Like Joshua Said
By AC Alegbo
* * * * *
PUBLISHED BY:
Like Joshua Said
Copyright © 2012 by AC Alegbo
Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
The penal conduct of Kano State in this fictional narrative is merely a representation of actual historical events in Northern Nigeria.
Help and Wonder
Sleeping Dead
Loose Wheels
Grand Delusions
Hand of God
Casting Out Devils
Blood and Tears
Naked in a Cathedral
“If you are not willing to serve him, decide today whom you will serve, the gods your ancestors worshipped in Mesopotamia or the gods of the Amorites. As for my family and me, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:15
I watched baffled as the crowd slowly grew bigger. News of the commotion had begun to spread. Izoba street was now choked with milling throngs of people who looked for any avenue to shelter from the blazing heat while they watched the drama. It looked like Izoba street; I recognised the stalls I’d often visited as a child but it shouldn’t be.... I was in Kano.
From the mouth of the chaos, vehicles formed a queue that led back out to the adjoining road. Already, a self appointed marshal was trying to clear the blockade. ‘Go back! You! Yes. Follow that motor. No road in front. You don’t hear?’ He had his shirt in his hand and used it as some sort of flag.
From a few yards behind him came the noise of a pastor and his congregation; on this day they were outside their large church building which stood empty. In fact, from my vantage position, I could make out two large groups of fiercely praying people separated by something on the ground that I couldn’t see. And neither could any of us, craning our necks.
‘It is sacrifice,’ a voice offered to clear our confusion. I was startled. He was familiar – Segun. ‘Someone has put a sacrifice calabash between the two churches,’ he explained. ‘That is why they are praying so. They are binding the evil spirits.’
Calabashes filled with food items such as eggs and palm oil, obviously objects of sacrifice, were quite common sights on road junctions. What was unusual on this day was that a church compound had been the chosen location for the sacrificial bowl. Such confrontational irony was trouble.
‘Is that why they’ve blocked the road on a weekday?’ Tolu asked. ‘Can’t they go to pray inside their church?’ He had his hand over his eyes as he watched, squinting from the glare bouncing off the windscreens of the vehicles.
‘Where have you been?’ I asked Tolu. ‘Don’t you know we have work to do? And why does this place look like Izoba street?’
Tolu turned away, as if shocked. He had a strange look on his face.....I looked around and the crowd behind me had parted.
‘Ehn, but why will a person put juju ritual sacrifice on church land?’ I heard Segun answer. He stood taller than the rest of us, wearing an ugly scar just above his top lip that moved distractingly as he spoke. I still didn’t know what he was doing in Kano. It was all so confusing. And now he’d joined in the argument, we knew he wasn’t going to give up. ‘That is to look for trouble. It is enough to block the road.’
‘Why are this church people worried anyway?’ I mocked. ‘If they believe in God, let them just clear the calabash and clean the place. Why are they afraid of evil spirits?’
‘Don’t talk rubbish,’ Segun replied with scorn. ‘Who says they are afraid? If they are afraid, would they be binding the spirits?’
‘Why are getting so angry like this?’ Tolu said coming to my defence. ‘Are they your father’s churches? Or is it your family that killed Jesus? Relax please.’
‘Why won’t I get angry? Segun fired back. ‘You and your friend are talking like this church people are doing the wrong thing.’
‘What are they even praying for?’ Tolu retorted in the now escalating war between us and Segun. ‘If they work hard, they will get all they want.’ Then he turned round and began to walk away as if in disgust.
‘Tolu, Tolu!’ I called after him. ‘Where are you going? I don’t know this place. I am lost.’
His figure seemed to evaporate before me and the crowd on Izoba street took his place, getting bigger and bigger. I ran after Tolu, screaming. Then, footsteps...and a hand tapped my shoulder, breaking my run, and said ‘Take it easy.’ I had no idea what that meant.
I turned around to stare into friendly eyes as strong hands grabbed me. I didn’t struggle because I was in shock. I’d done nothing wrong. ‘What’s the matter!?’ I yelled. ‘Leave me alone.’
‘We will take you home,’ one of them said kindly.
‘I don’t know you!’ I yelled. ‘Who are you? Are you a Christian? I am a Christian but I can speak some Hausa.....I know this place....please, I’m sorry.’ I was now struggling violently to break free from their grasp but they seemed ready for this. I felt myself lifted into the air as they carried me.
The faces now staring at us looked sad. This was it, I thought. They knew what I knew; this would be the end. I hoped for a quick death. And then I saw Tolu in the crowd, waving at me as we went by. I waved back, making signs to him to hide. He kept smiling, didn’t seem to get it. ‘Run, hide!’ I screamed at him exasperated at how slow he was. My carriers began to hurry.
