Iniobong Umoh: This Thing With Your Village People

Don’t try to deny it. No matter how sophisticated you are or how modern the city you live in is, we all know that you come from a village. There are certain people in your village that you do not like. You don’t want to see them. You are running away from them. These people are your village people.

Your village people are dangerous; they have the propensity to cause harm/grievous injury to you and bring bad luck your way. They hinder your progress in life. You hate them and they hate you too  – even though you may pretend to like each other when you people meet at one function or the other.

The anatomy of your village people is a curious one. They are often short people with wrinkled and twisted faces. They may be young or old men and women. Their eyes are hollow with a reddish colouration. They have few stands of teeth left in their mouth and appear to have one foot in the grave. You may see a semblance of a smile on their faces but their hearts are dark and very bitter.

Your life is a continuous struggle to free yourself from the grasp of your village people. You believe that they are following you. Right from when you were born, your village people have been monitoring you and keeping tabs on your every movement. They had even tried to do away with you at infancy but you survived their attacks.

When you started primary school, your village people were angry because they didn’t want you to acquire western education that will make you become somebody in future. They wanted you to become a palm wine tapper, a bush rat hunter or a grave digger. So they tried to truncate your studies. They tried to make you fail exams in school. But you overcame them, you passed primary school and acquired your first school leaving certificate….Halllelujaaaah!

Secondary school came and your village people launched attack after attack to destabilize you. They almost succeeded because you wrote Waec five times and each time the result came out, yours was missing because Waec had seized your papers. But you finally succeeded and managed to walk away after your sixth attempt with five credits including the almighty Mathematics and English language.

Your village people became infuriated and re-launched their attacks. Only God knows how many times you wrote Jamb before you finally got the required cutoff point for aptitude test. You wrote the aptitude test and got admission into your preferred tertiary institution.

But your village people were restless. They swore that you won’t graduate. Your carry overs piled up like a stack of cards until you had to resort to extracurricular means to graduate.

After graduation, your village people followed you bumper to bumper like the children of Hamelin followed the Pied piper . They didn’t want you to have a job. You attended several job tests and interviews without any success, the different panels always thanked you for your time and told you that they would get back to you. When you finally had a big chance as the sole candidate for a luxurious job offer, your village people made you sleep off on the day of the interview. You forget all about the interview until five hours later when you woke up.

Despite all of these hindrances, you have succeeded in life. You have made it against all odds. Baba God has blessed your hustle. You now have a good source of income, a beautiful wife/husband and lovely kids, you have cars, clothes, houses and all the good things of life money could buy.  But you have not gone to your village in years because of the fear of your village people. If you go there to showoff, they will make you return to the city as a pauper.

You have not built a house in your village because you know your village people will bulldoze it spiritually and physically.

There is no escaping your village people. When you decide to leave your village or town and relocate to Lagos, Port Harcourt or Abuja to hustle, your village people follow you. If there is no space for them in the bus, they would hang at the back of the vehicle.

When fortune smiles on you and you finally get a visa to Amelika or Lonlon, you travel out of the country, excited that you have finally escaped the snares of your village people. You board the plane with your economy class ticket, while unknown to you, your village people are seated in the first class section, chilling with bottles of champagne, following you to your new location. They don’t ever give up, do they? By the time you land in the airport and before you can say ‘Hello America’, things have gone worse for you already because some kilograms of cocaine has been discovered in your luggage by the security.

Getting rid of the influence of your village people is a top priority for you. Some people tell you they can help you destroy your village people using spiritual means. They introduce you to one prophet, pastor, evangelist, bishop, alfa, marabout or the other. You are to pray special prayers and perform special assignments. You undertake 40 days and nights dry fasting and deliverance sessions. These assignments come with financial obligations. You have to buy certain items and pay the “men of God” for their services. You are spending so much money on destroying your village people. You have lost weight and have become emaciated. The “men of God” are having bulging bellies, feeding fat on the money you are giving them for their spiritual services.

Your village people are very powerful. When you get into their stranglehold, they won’t let you go until they destroy you. They have no atom of pity in their veins. They hijack your life and make you lose control of your life. They dictate to you what you should do.

You go to a beer parlor and order for only one bottle of beer but your village people whisper into your ears to drink five more bottles. They tell you to drink on credit because you can always pay the balance at a later date. After they have succeeded in getting you drunk, they lead you to your home and make you beat up your long suffering wife.

From the most complex to the most mundane issues and activities of your life, you can see the fingerprints of your village people. Service becomes unavailable when its your turn on the queue to withdraw money from the Atm. Sometimes, it even swallows your card on a Saturday evening leaving you stranded.

Your village people have a weird sense of humour. On the D-day of your date with that hot babe or guy, your village people release a big pimple that pops up on your forehead. You desperately try to pop the pimple but it dramatically swells up and alters your beauty/handsomeness by 50%. On the day you are to meet your ‘God ordained ‘spouse, your village people send down heavy rain that falls throughout the day. When you brave the odds and go out on the date, your village people hide your wallet from you. When you reach out for the wallet to pay for your meal, you find an empty space in your pocket. Your village people embarrasses you and your date, making you two to shamefully wash plates in Tantalizer’s kitchen as payment for the tasty food you lovingly gobbled down your throats.

Your village people ensure that at 45 years, you are still a hot trendy chick without any desire to get married. By the time you turn 58, they make you relocate to Shiloh and Redeemed camp in search of a husband.

Since your village people are wicked and heartless, and since you can’t break free from them, you have resigned to fate. You live an aimless life. You have abdicated responsibility for your life. You do not own up to your failings and shortcomings. You believe that it is not your fault. You have a valid excuse that your village people are indeed following and controlling you.

Photo Credit: Foto.com.ng | Nsoedo Frank