By Dominic Akpan

On Tuesday, August 18, 2026, a traditional medicine practitioner, Mr. Ubong Jeremiah, popularly known as Okuku Marvel Umanah posted a video on his Facebook page showing him extracting maggots from a female patient.

Mr. Jeremiah runs a registered healing home located in Ediene, Abak Local Government Area. The video quickly attracted attention on social media, generating more than 400 comments and recording about 872 views and reactions within a few hours after it was posted.

 

The question on the comment section was; how did maggots get into the body of a living woman? Although one person in the comment section of Mr. Jeremiah’s post suggested that the condition might have resulted from flies settling on the lesions and laying eggs, which subsequently hatched into larvae – myiasis, I was not convinced by that explanation.

I, therefore, decided to speak with the victim to better understand what actually happened. I contacted Mr. Jeremiah through his Facebook page and explained my interest in the story. He facilitated the interview with the victim.

The ordeal could only be imagined as told by the victim. She did not feel comfortable exposing her face and identity, adding that the development has left her traumatised.

 

THE MYSTERY

At about 4pm on Thursday, August 6, Mrs. Nkereuwm Umoh — not her real name — was in her shop in Ijebu Ode, Ogun State, when she suddenly felt a sharp sting around her waist. She looked around. There was nothing. About 30 minutes later, she felt another sting on a different spot in her waist.

Again, she searched for whatever might have caused it, probably, an insect, but found nothing.

 

Initially, she dismissed the incident as an insect bite. But what happened the following day transformed an apparently minor irritation into a frightening ordeal.

The spots where she felt the sting had developed into blisters. Then, more blisters appeared, this time, not through a sting. She couldn’t understand what happened to her. Her thigh and abdomen were affected, and the pain became increasingly severe.

 

Worried, she went to Springmed Hospital in Ijebu Ode, where medical tests were conducted on fluids taken from the blisters. According to her account, the tests did not reveal the cause of the problem.

She was given medication and told to go home and return to the hospital if the situation worsens. The drugs in her bag, she hoped that her condition will improve. It did not.

Instead, she said, the situation became worse.

 

Fluids began flowing uncontrollably from the blisters.The pain became unbearable.

She confided in some women around her, who suggested that she should seek herbal treatment since the drugs appeared ineffective.

That decision took her to Oke Aje (Idobi) Market, in Ijebu Ode.

 

At Oke Aje Market, the search for a solution took another turn. Different roots and herbal preparations were purchased from a woman popularly known as Iya Oyibo, in the hope that traditional remedies might succeed where hospital treatment had failed.

But there was no relief. The medications she had received at the hospital had not resolved the problem, and the herbal remedies produced no noticeable improvement either. The strange wounds persisted, leaving Mrs. Umoh increasingly distressed.

 

Then came what she described as an even more frightening experience.

Mrs. Umoh said she began to feel what seemed like movements within the affected parts of her body. The sensation, she said, was disturbing and difficult to explain, deepening her fear about what was happening to her.

 

Asked why she didn’t return to the hospital as suggested by the medical personnel, she said that she was afraid, confused and desperately needed a relief from her condition. According to her, the condition became worse each day.

Her children would press the blisters hoping that whatever was inside the blisters would come out. It never did.

 

A JOURNEY HOME FOR SPIRITUAL HELP

Convinced that her condition was not an ordinary one, she decided to seek divine intervention.

She travelled from Ijebu Ode, boarding an AKTC bus at Fare to Aba, Abia State before proceeding to Ikot Ekpene.

Her initial destination was her church – Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, where she visited hoping for a divine encounter.

One detail particularly puzzled the woman.

Her husband and children were not affected.

This, she said, reinforced her belief that whatever she was suffering from was not a contagious disease.

 

In her desperation for a solution to her problem, she left the church almost immediately for Ikot Ekpene, because the pain was unbearable. Her thought was that if she was going to die, let it be at home.

 

A MEDICAL MYSTERY MEETS TRADITIONAL HEALING

She was taken to a traditional medicine practitioner, Mr. Jeremiah.

Jeremiah said his approach to the case was not based solely on physical examination.

He said he was “led by the spirit” in analysing the woman’s condition and applied the treatment as he was instructed.

He also said he had encountered similar situations in the past.

Asked to explain what he did to extract the maggots from the woman, Mr. Jeremiah said the condition was a spiritual attack and he was led by the spirit in the healing process.

 

‘The spirit instructed me on what to do and I applied the herbs as instructed on the affected spots on the victim’s body and the maggots were removed,” he said.

After the removal of the maggots, Mrs. Umoh’s health condition improved and she was healed.

 

LIFE IS MORE SPIRITUAL THAN PHYSICAL – Victim

For Mrs. Umoh, however, the experience has a deeper meaning. She believes life cannot be understood entirely from the physical perspective.

She said that life is not 100 per cent physical.

Her advice to the people is therefore rooted in faith. She urged every human to fear God, remain prayerful and recognise the spiritual dimension of life.

“Life is not 100 per cent physical,” she said in essence.

For her, the ordeal was not simply about blisters, pain and maggots.

It was an experience that strengthened her spiritual convictions

 

PEOPLE SHOULD UNDERSTAND THAT NATURE IS SUPREME IN EVERYTHING THEY DO – Jeremiah.

Jeremiah, a graduate and a member of the Akwa Ibom State Traditional Medicine Association of Nigeria, Akwa Ibom Chapter, said his traditional healing talent is hereditary, while his spiritual insight is a gift.

Asked if he has trained people who are willing to go into traditional medicine practice, he said he will welcome anybody who wants to learn from him, provided such a trainee accepts the rules.

At his traditional healing home, this reporter saw many patients with various illnesses.

In his message, Mr. Jeremiah advised the public to learn to acknowledge the work of the nature and understand that nature is supreme in everything they do.

His greatest challenge is to build a permanent healing home that will accommodate the increasing number of patients and their relatives as he is currently operating on a rented compound with about 12 rooms. He said that the rooms are inadequate for his patients.

 

THE INTRIQUING FACEBOOK COMMENTS CONTINUE

Nigerians who have watched the video on Mr. Jeremiah’s Facebook page were left wondering whether fly larvae could actually have developed inside damaged human tissues.

The question became even more intriguing because, according to the account, the woman had no visible open wound through which flies could have laid their eggs.

How, then, did the maggots get there? Could they have developed beneath the skin as a result of an underlying infection or tissue damage? Or was there another medical explanation for the unusual condition?

For many viewers, the absence of an obvious wound only deepened the mystery surrounding the case.