OLD KHAKI by Umari Ayim

As the church roused from the preaching session, the slim built chorister in dull yellow top and a floor sweeping brown skirt took her place in front of the congregation and began to belt a melodious tune about the greatness of God. Her small upturned face was lit with wonder as she pointed skywards and sometimes toward the crowd in a beckoning gesture. "Won't you help me sing?" she beseeched the small crowd. "Our God is good!"

The preacher raised her hand suddenly, cutting her congregation halfway through the song. “The Holy Spirit is here!” she screeched, her body jerking convulsively. A low murmur broke among the crowd. She straightened suddenly with a wild look in her eye.

“There are witches in this place.” She yelled, raising her left hand to point forward as her eyes scanned the crowd. “Forces of darkness are trying to disrupt the gathering of the righteous.” She said, shaking some more. More murmurs ran through the crowd as the people looked at each other for signs of witchcraft. The woman marched down the space in the middle of the two rows of benches. Mildred heard a sharp twack and craned her neck to see what was happening. Her mouth fell open as she saw the woman drag a young girl to the foot of the podium.

“Kneel down, you witch.” She spat, looking down at the bowed head of the girl. Her eyes bright with purpose, she scanned the crowd again. Mildred heard Offiong begin to whimper and she looked down to see him hold on to their mother’s green wrapper in fright. Aunty Imaobong had an odd smile on her face. She nodded hard at the witch hunt taking place in the small church. Mildred shivered. She had a bad feeling about what was happening. The preacher walked down the path between the benches again, pulling another child out of the crowd with a loud slap. The crowd screamed, “thank you blessed Jesus,” every time a child was singled out for witchcraft. Mildred felt her feet grow clammy in the leather sandals she wore. There was something about the woman that scared her. Suddenly, the woman was marching towards where she stood with her family.

“You!” she screamed, pointing a crooked finger at Mildred. “Come out, you child of the devil.”

Mildred looked around her in confusion. A hush fell on the section of the crowd where she was crammed in with her aunt, mother and two brothers.

“Me?” Mildred asked in confusion, looking around and desperately wishing there was a mistake. She felt the sharp sting of a slap before the horror of what was happening dawned on her. Still blinded from the slap, she heard her mother’s cry of protest and saw Aunty Imaobong shrink away as the woman dragged her to the front of the church.

“Kneel there!” she screamed, pointing at the dusty floor. In a daze, Mildred obeyed the woman and dropped to her knees.

“You killed your father.” The woman accused, red eyes bulging as if they saw something the crowd couldn’t see. “You shared him among your fellow witches in your coven.”

Mildred started to cry. “I didn’t kill my daddy.”

“Shut up.” The woman screamed at her. Then she pivoted on her heel to look menacingly at the crowd. “These children,” she said, her hand sweeping the line of five children cowering at the foot of the podium. “Might look innocent to you, brethren, do not be deceived, for even the holy book says in the book of Mathew chapter seventeen that the wolves will appear in Sheep’s clothing.”

Exclamations rent the air as more women grabbed their bosoms, heads shaking in wonder at the drama unfolding before them. Mildred was still confused. What was happening? Why is mummy not coming to help me?

Her witch hunting over, the woman returned to the podium and began preaching. The service went on with passages from the Bible exhorting the faithful not to rob God.

“Pay your tithes brethren.” The prophetess said solemnly. “In Malachi three verses eight…” her voice rose in a shout. “It is written, can a man rob God?” She lowered her voice and looked around the church in an almost benevolent manner. “Brethren, our God is a consuming fire. Don’t let him visit his anger on you.” She turned toward the pulpit. “Bring your tithes so that it may be well with you.” The smallish chorister walked around the crowd with a purple pouch on a long stick and the women dipped their offerings into it, making the sign of the cross afterwards.

The five children at the foot of the podium were still kneeling down when the service ended. The chorister led them to some chairs and they sat down with wide eyes, stunned at the misfortune that had befallen them. Mildred could see her mother talking with the preacher and the alarm in Akpan and Offiong’s eyes. Their mother was wiping her eyes with the edge of the wrapper as Aunty Imaobong consoled her with a hand on her shoulder. The women slowly filed out of the church, leaving the condemned children to wait for their sentence.

