The Pain

Have you ever been so hurt, that you consume alcohol and drive at 140KMPH and damn what ever the consequences that may be?

I know what you are thinking.

That's not being suicidal. It's just anger. It's like smashing your phone or your TV set. Just that this time, you are taking it out on yourself.

Have you ever bought a ring just for the relationship to end a few days to when you wanna propose?

You begin to ask yourself, where did it all go wrong?

Where did I miss it?

You find yourself sad, moody and what not...

You find yourself withdrawn and angry.

That's what pain can cause.

How exactly does the human body treat and process pain. Just like a cut in the skin, or something much more ?

Yes, I think much much more.

Heartbreak can make you question yourself. If you are good enough. Why you gave your best all those years. You begin to ask yourself if you have poor sense of judgement.

It can affect your health so be careful. Like just the way the head is currently banging or the pains experienced in the joints. It's not fever it's heartbreak. It triggers everything.

So here I am, telling myself I'll go out and meet people. I'll see the world and breath a new air

This too, will pass. But for now, I'll soak it all in. God help I don't die. Lol.

Crime Diary: FRN v Timothy and 5 others.

For the first time in my life I cried in court.

Today, 6 accused persons were arraigned in court. Their offenses among others were,  Robbery, kidnap and the murder of the deceased resident in the Abuja metropolis.

The deceased had hired one of the accused (second defendant) as his personal driver. The facts of the case, suggests that this accused person, conspired with the rest to have his boss kidnapped and then murdered.

The accused person was driving his boss (the deceased) to work, when the other accused persons waylaid the driver and the deceased at gun point. They led the deceased to a lonely location, where they killed him and took his vehicle.

The accused later went ahead to bury the man in a shallow grave around Gwarimpa in Abuja. They stole other valuables too belonging to the deceased.

It was late in the night, when the deceased failed to come home, that the wife alerted her father of the continued absence of his husband and in turn, the father-in-law of the deceased alerted the authorities.

The matter was reported to the Police station in Gwarimpa, to which it was transfered to the Special Anti Robbery squad of the Nigeria Police force. The police swung into action and made a successful arrest of all six accused. That is; including the driver which is the second defendant.

In the police custody, the accused persons wrote their individual confessional statements.

In their respective statements, they admitted to the crimes and were remorseful for their deeds.

Now to the crux of the matter!

During the trial, the second Defendant (the driver) and other 5 accused persons asked the court to reject their very own confessional statements at the police station, in which they admitted to the crimes and were remorseful.

In their prayer to the court, they sought to have that statement struck out.

The lawyer to the second defendant contended that the confessional statements made at the police station were made out of duress.

The lawyer, speaking for his client submitted that members of SARS of the Nigeria police force had earlier used force, starvation, beating including harsh living conditions at the police custody to extract the information the defendants had written down and signed.

The judge in a sigh of distress, ordered for a trial within trial.

Now a trial within trial is not for the court to look at the substantive matter at hand. The trial is only to test the facts of the case, in light of the substantive law, to see if the confessional statements made at the police station can be admitted in court as evidence.

In a nutshell, the court was trying to see if indeed the police had bullied the accused into admitting that they did indeed kill the deceased.

During the trial within trial, the prosecutor called his second witness which is the father-in-law to the deceased. (The same man who had first alerted the authorities about the deceased continuous absence.)

The Chief prosecutor called his witness. the court clerk swore-in the witness and he was duly admitted as a witness before the honorable court.

The prosecutor then started his examination in Chief.

He asked the man to narrate what he saw and what led to the point of him seeing what he saw.

The man, father in law to the deceased then started narrating how he reported the matter to the police and how the police went immediately to the office of the deceased to make investigations. Then he narrated how the police tracked down the defendants and how the driver admitted to killing his son-in-law. He also narrated how they were led to the grave of the deceased.

It was when he was narrating how he saw his son-in-law's mangled body in dirt and blood inside a shallow grave, that he broke down in tears.

The whole court, including the prison warders were filled with tears.

Mine too without exception came pouring like a Dam. I turned to the accused person and he was chewing gum in court. His both hands were folded against his breast in what seemed like an unremorseful gesture.

