Papa Udi has also, for the first time, drawn a ward about Cardoso House. There’s never been a reason to do this: everyone’s too scared to go back to Lagos Island as it is, and the few who try are roughed up so bad by rogue godlings that it’s enough to deter others. Armed robbers have tried to visit us once or twice. It did not end well for them.
Now, though, we’re harbouring the intended wife of one of the most powerful wizards in Lagos. To say nothing of having delivered a divine weapon into the hand of said crazy wizard. Now Papa Udi has to do something he hasn’t done in a long time. He pulls out his four staves etched with the Nsibidi stories for a large ward, then plants one staff in each corner of the compound, completing a makeshift enclosure. He writes invocations in native chalk dipped in saltwater and dried by burnt scentleaf, and dares anyone or anything he hasn’t cleared to cross those boundaries.
I wonder what happens if it’s Kehinde, though. We haven’t seen or heard anything from her since the incident, and I’m starting to think she’s been captured just like her brother, and that doesn’t spell well for anyone, not even us.
My suspicions are confirmed on the midweek evening news of the third week. Fatoumata’s not healed enough yet to take the stairs, so Payu and I watch the evening news alone in the parlour, the gen chugging outside. The presenter is a slim, bright lady with a large forehead that makes her grim frown even more pronounced.
“Residents of Agbado Oke Odo Local Government Area of Lagos State today visited our studios with complaints about missing children in their community,” she reads. “A spokesperson, identifying himself as Mr Frank Okunola, says that the community believes the current Baálẹ̀, His Royal Highness Lukmon Ajala I, is responsible for these disappearances, in collusion with the police.”
Papa Udi and I sit up. The camera cuts, and a small man wringing his fingers appears onscreen.
“Police arrest our children, and we don’t know what happen to them after that,” the man says, his voice quivering as if he’s just been asked to stop crying. “My son Majid, he is only twelve years. They take him—they say he is loitering, he is wandering. They say I must pay bail money, but after I pay, they say they have already release him. I go home, he’s not there. I wait, two days, three days, no Majid. Then one day, Majid come home, running. He say police take him somewhere, but he cannot say where. He say they keep him and many other children in a big, dark room. They feed them bread and water only one time everyday. They give him one medicine to drink in the place where they keep him. They say the medicine is so that if he talk about that place, he will die.”
“And what does this have to do with your Baálẹ̀?” the interviewing reporter asks.
“Because people say they see many children in Baálẹ̀ palace,” the man replies. “What Baálẹ̀ is doing with them, we don’t know. But our children are there, we know this. We want the police and the government to help us to bring our children home.”
The TV cuts to a small crowd protesting outside the TV studios, demanding their voices be heard. A couple more people get their stories in, all the same—the police is selling their children to the Baálẹ̀. Some kids have returned, but for most of them at the TV studio, theirs have not, and they’re here to seek justice.
Payu and I look at each other. This is not good.
“We spoke to the Police Public Relations Officer, Ademola Daramola,” the reporter’s voice-over continues, “concerning unanswered complaints made at the Agbado Police Division.”
The scene cuts again to a light-skinned slim man with a big smile that has no place on a Nigerian police officer’s face.
“Ah, you know how children are with fantasies, eh?” he says. “Yes, we do pick up some young ones who’re wandering around—to keep them safe and keep them from crime, really. But we always send them home, once they have been identified by family members. Some of them we pick up for illegal activities—hawking and selling in traffic, for instance. Most of these parents complaining now, they send their children out for these illegal activities, expose them to criminals and unscrupulous elements. Then when they go missing, they blame the police and the great Baálẹ̀.”
“So you’re saying these allegations are false?” the reporter asks.
“Yes,” he replies confidently, that smile still planted on his face. “Some of our men are stationed at that same palace. If anything is happening there, we would know. I know Ajala personally; he would never hurt a fly. He has the best interests of this community at heart. You can see it from the good things he’s done already.”
