02 Jul 2008 |
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It was on the road to Agbaja that I first took a closer look at him. We had taken a taxicab from the city of Umuahia to the town of Umuduru , Mbano. Now he trudged along, I in tow, on the rough and dusty road from Umuduru to Agbaja. That was late summer many years ago, long before he became Father Emeka. An iron blade marked the tip of his stiletto shoes. He wore a white turtle-neck, long-sleeved shirt and a pair of milk-colored, bellbottom “bongo” pants. I became more aware of the lanky pilgrim who walked with me on that dreary journey. The day was different and had been lodged in my subconscious, far more than any other day in the years before then and in all of the over four decades to the present during which I have come to adopt him as an older brother to my siblings and me. He did not have to travel with me for my freshman registration at Agbaja Secondary Technical School . But nothing could have deterred him. That was who he was, who he had become to all of us, his younger siblings – a surrogate father. He fought hard against Rosanna’s early marriage in spite of the young woman’s insistence to the contrary. For some inexplicable reason he felt it was a personal failure on his part that his immediate younger sister chose marriage over higher education. He later relented and even worked the microphone at her wedding. When an incorrigible uncle reneged on his pledge to sponsor the second boy Emman through secondary school, he fired him a blistering letter which I noted as “The Epistle of St. Linus to the Chagrined Uncle.” Our parents only learned about the letter when family whispers had grown to loud communal protestations. He traveled with the second girl Catherine to Sir Francis Akanu Ibiam Girls Secondary School , Afikpo, for her freshman registration. The sickened teenager, who had never traveled anywhere that her mother’s voice could not reach, rewarded him with a generous throw up that held up the schedule of their crowded public transport. He organized interminable sessions with the third boy Ndubuisi – and was permanently puzzled – by the latter’s decision against higher education because he did not have the “patience” to always “beg” our father for school fees like the older siblings. He narrowly saved the third girl and youngest sibling Scholar from toeing the “objectionable” path of incomplete education when he decided to adopt her as a “parson’s daughter” with whom he moved from one parish posting to another until she completed high school and entered the university. He was always proud and eager to show us off to his numerous acquaintances. “Meet my baby brother! … Meet my baby sister!” Even many years later when we had all become as tall and big as he was his sibling adoration remained the same, unmarked by time and age and furiously changing socio-global circumstances. A couple of times he bristled at “inconsiderate” automobiles which sprayed us pedestrians with lavish flakes of dust. The cars were few, as were the mopeds. Anyone who would walk the whole nine yards from Umuduru to the Agbaja heartland in the late 1970s will surely see where God first breathed life into clay and made man from dust. To stand on the grounds of the newly constructed technical school in the middle of the ancient ohia mmuo forest beside the town’s spare market, with its lavish litter of docile large-headed cobra and rain-washed, clean-white old human bones, was like witnessing the beginning of creation. Surviving the Biafran War had prepared the children of my generation not to whine about such a normal human inconvenience as trekking some ten miles of rough road to get an education with a kerosene lamp. I watched as Father Emeka struggled to hide the gnawing pain of walking on the worst road in the world wearing high-heeled, hard-leather, crooked-iron stiletto shoes. He apologized every time I winced from striking my sandaled foot against a crouching boulder. He tried to cheer my frazzled spirits by mixing factual narrative with wild legends. Every one of his words was a soft jell on my freckled soles and parched throat. He turned my childhood nightmare, and the nightmares of my siblings, into a glorious adventure which became part of the spiritual bond we shared beyond my late discovery of our common inheritance as progeny of the same maternal womb. He was hardly three when our father’s mother Ezinne Violet Nwogiri (“Ndaa”) adopted him, as Igbo tradition allowed in those days. In spite of our mother’s losing protestations the toddler rather too excitedly trotted off with the old woman who came to pick him up from our village in