CHAPTER SEVEN
“Ijemili gulped in a large quantity of kunu, cleared his throat and immediately started telling his story.
‘A long time ago’ he started and I wondered why all stories told by the aged had to start with a long time ago. He adjusted a bit and took another sip from the calabash. He was an old man who loves to eat so much but never adds a pound of weight, which makes everyone wonder where the food he eats goes. ‘Unlike every other aged member of Itutu Kilomin that have lived in a land before this, that was rosy, fertile and filled with all the good things of life until something came up, mine was different, it was neither rosy nor fertile, good things were far from its borders’ he continued. He paused a bit as he shook his head in soberness, Jemimah tapped me a bit and I held her hand tightly.
‘I was born and bred in a desert far away; far from both life, water and anything that even thought of breathing, but we weren’t too far, we had neighbors too, friendly neighbors that visited us daily; death and thirst. That place was called Opuseke, a place where the only things that lived was my community and a few animals; they belonged to the community too. Am sure none of you knows what it feels like to live in a desert that why you all still make fun of me when I consume food in excess, am just covering for the time past when I had nothing to eat.’ He paused, carried a large number of itikpa from the bowl, and swallowed, everyone laughed at it and he continued in a louder tone this time. ‘She was named Opuseke because that was where life ends. There, we don’t burry our dead, we use them to create life for those of us that would soon die that’s if we see their bodies; we eat them so that we could live a few more days or months, we usually don’t think of years, if we didn’t eat them, the waiting vultures would. Life seemed so much of a misery to us that each morning we wait for our own time to leave the sufferings of Opuseke, we knew it was soon, no time was ever sooner than we expected. Not even when it is a day old child or a child that had died of starvation in its mother’s womb but all that didn’t discourage us; we remained peace lovers and hardworking people. Every morning Baba and I would pick up our hoes and travel Far East where the lands were a little less unfertile than ours. It was a very hard ground, so we had to work so hard that soon even the blister got tired of our palms, despite our struggles, our plants won't still have mercy on us. They could still not break out through the ground when they were growing, we had to go there each morning to soften the ground surface, there was no time we walked down the road that we wouldn’t walk past a dead animal or human or even a dead waiting vulture that died waiting for food.
We usually go to the farm every day, but there was always one day in a year we do leave out, the winds day, on that day the winds blows at their fullest, pouring down dust and sands, displacing straw huts and burying so many living dead alive; we were all living dead. However, on this year’s winds day we couldn’t just stay indoors, we would die of starvation if we did. Mama was already shivering, we knew it was a hunger that couldn’t last till the next day so we hurriedly ran to the farm, before we left I overheard Baba telling Mama to be strong that they had to take care of the children together and tears rushed down my eyes, I wished that one day the suffering would end, I wanted to call on a supreme being, someone who had powers to stop all that from happening, but I knew none, Baba had never told me of any since I was born neither have I heard from anybody too.
I wasn’t the first child of Baba so I wondered why I always had to be the one to follow him to the farm and besides, then I was just seven years old and Segun my elder brother was fifteen but all day Baba keeps telling me it’s for a reason. Mama had seven children, I was the third to the last born, but also the youngest surviving. I can still vividly remember when we had to eat Matthew, he was just ten days old and he died, three days after he was named Matthew. We reach the farm, harvested a surviving maize stem but on our way home, the winds began. I could hear Baba whispering some words and he held my hand tightly and told me ‘we can do it, we can pass the wind’, I was scared when the wind blew towards us but all we did was lay flat on the ground and it flogged past us, we lived, I rejoiced, my thin body tried to make a move when I noticed a number of lacerations on Baba’s skin, he had used himself as a shield to protect me, as I saw it I wept bitterly, even as a young child, I believed me and Baba should almost weigh same so I wondered why he did that. The wind had scattered the paths, the heaps of sands we used to locate our huts were flattened; they had been blown away by the wind. ‘Baba how will we find our way back home?’ I asked.
