Godwin Inyang's Blog

THE drums pulsated rhythmically all night and the choirmaster was gripped with fear. The seven high-pitched lead drums recited familiar themes like the thief who caught a thief, the skinny girl who overthrew the superman and the husband who fancied himself a teacher, measuring every piece of fish with a ruler. The drums had rolled that night in the village square to announce to the clan the start of the adult ekpo masquerade season. The choirmaster who had embraced the new path and was spreading the message of the foreign missionaries with their strange gods as an interpreter had lost favour with the custodians of their tradition and had to vacate his home three days in the traditional week (comprising of eight days) throughout the adult ekpo season. He put a few belongings in his raffia bag, strung it across his shoulder and sneaked along the dirt track to his maternal grandma's place in a neighbouring clan. He was safe there as it was a taboo across the clans for grandparents...

  With his new friend, the tout, Tom had torn open a side of the leather suitcase and found the jewels and money. They took out the first five thousand dollars for the bus terminal tout to go exchange and know what it would amount to in naira. The tout did change the dollars and brought back eighty thousand naira which Tom split equally between them. He took another five thousand dollars and gave to the tout to go exchange – it was safe they exchanged the money in bits. While waiting for the tout to return, Tom bought himself new clothes and shoes and was running around with the village girls. The percipient stepfather noticing Tom’s sudden transformation, looked into the synthetic bag, saw the strange-looking bills but seeing what was happening, decided to pilfer some, remembering a popular saying of his people: ‘When God helps you; help yourself.’ When the police came, the alert stepfather stole out of the house and it was he who saw the tout coming around at the same moment the ...

  Ekam Dan made her reference to the incident to buttress her point for her belief but her grandson had since after the robbery had his eyelids, left or right, twitched and struck his foot, left or right, till it hurt and no one thing, negative or positive, had happened. Was the fault with him? Not too long ago, he had personally planted a farm with two sets of corn. The first set was done at the start of the rain and the second set was done towards the period the rain was getting intense. In both, Dan ate till he was satiated. During harvest, the cobs of the first set were full of seeds while a lot of the second set had a lot of spaces on them. Based on his observation, he had told his grandmother when they had their argument again that the time of planting rather than the state of your stomach could be responsible for a poor or rich yield. Who do you side with? This tale also Ekam Dan had made reference to. A certain man had a very charming daughter who he gladly married off ...

If you miss God’s kingdom you’d cry; Try and skip Satan’s every lie. The true Messiah is the Christ; He came and died for you and I. Miss the New Heaven and Earth and cry; To every evil learn to say goodbye. Entry to paradise is your right; Miss it and land in hellish death and fry. POSTSCRIPT: If you worship that great car you ride on a tour, I salute ingenious humans who created it; And you turn to fetish nature for Materials sourced, I bless the God who created these.