Esohe Ngozi Orizu, the self acclaimed olokun goddess
Esohe Ngozi Orizu, the self acclaimed olokun goddess

THE world of the bizarre is an amazing undergrowth of incomprehensibility. In the terrestrial plain there is an acknowledgment of the affirmation that the spiritual realm controls the physical. In mythology, the symbols and stories are supposed to be lessons for the human mortal to learn from.
However, we can be swept off our senses when some certain facts are told by someone who has experienced them. That is, some knowledge is within the experience of the revelator; some could say it is a trance state, delusion or psychosis and they could be right. But on this particular date of March 30th, 2016 I resisted an impulse to reject a lady, about 28 years of age, who walked into the Observer premises claiming to be the Olokun goddess, so much worshipped and revered. Many colleagues of mine who listened to her story were dismissive, but she sounded realand worried and that she must declare who she is. (Solomon Imohiosen, Editor, The NIGRIAN OBSERVER)
The day,Wednesday, March 30, 2016 was like any other busy day for staff of the Bendel Newspapers Company Limited, Publishers of The Nigerian Observer titles. Battling to meet production deadline and at the same time contending with the heat emitted by the atmosphere were herculean tasks, but little did they know the day would turn out a frisky, busier one with the unexpected visit of a ‘goddess’.
Light complexioned, slender and sleek, with sparse make up and fashion accessories and adorning a green cotton top on black leggies, she appeared at the corridor in front of the Features Department and it was Ijeoma Umeh, the Principal Features Writer/Assistant Features Editor who was on hand to receive her.
Like someone in a hurry to carry out an urgent task, she didn’t wait for preambles. Excerpts of the encounter.
  Good day, how may we help you?
(The pleasantries were fast-paced, like a video on fast forward, her face was set like one that didn’t admit compliments).
Do you publish newspapers here?
Yes, this is a government owned media, Bendel Newspapers Company Limited. We publish the Observer Newspapers.
Yes, good! Thank God! I want to see you! (she had an index finger pointed at the forehead of her host, like at gun point.
Yes, you are welcome! (This was a shy away from saying “I am your at service!” but her compelling personality, the aura about her bespoke of military command and alacrity, or was it a supernatural force?)
Have your seat, please
Thank you! Have you heard about Olokun? (Now, that was fast! There was no time for preambles, for sizing up, all that shone from her face to the face of her host were starry eyes and flickering red lips that seemed to say, “I don’t care what you think about me”.
Olokun? Of course, I have heard so much about Olokun. The first reporter here in 1967, Osemwegie Ebohon, is a high priest and an Olokun proponent. I have his book here (she was handed a complimentary copy of Osemwegie Ebohon’s Olokun worship in Benin Kingdom presented by the author to the writer, and a team of Journalists on their visit to the Ebohon Cultural Centre, Benin. With the book between her slender fingers and seeing the title, the face set in the mundane lit up with something like a smile, then an cheery laughter and a finger pointed at the Assistant Features Editor).
Yes! You got it! You have it all!
(It was a relief, at least this tensed meeting could come to an end now that she has a resource material for whatever assignment she was embarked on. There was no bargaining for what followed).
I am Olokun! I am the marine goddess! (what was that? If it were a movie there would have been the sound of awe! There was none, yet there was a sound like a crack of cranium. What did she say she was?)
You mean you are an Olokun worshiper, a priestess or what?
No! I am Olokun! The goddess Olokun. I am a Queen! I have a crown, I am a Queen. I have a fish tail. People worship me. Look, I am not here to convince you to believe me. I want you to help me tell my worshipers that I am in the world since 28 years now. I can’t come to this earth and pass unsung, without my worshipers knowing that I came. They should know that I am here and when it is time for me to go back, they should equally know that Olokun has gone. I am here now and I am also there where I am worshiped. Every night women in white scream and chant my name “Olokun! Olokun! Olokun!. They drum hard, they dance hard, they perform sacrifices and worship me.
