Another extract from my forth coming book, TruNaija
My journey into the wilderness experience may well have been my own making, may be it was. I failed to discover the Rod in my hand and follow my passion early in life. You can judge after reading my inside story so that you don’t make the same mistakes, especially the youths.
It started when I left Government College Umuahia (GCU) in June 1973 after my WAEC School Certificate examinations. We were the first set of Class 5 students to sit for the school certificate exams in May/June. Candidates in previous years did so in November/December each year until the school calendar was changed in 1973.
We had the Higher School system in Government College those days that is, the 6th Form, Lower & Upper Sixth. Umuahians, as students of GCU are known were favoured for admission into our higher school. You enjoyed some privileges then as a 6th Form student…you wore trousers (those in Class 1-5 wore khaki shorts and pink shirt), you were a big boy, you had a junior boy (fag) attached to you (magi) as a helper, and if you were of good conduct, carriage and intelligent, you stood a good chance of being appointed a School Prefect, even the School Captain, still with more privileges.
But I was not interested in all that. I wanted to go straight into the university to study Medicine. After all, I was good in science subjects. The rave then was to study Medicine, Engineering, Law or Architecture. The typical ambitious Igbo mother would tell her university aspiring son or daughter then, “Nwam, Igabu Dokitor, Igabu Ingineer, Igabu Lowyer, Igabu Archi..tector,” meaning, my child you will be a Doctor, Engineer, Lawyer or Architect as per the child’s aptitude. Those days, these courses, regarded as core disciplines of study, gave illiterate, even literate parents pride. They heckled their children to work hard and enroll for such courses in the university. That meant you must be excellent, not just in English, also in Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology.
Parents restricted the choice of course of their children to these professional courses irrespective of your talent and personal endowment. You dare not tell your parent, uncle or sponsor then that you wanted to study Theatre Arts or Music. They will scream, even threaten to disown you. “You useless girl,” a mother will scream at her daughter. Over my dead body!”
To gain admission into these ‘choice’ courses, we sweated with these science subjects in college, passed them and sat for individual university entrance examinations. There was no JAMB then. But many of us just could not gain admission for Medicine. It was too competitive.
If you had ‘B’s and a Grade 1, there were hundreds with ‘A’s and Distinction as School Certificate results were graded then. I Can and I Will? No way. That was when it dawned on some of us then that though we were willing to study Medicine, we could not enroll for the course. Many of us fell by the way side. Engineering was out of reach for those of us who did not do Add Maths as the subject was known then. Now I think the subject is called Further Maths. So those of us in the corps of, ‘Let my people go,’ (this phrase again, na wa-oh) settled for Biological or Physical Sciences such as Biochemistry, Microbiology, Chemistry, graduated and plunged into the corporate world to ‘make it.’
Life pushed us around, and some of us ended up in vocations and professions we never studied in school but we had aptitude for. I did a combined honours degree programme, Chemistry/Botany, started working life as a teacher. Along the way, I took a flight from Anambra State to Lagos, discovered the Rod in my hand, stepped onto the rough and desert road to my Promised Land, and ended up as a business writer, financial journalist, author and brand storyteller. Plenty of written and spoken stories since 1983 when I started journalism, and 2005 when I started motivational speaking, and lately brand storytelling, but no money to show for it. Am I fulfilled? Well, yes, but still ground no level. I am still fighting bad-belle people.
They are all over the place, in every Promised Land, even before you reach there, you will encounter them. If you are spiritually lazy, you can’t escape their torment. They must try to touch you. Their aim is to frustrate you, stall your progress, and make life difficult for you with anything they can use especially okpoo (juju), witchcraft, and evil curses all loaded with demonic forces. Their armoury is intimidating especially for those not close to God.
They can deal with you for years no matter how educated or connected you are, until you identify the source of your problems and confront them with the power and word of God. And if you have not discovered the Rod in your hand, and you are still sweating it out in the ‘wrong’ profession, God help you, else your liberation mantra of ‘let me go’ may not be forthcoming. Now it is not just the collective demand of , ‘Let my people go,’ you have to personally battle to ‘let yourself go,’ before you can see clear and muster the strength to say let others go. The most disturbing aspect is that some of these evil people may well be your family members located in your village, fighting to take your father’s land or other property, and waiting for you to return to hometown, maybe during the Xmas period for a showdown. Then you go there and speak big grammar thinking the battle is physical and you dey kampe. Not so. It is wickedly spiritual, at least for them. They will ‘hit’ you with evil forces which begin to manifest and cripple your life when you return to your base in the city. Many young men and women even die from their onslaught.
If you don’t return home, they don’t give up. They will project the ‘attack’ to you even if you are abroad. Very wicked people. Wahala dey, The musicians P-Square said so loud and clear in one of their hit songs. Only God is helping the rest of us, and our talent and hard work driving us doggedly along the ground that may not be level for years. If it is so for you, it is your job to level am now. Nobody will do it for you because everybody is busy fighting his/her own battles. There is no energy to fight another person’s spiritual and other battles. Ask those who have been hit and they survived, they will confirm this. Deliverance ministers in many churches and ministries are overworked.
Go to their deliverance sessions, the place is crowded. People of all social classes bokwuu, the lowly, high and mighty, poor and the rich, illiterates and the highly educated, those who lived all their lives in Naija and the widely travelled. Evil forces are no respecter of persons. They can smoke you out from your base abroad and drag you home to finish you. This is spiritual terrorism. You are laughing. It is not a laughing matter at all. It is a very serious matter that calls for urgent solutions. If you have a personal story on this matter, contact me and let us share it with others so that they learn from your experience. These demonic people are very wicked.
They can make your education and high standing in your profession or society look useless. If they hit you with disease and your Doctor sends you to do a lab test or scan, for where? The lab people or machine cannot detect anything. Yet you are going…going…going? If you are a Christian and you don’t want to be gone, you better give your life to Christ, else they will finish you. That will not be your portion in Jesus name.
Little wonder Born Again Christians in Naija now pray forcefully with these spiritual bazookas, Blood of Jesus! Holy Ghost Fire! Back to Sender! Die! Die! Die! Check out the names of Christian T-Minors in Naija now, you will hear, Junior, Miracle, Favour, Faith, Godspower.
And if they are Igbo, you will hear Chidera (Once God has written), Chiemelie (God has won), Chigozie (God bless me), Chukwuka (God is supreme) Chinonso (God is near) and plenty of other Chi..this, Chi…that. It is all because of these wicked bad belle people. Now you can understand why I named my three sons, Chidubem (God is leading me), Chibuzor (God is first) and Chikaodinaka (He is in God’s hands).
(14 December 2011)
Eric Okeke is a storyteller, editor, business writer, motivational speaker and author of the best selling book: I Want a Husband. He is one of Nigeria’s most experienced financial journalists. He has published several articles in local and foreign publications and in websites such as http://www.ezinearticles.com, www.ezinearticles.com and www.writingcareer.com. He is currently running Infomedia Company, a media consulting and information marketing company. Visit his blog at http://sallywantsahusband.blogspot.com
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