Umueze II, Ehime Mbano. I was the third boy and fifth child, born eight years after him. I saw him on the occasional school breaks which he spent with us in Umuahia. Because of his size and carriage I initially thought he was an uncle, one of our father’s or mother’s many brothers who usually dropped in and out of our home. We, the much younger siblings, therefore, called him “Dede” or “Dee Emeka,” a respectful appellation for uncles, older brothers, and mostly senior males. Our father always watched him from a distance, and the boy himself instinctively held off our mother’s usual cuddling. He talked untiringly about grandma “Ndaam,” whose deferential name he mouthed with the possessive “m.” Our mother’s patience was tried to no end with his bizarre attitude of perennially counting the remaining weekends on his fingers before “Ndaam” came to take him back to the village. “Ndaam said,” he would spread out all his left hand fingers to remind our mother again of his limited presence with us, “Saloday ke ozo gafee, Saloday ke ozo gafee, Saloday ke ozo gafee, anyi alaa” (“Ndaam said, after next Saturday, after next Saturday, after next Saturday, we go home”). He never sought our parents’ approval, as we the younger siblings did; he simply informed them as a matter of course. Whenever our mother attempted to persuade him to postpone his return journey by at least one weekend, the tiresome boy retorted with a fresh round of finger-counting. Since she feared offending him, our mother’s quiet suffering grew into irritable words muttered beyond his earshot. “That stubborn child doesn’t even seem to know his own mother. He calls the old woman “Ndaam,” as if she is his mother. And why can’t she teach him to pronounce ‘Saturday’ properly like other school children?” When I became conscious enough, and could piece together our mother’s muffled complaints which were often aimed at needling our ever deliberate father, it gradually dawned on me that the blue moon visitor in neatly packaged school uniform was, indeed, my oldest brother! The Igbo were never very formal people, so it definitely did not occur to anyone to introduce my absent brother to me and explain the rationale behind letting such a fledgling youth grow up some thirty miles in a remote village with some quaint woman straight out of Achebean fiction. I learned that his name was “Emeka,” short for “Chukwuemeka,” which only our parents strangely seemed to pronounce in full. It made sense that he should be our oldest brother, because that would explain why our parents called each other by his name. In Igbo households the first child always seemed to dominate the identity of the parents to the relegation of the presence of the younger siblings. “Nne Chukwuemeka” (“Chukwuemeka’s mother”), our father often called her to clarify the minutest detail, and our mother responded in kind, “Nna Chukwuemeka.” Once in a while, especially when an outsider had a complaint against one of us, then the victim would be lucky to own our parents for a few minutes. The report went something like: “Nne Baby, come and take your daughter. She is getting into a fight again oh!” And our first sister “Rosa,” popularly known as “Baby,” did get into school fights, public water pump fights, and even spring water fights on Christmas holidays in the village more than all of us put together. In fact, the first ever dress code I could remember in our home was enforced for her alone because our father mandated that she wear shorts under her skirts and dresses before she could leave the house. But that is another story. He was born on August 7, 1954. I came to learn that the choice of his name Emeka was in keeping with custom. Most Igbo couples of the 1950s prayed hard for their first child to be male. For the husband a first male child reassured the survival of his bloodline and lineage, even as it reaffirmed his masculinity. For the wife a first male child automatically affirmed her permanent place against possible rivalry in a potentially polygamous home, even as it ensured her rightful share of the family land and other economic distribution. For our parents’ generation a first male child was simply a badge of honor and respect in the patriarchalist tradition. Our mother believed that a first male child was her immediate passport, or at least a visa, for surviving the stiff competition of the juggernaut Iwuanyanwu family. Her situation was much more precarious since she was married at the age of twelve as the wife of arch-patriarch Iwuanyanwu’s first son by his last wife. There was also the religious burden. Our grandfather Iwuanyanwu was not a Christian convert in the true