This was when I began to suspect, hope....and pray that this was a dream
A few yards away, from my upside down vision, I saw the pastor had reappeared with a metal bucket in hand, a few splashes from which revealed its content. Straining under the weight and catching the bottom of the pail with his other hand, he poured the water at the object on the ground in a sweeping movement, towards the gutter that cut off his church from the road. The crowd fell back slightly forming a small arc around the man whose lips had never stopped moving. He waved to the people behind requesting more water; at this point, it was clear that the calabash and its contents were going to be washed as far down the drain as possible.
I
‘Help and Wonder’
I was about to scale the low wall at the back of my classroom when I saw them. Jegbe held an upset Ireneh by the collar shaking him so roughly I thought his neck would fall off.
‘Mo gbe – I’m dead,’ I swore under my breath. Oscar was close on my heels so there was no option of turning back. Anyway, I was already on top of the wall. It was a low wall because it was a public school.
In Lagos State at the time, public schools were referred to as Jakande schools after the State Governor who made them free. The price of such education was paid for, however, in cheaply built structures - low walls under hanging zinc roofs that served as classrooms, although later that same year we were to move into a new building, three storeys high that looked good. At that point, it felt more appropriate to refer to our school simply as LG which suited the more modern premises where previously Local Government School had been more apt, spelling out the fact that it was a public school.
Naturally, however, ‘Jakande’ had taken on a derogatory slant to mean sub-standard. This was ironic as even though it was common knowledge that Government schools had the best trained teachers, they were renowned for anything else; for never being in class and always on strike – that was the word on the street, right or wrong, and as I grew older, that view deepened and lots of parents shied away from public schools raking what little funds they had to give their kids private education.
I landed on the wet sand which gave slightly under my feet. As I expected, Jegbe quickly relinquished his hold on I
reneh and lunged at me. Ireneh promptly ran off pursued by Oscar who had come down over the classroom wall too quickly to give the boy much chance of an escape. Soon enough, we had both been rounded up, no match for our skilled assailants.
‘I think I told you that I will catch you,’ Jegbe crowed triumphantly as hit me across the head. ‘You think that you strong eh?’
Earlier in the day, I’d foolishly reported the pair to our class teacher as they were making our lives a misery from their seat directly behind ours. It wasn’t a smart move and they’d sworn to make us pay.
The rascals hadn’t always been part of our lives; for the last three years, they’d separately flexed their muscles over other pupils, marking their territories and building a followership. In an unfortunate twist, for us eventually, they’d found themselves sharing the same seat in Primary 4 when Mrs Seyi ‘smartly’ assumed they’d do less damage if banded together under her watchful eye.
I’d like to tell her she was wrong because Jegbe and Oscar simply concentrated their energies on those around them, reserving special treatment for those who fought back the most. In the end, we remained the last pair standing – or sitting – after they’d identified us as their biggest enemies.
For most of Primary 4, they remained a thorn in our flesh. They bothered us so much you’d think they were in love, punching and slapping from behind - in class, wresting our food and money at break-time and threatening us with even worse if we reported to a superior.
Naturally, Ireneh and I had grown closer, thrown against a common enemy. Our joint resistance, however, only evoked more reprisals until that day when I couldn’t take it anymore. I’d gone and done the unthinkable.
‘What did I do to you?’ Ireneh grumbled desperately at Oscar a few yards away from us, close to tears. ‘You won’t leave me now?’
At this point, I was already eating sand, brushed off my feet by Jegbe. He planted one knee on me as he kept threatening. Blinded by tears, I caught a blurry glimpse of a Primary 6 boy in the distance and didn’t hold back. ‘Senior! Senior!’ I yelled.
The older boy turned abruptly, saw us, cocked his head as he registered the scene and began to hurry over, in huge intimidating strides at first which quickly became a jog.
‘What are you doing!?’ he yelled in English. They were always so proper – Primary 6 boys, especially when speaking to junior boys, spitting authority with every word. ‘Leave them alone now!’ He broke into a small run even as he said this.
Clapping me fiercely on the ear, Jegbe jumped off me as he saw the senior boy approach. Oscar had already let Ireneh go a few seconds before and with an eye on the advancing figure, the brutes took off.
We cursed after them as we cleaned ourselves. The sharp wet sand clung to my arms, legs, face and uniform. After I’d straightened, we began to walk home.
‘Let God punish them,’ Ireneh cursed again.
‘Ei, don’t take God name in vain,’ I gently reproached. This was a strict taboo in my Catholic upbringing.
‘Let Devil baptise them,’ Ireneh corrected.
I wasn’t so sure the devil hadn’t already.
‘Ogun will kill them,’ Ireneh was relentless. His was a volatile nature and an interesting one too, always had a lot to say, quirky, strange, loose cannon. Perhaps that was why we were friends and I think he was one of the few reasons I came to school at all.