‘We will just walk, we will get home, I assure you’ he replied in a low tone, I wondered why he kept being positive at even the most negative things. I had expected that he would react to the pain he felt on his side but he didn’t, he just walked normally, straighter than he always did like the wind had straightened his aging waist but it left marks there as a pay for the favor it did.
For hours we walked but yet couldn’t still find a single hut, we never got tired. If it were to be just any other day, we would certainly have rested for the night, but this was a different day, Mama’s life was at stake so we kept walking, as we walked down a path, I noticed a large structure at a distance, I had never seen it before or anything that looked like it.
‘Look at that, Baba’ I screamed pointing at the structure that was afar.
‘The great protector!’ Baba exclaimed.
‘What is the great protector?’ I asked but Baba did not reply, I could tell he was really thinking about something and I suspected it could be because of that structure we saw.
Soon after, we found our way home and we were able to make Mama live after she ate from the stem. When I was sure mama was well enough, well enough to live one more day, I ran to my hut which was very close to a large heap of smooth sand. I lay down thinking of the structure I saw and why Baba called it the great protector, we have a protector and we lived so miserably, I thought, what if we didn’t, that means certainly, I wouldn’t have been born, Opuseke would have been long gone before my time and perhaps that would have been better. As I lay there in thought, I felt a thin hand tapped my bony bare thighs, I could tell it was Baba. ‘It’s about the structure right?’ I asked. I knew Baba only tapped me out of sleep when he wanted to tell me something of importance and that structure seemed important. That only important thing had happened that day. I turned around and when I saw his eye, I knew he hadn’t slept his eyes shone, perhaps he was thinking about ‘the great protector’ that’s why he hadn’t slept.
‘Baba, you didn’t sleep, what’s wrong?’ I asked shaking his shoulder violently, but he still wouldn’t reply, he shook his head in thought for a while and I wondered if that was why he woke me up, to make me see him shake his head.
‘My son’ he finally whispered after a heavy sigh. ‘I will tell you all about it, all about this land and the great protector but you have to listen closely’ he said and he pulled me up from the ground and took me outside, under the freezing cold of the night. Our temperatures were extreme, during the day, the sun scorches heavily and at nights the cold is extreme that if someone stays too long beneath, he could freeze to death. So I wondered why Baba brought me outside, did he want us to die of cold and not starvation, if we did then the rest family would follow because no one will feed them.
‘Years ago’ he started as we sat beneath a heap of sand. ‘Several years before you were born, this land was not like this, it flourished in wealth, it was very fertile, our men were strong, we defeated enemies in battle, we conquered cities, towns and even nations with our army, I was the commanding officer then, the next to the Obazu. Our numbers were not in hundreds as it is now; we were in hundreds of thousands. We were peaceful people no matter our strength, we only fought with those who wanted to fight with us and make peace with those who also wanted to.’ He paused and he gazed into my eyes, I was cold and shivering.
‘Be strong my son’ he said.
‘I will be, I have a few questions to ask Baba, what happened to the land and who is the gr
eat protector?’ I asked.
‘I haven’t finished yet or rather, I just started. All that were possible because of the presence of the great protector, sent to us by Amadioha to keep his people, the great protector was an eagle, a very large eagle, and it was so large that when it spreads its wings, it covers the whole land of Opuseke. When the sun burnt heavily, it just spreads his wing over the lands to shield us from the heat. When the night was cold, it does the same to keep us warm. Though we had never had rain but it goes to get water from seas for the land, it waters it for us and keeps the rest in a reservoir so we can drink when we were thirsty, it was so much that each compound had a reserve pond of water. It work didn’t stop there, it also helped us during wars, it was our transport means to the war field, we just climb on its back and off we go and when the war got too tough, it helps us fight by swallowing up our enemies, it never made a mistake in swallowing its own people.’ He paused again and shook his head.
‘But we had a high priest then, Wazabi, he was so strong that he could bring the skies down to earth and replace the skies with the lands. Rumors went around that he was a messenger of Esuri, the greatest spirit enemy to Amadioha, because of the strength of his charms but he still helped the people the people of Opuseke, even the Obazu goes to him for counsel on how to rule the people. I too go there to get strategies and charms of protection for wars.