... scroll down or click here to read the rest of the story

I love ur writings burr dey ar kinda short.....wld love longer ones

I can see that Umari Ayim has a penchant for ending her stories halfway.
Nice story.

Is this incident real or fiction ?
I know such things happen but just concerned about this particular one.

burr dey writings ar kinda short ..... wld love longer ones
Count as a theme long
[img]http://www.spgames.info/g.gif[/img]

Marketed and Distributed by amaco investment limited
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Obasson plaza, Alaba int. market ojo alab lagos
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WHATS NEXT?

WATCH OUT FOR PART TWO

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This was a much debated topic 3 years ago.

[flash=420,315]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbDu0-K9cPk?version=3&hl=en_US[/flash]

Is the Helen the Witch Hunter still operating?

::Andrew:::
Marketed and Distributed by amaco investment limited
121 nnamdi azikiwe street idumota lagos.
Obasson plaza, Alaba int. market ojo alab lagos
11 pound road aba
22 ndiden usang iso road calabar
5 Agoro odinnyo street off adeola odeku street victoria ireland lagos.

WHATS NEXT?

WATCH OUT FOR PART TWO

GRAB YOUR COPY NOW.

lexus1: burr dey writings ar kinda short ..... wld love longer ones
Count as a theme long
[img]http://www.spgames.info/g.gif[/img]

thoth: Is this incident real or fiction ?
I know such things happen but just concerned about this particular one.

fellis: I can see that Umari Ayim has a penchant for ending her stories halfway.
Nice story.

Gentiejag: I love ur writings burr dey ar kinda short.....wld love longer ones

Are you guys serious??!!

Where have you been all these years??

what is it with dis umari incomplete story

Not as interesting as the previous but you tried . . .

[s]It's just an excerpt from a novel. That's why it's so short. Child withcraft was not the central issue in the novel. So sorry.[/s]

The author says she has more material, so stay tuned.

Seun: It's just an excerpt from a novel. That's why it's so short. Child withcraft was not the central issue in the novel. So sorry.

If Child witchcraft is not the central issue, why is the thread title CHILD WITCHES OF AKWA IBOM?


Anyhoo, novel or not. . .this is a real problem!!

PART ONE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbGzFN_NalI?version=3&hl=en_US

PART TWO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWSUAsC3ITg?version=3&hl=en_US

PART THREE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgALUdzfs1s?version=3&hl=en_US

PART FOUR

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNDgyp1M0Hg?version=3&hl=en_US

PART FIVE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zktMwd6xLg?version=3&hl=en_US

fellis: I can see that Umari Ayim has a penchant for ending her stories halfway.
Nice story.

Yeah ryte!

Umari,i luv your write ups.keep it up!

Good write up but be careful on how u figure out Akwa Ibom in ur write-up. Child witches & wizard is not a tribal thing. Lets be cautious.

Gross ignorance is the problem with most people in that part of the world. Child witch is a funny thing to discerning minds. I think they better stop this barbaric taunting/abuse of children in that country. In Britain past primitive history, there's such thing as 'Witch Hunting' which later as the country became civilized and developed it vanished into the thin air, as there were a lot of evidences to support the fact that it was based on ignorance and primitive ideology.

These children are innocent,
There is nothing like witches or witch craft.
Such things don't happen among elite and their children, it an evidence of purely abject poverty and crude way of deceiving these children parent to drop pay.

Look at those picture, you can smell poverty, typical of Africans.
Have any child of children of a well know pastor been accused of such.

Complete deceit.
A child is just pin pointed in a congregation and accused of witch craft, no questioning, no evidence, nothing for the innocent child to defend, him/herself,
Or in some cases an innocent child has been trained to come out and dramatize this act, all under the umbrella of deceit.

They may then attribute his witches to the lost of his father's employment, his mothers inability to have another child, or the child physical appearance or any negative thing that happened during the period of the accusation.

MAY GOD HELP US.

Seun! Seun!! Seun!!! How many times did i call U? I put it to U dat U have something wit this 'Umari'. This nt d first but d third. I go siddon dey Look oh!

