Blood Is Thicker Than Water

In 2001 during the Kaduna crisis and in some other parts of Northern Nigeria, many Igbos were killed in thousands for no mean reason, Pastor Emeka was dressed in suit with a newspaper or Bible in his hand standing in the front of his house, he looked, an airforce van approaches, he felt comfortable because they appeared like the peace keeping unit, little did he notice they weren’t airforce men but Muslim jihadists in military uniforms and guns.

From that distance, they shot him straight on the head, and shattered his skull, his body fell into the drainage, vibrating, they came and watched him and left.

They killed an innocent man, their conscience weren’t at peace, they later returned to watch him again, but already been taken to the morgue.

Pastor Emeka David Nwozor was my uncle, the loss and pain Nigeria has caused the Igbos isn’t something even the spirits can forget, when I sit to make a record of what we’ve lost, it’s too much to mention.

Emeka was my Dad’s younger brother, not just brother but his best friend, when they killed him, it was like they killed him too, from that moment, his life started going down, due to emotionalized thinking.

From time to time his spirit visited him, “Dear brother where I am is better than here, let’s go home” he tried to stay but the love calling him from across the bridge was very strong.

After 10 years of trying to stay, he joined him in peace in 2011 at a young age of 62, he wasn’t sick of anything, life took from him what it wasn’t supposed to take.

It wasn’t his desire to leave as he explained in a letter, but the calling from that beautiful kingdom over there was stronger.

Since the 1914 amalgamation, we have been losing both lives and properties to date, our culture and way of doing things have been tampered with dangerously too.

Blood is thicker than water, it has a voice, so it speaks, when Cain killed Abel his blood ran up to God crying for vengeance, it cried for 4,000 years.

The way out of all these losses and suffering is to go our separate ways in peace, we can’t afford another war, it won’t be funny like the former where the Igbos were butchered like chickens, the British company nicknamed Nigeria doesn’t worth the blood of Hausa, Yoruba or Igbo, we lived peacefully before the white man came and joined us together.

My Dad didn’t tell his mother Isele, because he feared double tragedy, but you see blood is thicker than water, his blood went up from where he was killed to his mother’s room and informed her.

I bear the mark of two big losses, it’s a forever scar from Nigeria, this is how Nigeria has greeted me so far, “ma ya dibara Chukwu.”

Kanayo Ebuka