That was how we lived until one day, we waited for the great protector to bring us water, but it didn’t, the sun came at its fullest and we expected that the great protector will come and shield us, yet it didn’t, night came and the cold of the night swept through each hut. It was as if the enemies heard that our strength, the great protector had gone so they attacked us unexpectedly like cowards; we were also cowards. We were supposed to be ready for war at all times knowing we had enemies but we weren’t but you wouldn’t blame us, we hadn’t recovered from the shock that the great protector will abandon us. The enemies burnt down our huts, killed so many of our warriors and took some others as slaves, we cried out loud for the protector to come to our rescue, yet it didn’t. We knew then that something had happened to it, but nobody knew what it was. Nights after mornings came, but yet there were neither results nor hopes of seeing the great protector any longer until one day, the Obazu called Wazabi to help consult the gods why they had taken away the great protector from us.
‘I took it’ Wazabi replied to the surprise of everyone, they were all shocked why he would do such a thing to the people, when he knew that was what kept us all alive.
‘You scoundrel, you have betrayed us, do you want us to all die?’ the Obazu screamed, I had never seen such fear in his eyes before; he was always looking fearless before then.
‘If I hadn’t, the whole land would be wiped out in a day or in an hour. Amadioha is angry with the villagers and has sworn to destroy them with what he had used to keep them, the great protector.’ Wazabi replied as he shook his stick of power.
‘Why would Amadioha be angry with his people, you lair, leave our land in peace’ the Obazu screamed and we all bowed.
‘I was at the paradise meeting two days ago. He said that you all were now full of yourselves; you think you live by your power. You no longer give him the worship he deserves so he had decided that under the claws of the eagle shall you all be crushed. that’s why I decided to make the eagle a mould at the outskirt of the town until you all correct your ways, only then will Amadioha anger be decreased and he will spare you all then I can release the eagle’
‘Leave our land you wicked messenger of Esuri, we don’t need you here’ Obazu cried and ever since, no one had ever seen or heard from Wazabi. That night the Obazu died and all Villagers believed Wazabi killed him because the Obazu exiled him. Normally, I was to be the next Obazu, but I refused, so did everyone else who could be the Obazu, since then our land remained without a leader, every man was to himself, but we were still peaceful, because we all awaited death like we still do now.’ Baba paused for some time, only then did I notice my eyes was full with tears and I wondered why Wazabi will do to the people such evil, isn’t there anyone who could stop him, anyone that had more potent charms than his? I thought loudly and Baba just whipped my tears with his palm, he was also weeping.
‘Go and sleep, my son, I believe soon, everything will be all right, perhaps, that why you are still alive so that you can make that happen.’ Baba said as he pulled me up once again and took me to my hut that was when I realized I had been in the cold for a while and I began to shiver in my hut. Soon, Baba left my hut and went to his, I heard a little sound outside, he was talking to Mama, I could hear the breeze blowing but I slept off.
The next morning when I woke up, I felt something had happened around me. I could see the sun clearly and I was halfway covered in the sands, I raised my head and discovered my hut was not above my me anymore, in shock I quickly stood up and looked around me, I was the only partly living thing there and I wondered if I was even living. Where was Baba, Mama and my siblings’ huts? I asked myself. I ran around digging down in sands, asking a few other surviving people if they had seen my parents or the huts, I didn’t want to believe that they were buried alive but nobody answered me, they were looking for theirs also. After searching for three days, I knew it was hopeless, I knew they had been buried alive by the winds so I wept and wept for weeks cursing Wazabi. I didn’t eat so I could die of starvation too and join my family where they were, but death refused to take me, soon I gave up trying to kill myself and I went to look for the spot where me and Baba had seen that structure, far east at the village’s outskirt. I walked sluggishly there for days, I was tired, hungry and exhausted; I had always felt that way since I was born.
