by Wole Soyinka
Then harvest come, sweet manna from heaven.
Manna from heaven, yeah manna from heaven,
Sweet mamma, yeah mamma, sweet manna from heaven
The chips were falling in place. He had only one commodity on offer—spirituality. All it required was creative packaging, and that was his forte. Nothing went to waste. His apprenticeship, albeit a short-lived spell, in publicity and marketing moved to answer its long-awaited call.
Such were the foundational stones upon which the launchpad for Chrislamabad was laid. That choice, Lokoja, was a picturesque, unworldly home of simple fishermen and canoe transporters, yet a busy intersection for road travelers. Davina hired a hall while he commenced the building of his own. The banner on the church entrance read, for ease of pronunciation, Ekumenika, whose calligraphy also carried a hint of ancient Greek, adding to the mysteriousness of the sudden inplant. He labelled his departure from Kaduna the First Exodus, hired fleets of canoes to ferry worshippers to his island church. The service began as a free ride, which soon drew worshippers from mainland churches to its island bosom. Papa Davina introduced modest fares. Soon he owned the canoes. The fleet multiplied. Next, they were no longer conveyances for the prophesite of Ekumenika but a commercial transportation system controlled by the site. It ferried market men and women, schoolchildren, workers. Gradually the site raised its own soccer team. The fleet, decorated in all hues of the rainbow, ferried the blessed soccer team from match to match on the mainland. From soccer it moved to festivals—a canoe regatta that turned into a mini-fiesta, with promises of annual sustenance by governors of the river-bordered states. A trickle of tourists began, swelled into a fair-sized stream, then became a torrent. Tibidje had found his niche. He was halfway home, to the national hub of happiness.
His city of choice was indeed tailor-made. It had centuries-old landmarks, all begging to be co-opted, but through a modern spiritual perspective—the true city of God and Allah, snatched from the unimaginative entrepreneur of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. Lagos awaited the Coming. For now, Lokoja was the container vessel for the ecumenical spirit. He moved to expand, consecrating every encroachment on the island real estate, quietly nudging out the shacks of “illegal squatters.” Tibidje made material what till then had been mere spirit. His ministry moved swiftly, nearly miraculously, beyond the merely speculative. Chrislamabad covered all the grounds, spiritual and temporal, squeezing out competition—mostly Lone Ranger prophets with bell and cross—or absorbing it. It enjoyed the patronage of the state, Kogi, of its middle-class and affluent, of government officials, business types, and politicians. In no time the Kaduna scenario was being reenacted but in a vastly improved version, and minus the menace of a universal plague called Boko Haram. It was inevitable that the governor found himself graciously accepting to be guest of honour at a cultural event, a reelection campaign having entered a critical stage. Enthralled by what he saw on stepping out of the site, he scooped up a handful of the Benue-Niger waters, poured it all over his face, and invited his entourage to do the same. Most did not even await orders; they had already stooped to follow his example. As he stepped into his yacht, he announced that a gift of a motorboat—not just a canoe with an outboard motor but a covered eight-seater motorboat—be delivered gratis to Ekumenika.
That official imprimatur was the final propellant. The island became dedicated to the service of “retreats.” Business deals were negotiated under its spiritual aura. Academics and other fevered brains sought its calm before embarking upon or rounding off research. Artists favoured it for its serenity, and many were the painters’ easels that sprang up in the evenings and weekends to blossom with rich images along the banks of the riverine landscape. Politicians knew where to go for discreet meetings, watched over by the eyes of God. The powerful from beyond Kogi borders heard of it and made it their discreet pilgrimage goal, to escape prying eyes for meetings requiring uttermost discretion. This was how, indeed, Sir Goddie, nominally the second most powerful leader of a powerful nation but in fact her most powerful individual, came to hear of it and sent his most trusted aides to check it out. They returned with glowing reports. When Sir Goddie visited, the entire island was cleared, but with professional discretion. No one heard a thing, not even after he had been and gone. The banner was sufficient: space closed for spiritual renovation.
Lokoja fully consolidated, Papa D. commenced his move on his real destination, the national home of Ekumenika—Lagos. The decided sector was Mushin/Ipaja, on the road to Otta and Abeokuta, the latter being home to the first missionaries to plant the Christian gospel in the hearts of pagan Yoruba but now a melting pot for no matter what religious affirmation, including the marginalized orisa which Papa Davina had long decided was an economic basket case. Something is not quite right about that traditional religion, he once lamented, seated among his board of trustees. It is just like that expressway Chrislam—a calling without a dwelling. They needed to get their act together. Orisa was simply not worth quoting on the stock exchange, not even on a virtual one. Some tourist value for addicts of the exotic—beyond that, he would not invest one kobo in that antiquarian piece. Still, Davina remained open-minded. He invited orisa priests to the Ekumenika cultural fiesta and even lodged them free of charge in one of the prophesite chalets.