The screen cuts again, to a group of youths gathered outside the palace, chanting in Yoruba and carrying placards reading LEAVE OUR BAÁLẸ̀ ALONE and THANK YOU FOR WATER, YOUR HIGHNESS and WHEN THE GOV’T LEFT, YOU STAYED. Ajala, looking very out-of-place in a suit, like an aged, respected professor, comes out and pats them on the back as they bow to him.
“We made attempts to reach His Royal Highness for comments, but he was still unavailable as at the time of this report.”
The screen cuts back to the sombre news presenter before Papa Udi takes the remote and mutes the TV, shaking his head with disapproving click from the back of his throat.
“This is my fault,” I’m saying. “This is all my fault.”
“No,” he says. “You don do your own. Make them handle their wahala. You no come fit die on top craze people matter.” He gets up and shuffles his way upstairs. “Make LASPAC handle am. Everything go dey alright last last.”
Maybe he’s right. Maybe we should let the LASPAC handle this one. Everything go dey alright last last, eh?
Wrong.
Next day, Femi Onipede comes to visit, That’s when I know it’s really, really bad.
I WAKE UP the next morning to hear Femi downstairs in the parlour with Papa Udi. Out the window, I see she’s come in her sleek 2016 Highlander, bulletproof (maybe even godproof, considering her relationship with Papa Udi). Parked next to it is a navy-blue Hilux, where two men sit—one in the driver’s seat, and one in the open back with the tailgate closed. They wear navy-blue combat police uniforms, with the LASPAC logo on their breast pockets, as well as on the side of the vehicle. The one in the back carries an AK-47 assault rifle, which I’m pretty sure houses not just ordinary bullets, again, considering Femi’s relationship with Papa Udi.
Over the years, LASPAC has become the only arm of federal or state government that has even acknowledged that we have a problem beyond the realms of physical solutions. It was a parastatal squeezed out by the last governor to combat the deity infestation, right before he was ousted from his own party. Recruits brazen enough to sign up had to undergo two sets of trials: first, pass the eighteen-month police college curriculum in three months; and second, undergo a six-month attachment with a recognised wizard, one of whom Papa Udi used to be until he retired to become a consultant. The third trial, that of being disowned by family for devoting one’s life to a profession sneered at by society, was an unwritten one.
Mostly, these men are taught a few key recipes for combating anything with a good command of godessence. But let’s be honest: one either wants to be a wizard, or one doesn’t. Even I who live with one don’t want to, so I’m not surprised only one of every thirty of these men ends up knowing anything about making recipes. The few who do quit the LASPAC right quick and set up shop at Sura. Some become apprentices to the wizards they interned under. All the LASPAC is left with is a bunch of regular boys with their bullets dipped in ebo.
Since the last governor, the commission has been on a downward spiral, receiving a total sum of zero naira in financial backing from the government, which has instead placed all focus on rebuilding a newer, better Lagos closer to Ogun state. I’m not surprised that, now that Ajala has declared war on the state, all government eyes have instantly turned to Onipede, the current director, as if she herself is a wizard. I’m pretty sure, if I were her, I’d turn my eye to the real wizards as well.
I go downstairs.
Femi Onipede looks exactly how the director of a state parastatal should look: smart of build, coarse of voice and sharp of eyes, mostly through years of pushing government papers to places they shouldn’t be pushed. She has deepset tribal marks like Fatoumata, terribly out of place under her scholarly spectacles. However, I’ve never let that plump frame deceive me. Papa Udi says she’s ex-military, that she used to be a long-range shooter. I’ve seen her fire a rifle once before, and everything she did—her stance, her grip, her assurance—spoke to this truth. I don’t doubt her ability with a firearm for one minute.
She rises when she sees me, bows slightly. No matter how many times I explain to this woman that, apart from the fact that she’s old enough to be my mother, I am not a god and do not deserve worship, she does this every time.
“You saw the news?” she’s saying to me, or Papa Udi, or us both. She never looks us in the eye when she talks. Sometimes, I feel she brings those guys outside over for protection—from us.
