₦airaland Forum

Of course I'd be mad at you!

She's just not being herself.

You'll have to encourage her to be herself otherwise, you'll end up being married to a stranger.

On the other hand, she might not be 'pretending'. she might have been brough up to be timid, but it's either she'll continue to be your zombie even after marriage *which is going to be very boring* or you'll be shocked when she finally becomes natural with you.
People like that are very deep, they could actually be hurting deeply and not voice out their pains.

If you love her, help her to be more expressive and independent.

bebe2007:
I would say its your sexual fantasy to sleep with cleaners there is no other logical explanation for your actions. Seek professional HELP!!!!!

Yes, I agree with bebe2007.

In as much as I think you need prayers to break this terrible habit, you sure do need professional help.

We often overlook shrinks and psychologist in this country and anybody who uses them (especially psychiatrists) is regarded as being mad. But this is because we regard madness as some sort of taboo in Nigeria. If we were to look at madness like any other illness, we'll seek help in the appropriate chanele.
If you ask me, I'll say this is some sort of psychological or psychiatry problem and you need professional help.

You also need to pray and pray hard but remember,you must pray and watch; that is, seek help in the appropriate chanel.

@ Haje,
Accept my sincere sympathy on your ill health. Get well fast please, we miss and need you here.

I studied Foreign Languages in school, major in French and just started Public and International Relations at Masters Level. Meanwhile, Literature has always been my passion.
What about you, I've always respected your posts too. What did you study?

NaJa HaJe:
By the way I thought the argument was the definition or similarities within the three rather than whether they are fictitious or not?

No, girlfriend,
The argument is that there is NOTHING like the Ogbanje spirit, it simply does not exist. I also went on to state the difference between what we presume as witches in Africa and Ogbanje and I'm of the opinion that witches might exist, *I don't know for sure* but that Ogbanje does not exist. _{Abiku is the Yoruba word for Ogbanje which is Ibo}

In conclusion, the young man who thinks he's in love with an Ogbanje should take his girlfriend for a medical check up as well as look into the medical history of her family to ascertain that she's neighter a sickler nor a sickle cell carrier with very low immune system; which I strongly believe is the case here.

Alternatively, he can come back to tell us (with proofs of course) that the Ogbanje spirit is not just a myth but a reality.

almondjoy:
Yeah! I hear some people eat "agape"! This same "agape" I understand have been known to eat people alive too with empty pockets!

Agape also buys diapers and cheerios? And pays for health care abi?

Agape ko! Agape ni!


Show me a house, car, schools for my kids, food on my table, gas in my car, diapers on my kids' behinds and I will definitely show you "agape" to the highest power!


Shiooooooooooooooooooo!

Thank God some of us can afford both the "agape" and all the above!

Agape with a jobless man is equivalent to prostitution without rewards!---Ashewo Five Alive!!!!

Jobless men should not have sex period! Or fall in love for that matter!

Lol!
This is hot and very true!
Sometimes, we make mistakes because of sentimentality.
I so agree with Almondjoy on this one.

@ tkb417,
You see what I mean!
It's all in the movies and in our minds! The Ogbanje idea is just not true.

Just as we were made to believe as kids that masquerades are our fore-fathers come back to life to bless us, (instead of some men in the village with mask and funny looking custums) that was how we were made to believe the Ogbanje story.

I also wish some other Nairlanders will come to this thread to talk more about this idea especially those for it. I want some proof that this is not just an idea but a reality.

By the way, where is NaJa HaJe?

I'm still waiting for your mail tkb417, I couldn't find the previous one.

Let's have your profile!
Tall or short
Dark or light
Intelligent or stupid
Rich or poor
Old or young
Christian/Muslim or Pagan
Handsome, Average or outrightly ugly
Level of education
and of course, remember to insert your picture!

Hey Jk,
of course I know about the theory of their coming and going as well as their agelessness, but pls, let's get real. These things are not true.
That is what am saying. It's an eronous belief. It's so not true.
A friend of mine just drew my attention to the passage of the bible that says

it is appointed 4 one 2 die and after that the judgement

or are you telling me that these so called Ogbanjes are supernatural or superhuman beings?

jkpretty:
I only feel that the reason why they are not so rampant like before is because just like the world is getting civilized they have also gotten sophisticated. They wait till older ages before they die now. Have u wondered why people have accidents, all survived except one that didn't even have a scratch. Or why a woman died after giving birth to a child, or died on the wedding day, just slumped on xmas or birthday? whatever! My question now is: Is it only women that are Abiku/Ogbanje? Becos this happenings always revolve round women.