“What happened after then?” Samuel asked, washing down his meal with the glass of water beside the plates. Mildred hung her head.

“It was terrible. For two weeks we slept in the Church. The prophetess would beat us and ask us to confess to our witchcraft.”


……“Confess!” the woman screamed, brandishing a thin evil looking whip in her right hand as she stood on the pavement where the children had been sleeping in the biting cold. Mildred’s teeth chattered and her eyes were swollen shut from constant crying. She didn’t care anymore.

“I am a witch! I am a witch!” She screamed in frustration. Her body was still sore from being beaten the night before and it hurt to move. “Please don’t beat me again. I am a witch.” She announced with a sigh as the prophetess lowered her hand, satisfaction in her eyes.

“Praise Jesus.” She said, raising her hand towards the still dark sky, the unmistakable white of spittle gathered at the corner of her mouth. “The last of these wicked ones has confessed.”

“Amen.” The slim chorister said behind the woman, struggling to keep her eyes open as she nodded more in sleep than in agreement. Like all the other days since the last three weeks, it had been an early morning ritual to drill the hapless children that were dumped together in a small windowless room in the small unpainted single room bungalow that was behind the church. A small toilet and bathroom with yellow stained tiles and a pungent odour of urine was at the end of the bungalow. The room where the children slept was bare, except for an uncomfortable nine inch mattress where they piled on top of each other at night in sleep. Sometimes Mildred stayed awake, looking at the dark sky and wondering about the scary thought of a snake crawling through the open window. Last night had been different. After a grueling night vigil, after which the prophetess slapped her for asking to see her mother, Mildred and the other children had been ordered to sleep outside the bungalow, on the freezing pavement.

Mildred looked at the pathetic creature mumbling incoherently at the far end of the group. Her name was Arit and Mildred had learned from one of the other children that she was mad.

“E be like say they put something inside her head.” Ebenezer, a wiry looking boy of eight told her, his eyes open with wonder. Mildred nodded, remembering seeing an open rotting wound on the girl’s head.

“I hear say na nail.” Another girl called Affiah had told them. Affiah was the oldest in the group. At fifteen, she was tall with a full grown figure and the other children looked up to her. Mildred thought it was odd that the drummer who lived beside the prophetess gave Affiah bags of sweets and biscuits after disappearing with her behind the bungalow for hours but she didn’t share her thoughts with anyone.

“Wake up!” the prophetess ordered, the whish of the serpentine whip flying through the air to land on the back of a dozing boy of five. The boy whelped in pain, coming awake immediately. He stared at the woman in her shapeless white garment with big eyes filled with resentment.

“This morning, all of you will go to the river to purify yourselves,” the prophetess said.

“I am hungry.” One child complained.

“Amen.” The chorister mumbled, thoroughly asleep on her feet.

“Shut up,” the prophetess shot at the child. “Wake up.” She said, slapping the chorister awake. The girl jerked, standing at attention and grabbing the slipping torch that illuminated the dirty, hungry figures huddled together before her.

“Sorry,” the chorister apologized, looking at her feet.

Mildred scratched her arm, looking down the stony path with a few wilting flowers at the pretty red brick building beside the bungalow where a small shrub of hibiscus flowers framed the steps leading to the doorway. An ash gray tarpaulin covered a car, leaving only its tires peeping out from underneath it, but Mildred knew it was a brand new Mercedes Benz like the one her late father drove in Uyo. The one once heard her father’s friend called a V-Boot. One time, she had seen the prophetess sitting at the back of the car while “drummer boy” drove her. Drummer boy was the nickname the children gave the drummer.
The tempting smell of something frying was coming from the direction of the red bungalow and Mildred stomach growled longingly. It had been forever since she had a good meal. She looked down at her chaffed feet with a sigh. She was growing to resent her mother for not doing enough to rescue her from the clutch of the prophetess. Since that deliverance night when her ordeal began, she had only seen her mother once.

“Take me back home.” She had pleaded, grabbing at her mother’s long skirt while Auntie Imaobong now changed from the sweet caring aunt that served her and her brothers sweet tea and chunky bits of unsliced bread after their father’s funeral screamed in disgust behind them.