sense of the word, but he was quick to dispatch his older wives and their children to the Anglican Mission which was the first Christian denomination established in Umueze II. Ndaa had just settled in as the Catholic Mission made its entry into our village. Being a man who covered his ground very well Nze Iwuanyanwu Nwachukwu Ehieze or “Okebule” (“Mighty Ram”), his communal praise name, simply allowed his last wife to join the new mission. Our mother knew that she was uniquely placed to enhance the growth of our grandmother’s section of the large household. If God could grant her prayer for her first child to be male, she would dedicate him to priesthood in the Catholic Mission. In other words, our first brother and oldest sibling was very much a designer-baby predestined, preordained, and chosen before conception for a calling, like the biblical Isaac, Samuel, John the Baptist, Jesus Christ, or in American lingo Tiger Woods and the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena. When our parents had their first child they had no hesitation in naming him Chukwuemeka, a two-word, five-syllable Igbo name that simply means “Thanks to God” or “Praise God.” Emeka is a name packed with the most intimate expression of gratitude to the divine miracle of omnipotence and regeneration. It is arguably the most popular Igbo name for first sons. Curiously, however, the inestimable admiration for the socio-cultural status of the first son tends to elide the historic burden of the name and its bearer. There is near universal acknowledgement that most males named Emeka are hyperactive and stubborn. Such a personality type, if applicable, may have more to do with the history of first sons who are mostly conceived at the prime of a couple’s youth, as well as their early preparation for their cultural role as leaders and surrogate fathers to their younger siblings, extended families, and communities at large. The revolutionary histories of two preeminent Igbo first sons, Dr. Nnamdi Chukwuemeka Azikiwe (first president of Nigeria) and his godson General Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu (rebel leader of defunct Republic of Biafra), signify the onomastic phenomenon of Chukwuemeka. But naming Father Emeka quickly grew other mythical dimensions. Immediately following his birth our father’s mother Ndaa and our mother’s mother Dedem Mary Okafor consulted with a native medicine man according to tradition. The oracle declared, unsurprisingly, that the new boy was indeed our mother’s father who had passed on when our mother was barely ten. Our late maternal grandfather Nwebo, said the Afa Priest, had reincarnated to reward his first daughter for all her hard work in assisting her single mother in taking care of her younger siblings after his early exit. “My daughter, your son is your father. He has come to wipe the tears off your eyes,” the oracle concluded. From that day on our mother privately called Father Emeka “Nnam” (“My father”) and grandma Dedem privately called him “Dim” (“My husband”). Not to be outdone by the two women grandma Ndaa publicly called him “Ngozi” (“Blessing”) for forty years until her transition in 1994. There was a suspicion that the oracular prophecy and the women’s name-game had something to do with Ndaa’s preemptive adoption of her first son’s first son at an age that was considered too tender even by her contemporaries. Moreover, she strongly believed that his birth was the first sign of the inevitable expansion of her own bloodline in the greater Iwuanyanwu family. Supernatural forces were obviously on Ndaa’s side. Before he was three, our mother had taken him to visit her maiden home at Umualumaku, Ehime Mbano. They had trekked the untarred road from the Aba Branch junction in Umuezeala to Umuihim, with the child mostly on our mother’s back. As they approached the entrance to our mother’s compound from the adjoining narrow road, he let out a scream. “Snakes, snakes,” he howled at the top of his lungs. No one knew what to make of his frantic screams, as there was no sign of a snake anywhere around. Yet the child yelled and held tight to our mother, struggling to jump off the ground. Our mother quickly hauled him unto her back. All the members of the extended Nwokeafor Nwuzoeshi family who had awaited their arrival with great expectation ran to the entrance edge of their compound and formed a large cordon around the screaming child and our frantic mother. The presence of a large retinue of our mother’s folk did nothing to reassure the boy of his safety or the absence of any snakes. The elders of the small village had no choice but to dispatch a group to consult with