I got very close to it and discovered that truly, it was not just a mere structure, it was a statue of an eagle that lay on the floor. It was truly the great protector Baba had talked about, it was so large that it took me four more days to walk around it until I saw a small hut at one edge of the statue. Dark smoke came out from its roof and windows and I wondered who could have been living so far away from every other person and build his hut beside the statue. or perhaps it was the Wazabi, the evil medicine man that had put our village to ruin and had caused the winds to kill my family, I thought and I swore if he was the one I would make him pay for what he did. I picked up a large stone and tip toed into the hut, I saw no one yet I saw the spoon in the big pot stirring, I was afraid and wanted to run out of the hut when a big hand held my shoulder. ‘Please don’t hurt me’ I screamed. ‘I promise I will never come here again.’
‘No son’ a voice thundered from behind me.
‘Am not your son, my father died a few days back’
‘I know that, but you are just like a son to me, your father was my very good friend’
‘No he wasn’t, he told me you are an evil man hours before he died, hours before you killed him’
‘I know he did, but am not who they all think I am’ he said and he turned me around. He was an old man too, as old as Baba was before he died, but this man was different from all other of the villagers, aside the multiple charms he tied around his neck and waist, you could tell he was very fat unlike the villagers, which means he had food in excess.
‘So who are you?’ I asked with my face down after I took a glimpse of his aged wicked face.
‘I am Wazabi, a good medicine semi man; yes I am both man and spirit, a semi man who tries to use his charms and powers to protect people instead of hurting them. What I did, I did for the good of the people, if I hadn’t, the community will no longer exist for a long time now, and you wouldn’t even have been born. Ever since, I had been preparing a charm to recover the eagle back to life just in case Amadioha have decided to have mercy on his people. I suffered a lot just because I wanted to save the people, aside being banned from Opuseke, I was also banned from all paradise meetings, so now I can’t tell what they have discussed, I can’t even tell if Amadioha’s wrath has been lifted from his people, I just
do things now on probability. But now I require your help’ he said, he paused a bit so that I could agree to it, but I couldn’t respond because I wondered what kind of help I could offer to such great medicine man.
‘I can see you are still afraid of me, I would have killed you long ago if I wanted to but I don’t kill, instead I try to make people live, to give life to those who needed it, after all you are just men, you all deserve a second chance for errors you made.’ He paused again and stared straight into my eyes after lifting my head up.
‘Would you help me?’ he asked in a calm voice.
‘What is it that I could do to help such great medicine man? It would be a privilege’ I said and he smiled at my response.
‘You will stay with me for three days’
‘But why? I have to run down to my village and besides am scared, I can’t stay here one more minute’
‘Of what benefit will it be to you if you go back to the village and await your own death? Won’t it be better if you stay here with me for just three days and see if we could save the land and bring a better life than this?’
‘It would, but …'
‘Then go for the better option and forget about the ‘but’, here is my plan, I will bring the eagle back to life, if it’s still angry, it would come straight to me to kill me and after wards it would go to the rest villagers. However, know that you will be next after me so you have to act fast, very fast. I will be through with the charms that you will use to make it go back to being a statue in the next three days. You will make sure it touch a part of its body when it comes after me and also make sure it doesn’t touch you, it is very potent, more potent than even the initial one I used on it so you have to be careful too.’ He said, only then was I fully convinced that he loved humanity and I pitied him for the rejections he had faced from even the people he had wanted to save from death.
‘I will do as you say’ I said in a sober tone and he rubbed my head with his palm, it was full of flesh so it was very soft unlike Baba’s own and other villagers.
Three days came by and each day before then, I wished it wouldn’t come. I was afraid, fear had taken my soul, but besides fear, I loved the amount of food he offered each day, I ate five times daily, such had never happened all my life, normally, its only on lucky days we eat once a day, other days we don’t eat at all, so I never wanted the day to come so that all that food won’t be taken away from me. That morning, after we had taken our bath; the first time I ever took a bath since I was born was in his hut. I wondered where he usually gets both the water and food from, we ate and later that day, he told me the charm was ready, the fear struck me harder and I wished I never came there.
