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Kpakwuregede: The paedophobic, misogynistic Reuben Onyishi goes through psychoanalysis

Growing up in his grandmother’s care at Umuobia clan, a small clan in Isiakpu autonomous community, in Nsukka Local Government Area of Enugu State, Reuben Onyishi was just another colourless boy, who got other kids in the area to flock around him because of the smooth and graphically picturesque way he narrated folklore. One of the stories he told those days had the refrain; kpakwuregede, a line that became his nickname until he disgracefully disappeared from the community, in a hail of allegations of stealing.

A childhood friend of mine who grew up in neighbouring Ameko clan, after reading my earlier story, was surprised that Reuben, a person with the most questionable of moral pedigree and personal dignity, is the same person that has been dissing everyone except in the entire Enugu political firmament.

“Reuben is a common rogue. We all lived here together. He used to tell us folktales those days. He knew a lot of them, and we all hung around him because he always had one story or the other to tell,” the person said.

As a child, Reuben knew quite early, the debilitating disadvantage the circumstances of his birth presented against him. As a coping strategy, he built his world around stories, and folktales, mirroring his pathetic reality in the idealities of the tales he told. He was so enamoured of those elevating the guile of the tortoise that made him be the king of animals. He realised his weaknesses early, but then he reasoned that if the tortoise, the slowest and one of the weakest animals could maneuver and manipulate his way to become king of animals, he could also, employing desperate, often poorly articulated strategies, to march to the top of society.

Thus, Reuben “Kpakwuregede” Onyishi began to carve his own canoe in his journey for visibility and recognition.

I did say in the earlier intervention that all Reuben needs is attention. I was one of those that felt it was unnecessary to give that to him but thinking back, I reason that certain occasions demand, and indeed, prescribe the use of sledgehammers to kill troublesome ants. Reuben has danced on this stage for so long that if he is not put in his place, he’d go on to think all of us are admiring his shredded costume and disgusting dance steps.

Any person who has been in a psychology class will only need to read a few paragraphs of Reuben’s delirious articles before realising the wreck the danger this chap is. Even when he was trying to say nice things about his frequently shifting political paymasters, he cannot but come out sounding belligerent, as if everyone is an enemy that has to be destroyed.

The truth is everyone is Kpakwuregede’s enemy and that is why he is running his race and pursuing his goal with the ruthlessness of an angry leopard and the desperation of a cornered felon.

Reuben is a misogynist. He hates women with a frightening passion.

Reuben also has paedophobia. He cannot stand the sight of children.

It does not matter that pressure from society forced him to get married and sire some children. It does not matter. The rest of this story will reveal why.

I did mention that Reuben “Kpakwuregede” grew up with his grandmother in Isiakpu Nsukka, and not Obimo where he claims he comes from. That is because Reuben was born out of wedlock, and by a woman that the story told, was preoccupied with other pursuits than sitting down to raise a child alone. If Reuben was eventually told who his father was, I have not found out, but his abandonment by his mother dealt a psychological blow to his psyche.

Being at the mercy of an aging grandmother that could barely cater for herself injured Reuben irreparably, and as a child, this experience grew from an aversion to hatred. Proper psychoanalysis would reveal that he blames his mother for his circumstances. When he insults people, as he frequently does, it is not really because he is angry with whoever is the subject of his tongue-lash. On the contrary, it is because every shout every shriek, every tirade, and all the scowls on his face, are directed at his mother, whom he blames for not making him experience “family” in the proper sense of the word.

And then, he got a woman to believe he could make a good husband and married her. It did not take long for this lady to understand that the “hus” in Kpakwuregede’s understanding of “husband” had been excised, leaving only “band.” That explains why he physically, mentally, and even publicly abuses his wife, fulfilling his craving for primitive sadistic pleasure from beating his wife like the brass band many of us used in elementary school. Even when he runs away from home, as he did regularly to escape from his wife, who at a stage decided to return every attack from her depraved husband, his taste for women of easy virtue remained queer, as he chose only the lowest of them, particularly those he could dominate and oppress.

The hatred Reuben has for women also extends to children. He frequently battered his kids, abusing and brutalizing them at the slightest whim. When his wife began to respond to his violent conduct with even more brutality, it was not because she wanted to protect herself. Although she had accepted her own fate, the motherly instinct in every good woman moved her to protect her children from a man she has seen as presenting serious danger to their survival.

If you ever watched the cartoon series, Pinky and Brain, Reuben nursed similar instincts as Brain, the character whose ambition was to take over the world. Problem is that while the Brain in Reuben always dreamt up seemingly ingenious means to achieve his bogus goals, the Pinky in his would always come up with very stupid ways that made every dream end in frustrating futility.

When, therefore, you see Reuben baring his fangs at everyone and everything, it is not because he was provoked. On the contrary, it is his life story that is eternally haunting him, a past he works hard to depart from, but which has refused to let go of him.

Kpakwuregede has the relationship mentality of a prostitute. How he jumps ship from the extremities of loving one person in the morning to the passion of dying for a new object of emotional fancy in the evening, is stuff only prostitutes, or at least someone who grew up in an environment peopled by women of easy virtue van contrive.

