She suddenly stopped. 'What is the matter? Why did you stop? You know that we are already running late. Come on, let's go,' she admonished her.

'Oh, I am sorry. I thought I heard someone crying,' she responded to her.

'I did not hear any sound, nonetheless a cry,' she said to her. 'And who could be in the market crying at these early hours of the morning on a no-market day?' she asked her.

Both women continued their journey, but as they travelled along, the crying got louder and louder. Both women had to stop to figure out from which direction the noise was coming from.

'Yes, that sounds like a baby crying. You are right. You heard right, Obidiya,' said Nwayidiya.

'I told you. I told you that I heard a cry, but you never believed me. Hmm, Nwayidiya, why is it that you never believe anything that I tell you?' Obidiya asked her.

'Okay, okay, I am sorry. You are right this time around, but let's not argue much over who is wrong and who is not at this early morning. Let's pay more attention to the cry and see if we can find out where it is coming from,' she apologized to her.

It was an early morning, a day after the market day, a day after the Nkwo-Orji market day. The morning dews were still in goblets on the cassava leaves just as much as they were on the cocoyam and banana leaves that lay along the bush path that traversed the market before leading to the farmlands. The grasshoppers were still perching on the leaves, and the farm paths were still moist with the early morning dews. Both women had taken a shortcut through the market, heading along the way to their farmland, when they heard the sound of a baby cry.

'Who could have brought out a baby to the market place at this early hour of the morning on a no-market day?' Obidiya asked.

Both women stood still on their paths, trying to ascertain the direction from where the cry was coming from. Suddenly, they realised that the sound was coming from behind the gigantic iroko tree just at the end of the marketplace. They both searched towards the direction of that iroko tree where they believed the sound was coming from.

'Here, I have found it,' shouted Obidiya. 'Nwayidiya, come here. Come and see this for yourself. You cannot just imagine what I am seeing here with my two naked eyes.'

Behind the iroko tree, just at the foot, and in front of the shrine of Igwudu-Nkwo-Orji, the guardian of the Orji people, the god of their ancestors, the women found a newborn covered with banana and cocoyam leaves. Both women stood still in disbelief. Immediately they saw it. Obidiya, who was at her mid-stage of pregnancy suddenly felt the jerky movements of the fetus in her womb. Both women stood still for a while in a state of confusion and disbelief before they proceeded in removing the leaves off the baby.

'Oh my god, it is a baby boy, and he must be very hungry,' said Obidiya.

'Who could have done such a thing? Such an unheard-of thing, an abomination in our land,' lamented Nwayidiya.

She lifted the baby, placed him in her arms, and tears started rolling down from her eyes to her cheeks when the baby suddenly stopped crying and started suckling on his left tiny fingers while gripping firmly to an object in his right hand.

As both women stood there, shouting and wondering what to do next, many people, including farmers heading to their farms, traders going to the next market, hunters returning from their early morning hunts and passersby gathered at the scene, wondering who could have abandoned a child at the feet of the guardian of the village, the god of their ancestors.

Many of those gathering at the scene started wondering what object the baby was gripping so firmly with his right hand. Nwayidiya loosened his clench to the object and realised that he was holding a shiny coin. When the multitude gathering at the scene saw the object in his hand, many speculated that he had taken what belonged to the gods while others thought that the coin was a gift from the gods of their ancestors to the little one.

But the coin was among the many items people left at the foot of the gods to pay homage to them, to ask for their benedictions and to thank them for their good deeds and protection.

Some believed that whoever left the baby boy there left him to the care of the Igwudu, and some believed that he was left there as a sacrifice to the gods.

Nwayidiya sobbed uncontrollably while Obidiya consoled her without knowing why she was such in a mood; why she was feeling so sorrowful and in tears, but within herself, Nwayidiya knew exactly why she could not control her tears.

Nwayidiya never had a child of her own. The rumours had it that she was married for years without an offspring. The husband, being the only male child of his family, was constantly being pressured by his relatives to get another wife, one who would be able to bear him a child or children. He loved his wife so much that he refused to give in to the pressure from his family. But when the family realised that he was not yielding to their constant nagging and pressure, the family started directing the pressure towards Nwayidiya. They started accusing her of not allowing her husband to get another wife. The accusations, the gossips and the taunting continued for years. With the pressure mounting daily on her, she pleaded with her husband, she begged him on various occasions to get a second wife. Because of the love he had for her, he refused. The pressure from the family and from the wife became unbearable to him that he decided to get another wife under one condition: it should be Nwayidiya who should find and present the woman to marry. She reluctantly accepted the condition given to her in other to stop the gossip and taunting from the family.

