toyinrayo:


thanks jare


okkkk, the capital of where you reside? lol

VIAGRA7:

toyinrayo watin I do you now? na the way you ask if na state just make me laugh! I kuku say make I tell you say na capital!

ok oh. . . se capital of Nigeria abi capital of United States of Amala

u guys don't know a shit about what Ogbanje is all about.

Why don't you tell us Mr. I T K

If i tell u, u will be scared to sleep, . . . . . beta u dont know

@ poster, I think you should talk to T-pain.

^{you are in love with an ogbanje}, _{he is in love with a stripper}

@poster
abeg ask d girl if she don dicus ur matter wit her ppl. why i ask them fit don tie ur dick oh.
u and d ogbanje need deliverance.

YOU MUST BE POSSESSED WITH THE SAME OGBA-NJE SPIRIT, SO NO NEED TO RUN. YOU BETTER STAND STILL AND CONTINUE WITH YOUR DATING.

WISHING YOU LUCK IN YOUR OGBA-NJE LOVE[b][/b]

So Ogbanje and abiku = SS
ehn ehn. yet, another lesson learnt.

Reasons im on NL.
Thank you people

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.

So from what i've gathered here, it means that Ogbanje is also the same thing as Abiku[/b]Right? And also that they must have been "sickle cell anaemia patients" produced by the parents due to ancient times ignorance of genotype & all it entails.

Now i'm going traditional here. I have an idea of "Abiku" maybe due to the fact that i'm a Yoro. The last time i checked, once an Abiku comes back to life, there is always something used on him (most likely a mark) so that when the child comes back it shows that its still the same one that died before. Abikus are identified by the mark they were given, so it shows its the same one that returned.

My Point: Abiku is very different from sickle cell patient!

I Rememeber Wole Shoyinka's Abiku, which i loved so much while at school. The first verse says it all.

[b]Abiku
"In vain your Bangles cast
Charmed circles at my feet
I am Abiku
Calling for the first and the repeated time.---"

The Abiku boasts, and he knows he has repeatedly come back, the charmed circles at the feet shows that it was the one that came before. This one is no sickle cell patient. An Abiku is someone that has come purposely to inflict pain on the parents Our forefathers were certainly not joking when they even gave them names to effect this change: names such as Duro, Joko, Malomo e.t.c (yoro names) to make them stay. If they were sick people they would have been identified sick. Abikus are very different from sicklers.

@Jkpretty
you just made me spill hot coffee on my shirt!!
Abiku is not SS, again!!

This is the most interesting topic since ive joined this Land.

Ok, madam Yimiton, im  waiting for another salvo from you

Yimiton has read a John Pepper Clark novel where she drew her inference that Ogbanje/Abiku=SS
Now, our enlightened JKPretty too has read Wole Soyinka's Abiku and she's been categorical in her assertions.

I need people like Debosky, Iyes, Afam, Olanajim et al to come and  shed more light.

Apparently, the location of this thread isnt doing justice.

PS: Mr. Admin, i pray and beg you move it to the front page.

Anybody with any useful material should please put up here plsss

@ 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.

@Yimiton
I don't agree with u. You still maintain they are sick people. You can't Twist Wole Shoyinka's poem around. He believes there's Abiku & his poem confirms it. Yes i've also studied the two poems, J.P Clarks & Shoyinka's. While J.P Clark's Abiku pleads for the Abiku to stay, Wole Shoyinka assumes the position of the abiku himself, & beats its chest, like "no matter what u do to make me stay, i will go when ever i want to & return when ever i want to". He makes mockery of the people that charms him to stay. The poem is like no matter what u do i'll bring the scares back, yes u'll identify me & i'll go again when ever i chose to.

If those kids were sickly our forefathers had enough herbs to sustain a sickly child to live. They lived prolly on herbs then & it healed many ailment we used oyinbo drugs for now. There is more to an Abiku child than a sickly child. Abiku is not a myth, legend, mirage or whatever u said, it is real. An SS child is medical while An Abiku child is spiritual chikena!

What shoyinka meant by what u quoted is that they know they are ageless, since they have a world they had before this one which they usually return to. They know they come & go back that's why they are ageless. The libations & other things will still not work, instead will make him go back. I studied this poem at school, i dint just read.

@TKB sorry about ur shirt and yeah Abiku aint SS

@ 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

this shows we are really living in the end times, there are no abikus, no ogbanjes, no mammi water, no babalawo, no juju, no occultism, no witches, no demons, no devil, infact everything evil is not in this world?, God save us.

If SS is the same as Ogbanje, then that would imply that all SS patients do come back to life just as the Ogbanje do?

The fact that something has the characteristics of another does not make them equal.

People suffering from marine spirits are sometimes so tormented that they begin to hear voices and atimes even see invisible things/people; these are chacteristics of schizophrania. So it would definitely be utterly wrong to say marine spirit is the same as schizophrania.

Please for the ignorants reading, There is Abiku/Ogbanje and it isn't the same as SS.

@Poster It is nothing to be scared about. Through the power of God and his grace and mercy, God is able to deliver your girlfriend. If you are still doubting. Just go to the doctor and have her to a blood test to see whether she is an SS. If she is an SS, then the doctors know how to treat her. If she isn't, God is still able to do miracles. God bless you

@Yimiton
Pardon my ignorance about stuffs you posted. Its seemingly glaring i dont have an idea of what you posted.

@JK
nothing for real. . .was spellbound reading how much you ladies know about this thing.

Ill read up also.

@ 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.

O!boy this is love in action, from the post u sent u ve already made up your mind so go dine with he devil. safe journey

al the best. Cant believe you'r actually considerin tht

@Yimiton
Literature?? God forbid/
It will bore me to death. . .i'll rather do my normal additional maths and score an excellent grade than read plenty Grammar that will score me zero.

nyways, its a challenge and ill start reading. Its never too late.
shey?

@ 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.

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.

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!

@yimiton
Thanks a bunch for the lecture. I have been hearing about Ogbanjes (abikus) for a long time without substantial proof to back up their weird belief.

I think you are right in your analysis. Where are all the Ogbanjes in the 21st Century? If you ask me, i think modernization has swept them all away. Just like all those weird old folklore our grannies used to tell us in those days.

@TOPIC,

really, how can u tell tell that someone is an ogbanje?
it takes one to know one

@ Yiminton

I regret that i was not on-line during the heat of the conversation but nevertheless I still have a few things to add.

Having read up on your summary i still think you have not acknowledged that there is a thin line between Abikus and SS children. I agree there are similarities within the two but they have very different and distinct definitions. (whether this is mythical or fact is neither here nor there). The word 'Abiku' was used by our fore fathers to lay hold of the problem and present it to their gods. One cannot say they are the same simply because it has not been prov-en.

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

Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe et al; have represented these 'creatures' the best way they know how to/ or simply for the benefit of their creative work. It is the understated right of the author to use semantics to round off a body of a piece of literature. Using their work to describe or define words like abiku and ogbanje can be very limiting as it's being sited form their views only. None of us in this forum know how much research these authors gathered before composing their work which means it cannot be used as a sole piece of information but rather as a loose guideline.

@Yimiton
Add Maths makes the world go round. See what you people are doing online cos of too much literature. You have succeeded in confusing me.

@NajaHaje
Pls, you will need to come and 'tackle' Yimiton on this. I for one will go with you and JK cos ive always know Ogbanjes and Abikus to be small witches

Anyhow, ill dig myself

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

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.