Her Father's Wife

Chapter 28

From the streets, the soldiers moved into the farms. They were like locust, eating up everything they can see. And that, without the consent of the owners of the farm. They were not hiding to perpetrate the act either. Many farmers suffered serious beating for daring to stop them from taking away their crops. The soldiers used Onumah to set an example and to send a message to the other villagers, that the strong takes it all and there is nothing the weak can do. Ngodo valued their crops. This is because, they were produced under hard toiling. Their soil was not particularly fertile, since they abhorred the use of fertilizers. They believed that crops produced with fertilizer are not healthy and they are also tasteless. Their crops were always small sized. A child of seven can finish a tuber of their local yam conveniently. Onumah and his second wife were in his farm that early morning to harvest cassava. The soldiers met him there. They were three in number, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, they took over the other side of the farm and started uprooting his hard earned cassava. Onumah was full of anger, how dare they try to rob him in broad day light. Being free with his mouth, he let it loose on them. He called them thieves and other names besides. They descended on him. Onumah was beaten black and blue. They would have finished him but for his wife's pleadings. Grovelling on her hands and kneels she begged them in tears for her husband's life. She even volunteered to give up the heep of cassava they had harvested earlier, and to help them uproot more. As much as they want she pleaded. They accepted her offer and stopped beating Onumah. Onumah was already out cold by then. They left them there after she had uprooted a sizable quantity for them. Only then was she able to go to the neighbouring farms to cry for help . Some young men came to assist her to carry her husband home. Onumah was sick for months after that beating. This incident, coupled with Nathy Komboms death, Ngodo became afraid of soldiers. All the fight went out of their men.They suffered through whatever the soldiers choose to do to them. This lack of resistance encouraged the soldiers to become more daring and aggressive. They introduced stealing in Ngodo. Livestock were not spared either. They hunt livestock the way hunters hunt animals in the forest. Ngodo people practised free run, a way of rearing chicken. As soon as the soldiers see any fowl outside, they will go after it. No matter how long it takes them, they will hunt it down and eat it. Even if it runs into its owners compound. Same goes for goat. Before long, they started snatching up young ladies. Initially, they were going after the young, pretty and unmarried ones. They will abduct them by force and take them to wives, this without their consent or that of their parents. Their parents dare not talk or they die. In fact some captured young ladies volunteered to go with them, without creating any scene, just to save the lives of their parents and siblings. When they ran out of stock with the unmarried ones, they graduated to snatching the newly married ones. Ngodo started hiding their daughters. Some people dug out holes inside the bush around their houses. Somebody will mount guard, preferably a little boy, as soon as they sighted any soldiers coming their way, a signal will be given. The ladies will immediately make their way quietly into the bush. They will enter the hole and remain there until they leave. It could be all day. . This method was not hundred percent foolproof anyway, a times, they do capture the young ladies while on their way to the hole and forcefully take them away. Many of them so taken, never came back to their families. Others came back with all manners of sicknesses. Husbands were beaten and their wives snatched from them. Some of these wives were mothers to children that were still small. In such cases, their husband and their children will go after them pleading with the soldiers to let their mother go, some of them suffered brutal beating as a result. A times, the more kindly ones among the soldiers will allow the women go after using them for a period. It could be six months, two or three years. These women never came back the same. Most of them came back sick. Many died merely weeks after coming home. Ona's married siblings came back around this time. Nkechi came back with her two children. Life was very hard. There was general lack of food. Even those that were considered well to do were complaining. Though, they do so in the sanctity of their bedroom. People were turning others in now simply to be in the good books of the soldiers. Another bad thing the war had brought to Ngodo. A brother selling out his own brother just to make friends with strangers.