The prison warder whispered to me during our conversation that he would really want the driver in particular, to be found guilty and that it would be his greatest joy that he be sentenced to life imprisonment.

The chief prosecutor stood up to ask the man to man-up and stop crying, but the judge asked the prosecutor to give his witness some time to cry.

That was how the court gave the witness some minutes to put himself together and by extension we also used the same few minutes to cry and wipe our tears.

After the little drama, the witness requested for a seat to sit. he gave oral testimony in court that he was 74 years old and already exhausted from the whole matter.

The man then went on to give further evidence about how he first met the driver when he was newly brought to Abuja from Onitsha to work as a driver for the accused.

Before he was done, the lawyer to the second defendant(the driver,) rose from his seat and objected to the whole oral testimony by the Prosecution Witness.

In his argument, the whole story was unimportant to the matter at hand. He drew the attention of the court that a trial within trial is to determine whether or not the police did bully the defendants into making confessions under duress and intimidation and not whether or not the confessions of the accused are true.

In a nutshell, he said that the job of the court today was not to find the truth in the whole matter. but to rather find to see if the police had conducted themselves in a responsible manner during the times they were extracting information from the accused. He backed up his submission with a 2018 case of Charles V. The Federal Republic of Nigeria.

The witness in turn, in order to show that operatives of SARS did not force the confession out of the accused, told the court that in one of his visits to the police station, the DPO told him that it was standing order and a police ethic not to beat or force confessions out of accused persons.

After the examination in chief and now, during the cross examination of the Prosecution Witness, the lawyer to the defendant asked the Witness if he was present at the police station during the time(s) the accused persons made the confession, to know if they were coerced into admitting to the crimes.

The witness answered No. the defense Lawyer then told the judge that he had no further question for the witness.

The second defendant prayed to the court to discountenance all that the witness had said in court including the crying too, that it was irrelevant to the matter at hand.

The case was adjourned to a later date.

Dude, Someone stole my sin.

Stolen sin.

Growing up in a conventional Catholic family, we were taught the importance of going to “confessions” to narrate every turn, twist and contour of our sin to a chief confessor who is usually a Priest.

The problem with me is that I don't have a particular sin. Today I'll smoke paper with friends while watching Bruce Lee smoke cigarettes and tomorrow I'll fight in school or write on the school wall "I Love Fatima's breast".  Another day, I'll do something totally different like buying bread from the bakery and not remitting the money.

It was so difficult to keep record of my sins to God that I bought a diary for this. At about the age of 11, I named this diary "Ledger of Transgressions". It was an improvised way of keeping account of my sins to God.

Every Friday night I'll go over it and then number my sins for that week and after morning mass on Saturday I'll join the queue to tell God through the Priest my offences.

One thing about keeping account of my sins is that I always record it in real time, so I get a perfect account of them. I usually take this Ledger to school, to catechism class (catechism class is a place were we are indoctrinated). I also take it to see friends when we meet to play video games, because I didn’t know who I'll insult while playing.

The day I stopped recording my sins, was when I misplaced it in my second year in junior secondary. My lord! somebody actually stole my sins and took them all away. I didn't know why, but it was stolen.

That week, during confession, I told my confessor all I've done, what I was likely to have done and then, I told him someone took the remaining from my bag. I guess he didn't understand what I was saying because he was surprised how someone will and can steal my sins during break.

Finally, he gave me my punishment in atonement  for my transgressions. We call that penance. I left and felt anew after.

Praise the Lord!

Addendum: until this day, I don't know what informs the weight of your penance.

Some days I'll go to confession and the priest will ask me to say 10 Hail Mary and 10 glory be to the father (a prayer we say in the Catholic religion). Another day he will ask me to come to church every morning for one week.

I noticed my elder brother usually gets heavier penance. I don't know if it's done by age or he just does graver offences.

The most difficult penance I've received was when I was told to attend morning mass for one month during Harmattan. That was the height of it all. If it was in my power then, I would have changed to becoming an Anglican or even join Sabbath.

What! Brothers and sisters, my fellow Netizens, you wouldn't want to wake up in a “Nigerian January” just to go to morning mass.