JK!
This one is another dimension you've brought into the Abiku/Ogbanje saga oh! 

Ogbanjes are sofisticated? This is so ridiculous, what you fellow Nairalanders are telling me here is that people *weather you call them Ogbanje, Abiku or what ever* actually choose the day or how they wish to die.

A lot of women die from child birth for different reasons mostly because they loose too much blood due sometimes to the absence or presence of very low vitamin K to clot the blood. _{I guess a medical doc in the house will be in better shoes to explain this to us}
Those that die in accidents without a scratch probably had internal hemorrhage.

on their wedding days? I haven't heard about that, but it could be anything and any body *including you and I* can die any day and anytime. That doesn't make them 'different', spirtual' or Ogbanjes!

Another thing i found out is that not all Abiku has the aim of inflicting pain on the parents. Some purposely come to the world to help their parents to become rich & releave them from their suffering. my 2 cents

This one is totally strange to me. In my own understanding, what Africans regard as Abiku is a child that dies and comes back over and over again to torment his or her parents, so, I really don't know what direction you're coming from here.

@tkb417,
I doff my cap for all you mathematicians.
Alright then, I'll reply your mail. Don't know if I still got it though. Give me about 30 mins and if i don't reply, send me another mail. It simply means I don't have it again.

tkb417:
@Ogbanjes/Abikus
can we have your own side of the story?
are you people for real?

Exactly, I don't see anyone coming out to say he or she is one, simply because, they don't exist.
Those that might[i] think [/i] they are have been conscientize to think that way.

sereques:
There is noting called Ogbanje. She is saying that to drive you away. it like the movie "clerksII" (the girl that doesn't want to have sex and told her BF there is a troll living in here pussy" What a bunch of toss

lol, now that was a very funny one.

@ tkb417, I agree with you that maths is a great course. I just don't understand it. Try as hard as I did, just couldn't grasp why -2x2 should be -4, or -2/2 should be -1. I hated all those theorems and thought they were madness, but I respected and held in high esteem *I still do* people that understood it like it was so easy.

Hey NaJa HaJe,

Part of the meaning originates form the eastern parts of Nigeria and its more closely linked with witches who are mostly young female children.

If anything, I disagree with you on that.
Ogbanjes in the African context are not 'witches'. There is a big difference between what we regard as witches and Ogbanje or Abiku.
Witches; in the african belief fly, they eat other people's children, make women baren, kill their own relations, destroy people for no reason and are desperately wicked. Like the one in 'An African Story' _{can't remember the author too.}

In the African context, Abiku or Ogbanje is a child who comes to this world to torment his or her parents, tantalize them with the idea being a child and goes back at a very young age to return again and again until they are made to stay back by force.
They simply do this to tease their parents and seek attention, otherwise, they are not wicked, neigther do they pose any danger to the society.

Mind you, I didn't take my reference just from these great authors who describes Ogbanje/Abiku the perfect way they are believed to be.

Achebe is Ibo and Soyinka is yoruba, the author of Dizzy Angel, _{I wish I could remember her name} is Ibo all with the same idea of how the so called Ogbanje spirit operates.
Personally, I  have had an Uncle who was said to be an Ogbanje and he told us the story with mirth. He lived to be about 56 before he died, even though he had a very low immune system. He was the first Catholic Priest my village produced and we both believed *I still believe* that the Ogbanje thing is a big joke.

It's simply a medical condition. In their inability to explain the mystery of a sickle cell child dying at such a young age and his or her mom having other children who also die, our fore-fathers took solace in spiritual interpretation.

michelin89:
Yimiton is right!

Take her to the hospital and take the person who told you she is an ogbanje to a psychiatrist.

Too many mad people around.

lol
@ michelin89,
It's not that bad now. . .it's just that different people believe different things.
If a dibia or a so called 'Ogbanje Priestess' sees this from you and I, she'll say, we both need to be treated!

