Caught And Triumphs Over Hell
The grandchildren of my mother’s mother and I ought to have been born to parents of the same religion. But we were not. Why? We will now find out the reasons.
A particular cousin and her sisters of the some mother are the founding members of the Baptist Church in Benin City. Many of my other cousins, all on my maternal side founded many Celestial and Pentecostal Churches. Indeed my maternal family can justifiably be called the Levi of W. Africa, because they founded some Christian churches even outside of Nigeria. My mother’s is a family of “prophets”, yet I was born into a family of “Traditional Doctors”. Why? Could it have been preordained? To resolve this contradiction was my first real challenge in life. It is my struggle through a wilderness of labyrinths made up of lies, idolatry, voodoo, mysticism, Religion of anti-Masquerade and so on. This narration is also an analysis of my true-life experiences, so that even if everything in life seemed preordained to many, we may know how and with what to liberate, defend and protect ourselves never the less.
My mother was married to a church-founding Christian. That is not my father. My aunts who knew him well told me that he was a hot-tempered man, and a violent man. He indulged as I found out from his first son, in occultism, necromancy, and demonology, which included the ones based on the sixth and seventh Books of The Prophet. He was a man who visited cemeteries to perform rituals. In other words, he is the average African Christian!
I have witnessed his first son who is also the first son of my mother go to cemetery for rituals. He did this a times leading the whole of the congregation of the church, which he founded. I have found out that, in these days, African Christians have brought cemeteries to their places of worship; adherents now make invocations at the grave of their respective founders who they now bury in the church premises.
I grew up with my mother in her family, where they kept true information about my paternal roots secret from me. Nevertheless, my cousins teased me by calling me the son of Obo (pronounced orboh) (i.e. “Traditional Doctor or obiaman). This of course used to annoy me greatly.
They fed me from infancy on the usual Christian diet of disparaging everyone who was not a Christian. It went beyond disparaging; they taught me wrongly that, Obo were all devil familiars, wizards whose anti-Masquerade lived on the “blood” of human victims, and so forth. It may be true that virtually everyone that calls himself (or herself for that mater) Obo today may be adequately described in those adjectives for the simple fact that they indulge themselves in blood rituals and oaths. It is wrong to imply however, that their anti-Masquerade is different from, and inferior to the anti-Masquerade of the Religion of the Book. Their anti-Masquerade ultimately, is anti-Masquerade; this corresponds to the anti-Masquerade of "John the Divine" In the Christians’ Book of Revelation.
One aspect of anti-Masquerade is what we Edos call the “anti-Masquerade of Night”. Literarily: the King of the night. This is the anti-Masquerade of sorcery and the craft of night people, the anti-Masquerade of those holy people who practise in the dark, in grottoes where there is no light of truth, loftiness, decency, justice, etc. His “abode is scarlet with the blood of sacrificial lamb” according to "John the Divine". I know from research that the blood includes human blood. Witches and wizards, confirm that the dwelling place of their anti-Masquerade is awash with blood. They say that the floor, walls, ceiling and everything contained therein are continuously painted, washed or bathe in/or with blood.
It is remarkable that this concept of anti-Masquerade predates the arrival of Christian missionaries in West Africa. Anti-Masquerade and “God Almighty of the Book of Revelation” can be two expressions for the same Being. This suggests that the African did believe in this God before the arrival of Christianity. If this was so, why did conversions take place?
Anti-Masquerade Not Creator
God the anti-Masquerade is not the creator of the universe. She met us on earth when she arrived/fell on earth as an alien. She (probably a hermaphrodite) and her descendants are the ones who talk like persons, walk like persons, and look like persons, but are not human persons. The missionaries by contrast sold the lie that their God created the universe. This suggested in the minds of the natives, that the God of the missionaries must be different. Africans universally believe in what ethnographers call the "absentee God" - i.e. the FOUNDERS of the World who withdrew from the world after creating it. Lesser Gods, which include anti-Masquerade now preside over the affairs of the world, according to our theologians or priesthood.
My relations were ignorant of the fact that Obo and all priests worldwide, as well classical idolaters worshiped the one same God or anti-Masquerade. They, like everyone says that they all “believed in God”.
I was ashamed of being the son of Obo; hence, my insistence to my mother to tell me the truth about my father. Under much pressure and pestering from me, I eventually went to meet my father in Warri. My father told me a version of how I came to be born to him. My mother later told me another but similar version. My aunts who knew both my mother and my mother’s ex-husband told me a more detailed version. A synthesis of all is what I am now giving.
My mother had the eighth child, a son who was just starting to crawl, on her back, dead! He had died as my mother went about looking for her husband. She sought his assistance as the child had been convulsing in his absence. They were at Ilaje or Okitipupa in the present Ondo state, where my mother relied on him to show her the way to a healer or something. However, the man was not found on time, and the child died on my mother’s back while on the search. Indeed, it was when she found the man that, they (i.e. along with a crowd) discovered that the child had already died.
