By Ephraim Oseji

The  mystery behind the cure of a cocoa/palm kernel merchant, Alhaji Andrew Audu, of  decades of stroke paralysis is still amazing to his neighbours.

Narrating his ordeal to Sunday Vanguard, Audu said  but for Dr. Okhue Iboi, a traditional healer, he still would be down. The former UAC staff  was retired in 1979.

Alhaji Audu

He narrated: “I remember how it all started some years back. That night I started having  some funny sensation on my legs only to wake up the following morning to  discover I  hardly could move my legs. I quickly rushed to a hospital. But two days later, the doctors referred me to Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, LUTH, Idi-Araba, where I was diagnosed with a partial paralysis. Immediately treatment  started. For several years I was receiving treatment there without improvement.

Because I didn’t want to die I had to travel abroad for further treatment, but all to no avail. I had to return home since overseas trip didn’t give me,  the desired result. Little did I know that what I was looking for in LUTH and abroad could  be cured by a traditional doctor. It was a friend  after seeing my health condition who  suggested I should see  a traditional doctor, Iboi.

Since I had tried orthodox medicine and it failed, I reluctantly yielded to his advice, and he took me to Dr. Iboi where I found solution to my plight.” Iboi, while corroborating Audu’s story said  his life, as a renowned traditionalist with accurate prediction of  national events, is not without thorns.

The traditional doctor  unveiled the mystery surrounding his birth, even as he spoke on  the battles he  fought against witches and wizards to free people from spiritual bondage.

“My life trajectory is not without thorns and thistles. In the late 1950s, my father, Chief Okhue Iboi, a respected community leader, a farmer and a hunter was versed in magic. He left my home town Otue, in Owan L.G.A to Okpe in Akoko-Edo L.G.A, Edo State with his five wives, based on Ifa divination, that  he should move out of his hometown, if he wished to have his own children,” Iboi narrated.

“So, when eventually I was born, instead of the usual nine months, I spent 18 months in my mother’s womb. When I was born on April 6, 1959, I mysteriously had in my hand a mystic object that is fundamental to modern day society. I was born with leaves in my palm which was a symbolic prelude to what I am renowned for today, a herbalist.

“Mysteriously, at the age of two, I disappeared from my mother’s bed for six months, without a trace. My hapless parents sought a spiritual intervention and an oracle consulted confirmed that I was well and safe in the hands of my spiritual guardians, where I was undergoing spiritual purification and preparation to accomplish my earthly mission.

“During the mission, my food was always placed at the usual corner in my parents room  and the meals would disappear without anybody knowing who had eaten it. At the end of six months, I was suddenly found sleeping beside my mother on the day I clocked three years.”

Asked the difference between him and his late father, he said, “My father, Chief Okhue Iboi,  possessed the ability to speak and understand the languages of animals. Thus, he could command them to do whatever he wanted them to do. But, I am versed in the knowledge of roots and leaves. I can speak to leaves.

I understand them and I know when to cut a leaf, how to cut it and what to say to it before cutting it, to retain its potency. At times, if I cannot get the leaves and roots here in Lagos, I travel to the cemetery in my home town, to get them. I don’t charge people  or ask for  gratification for the good works I do for people. My activities are being monitored, controlled and directed by my guardian spirit.”

Saving Audu
Iboi spoke on Audu, saying he was brought to  him by one of his friends from the defunct Daily Times of Nigeria. “They got to my former office at Egbeda before they gave them my phone contact to call me. When they eventually met with me, I consulted my oracle to know what was wrong with him.

Against what he had been told by seers he earlier visited, my oracle revealed that his problem originated from his hometown, that the image of his wife, as revealed by seers earlier visited was used as a deception by his (relation)  biological sister. It was when I gave him some spiritual items to use in his father’s compound, that his (relation) biological sister started confessing  her misdeeds,” he said.

“What I did was to remove her hands from the sister’s  body, so that he can be treated and healed.  Today, he is a happy man and has continued his business of exporting palm kernel and cocoa.”