(It was a disclosure too hard for the Assistant Features Editor to assimilate alone. She excused herself and ran out to alert the editors who were at their desks at that time, 9.15am. before 9.30am the Features Department was besieged by a crowd of Editors, administrative staff, reporters, industrial trainees and visitors alike).
So you are half human, half fish
I am a goddess, I have a fishtail that I only can see, I am a goddess of the marine world and I have a crown, that is why I don’t make my hair, I don’t wear weave-on (her hair is packed and wrapped in a bob at the top).
  As human may we get to know your real names?
My name is Olokun, but my parents gave me Esohe Ngozi Orizu, I insist on bearing my real name, Olokun. Even the day I went to the bank to do a transaction here in Benin they were wondering and refusing to register the name but I insisted (she showed an Access Bank ATM card by the name Olokun Ngozi Orizu and everyone was staring at everyone else)
Where do you come from?
My father is from Anambra State and my mother is from Oredo in Benin City.
  Where are your parents now?
My mother is late but my father is alive, he is here in Iguosa, Oluku Benin. He does not believe me, so we have issues.

 

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Where do you reside? And what do you do?
I live in Abuja and I sell clothes. I am a business person.
  What is your educational back ground?
I finished my Primary School at St. Mary’s Catholic School Benin and attended Government Secondary School, Nyanya. (Her English is fluent, she could have passed for a university graduate).
  Tell us more about your parents
My mother is late. She died in 2005 at the age of 40. She was poisoned. My father says we don’t do such things like belief in the existence of deities. My mother knew me, she appeared to me after her death and told me I am a goddess..
  What faith did your parents belong to?
My father is a Christian, but my mother is a traditional worshipper
  Did she worship Olokun?
No! you don’t get it! I am Olokun! I don’t know what deity my mother worshipped. I know she went here and there and did all kinds of fetish, but I don’t know what god she worshipped. But people worship me, they scream my name and bow to me. They keep bowing, they keep drumming, they keep making sacrifices to me.
  When did you discover yourself?
I was about eleven years of age when I knew I had a crown, a fishtail and heard people chanting my name. And I see myself in the rivers as a queen worshipped by many.
Are you married, are you in a relationship? Do you have siblings?
I had the father of my son.
You have a son? How old, where is he? What is his name?
My son is David and he’s six. He’s in school with, his granny, his father’s mother. He’s fine. I have a brother and sister, but I have 8 children in the river. (That statement attracted an immediate reaction from by standers and those who hissed also pulled back in fear).
My son was three years old when he woke up one morning and told me that he saw his brothers and sisters in the river swimming with fish and crocodile. He says he wants to go and join them. I often caution him to stop saying such things. From my waste to my legs I am fishtail. I have kept quiet about this but this is time to open up.
Do you think you need deliverance?
(That question shouldn’t have been asked, her reaction was like a flash of thunder bolt. Her eyes glistened and shone).
Delivered from what? Who would deliver Olokun? If you deliver me would it drain the water in the river where I swim at will, where I am worshipped? I am not possessed! I am not sick! Olokun is in the world as human but in the sea as a goddess. I want to see my worshippers those who serve Olokun physically I want to tell them that the goddess you worship, and sacrifice to is here as human at the moment.
Do you have a time frame to stay here on earth?
I don’t know, but I hope to stay for a long while.
  Where would you go after here?
To where I come from, the river.
Do you believe in God?
Yes, I go to church
What church?
House on the Rock, Abuja.
  Have you heard the name Jesus, can you say it?
I have heard the name, I have heard people talk about it.
  Could you say it?
I hear people talk about it.
Could you just say it?
I hear them talk about Jesus. I go to church to enjoy music. I am thrilled by music. I enjoy music, any kind of good music, and I dance, I could dance from now till dawn.
  When you go back what kind of house will you be going back to in the marine world?
My own house there is mud and I love it. Olokun has come from the realm to the world since 1987. (that was when she said she was born, 28 years ago).
