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Chapter Eight I
03:20 pm, September 10
Kogi State, Nigeria.
It was the naming ceremony of the Mádégún twins. They'd just been named Oluwatade, Hairum and Oluwajoba, Haysam each as they were Muslims. It was a joyful ceremony as everybody wanted to bless the twins with gifts. Even non-indigenous guests from the cities had come to grace the occasion, mostly the new parents' family and friends. Gifts of different shapes and colour just kept piling up under the gift canopy to the delight of the glowing parents.
The village women now busied themselves circulating food around the numerous tents in front of the house. There were varieties of local dishes; Mọ́ín-mọ́ín, ẹ̀kọ, àmàlà, jollof and fried rice, iyán, ẹ̀fọ́, and many more to feast the eyes and mouth on.
Eniiyi was feeling extraordinarily happy today. Everythi
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A day after . . .02:16 pm, September 11Kogi State.Eniiyi limped down the porch steps down the street towards the neighbour's house, headphones turned up to a high volume just to block out her surroundings. She was angry, frustrated and sore from yesterday.Grandma had come home later in the day, dragged her out of her hiding place by her ears with a long, slender, flexible cane in her hand meaning to flog the life out of her, but she'd been saved by the person she had least expected to: Taiwo. Why, she'd tried her very best to be extremely rude to him, but he'd obviously not taken her behavior to heart. He'd spent about twenty minutes giving Gma reasons she shouldn't punish the nine year old. Which was all good for the girl. She'd been planning to pull fainting act anyway but had doubted it'd work on her grandmother.It ha
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05:00 am, September 14Kogi State, Nigeria.It was a very earlySaturday morning when the unfortunate incident happened. It was in the wee hours of the morning when the sky was inky blue and the orangish-pink tip of the sun could barely be seen struggling to peek out from behind the mountains.The village was empty at this time of the day save for the watchguards retiring from their overnight posts and one or two religious fanatics jingling bells loudly and forecasting doom.It was at this exact time that the beginning of what would spell herdoom arrived with it's family of trouble.Soon, as was tradition, pageboys were sent around to circulate the sepulchral news.Taiwo had just risen and was sweeping the house when a loud series of knocks came on the front door.He hissed and dropped the broom wondering who the dumb as a post idiot could be, that couldn't respect people's privacy. Wha
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Eniiyi gulped nervous energy and futilely tried to disappear into the folds of her grandmother's wrapper. What had she done wrong? And why was it so serious as request the attendance of every pair of eyes in the village?'Grandma,' she whispered, keeping her gaze focused on the space between the ground and where the assembly was, 'I swear, I didn't do anything. Believe me.'There was a slight break in her grandmother's movement, other than that she made no indication of having heard the young girl.The escort stopped in front of the platform where the high chairs were and prostrated flat on the floor in greeting to the group of six elders decorating the furniture. A dark-faced man sat separately from them farther to the side and he so very much looked like it was all he could do from stomping down and beheading the girl.'Here they are, Baale, elders; the possessed child and her grandmother.'Eniiyi almost spit out blood at that statement. What on
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'Eniiyi!' Grandma shouted in horror at her and started to stand up.'What? Grandma, let me speak for myself!'Mama Nurse was more than shocked into obedience by the commanding tone of a girl more than half a century younger than her.The elders had quiet during all this exchange. They spoke among themselves and one went to whisper something to the baale wherein a heated whisper ensued, after a while, the baale finally nodded his head in consent to whatever the request was, albeit still looking somewhat angry.The elders rapped on their table for decorum.'Iya Femi, this issue is no child's play, she has affirmed the women's accusal. We've all agreed that the girl is an evil witch but because she's still a child we shall not have her killed,' the eldest of the elders said.'Baba Agbanila paid a visit long before you arrived and revealed that he had met the evil child when she first arrived in his compound to perpetrate the murder of the poor
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The crowd sat back in their seats and watched the village native doctor and his pages set up the rites for the exorcism. Nobody stood up to defend the scared, small girl bound and on her knees in the middle of the white chalk circle.It was an uncommon occurrence for a child to be exorcized; it was usually the old women that were found out as witches.The pages finished setting the oil lamps and other miscellanea according to the rules of Feng Shui. They all stepped back and let the herbalist take their place in front of the girl, forming an outer circle. The said man started to chant in a strange tongue and sprinkle a thick, black liquid inside the chalk-line — and on the girl, in the process.Eniiyi, head bowed, surreptitiously wiped her face on her sleeve. She tried not to breathe in the foul-smelling liquid. She wondered again what was going to happen to her now. The woman who gave birth to the man who gave birth to her, who was supposed to be her gran
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•••It was nightbreak and the whole vicinity was getting sucked into darkness. The red, huge sun which had hung comfortably in the sky had bid the earth goodnight from the day's job well done and, gradually, had been replaced by the brightness of the moon, basking in her own ecstasy of monthly cycle and turning the darkness to silvery-blue light.Weary people trudged the road on foot, returning home from a long day's work, thoughts of food and and sleep on their minds and Eniiyi squeezed tighter into the corner of the single room, the thought of the thought of food making her belly rumble audibly.She had been starving since morning and hadn't been offered anything. When her grandmother had brought her some food the decorated bull of a man had turned it down and sent the old woman away then had unhygienic water delivered to her. He believed that the supposed devil in her was thriving mostly because it was h
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06:30 am, September 15,Kogi State.Waking up before the sun Eniiyi rubbed lightly at her eyes and tried to stand up but she was very weak and couldn't push her weight down to. So instead she settled for sitting up, pulling the blanket aside.Everywhere was still cast in a misty blanket that filled the air thickening to fog in the distance.Come to think of it, she was feeling a little okay now, still sick nevertheless, but not as worse as the previous night.Then she remembered the events of the previous day. She sighed. Her suffering couldn't continue like this, she had to do something about it as soon as possible. The Decorated Bull had promised her more punishments for today. She'd only survived yesterday's by luck, if it continued today she'd die before the sun reached overhead.She had to think of something if she wanted to live. If only she could find a way of communicating with her parents, maybe she c
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11:48 am.Later in the day found Eniiyi walking down the road escorted by two pages walking distantly behind her. She could feel numerous pairs of eyes on her as they walked the dusty, untarred road. Although she couldn't see anyone she knew there were people peering out behind those moving curtains, half open shutters, open windows, slightly ajar doors, holes in the walls and so on.She looked rather blasé about her surroundings considering she had just been banished by the village chief on the pronouncement of the village doctor that the oracles have ordered her to be banished before the rising of the next sunor death would be cast on everybody in the village, children and adults alike. Seriously, were the villagers so dumb that they'd believe everything that came out of the mouth of the Bull Man? If he ordered them all to sacrifice their children to those stupid gods, would they? They probably would, she answered her own que
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