Another Adikpo Story Which Is Painfully Coming To An End

" Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dark unfathm'd caves of ocean bear:

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air."

- Thomas Gray( Elegy Written in a country churchyard)

I walked into him at Adikpo market recently. He sat by one of the remaining public toilets in the market. Those toilets which in those days provided easy avenues for strangers were every where around Adikpo. Many of these toilets have been destroyed, resold or allowed to lay useless. But although very dirty and un hygienic, the one he sat in front, has succeeded as one of the most stubborn publics toilets in Adikpo. This particular one is located in the Small Garage. As a woman rushed in, although blind, the sound of the woman’s feet made him to put forth his hands;  obviously requesting for urinating fee. She gave him N10.

Terhemba Adugh Mough was a serial rapist in Adikpo! He lived and died in the early 90s. He  would ambush  girls in twilight and forcefully raped them. Initially, the society praised him. He was some form of disciplinarian! He was seen as checking nocturnal activities of wayward girls. Then he jumped from wayward ladies  to people's wives, nurses returning from night duties and then one day he went and raped boarding students of GI  Kajo memorial secondary school, Adikpo.

The social crusader had over stepped his boundaries. He was arrested by the police, killed and dropped at the Adikpo police station. For days, the body was disowned by his family. The first day , like the Libyians did when Gadafi died, the people rushed to see it. Especially, the women. He was naked. Terhemba was left at the station for a week. He was not embalmed. At that time, I was not inquisitive enough to enquire of the  reasons why the police left the decaying body of Terhemba to stay for that long. There was a stench...it was a gory sight.

This was not the first time I will see "Father" Aunde Ngonkur worked on a dead body. Although, today Aunde, popularly known as Father Ngokur is old, weak, blind and struggling to earn a living through a dilapidated toilet,  yet his story is one of the noblest Adikpo stories. He had been our "undertaker". The first time I saw him worked was on the body of an Igbo guy who was killed and dropped in River Katsina Ala. The boy was a  criminal...

In those days, our people would keep a dead body for days. When you looked at the dead body  closely, some thick brownish substance will come out of it with an accompanying awful stench; a stench  which would make children and women sick. At that time, Father Ngokur was one of the very few who would dress the dead body..it got to a point that even dead dogs, refuse and emptying of sewages through out Adikpo was a reserve for Ngokur. He would do it with an unusual smile.

He offered these services for free. Of course, he would demand for "IZAL" money. This was the only opportunity that the bereaved had to extend a good will to him. He never argued.

This Adikpo Story, with what I saw recently, like Ben Usorko, is painfully and pitifully coming to an end. Ngokur might have done so much for Adikpo when he was able, but at his point of need, Adikpo has betrayed him.