I didn’t like school and I never found a loser who did. It didn’t even matter that most of the life I had revolved around school – playmates, friends, closest friends. And those horrible chequered clothes that we called our uniform – I hated them! I hated loitering with other children, sat on dusty benches that overlooked insect ridden desks, juggling pencils, sharpeners and exercise books and staring at a ranting class teacher who wouldn’t be sparing of the whip, learning for six hours. I was also always hungriest on school days, a ravenous yearn creeping up and forcefully announcing its presence at about eleven in the morning two hours earlier than it ordinarily would at weekends.
I never had lunch money for school; my parents couldn’t afford that but I always had a reprieve from my hunger at break-time. Its piercing fangs would slowly and quietly retreat as I immersed myself in some horseplay and then the bell would go and the pangs would fasten again.
‘They are mad,’ Ireneh, still fuming, cursed some more. ‘I will tell my papa for them. They haven’t seen anything. I will tell him to make juju voodoo for them.’
I’d heard him brag like this before. ‘You have started again,’ I said.
‘Look, my papa knows a strong babalawo witchdoctor. You will see. I will make juju for those wicked souls.’
‘Hmm. I hear,’ I replied, my disbelief seeping through the mask of interest I was wearing so indifferently. It was claims like these that marked him out in class. His stories were never simple.
‘You think I am lying?’ he challenged. ‘Watch and see. You don’t know me. I am a different boy.’
‘E-h-en? I teased even more. What happened to you?’
‘It happened to me when I was eight,’ he replied nodding to send home his point.
‘You try,’ I shut him up. ‘Abeg - please let me hear word.’
He said something about proving something to me just before we came to diverging roads close to Alaba market and parted company but I wasn’t listening. It was not that I didn’t believe in juju – I practically grew up in it. Stories of strange happenings were all around me – my family, the street, on TV. In fact, one of our greatest entertainments came from watching displays by itinerant Hausa men from the north of the country who, glistening from the charms they’d smeared on their bodies, would run sharp swords – or so we’d all assumed now I think back - back and forth over their tummies and not get hurt.
However, a ten year old constantly telling stories of exploits with voodoo and making like threats was not to be taken too seriously. Besides, with someone as familiar as Ireneh was, voodoo always seems so improbable, so far away.
Ireneh was the same age as I was and about as tall; most kids in my class at the time seemed to be of same height give or take one or two centimetres although that changed before long. He was light skinned, quite the colour of my palms after they’ve been in detergent for several minutes, enough to go bright red when in pain and enough to make a regular whip mark look like a scar from an inch deep gash. We’d been friends since Primary 1 and had worn our way through different groups of other boys as our class invariably merged and broke away from other classes, gained and lost members. We did everything together and knew better than to toy with our friendship; in our school world, nothing was certain; people came and went but through it all, we’d stayed put.
‘Arinze! Is your mama in the house?’ Mama Bose called as I approached the end of Izoba street, two away from mine.
She was my mother’s herbal supplier, for cooking and medicinal purposes. I looked up. She was slumped in a cane chair in front of her compound half hidden by the kiosk she ran. Her wrapper that kept blowing a short trail in the gentle afternoon breeze gave her other half away. It was this half, I addressed. ‘She will be at the shop ma.’
‘Oya, come take this lime leaves for her. Tell her that I will collect money when next I see her.’
‘Yes ma.’ I hurdled over the little gutter that separated us and took the little bundle from her.
Behind the little gate to her compound stood the garden from where she’d harvested her bundle. The garden was only supplementary income for her and that was the most it could be. Even at that, she was one of the lucky ones. Garden plots weren’t readily available to us city dwellers, not especially in crowded Lagos. You’d have to go farther out of the city to get a decent opportunity to farm – places like Ipaja that I once visited with my father. All I could see was a long tarred road that stretched to infinity and flanked on both sides by depressing buildings all of which sold seasoned firewood, kerosene lanterns, wicks and anything else that helped with darkness. An
yway, you’d readily assume the people had more than their fair share of power cuts – this is saying a lot since, ordinarily, power failure was the rule.
‘Mama Bose, I want to buy lemon grass,’ I heard a teenage girl say as I turned to leave.
‘How much money have you come with?’ Mama Bose asked, lifting her frame with a little difficulty out of the chair which creaked mournfully in response. I was already on the other side of the bordering gutter when she made it into her compound.
Ireneh appeared at assembly the following morning beaming from ear to ear, his yellowish canines making an appearance every time he spoke. It was easy to guess he was up to something and I was so curious I couldn’t keep still at assembly. He couldn’t wait either.
‘I told you that I will show them,’ he said to me, a small remnant of his smile still on his face.
‘So?’ I asked.
‘Don’t worry. Just wait and see.’
‘What is wait and see?’ I asked so impatient I was almost getting angry. ‘Wasn’t it you and me they beat together? Tell me.’
‘It won’t be sweet if I tell you. You have to wait.’
‘Taa! Get lost. If you don’t want to tell me, then forget.’