Having been rejected as a child, Reuben lost the capability for love and grew up thinking that it was him against the world. He could not get the love he craved from his grandmother, who did her best to ensure the child left in her care lacked nothing. Reuben wanted more: he craved the love of a mother, his mother. But that was not possible.

It was this lack of love that drew him into petty stealing. Everything he saw, he coveted and wanted to make his own, by hook or crook. Because other children were not going to let go, he resorted to the “crook” method.

Unfortunately, he was caught on one of those occasions and publicly disgraced. Reuben was forced to leave the care of his grandmother. The next time he emerged, he was already a graduate and had joined politics, after having been sacked from his job in two banks for infractions bothering on staff bullying, creating toxic work environments, and petty malfeasance.

Reuben’s childhood has kept haunting him. Whatever he touches, the first instinct is usually to destroy it. When he lost his banking job, he joined the real estate industry, but that quickly went up in smoke. Those who trusted him with their monies quickly realised that he had used the funds to fund his appetite for demagoguery. He frequently was in hiding from angry creditors. At a point, he could not pay his rent and was sleeping with wife, children and all, in someone’s lockup stall.

That person who gave him that place to lay his head is his sworn enemy today, the same way Chijioke Edeoga became an enemy, after giving him accommodation for two years. The same will happen to his present “breadwinners” if and when he finds another platform for bigger bread.

Reuben is in a psychological condition that has twisted his mind to approach society with entitled vengefulness. He believes the world owes him an apology for having exposed him to a terribly dysfunctional upbringing. And since no one has so far accepted being indebted to him, Reuben has gone out to take ownership of the world that his twisted mind tells him that he owns. If this doesn’t happen by voluntary submission, Reuben would take it, as they say, “by any means necessary.”

Such is the foundation of what moulded the desperate and toxic Reuben everyone sees today. Even as he reads this story, he would not see it for what it is. On the contrary, he’d indulge in silly self-adulation, convinced that the recognition he has craved all his life has finally come

And I quite agree with him. Reuben is having a time of his life, with Ikem Okuhu making him the subject of two articles. The problem here is I am not done yet. I am going to do a lot more about this psychological wreck, being as I am, fully aware that the shooting star shines brightest when it is about to fade into oblivion.

The series will continue

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Ikem Okuhu is a journalist, a Public Relations professional, brand strategist and teacher. With a career that traversed Print Media, Oil & Gas, Banking and entrepreneurship, Ikem is the author of wave-making book; PITCH: Debunking Marketing’s Strongest Myths, a dispassionate exposition of the dos and don’ts of successful engagement in the marketplace, especially the Nigerian marketplace. He is the founder/publisher of BRANDish, Nigeria’s first nationally circulating Brands and Marketing magazine. He has also handled the PR and reputation management consultancies for a number of brands, businesses and public figures.

  • Ezeh Chidiebere

    We await anxiously for the third of these series… Nsukka ndo. Reuben mbaaa

    October 23, 2022 at 8:21 pm Reply
  • Tobechukwu Ceridwen Odiari

    This article is so brilliantly written. It feels like I already know the character called Ruben. Such people are a psychological wreck and needs to see a therapist, otherwise they will a threat to the society.

    October 23, 2022 at 9:07 pm Reply
  • Uche Okafor

    Mental health issues are mostly traced to childhood traumas. This Ruben sounds like a piece of work!

    October 23, 2022 at 11:29 pm Reply
  • ISIANI Anthony Nwachukwu

    Reuben! Reuben!! Reuben!!!
    We have a lot of Reuben in Nsukka political arena. Damaging the progress of our lives because of their parochialism. This was possible due to the long age political ambush laid on our people by first republic political gangsters. Who prey on little demons like “Kwakurugede” to perpetuate to wicked dynasties. We have 2023 opportunity still in our hands, God bless PO and Labour Party.

    October 24, 2022 at 6:43 am Reply
  • ISIANI Anthony Nwachukwu

    Reuben! Reuben!! Reuben!!!
    We have a lot of Reuben in Nsukka political arena. Damaging the progress of our lives because of their parochialism. This was possible due to the long age political ambush laid on our people by first republic political gangsters. Who prey on little demons like “Kwakurugede” to perpetuate to wicked dynasties. We have 2023 opportunity still in our hands, God bless PO and Labour Party.

    October 24, 2022 at 6:43 am Reply
  • ISIANI Anthony Nwachukwu

    Reuben! Reuben!! Reuben!!!
    We have a lot of Reuben in Nsukka political arena. Damaging the progress of our lives because of their parochialism. This was possible due to the long age political ambush laid on our people by first republic political gangsters. Who prey on little demons like “Kwakurugede” to perpetuate to wicked dynasties. We have 2023 opportunity still in our hands, God bless PO and Labour Party.

    October 24, 2022 at 6:43 am Reply
  • Nnaemeka

    Is it not too much on the young guy. please forgive him and move on.

    October 24, 2022 at 2:24 pm Reply
  • Onyinyechi

    Am I the only one who thinks that someone with such background and history should hide his face in shame? Who will take him for therapy? Maybe this article will.

    October 24, 2022 at 10:53 pm Reply

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