The husband felt insulted that my mother should expose his callousness in this way, albeit inadvertently. A quarrel ensued, and this church-founding Christian put a curse on my mother to the effect that, “she shall be at the burial of all her children” (eke nobiese ere ogha re se in Edo language). That is to say that, all her children shall die before her eyes, just as the one on her back.
My mother had to walk for days to Benin City, with the only clothes on her. This was in the 1930s. The journey took several days and she had to sneak into a forest to throw the corpse away, as she was not too sure of where to dump it. It is a taboo to bury corpses in some parts of the forests in some tribal areas under the pain of death.
My mother’s second child was the cause of the incessant quarrelling and vexations reported to me by my father and aunts. My mother’s second child was not for this holy man. The details are as follow: For over 3-4 years, my mother had to remain with her own parents after the birth of their first child who was a son as stated, because the husband’s house had become unbearable to her.
Her husband’s house had become unbearable on accounts of incessant quarrels. The quarrels arose from the fact that my mother had a daughter for another man during the four or so years, when the husband’s whereabouts was unknown. He was one yellow man, and a civil servant. The girl born to him by my mother was like a Caucasian not only in complexion, but in beauty as well. Indeed, a missionary called Miss Rance practically adopted her, as she took her to live with her in the school compound. Miss Rance taught her European Christianity, needlework, home economics (as it would be called now a days) and so forth. All indices were that she was going to be a great woman. Therefore, my mother’s husband wanted this daughter of the civil servant to be declared his own daughter! This for us is of course a taboo. Therefore, reoccurring quarrels became the usual mode often because the man held this perpetually against my mother. Otherwise, he thought that by hectoring my mother she could succumb.
The husband cursed her in spite of the fact that they have both had six or so additional children together after the yellow daughter. This of course was before I was born.
She had lived at Oza Street when she returned to Benin City. She cooked for sale to the school children of the school affiliated to the UNA church, which her husband co-founded. My senior brother hawked firewood (we igi) and my senior sister hawked boiled rise (raisi mi giogio). This was over sixty years ago. Our children still hawk and single mothers still cook on roadsides for sale. “Food is ready” signboards are everywhere in Benin City in particular because the fortunes of our people have not changed for the better since!
Our legislators have enacted a law against “street trading” and what they call “child abuse”. Hawking by children is “child labour” and hence child abuse. None of the legislators has enacted any laws against depriving the citizens of the means of livelihood and shelter, rights guaranteed under the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria among other African States. Fundamental changes to the ethos, psyche, religious or philosophical thoughts of our people has not yet begun, to suggest that there will be a shift in the paradigm of our way of life in the next millennium.
The yellow daughter was with Miss Rance. Their first son's whereabouts was unknown, and I was not yet born. Two of her children died within two months. After the deaths, she sent the grown up boys, the hawker of firewood to her relatives in Ebue, my grandmother’s father’s village. She sent the other away so that “if death came and found no child around me, death can take me along in their stead if death so pleased” says my mother. It was at this period that she was invited to come and stay in her mother’s family house (igiogbe) at Owina Street, off Sopkonba Road.
It was at this juncture that someone told my mother to seek the help from an Obo. This has always been the trite behaviour even to the present among African Christians: go to church on Sundays, maybe as well as spiritualists or “prophets” on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but fit in visits to the Obo at least on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. By appointment, you could still visit the Obo after church service; visit the “prophet” on other days. My mother’s family had been converted for centuries, yet now that she is faced with a problem of life and death, she turns wisely to the Obo through whom she will come in contact with correct Ebo!
My mother could not even contemplate seeking help from any other source until then but from the God of Isaac, Jacob, and Israel. Little did she know that every Christian around and about her was either a witch or wizard who indulged in visiting shrines and making sacrifices to anti-Masquerade and its adaptations. She was not a witch and did not give us her children any witchcraft. This had meant that we her children all were to be shortchanged by her family. They short-changed me especially more than they did to others, as I shall reveal in this Book.
I would like to point out in passing that there are virtually no Christian homes in Africa without a coven. Talking about one is equivalent to talking about all. Talking about one and all implies bringing the cult of anti-Masquerade into public discussion. They frown at such and would attack participants in such discussions with obeah. Hence, one invariably experiences hostility from all covens jointly, whenever one dares to disclose these facts. This explains one of the reasons why no one tried to reveal these things before now. Another reason that is even more important is that most authors who are routinely published come from such homes; hence, it would amount to bridge of the oath of secrecy.
My father who had no child at the time wanted my mother to marry him as part of the deal to protect her and her children. My father explained to her that what was killing her children was not the curse per se, but the man. He was killing them with obeah.
My father could not run the risk involved, unless he had a very good reason. They reached a compromise that my mother shall bear a child and he (my father) shall save all her living children. To make his point, he invoked the “lost son” at Benin City, and he obeyed returning to Benin City within days. He had to walk home from wherever he had been. None of my mother’s children died after that, until 1984 or over 40 years later. My mother settled down to trade and to practise her traditional midwifery that she learned from her grandmother. She had been more or less ashamed to practise hitherto fore.