@ tkb417,
No it's never too late to read.
Trust me, litererature is beautiful, it takes you to a world you never knew existed, the beautiful imageries makes words tangible.
I've never enjoyed a thread as much as I enjoyed this one simply becuase when I added a touch of Wole Soyinka and J.P. Clark, JKpretty picked it up!
It was like the good old days in secondary school.
My blood was boiling with excitement, my adrenaline level increased when she even as said

You can't Twist Wole Shoyinka's poem around

and quoted a few lines from Soyinka.

I respect people that understand mathematics, I could never grasp the subject, it was always an impossibility for me.

I wish a few other people would come around to talk more on this abiku/Ogbanje thread, it's so exciting.

This actually made me laugh!

Hey, just stop! stop now before you break the hymen. The fact that you haven't bled tells me you haven't broken it. If virginity means a lot to you, you'll have to stop this experimenting and find out when you're ready to really loose your virginity.

If you haven't bled yet, the possibility that your hymen is still intact is very high, but if you keep 'checking' you'll get it broken to your utter dismay and disappointment followed by annoyance at your self and regret.

Besides, a lot of people say the absence of the hymen is not an evidence that you've been disvirgined but whatever you do, stop inserting fingers or any other object in yourself, you won't like what ever follows.

@ glorina,
Trust me, I don't believe that the so called Ogbanjes 'come back' or re-incanage as we've been made to believe.

I believe these children simply die and their parents have another children who also die because they are all sicklers from the same parents.

As for the others you mentioned, I really can't say anything about them but for the 'Ogbanje' thing, it doesn't exist.

@ tkb417,
I gather you were never a literature student or a litererary critique, it's acutally a simple and very interesting art, it's one subject where no one can be wrong as long as you can prove your point, but you'll have to be interested to be good at it.

Humanise? 

14 years? 

Wonders they say shall never end. 

@ JK,
We agree on one thing here, these great authors and poets believe in the Abiku spirit.

What I've asked you do is to study these poems and see the similaries of character between the so called Abikus and Sicklers.
We also agree that these children are not just sickly, otherwise they would have been cured with herbs but what we don't agree on is that these children are SICKLERS as in they have the SICKLE CELL ANEMEA which obviously does not have a cure and research on how to handle these condition is still going on.

If the abiku phenominum was spiritual as you said, our fore-fathers should have had a way of making these children stay not to go away no matter what libation they pour just as Soyinka rightly said.

Note, I didn't just study these poems in school, I also taught them as a corp member to SS2 and 3 students. Of course I understand these poems and know that the poems portray these children as Ogbanje or Abiku but I'm saying that that belief is a myth. It's something they; like you and I have been brought to believe by the African culture.

Girlfriend, this is NOTHING but a myth; Coined by our fore-fathers to explain a medical phenominal they could not understand, that even after all the

Libations, each finger points me near
The way I came

@ tkb417 J. P. Clark's Ogbanje is not a novel, it's a poem just as Wole Soyinka's is a Poem  and I've studied both.

Just as almost every African child of that age has been made to believe that some children are Ogbanjes, so do these poets. I cited these poems for you to read them critically and examine the characteristics of an Ogbanje with the characteristics of a sickler.

The only Novels I mentioned are Chinua Achebe's Things fall apart and Dizzy Angel whose author I can't remember now.

I also didn't only draw my conclusions from these authors and poets, in addition to them, I looked at the real life scenerio of an Uncle of mine whom I used as an examble in a previous post.

As for the popular marks my dear friend JK talked about, I'll still insist that it's nothing but a legend. This is something we've been made to believe. Dearie, it just doesn't exist! It's a mirage!

Have you wondered why 'Ogbanjes or Abikus' hardly die if they are fortunate to survive the first 21 years of their lives meanwhile, a lot of them die after

Once and the repeated time, ageless
Though I puke, and when you pour
Libations, each finger points me near
The way I came,

all the sacrifices and libation as Wole Soyinka rightly said? It's simply because, it's the same thing as Sinckler and only a very tiny percentage of them survive. Not because of the sacrifices and libations, but because they are either lucky enough to be AS unlike their predicessors or just a very lucky but sickly SS.