the local oracle. The emissaries returned with a shocking verdict. Our mother’s late father had pledged to return to his beloved daughters and their daughters, the oracle said. But he said nothing about returning to the compound of his earlier birth. The child could not step into our mother’s compound without a grievous risk to his health. An expensive sacrifice would need to be performed before the migrant ancestor could be invoked for a peaceful return to the old family. Our mother could not give in to such an elaborate ritual without the authority of her husband back in Umuahia. Our father, who had become a devout Catholic, was scandalized and disavowed any “heathenist sacrifice for an infant.” “Tell your people that I am not doing anything like that,” he retorted with a chuckle. “Chukwuemeka doesn’t need to go there anyway. When he grows up he will perform the ritual himself if he so wished.” As an afterthought he added: “Now you will believe when I tell you that the boy is not your father. Ndaa will be thrilled to hear this.” The old woman learned of the Umuihim drama soon enough and was knocking on our door in Umuahia the very next morning. She refused to leave until she was handed the child who eagerly left to live with her in the village. It was not long before the frantic youth of the city became a self-assured champion of the village. Our oldest brother’s transformation from Emeka to “Kokoma” surprised our parents. On one of their frequent weekend visitations to monitor his progress both of our parents saw for themselves that their son had become a folk-hero of the village dancing troupe, Kokoma. They saw the patriarch himself beaming with pride as he watched his grandson’s theatric agility at the playground beyond his obiama conference hall. Ndaa informed them that Okebule was never tired of watching “Ngozi’s” gyrations to the rhythm of Kokoma instruments: ichekiriche, conga, ogene, samba, and whistle. “Ngozi is the owner of music here,” Ndaa told our astonished parents. “The whole village now calls him ‘Kokoma.’” Expansive smiles brushed over her joyful face. “Kokoma!” Our stupefied parents saw as Emeka responded to the clamorous hailing of his audience with pumping chest, incredulous acrobatics, and spring-like jaunts in the air. “Your son seems to be thriving well,” our mother said to our father later that night. She never complained again about the boy’s life in the village. The day our father’s younger brother Cosmas took him for registration as a freshman at the Immaculate Conception Seminary, Ahieke, in Umuahia, was one of the happiest days of our mother’s life. With the invasion of Umuahia during the Civil War he left the seminary to become a founding member of the secessionist Biafran Boys’ Company, which worked frenetically to put out the raging fires of Nigerian bombs that were sporadically dropped on the city market and civilian homes. When the city fell he joined Uncle Chinyere in his relocated hotel business at Aba Branch. As the war progressed he was recalled to join the new seminary school at Ugiri, Mbano. It was at the seminaries and parishes that his baptismal name Linus, given by his godfather Mazi Francis Uwazurike, took a life of its own. Ekwueme Uwazurike, the Akanemego of Umunakanu, had - like our parents – envisioned his godson in the image of St. Linus, a trusted ally of St. Paul and a founding bishop of the Church in Rome . The reverend fathers, nuns, deacons, monsignors, bishops, cardinals, and catechists reestablished the name which had always played an archetypal second fiddle. “Father Linus” has endured as the name that marked the hallways and pathways of his studies and services through the Immaculate Conception Seminary, St. Joseph ’s Major Seminary (Ikot-Ekpene), Bigard Memorial Seminary ( Enugu ), Catholic Institute of West Africa ( Port Harcourt ), and the dioceses of Umuahia, Okigwe, Owerri, and New York . Our neighbors’ children in the streets of Umuahia danced at every sight of his presence. “Obiuto” (“Happy heart”), they all hailed him. His fellow student-priests and other peers, however, called him “Shadow,” a name that quickly gained preeminence as a recognition of his invincible talents as stage actor and athlete. At Doris Hotel , Umuahia, he was a stage act in Chudi Uwazurike’s first-written play, Return of the Second Generation, in 1972-3. He was part of the cast in the television production of St. Thomas a Becket on NTA, Aba . He won medals in the hundred meters track event, and he was the college captain of the triumphant Bigard Major Seminary team which won the soccer championship at the 1983 Major Seminary Games in Bodija, Ibadan . His