“…soon after they started to dance, they formed a human circle around her. Some of the boys began to wave fresh branches of leaves they yanked from trees in the air in mirthful gesticulations. Satisfied that the crowd had adequately surrounded the woman and that she could not escape, James lifted up his right hand above his head, and showing his fist to the sky, he called out as loud as he could,
“People of Igarra!”

The thunderous response accompanied with wild jubilation mirrored the madness that had taken over the mob...

“After years of living in fear, thank God that today we have finally caught the one responsible for all our terrorrrrrr!”

“Heyyyyyyyy!” the crowd was ecstatic, rowdy, jubilant and loud...

“For the crimes of this woman against you all, today you get justiceeeeee!”

“Yessssssss!” the response this time was deafening…

He walked slowly, like someone obeying a director in a scene from a horror movie, to where the old woman was, sitting on the bare ground, her head bent downwards and facing the dust. He grabbed her by the hair, roughly, he pulled her head up so that she could face the crowd.
“Behold the face of a witchhhhhh!” His voice, filled with hate, echoed into the distance...

“Die…die…die…” the crowd began to chant...

“We know a witch when we see one!” a lone voice echoed from within the thickest part of the crowd...

“She must die!” Another voice, cold, tiny, filtered in from another obscure corner of the crowd...

“Make her suffer!” Yet another voice, thick, masculine, boomed in support of the first two voices…

James pushed the old woman's head away, searched the crowd with his eyes till he found a young boy he dragged to a corner of the crowd, raising his voice over the noise, he instructed him to cross his two toes and rest his back against a nearby tree. This, I learnt, was to prevent the woman from disappearing with her spiritual powers…

The tempo of the jubilation increased as the crowd quickly went into a frenzy...

James left them and disappeared into the king’s palace, leaving behind the clashing of voices and wild jubilation...
The renewed cheering of the ecstatic crowd as the king emerged in company of two of his chiefs a few minutes later interrupted my exchange with Majebi, who, throwing his hands in the air in euphoric jubilation and shouting, ran to join the mob...

A witch? O God! Not again…

As the word ‘witch’ rolled out of Majebi’s mouth and trailed him as he disappeared into the mob, it stung me in the ears like a rapacious bee…
Before he ran off, he told me that because the old woman, Iya Aje, was a ‘witch’, they had decided not to take her into the palace for fear she would defile the sanctity of the premises with her witchcraft…

The king was a scary looking man. His semi-crown bore striking resemblance to the huge scary crown of a crown chiselled into the massive palace gate. He was a tall man, with ink black beards mixed with the silvery grey on the old woman’s head. He was handsome in a weird way. His hand behind his back and clutching his horse tail whip, he took his steps majestically with the sort of grace worthy of a king. He was wearing an all-black beaded flowing gown. A very large stone-beads necklace dangled around his neck. The helm of his large robe swept the ground and flapped against his skin shoes as he walked towards the crowd...

Two men, dressed in almost the same costume as the king but with less decoration, were walking behind him with great deference. One of them was wearing a heavy beaded necklace like the king, and both of them were wearing little red skull caps.
The man with the heavy bead necklace was a higher chief as I learnt later and he bore striking resemblance to James. Fair skinned, bulky, tall, with a large face, he was an older version of James, and that is to put it in English. Chief Omokagbo, James’ father, he was a very powerful and influential man in Igarra land I also learnt…

Forever greedy for more and more lands, his appetite for everything good knew no bounds as I also gathered during the cause of my investigation from some credible sources later…

Within seconds, the king, Chief Omokagbo, the lesser chief and James himself were soon in front of the crowd…
The woman was still lying on the ground, covered in her own blood with mortal and visible wounds on every part of her aged body.
When the king reached where the crowd was, they reduced their cheering and shouted in unison their “T-a-r-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u”greeting. It was the customary way of showing respect to the king I also gathered…

The king waved his horse tail whip in the air in acknowledgement of their greetings, swinging it this way and that and then, as the horse tail whip came back down, a massive silence descended on the crowd as though the king’s horse whip was some type of magic wand that had the power of controlling the crowd. In fact, the silence was so loud and deafening that it was difficult to tell if it was the same crowd that was just moments ago been so unruly, noisy, loud and disorganised. It was a conspicuous grave yard kind of silence…
The king cleared his throat with a cough that sounded like an old cash machine and broke the silence with words that carried in them a sentence of death…

“Our people say it is better to remove the hand of a monkey from the pot of egusi soup in time before it turns to the hand of a small child. Everyone in this town today, young or old, indigenes or strangers, rich or poor and freeman or slave, knows that witchcraft is a crime punishable by death. Our fathers never spared the witches and so we won’t…If we do not curb this isolated case now, it will sooner than later spread. And if this happens, it will spell doom for us all and so, we will not let that happen...let our decision here today serve as an example to her likes that are still lurking in the shadows...

Take her away! She belongs in the rubbles of Idakoriko...”

The king’s command echoed so loud it blended with the ecstatic cheering that erupted in the crowd, resonating so loud it sent the vultures overhead in the sky scattering in all directions as if they knew what was about to go down in the village..
.
Chief Omokagbo kept nodding his agreement and approval. The lesser chief, a short, white bearded man with clean shaven skull, something I think he did to prevent the public from knowing that the white beard that had invaded his chin and jaw had also found a home on his head, had shock and concealed disapproval written all over his face and yet did not say a word. The expression on his face gave credence to my assumption that he was powerless and that there was some real politics going on inside the palace with regards to the old woman’s case...
With the king’s verdict, the woman’s fate was sealed. Die she must. She lifted her face to speak but could not get the words out of her mouth. She had been so thoroughly exhausted from the severe beating she had received…

She turned her face and looked in my direction as though she was trying to send a message to me or through me. I was standing a few feet from the crowd. It seemed to me that our eyes locked. The expression in her face was that of a plea. As if she was pleading with me to come to her rescue. I have no idea how she managed to single me out of the large crowd…

I felt a well of pity gushing through my spine as though a dam had broken inside me. Yet there was nothing I could do. What could I have possibly done in a strange land, in the presence of an unenlightened and unruly crowd with their powerful king? My hands were tied. I shut my eyes as hot tears began to flow down my cheeks. For the first time in a long while since the death of my father, I cried again, for a stranger I barely knew…

Not even the suffering of Eket kids elicited the sort of emotion that overtook me. I cried. Like a child. Maybe it was the shared humanity...
The king’s final words began to echo inside my head as if a lunatic was banging away at a huge church bell. Who was this woman, and is there no one here to save her I asked myself amidst silent tears. I could not supply the answer. This made me loose total control of my emotion...
The king and his chiefs retreated into the palace and the beating resumed on a much more intense note at this point. James re-joined the crowd and assumed his leadership role once again. The crowd began to drag the old woman away, pulling at her unkempt hair, bedraggled hands, and so on...

O God, what is this? Where were they taking her? What does Idakoriko represent?
The few hours that followed provided answer to my queries..."