The idea of Ogbanje or Abiku is just a myth.

NaJa HaJe:
@toyinrayo

witches. flying people (who only achieve this feat between midnight-3pm), demon possessed.

@ NaJa Haje,
No wonder you insist there are Ogbanjes! No, Ogbanjes are not considered witches.

They are simply very sickly children who are believed to die at very young age to purnish their parents and make them  crave for children. Acoording to the African tradition, they die and come back and keep doing that until their evil is exposed.

To know more about them, I'll recommend you read 'Dizzy Angel' _{I can't remember the author} or 'Abiku' by  John Pepper Clark;  Abiku by Wole Soyinka

Chinua Achebe's[b] Things Fall Apart [/b] also touched the topic of Ogbanje a little.
After reading all of these, I guess you'll know exactly why I insist that there is NOTHING like Ogbanje. It's just a legend that we've been made to believe for so long.

NOTE BELOW:

Abiku

Wanderer child. It is the same child who dies and
returns again and again to[i] plague the mother[/i].
                                                            -Yoruba belief

This is not just a yoruba belief. It cuts across almost all of Africa.

viviyn:
Hi, please whats YIM

Yahoo Instant Messeger.

simply log on to yahoo messenger and let's talk there

my yim id is on my profile you can start a chat with me now.

This doesn't sound like love to me.
It sounds like an opportunist or met a desperado.

Go back and ask yourself if what you feel for her is really love.
If she wasn't richer or your boss, would you have loved her still? Take your time to examin yourself and your inner man and you just might see that you don't love her that most afterall.

There are so many desperat ladies out there that will want to take what belongs to other people.

I really think you need to possess your possession. The big question is how is that possible when you're not often there and the other lady is with him 24/7?

You know what girl, let's talk more about this on YIM.

Yes, mostly the educated and well read ones. I mean socially intelligent as well as academically intelligent ones.
But those myopic ones can not even think of being romantic, they think it makes them less of a man.

They grew up, lost all the baby fat and they are beginning to become women.

This is definitely going to be a very difficult decision to make because you have spent so much time and energy building up this relationship and thinking things will improve.
As difficult as this may be, it's time to move on. Free your mind and yourself and feel the fresh breath of love.
I know you must be thinking that what if you move on and he suddenly gets that dream job, what if he suddenly becomes responsible, tell you what sister, they don't change that easily.
I sincerly think you must save yourself from this bondage.
You must pray and pray very hard to get detached from this guy and start all over again.
May the Good Lord be your strenght. You'll need it.

This is definitely not a true story but it was fun to read.

NaJa HaJe:
LMFAO!!!!!!!!!! THIS IS JUST TOO FUNNY!!!!

what exactly is the connection with sickle cell anaemia and ogbanjeism? i thought one was spiritual and the other medical?

Lol

My point here is that a lot of people prefer to give spiritual meanings to physical things they find difficult to understand.
I'm talking here because I once had an uncle (may his wonderful soul rest in peace)

My uncle who later became a priest lost all his elder ones while they were still very young. He was named Uba (meaning Vulture) because he was declared an Ogbanje.
He fell sick often and had crises the way I hear Ogbanjes do.
When he grew up, he researched into his medical history and discovered that his mother was SS and his father AS while he was an AS with very low immune system.

Now tell me, how won't all the siblings before him die, when they were all probably SS?

Our parents couldn't have understood that in ages past because they didn't have the scientific know how, that was why they tried to find answers and solutions the way they knew best.

This is one of the reasons I strongly believe that there's NOTHING like Ogbanje. We have been brought up to think there is and we act that way, even the so called Ogbanjes behave the way they do because they have made them believe that they are different and 'spiritual'.

There's NOTHING like Ogbanje!

Instead of making enquiries into her Ogbanjeism, make enquiries into her health.

There's a very high possibility that she has sickle cell anemea.
Check out all the symtoms of a sickler and all the symtoms of a so-called Ogbanje and you'll see that they have everything in common.

Have you ever wondered why Ogbanjes are found mostly in the villages and in poor homes? Have you wondered why the children before them often die or very sickly?

Look, take this girl to the hospital and do a thorough check up. Also look into the medical history of her family and come back to tell me weather she's an Ogbanje or a sickler.