Not knowing how and where to get someone to be the second wife, she opted for her junior sister, Obidiya, who was then staying with them, and pleaded with him to marry to her. He accepted and went through it with all the marriage rites as demanded by the tradition and customs. The lived happily together, and she bore him many children. She was carrying their first child in her womb when they found the baby boy at the market ground.

At the scene where the baby was found, people were wondering to whom the child belonged to, wanting to know who the mother could be and to which family the child belonged to. Then someone in their midst noted that it must be Gladys's, the mentally unstable woman from the nearby village who wandered in and around the marketplace once in a while, especially whenever she became unstable. People had noticed her recently in an advanced stage of pregnancy, and on the last market day, they had noticed that she was in pain and had wanted to take her to the hospital, but they could not get hold of her as she eluded them. Most probably, she must have delivered herself way into the night after everybody had left the market, many of them speculated.

Nduka, the champion wrestler and the son of the great hunter who was among those present at the scene of discovery was immediately sent off to Umuorgi village to inform Gladys's family that she had delivered a baby boy, left him in the marketplace and she was nowhere to be found. He ran with the speed of a great warrior that he was to the village to deliver the message.

When the message got to Adamma, the mother in-law of Gladys, she and some other members of the family rushed to the marketplace to see and to pick up the baby boy, and some young men were dispatched to every direction in search of Gladys.

When Adamma reached the scene, the child was handed over to her. She was somehow happy that the child was left at the feet of the Igwudu Orji, the oracle and the guardian of the people for protection, and he did protect him. She and the others accompanying her sang and danced joyfully at the scene, giving praises to God for a while before she took him home.

When she reached her home with the child, to her surprise, the child was still clenching to the coin in his fist. When she realised that an article belonging to the great Igwudu had been brought into her home, she was concerned of the action the Igwudu would take against the household as it is an abomination for anyone to take anything belonging to the gods or any offering left for the gods at the shrine into the home. And if that is brought into the home by mistake, as it was in this occasion, special rituals have to be carried out to appease the gods before that item can be returned to them.

She removed the coin from the little one's hand and put it in a calabash jar on the bamboo table at the side of her bed with the intention of informing the elders of the village later so that the day for the ritual and the return of the coin to the shrine would be agreed upon. But the next day, the elders of the village could not agree on the issue since it was the very first time such had occurred in the village by an infant, whether voluntarily or mistakenly.

The elders of the village decided to consult Ojiofor, the custodian of the shrine, the one that sees beyond the living and the dead, the intermediary among the living, the dead and the gods. They consulted him to take their impasse and their confusion to the gods and to ask the gods for forgiveness on behalf of the young child and to direct them on the way forwards. Ojiofor accepted their gifts to the gods and told them to return to the shrine on the next market day for the answers from the gods.

When the elders returned on the next market day as was directed by the custodian of the shrine, and arrived at the shine, Ojiofor after his incantations and libations to the gods, informed the elders that they should go home and worry about nothing for the gods were at peace with them, their households, that the gods were at peace with the village and the child. He told them that what the child held in his hands was what the gods had given to him and that the gods would come back for it whenever they wanted it. He warned them that no one should refuse to give it back to them when they would come for it. He also told them to make an amulet from the coin and put it around the neck of the child and let him wear it until the day the gods would come for it.

When they reached back to the village, a leather string was attached through the hole in the middle of the coin, and the lace was put around the neck of the child for him to wear around his neck until the gods were ready to take back what belonged to them as directed by the custodian.

The child wore the amulet around his neck, and as he grew up, it was said that the amulet helped to protect him and to save his life on many occasions.

Most of the search parties returned very late in the evening and had travelled far and beyond without finding Gladys.

