UMUAHIA/Running Scared

The testimony, however, did not go down well with the 120-year-old chief priest of the shrine, Okoronkwo Chukwuneta, who said, albeit not in the court, that Olisabueze was bribed to taint the image of the trio. The chief priest unequivocally denied Olisabueze as his secretary, claiming that Ogwugwu-Akpu shrine is a traditional shrine of worship with outstanding efficacy for only indigenes of Ubahu Ezike. He, therefore, wondered why non-indigenes like Kalu and Theodore Orji could be worshippers there.

He further predicted that the Ogwugwu-Akpu deity would punish Olisabueze for his sacrilegious utterances. “Whatever must have infused Isaac with those sacrilegious thoughts against Ogwugwu-Akpu, the repercussions would go after him,” he cursed.

This prediction, Olisabueze’s kinsmen claim, has come true. They say he is in hiding because the gods have afflicted him with an abnormal protrusion of the belly as punishment. “He can only get well if he offers sacrifice to the gods and purges himself of the lies he told the tribunal. He is ashamed to face the public because of his condition,” one of them said.

But Olisabueze has sent word from his his hide-out that he fled from home following incessant death threats. A source close to him said it would have been foolhardy of him to remain among members of his hostile family who, the source claimed, “will not lift a finger to protect him from people who might want to snuff out his life”.

Reported by George Opara.