legendary lightfootedness in contemporary dancehall music has contributed as much as his acting and athleticism to the persistent fame of “Shadow.” In July 1983, Father Emeka stood before Bishop Anthony Ilonu of the Okigwe Diocese and thousands of witnesses from across Nigeria and responded with a thunderous affirmation to his call to priesthood ordination: “I am ready and willing!” On the day he fulfilled our mother and grandmother’s lifelong dreams, he also became the first Catholic priest of the town of Umueze II . The town has since produced three other reverend fathers and five reverend sisters, and the Catholic mission has grown into two big churches. All his family members were a permanent backdrop in his priestly services in Nigeria . He had indeed broken global frontiers for the ever-growing Iwuanyanwu family long before his own relocation to the Archdiocese of New York. It was at his behest that Emma Bukar traveled for higher studies in India , and he also paved the path for the relocation of Kate and I to the United States . He has seen his siblings through education at the very highest level across global institutions. I have mapped the development of our oldest sibling as a testimony to the burden of the first son and the Christian priest in a postcolonial African family. On the one level, Father Emeka’s profession is modeled after the life of our grandfather Nze Iwuanyanwu who was a traditional Igbo priest, and Ndaa’s nephew Reverend Father Emmanuel Osuji of Umuebo who preceded him. On another, the outlines of his life and profession have modeled the love and sacrifice which are at the core of the Christ himself as the chief laborer in the Vineyard of God. Our priest brother, the Reverend Father Chukwuemeka Linus Iwuanyanwu, has been known by different names according to the differing stations of his cross through the family, Church, and global community, including “Dede,” “Nnam,” “Dim,” “Ngozi,” “Kokoma,” “Obiuto,” and “Shadow.” He saw our family through the Nigerian genocide, which spelled the demise of our youngest brother Ebere in the clutches of kwashiorkor and our uncle Lt. Cosmas who was killed for disavowing surrender at the Okigwe battlefront. At the age of fifteen in 1970 Father Emeka left the seminary again to trade in order to rehabilitate our family after the war. Through it all, he has remained unwavering and faithful to his predestination as a priest of God. It is signifying that the twenty-fifth anniversary of Father Emeka’s priesthood in 2008 also marks the fortieth memorial of the passing of our brother Ebere Promise and the tenth memorial of our mother Ezinne Juliana Igbeaku Iwuanyanwu. On behalf of our father Ezinna Cyril Njoku Iwuanyanwu (“Ichie”), all my siblings, Iwuanyanwu family, relations, and friends across the globe, I am grateful to be a witness to an incomplete but magnificent journey. _________________________________________________________________________________________________ The Big Crew................................................ Nnukwu Öha. (For Rev. Fr. Emeka Iwuanyanwu).................. (For Rev. Fr. Emeka Iwuanyanwu) By................................................................... By Obiwu............................................................. Obiwu
Where he treads there is halo........................... Ebe özörö ükwü ebube adï With each step the ground shakes.................... Ükwü özöla ala amaa jigiji
Crowds rise..................................................... Öha ebilie Hands clap...................................................... Aka na-akü Calls hail:......................................................... Oku na-akpö: The Big Crew!................................................ Nnukwu Öha!
Tides rise and grow......................................... Ikuku mmiri too ya ebuo Reeds pave his path......................................... Achara atüö üzö osi aga Lights usher him............................................... Ihe akpöbata ya Sounds echo him:............................................. Üda akpökuo ya:
Big Iroko........................................................ Oke Öjï Ehime Stone................................................... Igu Ehime Ancestor......................................................... Ichie Father............................................................ Nna
Prince of radiant sun and shrine............ Ökpara anyanwü ihe na ülö aja Bulls throng behind him........................ Enyi kwü ya na-azu. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Obiwu is an intrepid globalist. Contact: Obiwu@yahoo.com. .
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