‘Conquer your fears my son that is the only way you can make things work on earth and in paradise’ he said. That gave me courage once more he took me to the back of his house and gave me a large calabash, that contained a mixture of different mashed leaves and other things I didn’t know.
‘Hold it well, don’t let it fall’ he shouted, that was the first time he ever shouted at me since I entered his hut and I knew why he did, he had worked on this charm for years, pouring it away will be wasted efforts. I held to the pot tightly.
‘Once you discover its actions are not friendly, pour it on it. I will be on the other side of the eagle so that it will take a long time after he had chased after me to find you. Be strong and courageous.’ He said and then disappeared from my presence, I moved back a bit and watched the eagle so that I would know when it moved, but it didn’t. I waited and waited and after a long while, when I was already tired and almost going back into the hut, I heard a loud cry and immediately, it broke out of the mould. There in front of me, I beheld a large eagle, the great protector, it moved a bit and then flapped it wings, which blew me a distance, but I still held onto the calabash ensuring no drop fell. Soon it began to run in violence, running away from me and I heard a cry from afar, which screamed ‘Now!’ I knew it was Wazabi’s voice but I stood still, still marvel by its mightiness. After a few minutes, it turned to my direction, running towards me, It didn’t take him seconds to reach me because he was so large but the voice of Wazabi kept echoing ‘Be courageous’, I closed my eyes and threw the calabash at the eagle. The whole place was quiet, I didn’t hear even the sounds of the air that passed by my ears, I thought I was dead already but after a few minutes I began to hear cracks. Immediately, I opened my eyes and above me I saw the statue I had just seen a while ago, but this time it was not stable, it was cracking and breaking down. I started running, but I wasn’t fast enough or perhaps because it was too big, it’s head fell on my left knee with its large sharp beak and my leg fell out. I sat there in pains and I watched how each part of it formed powders and was placed above one another to form a mountain and to my surprise the clouds turned black and water fell heavily from the skies, which were the first time I saw that happen since I was born. I was glad at least that Amadioha had decided to have mercy on his people but I was so sad I lost my family and my leg.
As I crawled away from the village, I mistakenly stepped on a growing grass, I turned around and like a dream, just like the place Baba described to me few nights back, I saw trees and the whole land was green with grasses. I smiled and kept heading away from the village, perhaps that was the reason why Amadioha had kept me until that day. I was glad at least that I did something for my people, something they will never forget, I felt like a hero but that was when I realized that nobody could have known who did it, it happened at the village outskirt, far from eyes, I still felt good, but I didn’t want to go back to the village, I wanted to go somewhere far away where I would start a new life.
I crawled days after days until I got to a riverbank and like every other aged man here, the foreigners took me. I thought that was going to be the end of me and I wished I had stayed in my village and not bothered about trying to create a new life for myself but after months and years of suffering, Oduduwa decided to give my story a happy ending, being here in Itutu Kilomin is my happy ending.’ Ijemili finally ended, the whole congregation stood up and gave a loud applause and he bowed and came down from the rock with the bowl of itikpa in his hand.
‘I told you it wasn’t going to be scary, it even turned out to be very motivational to me, I learnt courage and not thinking too little of myself because of my age, he was just a kid when he did this.’ I said to Jemimah and she smiled at me.
‘So did I’ she replied ‘I don’t know why am feeling this strange’ she continued, initially, I thought it was just me who had felt that way until she spoke, but the feeling felt good that was why I was quiet.
‘I feel strange too, but it feels good’
‘Yes it does, it’s like tickling all around me’ she replied and we smiled and held hands.” I paused a bit and Jessinta just sat smiling.
“That’s where I will stop for today, I will continue tomorrow,” I said.
“And that’s no problem the greatest story teller, Mr. Daddy” she said and we both went into the house.
As soon as I reached the room, I switched off the lights, kissed Bisola’s forehead, smiled and lay beside her. I didn’t sleep quickly; I waited and waited for the nightmare to happen, but it didn’t seem it would happen anytime soon so I slept off without even knowing when I did.