Gladys was a young lady who had sacrificed a lot, gave out everything for love. She was a young girl of about 15 years of age, the only child of her parents, a Baptist priest and a teacher. At such a tender age, she had gone against her parents' will and ran away with a man, a peddler she met at her town square. A town along the banks of the great River Niger. She fell in love with him and ran away with him to Lagos despite her parents' objections to the relationship. When she ran away with him, her parents disowned her, and she never saw her parents again or went back to her village again until many decades had passed.

Rumour had it that her father died of a broken heart, and when he died, the wife joined the army and went to Second World War. During that war, she was stationed in North Africa where she was badly wounded and returned to her village after the war was over, defeated both physically and mentally, but she never gave up searching for her one and only child. The search led her to the village of Umuorgi-Orji where she finally reunited with her daughter after many decades.

Gladys ran away with the man to Lagos. Together they had four children, and she was carrying the fifth one in her womb when the man got married to another woman and sent Gladys back to the village to live with his mother. Gladys, who had been disowned by her parents, now felt abandoned and dejected by the man she loved, the man she had sacrificed all for. She could not understand what happened to her and why it happened to her. She went into depression and became mentally unstable, occasionally running away from her matrimonial home and wandering about for days, sometimes spending most of her time in the market until she delivered a baby boy, a baby boy she left at the marketplace, the baby boy her eyes never set upon again until about 14 years later.

THE WAR.

There is no conflict between men, between tribes, ethnic groups, religious sects, or between nations that cannot be resolved peacefully and amicably through human endeavours, dialogue and mutual understanding of the value of life.

Wars are waged by:

Those who believe that they have something to gain from it, being it the spoils of war or the power aftermath of the war etc;

Those who prefer the spoils of war rather than the reign of peace;

Those that abhor human dignity and decency but rather adore and harbour the dehiscence of multitudes of social malaise;

Those who enjoy seeing others suffer and enjoy afflicting terror, pain, agony and other sufferings to others and do not value other people's life; those who engage in sadism and schadenfreude.

Those who are paranoid of their own safety and will go the extreme to satisfy their paranoia even if it means to attack people miles away from them, those they may perceive as threats to their safety.

It was about a year after Gladys had delivered that her husband returned to the village from Lagos with his second wife who had not borne him a child yet. They had returned home because of the impending war that was about to erupt in the nation, the so-called Nigerian-Biafran War, the civil war that made the easterners flee from the north and from the capital of the nation, Lagos, and back to the east, to their respective villages and towns. The war that lasted for about three years and where millions of Ibos, mostly children were butchered in the hands of the Nigerian soldiers consisted mostly of northerners. Most of the children died of extreme malnutrition called kwashiorkor due to shortages of food. And many children were displaced from their family; some were flown out of the country by the Red Cross and other humanitarian organisations to other African countries such as Gabon, Ivory Coast, and others to faraway places as far as Ireland, Scotland etc to save their lives.

Some of those children returned years after the war. Some were still not accounted for, and some of those who returned found only empty homes. They had lost their entire family or some members of their family during the war. I vividly remembered some of my cousins who came back from Gabon and Ivory Coast many, many years after the war. Years after most people including their mother had counted them to be among the dead during the war and she had accepted her loss just like many other mothers had done.

Rumour had it that she had lost her three younger children, a boy and two girls when the refugee camp they were being sheltered in during that war came under fire by the enemy soldiers, but others believed that she handed them over to the Red Cross or to one of the numerous humanitarian organisations who came in to help the Ibos to save the children from the carnage being carried out by the enemy soldiers.

At the early stage of the Nigerian–Biafran War, the so-called civil war; whatever is civil about it, I, like many others, cannot yet comprehend. Many able-bodied young men volunteered for the war with little or no adequate preparation given to them. They were taken to the warfront, and most of them never returned. Some of those who came back ended up being mutilated by losing either a limb or an eye or some part of the body. Because of that, people became reluctant to volunteer or enlist themselves for the war. Thus commenced the forced recruitment. The preparation for those who had been recruited was inadequate, and they were slaughtered at the warfront. When the news of the massacres at the warfront reached the villagers, people started refusing to be recruited, and many started hiding in the forests whenever they heard that the recruiters were present in their area and they would return to their respective family homes at nights after the recruiters had gone. They would emerge from the bushes to their respective homes for change of clothes, food and if possible, a quickie with their spouse. They would disappear into the forest before the day broke because if caught by the recruiters they would be taken straight to the battlefields.