“Which home?” You witch!” She jumped up and down, spoiling for a fight with the trembling Mildred who ignored her as she looked up into her mother’s moist eyes.

“I didn’t kill daddy.” she said, tears falling down her cheeks. “I am not a witch.”

Her mother’s only answer had been a sigh before she turned away with Aunty Imaobong back to the path that took them to the village.

I hate her, Mildred thought again, shaking from the early morning chill.

“So you all will go to the stream today.” The prophetess continued, her whip now resting beside her. “So don’t let me catch anybody baffing.” She told them with a dark look. The children nodded together, giving her assurance that they would stay away from washing their bodies as they had for the past week.

“Psst. Psst!”

Mildred looked around her, wondering where the sound was coming from. Soon she saw drummer boy’s head at the wall of the church.

“Di!” he ordered, his raised hand showed his index finger moved snapping back towards his palm.

“Me?” Mildred asked in confusion, looking around at the empty court yard. The other children were in the room, preparing to go to the river with the prophetess. Her leather sandals were already on her feet, so she had been waiting inside. She stared incredulously as drummer boy rolled his eyes.

“Come!” he snapped, this time in English. Sensing his urgency, Mildred quickly stood up and ran towards him. He pulled her to the side of the wall, and they stood beside the small bush where the children threw their waste wrapped in polythene bags. Drummer boy’s face was twisted in disgust and he held a hand over his nose.

“Cowufmeh.”

“Heh?” Mildred said in confusion. Drummer boy snatched his hand off his face.

“I said, come with me.” He said, stamping his feet in annoyance and clamping his hand over his nose again. He turned back and walked briskly down the narrow path that was between the church and the bush, down to the open clearing that led to the path to the village. Mildred blinked in confusion at the promise of freedom staring her in the face.

“What?” she asked, pausing in her steps. “Where are we going?”

Drummer boy said nothing, hurrying faster along the clearing and Mildred had no choice but to run after him. Finally they stood at the end of the clearing and the beginning of the path to the village, the church behind them. A shadow crept out of the thick bush and Mildred jumped.

“Mummy!” she squealed, recognizing her mother’s red wrapper. She ran towards her mother, her heart thumping in excitement. She was free at last!

- Written By Umari Ayim (2011 winner of the ANA/NDDC Flora Nwapa Prize for Women Writing)

See also: UNILAG Runs Girl's First Day & Kidnapped By A Very Nice & Handsome Man.

I really don't believe in Witchcraft or it's existence. Not even the popular belief that most Akwaibomites are witches.

IMO the prophetess with all her theatrics is acting like a witch

Na wa oooh........... Some people still believe in witches

How did this uari win prize sef? With all these her half and half stories.

blank: How did this uari win prize sef? With all these her half and half stories.

She wrote a novel 'Twilight At Terracotta Indigo'

what a trauma for an innocent small to bear.
oh pity d little girl and her mother

if i'm to comment on this; d so called prophetess is possessed

Wa she he one

Seun:
She wrote a novel 'Twilight At Terracotta Indigo'

Was she the one that wrote that story? I had totally forgotten about it. I tried to buy it from bookstores but i did not see it and then i kinda forgot about it. Where can i get it?

This is simply incredible. Stranger than fiction. My heart goes to those little innocent children from impoverished homes, who are often used as scapegoats by these God forsaken prophets and propheteses. God will judge them accordingly for bringing such untold hardship to these children. If I had a chance I will personally strangle this prophetess.

If the federal government did not try to address this issue I would personally report it to the Human Right Watch in New York.What kind of barbaric idea is this to harm innocent children?

Please,Nairalanders help to collate information about this issue and post them here. The future of Nigeria depends on these kids and it is your right/duty to help them to be better Nigerians.

Biafra calls

I do not understand how in a civilized country can afford this kind of thing.
These frauds should be imprisoned for using children is their lies, to do so publicly ...
The irony of all this is that these guys call themselves "Christians" and who do not accept witchcraft ... EXACTLY WHAT THEY DO THAT LOW AND DIRTY ... WITCHCRAFT!