How Do You Solve A Problem Like Ozo?

We buried Ozo today—six feet down in the earth. His service of songs was as sober as the expression on his face when I went to have my last view of him. I had expected a face marked with the shock of betrayal but found one with a pensive look. If I hadn't been present in his last hours, I would have assumed he was asleep and was having a dream that left him thoughtful.

His funeral had no fanfare, which was atypical for us. He had died young, so there was no need to celebrate his passing. The priest, I was told, had officiated out of compunction. Ozo's dad's money was the lifeline of that small parish.

Another person who had no compunction about being at the graveside was his mother. I wonder if she stayed away because she had no tears for him; after all, it was her nod which had led us here.

You see, Ozo died young but not unnecessarily. He was the son of one of our illustrious sons, so imagine our shock when a python gave birth to a cobra. As he blossomed in his teens and showed his hands of wickedness, the walls began to speculate that he was a child of an away match, for how could the first son of a hardworking man like Ide Unaga be a violent, blood-thirsty protégé? His siblings were the opposite of him, with great character and all doing well in school.

Ozo was the son of his father, all right. He was the child who looked like he'd been vomited by his father while his mother was away. He also had his father's charisma, but that was where the resemblance ended.

I would have liked to blame his mother for his behaviour, but I can't. We all saw the way she tried with discipline and love, but a child who struck a bargain with ajo mmuo even before conception will always, despite best attempts, manifest the demons which possess him.

And manifest he did. From the moment he could crawl, chaos and destruction had followed him. His teen years left his 46-year-old father with grey hairs. Ozo lied, stole, conned, raped, and even killed before he turned 16. His name became synonymous with violence and death. It left us perplexed that Ozo neither indulged in alcohol nor substance abuse, yet he was the devil. Every evil thing he did, he did with korokoro eyes.

After he killed a police officer, we thought his Waterloo had arrived, but after a year in prison he was out. Within a month, he ran his grandfather over with his father's SUV.

The rest of us watched Ide Unaga and his family wilt under their demon child's existence until Ozo made our village a cautionary tale. It is believed that he led the miscreants who plundered and looted our village and started kidnapping people for ransom.

The Igwe and Ndi Ichie called his father and asked him what he would do about his son. Ide Unaga had no answer.

Until his wife, Ozo's mother, was kidnapped and a ransom of ₦100 million demanded. The entire village was abuzz, and we all suspected Ozo. I later heard that Ide Unaga and his other children confronted Ozo, but he denied having a hand in his mother's kidnap. In fact, he spent more time at home than he had ever done since he was expelled from boarding school.

A ransom was paid... I do not know the amount, but I hear ₦20 million was accepted. Ozo's mother was released, but people who went to see her said she was a shell of herself. Her face and body were bruised from beatings done to force her husband's hand. Her hands were swollen from being tied up for eight days, and she would need a physiotherapist to help her use them again.

Unfortunately for Ozo, while in bondage, his mother had overheard bits and pieces of conversation and learned her own first son was the mastermind behind her ordeal. This she relayed to her husband, who quietly left the house the night of her return and met with the Igwe and his cabinet to answer the question, "What shall we do about Ozo?"

On his return, he knelt before his wife and begged her to forgive him for giving her such an offspring. He then asked her for permission to take him back to his chi. She gave a nod. So that night, while Ozo slept in his room, nine hefty, strong young men crept in and we held him down as his father suffocated him with a pillow.

So Ozo is gone from this life, and I hear that a dibia will come around later to perform a ritual that would halt his reincarnation.