The cold usually rough handles your palms so much so that if you are asked to clap for Jesus during church service you'll rather prefer to look like the first cousin to Lucifer than put yourself in such a condition.

Finally, It was beautiful being a Catholic and if for nothing at all, if I get another opportunity to chose, I'll like to be one, again and again and again.

Glory to Jesus!

The Business in Women.

Women are like Limited Liability Companies publicly trading in the stock exchange.

A boyfriend has the controlling shares and every other man she entertains his call, text or replies on Facebook is a minority shareholder.

When an interested man is checking her out he is going through her company prospectus.

When an interested man, calls her and offers to take her out, it is the requisition of meeting by Minority shareholder(s). Every majority shareholder (the boyfriend) should try to block that proposal.

If she starts catching Feelings for the new guy and still loves the old guy it's rights issue offered Pro rata.

Usually, the first man to break her Virginity has a perpetual Debenture on the company which is redeemable on an extreme situation.

When the majority shareholders misbehaves and the woman moves on to a new man, brother that's radical takeover.

If the new man kneels down to propose to the lady Ahhh brother the company is no longer a going concern.

if she agrees to the proposal then the company has been wound up.

Everybody to your tent oh Israel.

Then back to the floor of the stock exchange for new shares in companies.

It has always been in the kitchen.....

IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN IN THE KITCHEN.

As the last born in the house, I was in a close relationship with the dishes, each time everyone leaves, i make them wet and do them right on the kitchen floor.

I don't like the sink because it was too high for me and I didn't get tall like all other kids.

I had this particular bowl, she was round and curvy my siblings used to call her 'efelé ebuka' I would start with her, straight from the inside no wetting just straight to business.

Usually, the remains from the previous night; all round her will be stuck and since I don't like to make her wet, I'll just spoon her until all the remains from the night previous, would wear off. With her, I love it mechanical and unintelligent.

I had this other, My Goodness! She was a pot, big inside, she was too much for me I'll take her slow, on that same kitchen floor. in fact, I used to set her apart and attend to others first and even when my strength had departed me from the long hours I spend with others, I mysteriously get the strength for her even after.

I do her and others almost everyday and I miss them, the kitchen and most especially the floor is my get away location.

I'm a nice guy, I'm well domesticated, I'm a home grown lad and above all I'm a husband material.

Try the kitchen it's a different place.

~Yours truly Ebuka Ikeorah.

Revelation: an account of a West African creation myth.

Revelation: an account of a West African creation myth.

Chapter 1, Verse 1.

 Man was created when the divinity known as Ọbàtálá had an issue with Olódùmarè. The fight was so heated that Olódùmarè had to escape for his safety after receiving advice to flee from Ọrúnmìlà (the god of wisdom and intelligence) .

2. In search of a place to habit, he came upon a place "Maikiuri" (Mercury) not too far from the heavens, but it was so close to the sun that his skin burnt and his hair fell off that he became dark skinned.

3. Orùnmilà being all knowing and sensing “Maikiuri” was the more logical place Olódùmarè would go and knowing Obatala having control over the sun, would smite him with the power of heat, sent a raven (èiye) to advice Olódùmarè to leave Maikuiri at once and go to a place so dark and desolate.

4. Orùnmilà gave Olódùmarè gifts of three stones, a sack of wine and a burning torch to travel with.

5. When Olódùmarè came upon this new land, the clouds were good and the air fresh. But it was covered with darkness and water that he couldn't see a thing. He threw his torch into the deep and it fell upon the waters, the fire burnt out the water and “aiye” (earth) appeared.

6.There he settled.

7. It was a new place. He was devastated with the loneliness and all the memories of the gold, music, company, power, influence and celestial comfort he was missing that, he drank himself to stupor.

8. He cried out in anger so much so that the heavens became loose and cried alongside him. It was the very first day he had seen the sky shed tears as it poured down on him overpowering his very own pain.

9. Olódùmarè was alone and the wine could not cure his loneliness and so he thought of creating company.

10. He created Eniyan and breathed life into him. He looked at him and saw that what he had made was perfect and beautiful and to his delight. He drank some more and in his inebriation he created Obinrin.