  You speak good English for a secondary school leaver.
Thank you. I speak in tongues too. I have spoken French, Esan and I sing songs that I don’t know how they came about. I woke up one day saying, “white is not just a colour, it is an attitude: white attitude”. I have written down over twenty words that I have spoken I woke up singing Sir Victor Uwaifo’s “if you see mammy water” what experiences would you recall make you stand out as a goddess?
I recall some years back when I registered for an examination, I was at the point of entering the venue when a whirlwind came chasing me. I held on to an electricity pole and withstood the wind. That was not my first encounter with that whirlwind. People saw it and said I am not an ordinary child. My mother would take me to all kinds of places, they would bathe me in all kinds of herbs. She would lament about my not being an ordinary child.
I was in a bus coming from Lagos to Benin and I heard people screaming “we will ever live to worship Olokun! Olokun! Olokun! When I turned to look at the passengers I saw none of them was speaking. I knew that my worshippers where at worship.
  What kind of food do you eat?
I don’t eat fish because when I see fishtail it repulses me. My favourite meal is ‘agidi’ and pepper soup. I eat light meal. (A team of editors later hosted her at the Observer canteen where she made do with a few grains of rice and stew and a bottle of coke in the absence of agidi. It was lunch had with a ‘goddess’).
When I want to enjoy a swim, the river comes to my bedroom. Afterwards the room becomes damp, even my clothes are moist. I enjoy a good swim with my children (eight in the river and one on earth). The water in my room keeps flowing up and down with my tail sweeping it to and fro. I have an elastic hair, in the river my hair is long. The woman that weaves my hair in Abuja complains about my hair, that it keeps stretching as you plait it, so I don’t go to her to make my hair anymore.
  Are you wealthy?
Yes, but I give it out as it comes and those who I patronise often say they enjoy the favour that goes with my patronage and sell out.
Do you have the new hundred naira centenary note? (what was she up to now? What was it about the naira note? Everyone scampered around to get the money).
The woman on the centenary note is me. That money is mine! I was excited when I saw it. I don’t mind appearing before the CBN Governor, Emefiele  to tell him that the money is mine.
(Promptly, she took a note and methodically began, like a teacher, to explain the impressions on the currency note).
Can you see the cowries? The fish? The tail? The seven coconuts? The Bangles? Can you see the dancers with their right leg forward? That is Olokun dance. That dance is mine. Can you see me standing apart without legs? I have fishtail. I have kept this back since 2014, but it is time. I am Olokun, the goddess Olokun. Tell them that I am here.

(the Features desk couldn’t contain the number of people who trooped in henceforth, and people were clutching the new centenary one hundred naira note and staring at the scary ‘revelations’. It struck their sensibilities that they had not taken time to look at the images on the money. There is also the illuminati sign with a bangle inset and half spruced, open coconut with the late Obafemi Awolowo in the middle. What’s special about these images?)
They are all my fetish. The severed tail, the coconuts, the bangles, the fish, the cowries. Ask any of my worshippers. I am not asking you to believe me. I am only asking that you tell them I am in the world.
(In his book, Olokun worship in Benin Kingdom, Osemwegie Ebohon in his account two, page 190, on how Olokun became an arch-divinity wrote: “A long time ago, the supreme God (Osanobua) had three children. They were Olokun, his first male child, whom he loved dearly…..”
How come this acclaimed Olokun goddess is female? A veteran Journalist, Marthins Osawe stated that Olokun is female, several others also attested to Olokun’s female nature against the male nature in Ebohon’s account.
Beyond the argument over the sex of the Olokun is the argument over the sanity of the acclaimed Olokun goddess who visited  The NIGERIAN OBSERVER. Dr. Okundaye, a medical doctor in Benin says “she may be suffering from psychosis”.
What indeed is (Olokun) Esohe Ngozi Orizu’s  ‘problems’? could she actually be suffering from a psychiatric condition? Obviously  there’s no streak of madness seen in this damsel, what then?