The Law of Anagada

                    The Law of Anagada

                        (a short story)

                    By Lene Ododomu

Among all the children of Adewale, Ebiere is the only child who had the opportunity to go to school and she is very brilliant and smarter than all of them. She is currently in SS3 3 preparing to write her senior secondary school exams. Because of her brilliancy, she was awarded a scholarship by the Ondo state government. The agreement is that she will be fully supported to ph.d level and it will not just in Nigeria but in UK at Harvard University immediately after her senior secondary school. 

 After Ebiere round off with her SSCE exams, in her two  results both WAEC and NECO she had A parallel. She was travelled out of the country by the state government to further her education at Harvard University in UK. She was given admission to study her dream course,  BA English Language because she is interested in teaching and writing. 

Before Ebiere travelled out of the country to further her education, she always had this worrisome feeling about the law of her land, Anagada because her mother, Ebiye who had only three daughters for Adewale will be affected. The law stated that if a woman failed to produce a male child to her husband and his family, she will be considered as not a member of the family and will be restricted from having access to the properties of the husband if he dies before her. She became so concern about this law because her father is very old and can join his ancestors at anytime.

One year later, Adewale became I'll and was brought to specialist hospital, Ondo. His ailment grows everyday and the doctors lost hope of saving his life. So Ebiye and Ebiere's immediate elder sister, Duinba were advised to return him to Anagada before he dies in the hospital.

After accepting the advice of the doctors, Adewale was brought back home. However, a cry of the rain walks around the village when it was announced that Adewale has kicked the bucket. As a traditionalist, he was buried immediately after his last breath.

After the burial of baba Adewale whereby Ebiye has also undergone the ritual processes by mourning him for seven days, the elders of the family had a meeting. The meeting ended with a plan to arrange the daughters of Adewale for marriage according to the traditional demand. Ebiaga, the first daughter was given to a palmwine tapper from Buruku village and while Duinba, the second daughter was also given to a fisher man from Okitupupa.

Ebiye became lonely and feels the pain of not having a male child. She always has this thought that if she was blessed by the gods of their land to have a male child, the children she laboured to raise cannot be forced out of their father's house. At the same time, she argued with this thought by not blaming the gods who gave her daughters instead of sons. They gave her because they saw that both the male and female are important and expected to treat in the same way.

Ebiye makes a reference to the creation of the world whereby God created a man and later added a woman to assist him because he cannot carried out every assignment that was given to the man. God also put them in the same place called Garden of Edden. It was a Sacred place but God did not separate the woman, Eve from that place because she is a woman and He also communicated with  them generally and not by having a privacy with the man, Adam. Do why is it that humans try to change things that nature does not tell them to change? She got encouraged by this thought and decided not to blame herself for not producing a male child.

Ebiye could not believe what she saw when she returns from the farm. She met her local made box outside their house and later discovered that the house  was locked with another padlock. But surprisingly, Chief Kuro, her late husband's younger brother came out from the back of the house with a cutlass in his hand. He told her that the law of Anagada forbid her from staying in his late brother's house since she cannot produced a male child for the family.

Ebiye carried her  box and left the house without changing the dirty cloth she returned from farm with and say everything to him. She has already lost hope of living but became encouraged by her last daughter, Ebiere who travelled out of the country to further her education. She believes that Ebiere will change the narrative and then prayed for her heart desires to be granted.

Ebiere returned to Nigeria after completing her Ph.d with first class honor in BA English Language. However, she was employed as a lecturer in Michael Adekunle Ajashin University, Akongba Akoko immediately she returns to Nigeria.

She built a house for the mother in the village. To avoid stress for the mother, she employed a well educated young lady called Timi to take care of her. She gave the young lady a value by placing her in a monthly salary of N100,000.00 every month. Also, she established businesses for her two sisters who have already passed the pain of forced marriage because they are women and also not privileged to have education like Ebiere.

Ebiere did not just work as a lecturer, but she was later appointed as a Commissioner of  Information by the Ondo state government. Then the uncles who were marginalizing them because they are women started asking for forgiveness .