“Yes,” I say. The room falls silent. For a beat, I think Papa Udi is going to go all Nigerian Father on me and rat me out to her, but he just chews and says nothing. Femi Onipede breathes and counts the tiles on the floor. It’s as if we’re all processing the weight of the storm that’s coming, before deciding who’s going to go out and pack in all the clothes from the washline.
“He’s gone very far,” Onipede is saying, still standing. “We believe he’s trying to take over Lagos—whether he’s going to run for office or launch an outright attack, we don’t even know. He’s started a movement he calls ‘Operation Save Lagos.’ The Agbado youths are solidly behind it. There’s a hashtag on the internet and everything.”
“Hmm,” Papa Udi says.
“The children,” I say. “The stories. Are they true?”
Papa Udi described them as taboos, what Ajala wants to do with those kids. Apparently, the man bumps up the godessence of these kids using the distilled essences of Ibeji, but not before invoking a ritual into the process, binding them to himself via his oriki, so they remain under his control. Payu says he’s seen over the years that nothing good ever comes from these sorts of experiments, that the results are always bastardised versions of whatever was planned. If Kehinde’s story about the godlings is true, then it means he’s simply going to make more of them.
Onipede sighs. “Some of those policemen at Agbado, they live in shanty barracks. They have four, five, six children. They will do anything for money. Pinching children off the street and selling them to the Baálẹ̀ for fifty, hundred grand is nothing. They do worse. But I cannot confirm or deny anything, because I don’t know for sure. The Inspector General says he’ll look into it, but that doesn’t seem like it’ll happen in time for what is coming.”
“What’s going to happen now?” I ask.
“We’re going to have to deal with him,” Onipede says, as if repeating someone else’s words. “Somehow.”
“You go need ebo,” Papa Udi is saying. This, of course, is all Onipede ever comes here for.
“Lots and lots of it,” I add.
Onipede nods meekly. Then the room falls silent again, all of us knowing that even with all the ebo we can get, we might not be able to defeat Ajala. If what I heard that night was right, then the rumors are true: the man is using charmcasting somehow. Fighting that with just ebo will be like spitting on a fire.
“How many men do you have?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Same.”
So, little to nothing, then. “Have you spoken to any of the other divineries or wizards? Will they get people to join you?”
Onipede sighs and, though she doesn’t shake her head, I feel her do it mentally.
I understand her distress. Trying to get the owners of divineries to band together for a common cause is like asking Hausa northerners and Igbo easterners to come together and eat from the same bowl. The divineries are too busy fighting over themselves for the little belief left in the populace (now that almost all religious conglomerates, churches and mosques alike, have been relegated to the background). Same deal with the wizards, with the added wrinkle of a code that prevents them from attacking Ajala. Trying to bring him down is too much trouble for no reward. It’s simply easier to pack up their load and go to Epe or neighbouring states like everyone else.
“Tell us,” Papa Udi says, finally returning to his conversational voice. “Wetin you want make we do?”
“Help us,” Femi Onipede says, her eyes shiny with almost-tears. “Help us, please.”
PAPA UDI AND I spend the next few days preparing a large drum of ebo, the largest he’s ever made in one go. Back in the day, I used to enjoy helping him make recipes. He didn’t have many tools at the time—like a hand-grinder, for instance—so he used to make me chew ingredients like garlic. Killed my interest fast. The final ebo also tended to be slightly harmful to me, a bit like cigarette smoke to humans. Making a whole drum of ebo is too much on an old man, though, so I agree to help him this time.
We prepare the in the usual two major stages: first, there’s measuring the purest forms of the ingredients in the right amounts—weights, volumes, number of leaves, whatever. Then, there’s the mixing, and whatever boiling or burning or any other process involved. The biggest problem here, of course, is remembering all the details; getting every step and measurement right. Get them wrong, and you might make something that could kill you just by smelling it.