11. The very style of his craftsmanship was stolen to liquor that he did not notice the flaws.

12. From then on, the woman would bleed from the mistakes in her biology, her chest was swollen and the breath Olódùmarè had breathed into her, was contaminated with wine such that the energy of a god was missing in her.

13. The flaws made her weaker but kinder, slow but gentle.

14. Olódùmarè had made so many mistakes, that he even forgot to cover the hole inbetween her legs from whence he had breathed life up her chest.

15. “Obatala” having seen this huge progress Olódùmarè had made over a short period of time, became jealous and insecure, so he created chaos among Olódùmarè and his crafts.

16. In an evensong, one morning Eniyan called out to Olódùmarè to see how big the three stones he had come down with, had grown so big into becoming rocks by absorbing lots of the earth's water, air and heat. 

17. When Eniyan and Olódùmarè  approached the mid eastern part of “aiye” where he Olódùmarè had left the stones, he saw nothing. He turned to Eniyan to ask where the stones he had left were. Eniyan having grown so big and having the full strength and energy of a god lifted the rocks from the sand that had covered it and buried Olódùmarè with all three.

18. “Obatala” impressed with Eniyan promised him life after death and a reward of all the riches Olódùmarè had left in heaven.

The End.

All Rights reserved.

Evolution of Opinion.

Between the years 460BC to 370BC there was a general belief system by the people of the world that:

1. diseases were from God.

2. That you must have sinned to suffer any sickness and

3. That falling sick is you atoning for those sins.

This belief system endured for years, decades and century until Hippocrates the settled father of medicine came to challenge that wrong belief looking the color of normal.

Hippocrates was the first person to challenge the "sacred disease" theory by showing evidence how diseases are as a result of natural cause(s) rather than punishment from god(s). he went on to show that it was as a result of our immune system not being able to fight exposure to things like germs, viruses and other disease carrying organisms.

Now fast forward to few centuries after. In the days after 29 November 1781 the Gregson slave syndicate based In Liverpool sailed their ship from Present day Ghana carrying with them 133 slaves onboard Zong ship. The slave masters took out insurance on the lives of this slaves should they die en route, when it was calculated that their death was  worth more than their being alive and sold into slavery, the ship crew decided to throw these slaves into the Ocean.

The matter among all other things before Lord Mansfield the Chief Justice of England as he then was, was whether or not it was lawful in commercial law to destroy your property in order to cash out on  insurance and not even Whether or not it was lawful to kill another man.

The ship owners contended that the abolitionists group were being silly to say that a slave is worth more than a mere commodity like Gold and horse they quoted scriptures like Leviticus 25: 44 - 46 and Ephesians 6:5 and Exodus 21:20-21.

It took Lord Mansfield serious crisis of conscience to stand against the slave traders that dictated the music of the then commercial world in England and the whole of Europe.

Fast forward to the present day, no matter how much of Bible or Qur'anic verse(s) support slave trade we just can't help but to frown against it.

In the years proceeding 451BC Democracy was a lousy concept in Europe and the world because people believed God make kings and a ruler and his bloodline has been ordained from God, no wonder today we call royals (blue bloods because we once believed their blood was different) so to stand for democracy (a fair representation of the opinion of the masses in decision making) was a direct affront to the supposed Will of God.

Well, It took the Athenians slightly over 100 years to prove to the world that democracy is not so much of a bad business and here we are today fellas.

In similar vein, between 1939 down until about 1964 there was a general belief network that painful childbirth was ordained by God and that in fact it has its advantages as it strikes a relationship between a mother and a child and that anyone who escapes that pain using Epidural anaesthesia or any other form of operation or drug wouldn't have that relationship or to put it mildly, a loving relationship with the child.

it took many researches leading up to ones like the "Obstetrical dilemma" and "Hominim evolution" for stories like the "Adam and eve" and the "childbirth-pain and bond" myths  to be put into doubt.

Now young Ebuka Ikeorah is thinking, would the society later accept feminism and play a Nelsonian eye to social and cultural restraints?

Would society finally accept homosexuality?

Would society reason again or would society believe and believe even stronger.

Can some things ever change?

Have a good night rest.