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| Chief Anayo Nwosu |
Mr. John Nlalikor, a Lagos big
boy who impregnated Miss Ukwunko, later found out that the boy he thought was
his was a gift to Ukwunko's family. He had come to claim the product of his
illegal mining of the gold beneath the hips of an Nnewi daughter. Stupid boy! The
shouts of "I cannot leave here without my son" by Mazi Nlalikor
released the bottled anger in the young brothers of Ukwunko as he nearly lost
his left eye to blows.
In my town, a child born outside
wedlock belongs to the girl's family and is ranked the last child of the
mother's siblings. A love child bears the mother's surname and is never
discriminated against in Nnewi. There is nothing like a bastard in the Nnewi
lexicon. The value we place on the gift of a child is reflected in our common
names like Nwaka (child is supreme), Nwakaego (child is greater than money),
Nwamaka (child is beautiful), Nwadinaume (child can energize), Nwadimkpa(child
is essential), etc. In fact, royal families like mine adighi eke nwanyi n'afo
ime (i.e. does not proceed to contract a marriage if we find out that our
daughter is pregnant). The suitor must wait until the child is born before a
marital process could continue.
If you are not ready to marry but
desire to be eating elders' food, you can beat this trap of working for free by
visiting the girl's parents and depositing some drinks stating your intention
to marry their daughter. If the drinks were accepted and you did not pay the
bride price before you inflated their daughter's stomach, you can claim the baby
but after the bride price. If you never deposited drinks nor paid our
daughter's bride price (which has been reduced to sixty naira), and you are
planning to answer a Baby Papa to our child, you are at a loss; you would have
worked for us for free.
Nnewi is also a fair people. No
son born outside by our own bad boys is allowed to mount the throne as an obi
or head of the extended family or umunna or the town unless the father (i.e.
the culpable Nnewi man) can prove that he married the child's mother; otherwise,
he too would have worked in vain. The child can claim Nnewi citizenship just
like those with permanent residence in the USA but with limited rights. The
proof of evidence required in this case includes bringing a witness to verify
that the Nnewi father performed the marital rites on the child's mother,
usually from another town or tribe.
The date of birth of a child in
Nnewi is when the father (not the mother) introduces the child to his father's
Umunna or kinsmen. No child’s date of birth predates the day the father married
the mother. This explains why many first sons or heads of families in Nnewi are
younger than some of their younger brothers.
Therefore, if you are a lady and
are busy having children for an Nnewi man who is yet to introduce you to his
people as a wife, thinking that those offsprings will partake in our great
Nnewi heritage, forget it. It will never happen! The Nnewi man, too, has worked
for your people in vain. It gets complicated if the man begets more children
after yours through a woman he pays her bride price. Any day he decides to
bring you and your children home, that very day your children are introduced to
his kinsmen becomes their birthday in Nnewi. It has a serious implication in
seniority determination for inheritance purposes.
A popular name Ikeaputanwa in
Nnewi means that you could use your power to corner and mine the golden hips of
our girls or women, but you have no power to claim the offsprings of that
relationship. All should know that if you sleep with a married woman from Nnewi
and impregnate her, you can never claim the product even if she is no longer
living with her husband. The child or children belong(s) to the man who paid
the bride price even if he has died.
Therefore, ensure that your
girlfriend's bride price paid otherwise you are working for charity. Also, if
you are in love with a widow of an Nnewi man, ensure that the bride price paid
on her head has been returned before you start planting your seed; otherwise,
you are working in vain or are siring children for her deceased husband.
Experience has shown that those children who were harvested from charity farms
become more successful than those their birth fathers later beget in their
subsequent unions.
If you are a young man and plan
to dance Flavour's "Asa Nwababy" song with an Nnewi girl hoping to
answer Baby Papa, perish the idea. With an Nnewi woman, you get what you paid
for.
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