Our base ingredient, the one carrying the most godessence, is the local scentleaf, Ocimum gratissimum: a massive carrier if harvested the right way. Sometimes, Payu speaks to the plant to give of its leaves freely, harvesting them with the utmost tenderness and care so its power is retained. Scent leaf is not so hard to find either, with wild weeds taking over half of Ojo Close, so Payu gathers enough of that.
Next, we need a boosting agent—something with its own dose of godessence but carrying a sharp scent or rough texture. Sometimes, Payu adds sound too—a gunshot, a cat’s meow, a song—but only for more complex recipes. The boosting agent latches on to the base ingredient and channels the effect. We use ground eggshells for touch (eggshells, being boundaries themselves, work as boundary eliminators, which help negate whatever spiritual boundary has been set up) and garlic for smell (to perforate said spiritual barrier and reach the entity on the other side). My job now is to help Payu grind a whole BagCo sack of garlic using a large hand-grinder.
After this, we’ll need something to connect to the godessence of the user. Recipes work like a chain: the user’s godessence connects to that of the recipe, then on to the target. Papa Udi usually uses anything I can give him, from body hair to nail clippings. Sometimes, it’s a personal artefact, like an old shirt or even a favourite animal. (I kept a stray pigeon once—couldn’t find it after one particular dose of ebo that turned out very potent. Payu and I never talk about what happened to that bird.) For this batch, I give him a battered pair of old shoes and my backpack from secondary school.
The last agent, the binding agent, makes everything meld together evenly. Usually, Payu employs palm oil or ogogoro when mixing small amounts. Given this quantity however, we opt for saltwater, and plan to boil it all to help the mixing along. We just have to watch it carefully to ensure we don’t lose the boosting agents’ properties.
We grind the garlic in the afternoon, outside in the narrow space between the house and the low fence. The sun beats down on my bare back as I wind the handle of the grinder continuously while Papa Udi adds more garlic when the current batch goes down and comes out the other end in paste.
“So,” he says, clearing his throat. “You go follow them go?”
I wind and wind, processing both the garlic and the question. I’m not sure what he’s asking me: if I’m going to go because I’m the one who caused it, or if I’m going to go because LASPAC stands a better chance with me leading them.
“Maybe,” I say finally. “I dunno.”
“Mmhn,” Papa Udi says. “E go make sense if you go. That Ajala no be
small man.”
Again, not sure how I fit into this. I did learn streetfighting back after secondary school—roadside gym, crude weights, makeshift boxing gloves made with mattress foam, wire and tape. Punch, kick, duck, grip, throw. Nothing special that can be used against Ajala. Not like I can charmcast either, or use my always-on godessence somehow. I mean, the thing isn’t just going to start firing on all cylinders after all the years I’ve spent taming it so I could appear normal in school and civil society.
“Yes,” I say. “So what’re you saying?”
“Join them,” he says. “Do something whey make sense. For once.”
Our relationship has always been this way. You know what they say about old people, how they tend to pour their frustrations and regrets into the youth around them? Payu always tries to force me to become something better than him. He worked his ass off to ship me into King’s College, and if not that he couldn’t afford it, he would’ve sent me off to become an accountant or something too. His dream has always been for me to live in Upper Island. He never asked me if that was what I wanted, and this is why we always argue.
I finish grinding the batch and watch him heap new measurements of garlic into the feeder. He supports his waist with one hand as he bends, then sits on a stool and pants after a while. He truly is an old man, it dawns on me now, on the last embers of his life. It dawns on me too, that maybe all he wants is to exit honourably, while helping people. I mean, that’s what he’d always done: training apprentices, taking on LASPAC interns. He talks about setting up a divinery here at Cardoso—a real one, not like those charlatans at Sura, to help people. Maybe this is also why he lets me hunt? Help people vicariously through me? Maybe this is the reason he wants me to go with them.
“Wetin happen with you and Ajala?” I say, my bicep shiny with sweat as I work the grinder handle. “Na your student before, ba?”
David Mogo Godhunter Page 6