, who suddenly began to find fault with almost everything he did, to the extent that she threw him out of the house, for an unfounded accusation.
Having nowhere else to go, Ifegwu went straight to one colleague teacher in Iwaya. His name was Babatunde, meaning father is returned. He knew Ifegwu very well, and he believed his guest's explanation of what had happened, so he allowed him to stay in his house. For seven days at a stretch, things became hard for Ifegwu and he was holding out patiently while staying with his host. It was two weeks after his begs were thrown out that his best secondary school friends, two girls, got to know about his ugly situation. The mother of one of them, Gbemisola, quickly arranged a room for him in their big house. He had to move in and relieve Babatunde his colleague at work. He spent the remaining years of his university education with Gnemisola's family, still found in the confines of morality.
When Ifegwu travelled home to Nkporo for the Christmas holidays in December, at the insistence of his parents, his parents told him that he was not going back to Lagos now he was done with his university education. They told the young man that he would henceforth stay in Aba, where they, too, were based. Of course, anyone in his shoes would definitely become grieved or even go to the extent of defiantly opposing his parents' division, which was rather sudden and unexpected; more so because he had a paying job in Lagos. Since he felt very bitter about the decision and even expressed his grievance in a strong, noticeable manner, he knew he would not go contrary to his parent's decision. He believed they had the final say. That was how he was brought up, to always give in to his parent's will. He was certainly going to miss his friends, his job and other things he had built in Lagos for fifteen years.
If Ifegwu could forget any of his friends in Lagos, it would not be Gbemisola. Being very keen to know the meaning of the Yoruba name, he had learnt that the name meant 'place me into the wealth'. She was like a sister to him. Another person he would never forget, though for the wrong reasons, was his uncle's wife who threw him out so gloriously in the middle of the night, which event was the main reason his parents took the drastic decision to keep Ifegwu nearer home.