In preparation for the final coming, Papa Davina had taken possession of a “distressed” sector of Mushin/Ipaja with an incongruous hilly outcrop that served as an informal garbage dump. Street gangs and political thugs once ruled the space, released their excess energy by setting fires to a number of small businesses. They imposed protection fees on markets, dismantled the stalls of the recalcitrant, and organized accidents for their families. Papa D. infiltrated with his modernized successors, the yahoo-yahoo and cultic assassins, assigned them productive functions. Prophesite and surrounds witnessed unusual sights—a presiding prelate who changed attire from cassock and surplice plus bishop’s crozier for one service, only to follow up with the “Touareg look”—turban, half to three-quarter facial cover, and a dangling jowl loop. He would follow up a week later with the Hare Krishna saffron robes and tinkle bells but interrupt the week every Friday with the plain Muslim kaftan and skullcap, ivory worry beads. Other chambers ministered simultaneously to other deities in different ways, presided over by his assistants. Gods and avatars, saints and demiurges of all lands were united under one roof, in images or simply manifested in song, chant, and incense across open spaces. Was there not, Papa D. struggled to recollect, a boast attributed to the jihadist Uthman dan Fodio that he would march all the way down from the Fouta Djallon hills of Sierra Leone to dip the Quran in the Atlantic? He, Papa Davina, would go one better. He would dip his chequebook in the Lagos lagoon and bring it up dripping with proceeds from the nation’s petroleum flow.
This account is authoritative—and by none other than the pilgrim himself, pieced together from numerous sermons, confidentialities, and police records. Thus did the man once known as Dennis Tibidje progress from the eastern city of Port Harcourt to Lagos, of the same nation, via Newark, Monrovia, Dakar, Kumasi, Kaduna, Lokoja, until the moment ripened—a full eleven years later—when Lokoja moved to Lagos in ultramodern technological blaze. A rank outsider had hit town with one sole mission—to settle down, beat the established ones at their own game. Lagos was fertile, receptive. He had experience and resilience on his side. And he arrived prepared with a winner, a brand that he could sway in any direction: the Ecumenical River. Let all the envious, the obsessed of sterile purism, the unimaginative, deride or challenge the model! Hundreds of miles away, two mighty rivers attested to the power of the ecumenical vision. Let the hymners of the River Jordan and praise singers of the wells of Saudi Zamzam waters top that if they could. There was a river that beat them all hands down—the river of oil that rolled from a fountainhead that knew no division: EKUMENIKA!
4.
Scoffer’s Progress
Let this cup pas
s…
It had been a long siege, aided by many of whom the hostage himself had scant or no knowledge, but finally, yes indeed, it was sweet victory to be savoured by the long-embattled spouse, Mrs. Jaiyesola Badetona. This was the icing on the cake of victory that had already been celebrated in multiple events, all framed devotionally—even down to the sumptuous feasting and souvenirs, grateful offerings by a spouse for a most unexpected upturn in the career of her life partner. That hitherto intransigent spouse, scion of a royal house, had eventually succumbed to her entreaties—and not even grudgingly. On the appointed day he would observe every schooled detail of his ransom, and with precision. He consented to visit the Apostle Papa Davina for a spiritual consultation.
Prince Badetona’s elevation, on his own estimation, had been no less than seismic. Thus he had not hesitated to slaughter the fatted cow—he did pride himself, after all, as a traditionalist, nothing to do with being a scion of a royal house—so sacrifice was expected, and he was not averse to spreading the fat among friends, colleagues, and well-wishers. In any case, he could not fail to have been infected by years of association with the master party soul of his close circle—Duyole Pitan-Payne, engineer and acknowledged leader of their eccentric Gong of Four—but that blithe spirit was in a class all his own. The prince even conceded a Thanksgiving service—it rid the home of a lingering tension between husband and wife. That feeling of domestic persecution, however, was the product of a series of mishaps, strange happenings over and beyond the elastic limits of coincidence, and of such persistence that even he began to lose confidence and permit chinks in his cynic’s carapace. To make matters worse, such untoward incidents had followed the good news almost like a structured cause-and-effect, commencing so close to his career elevation that he did begin to wonder if there was not indeed a maleficent linkage. Good luck attracting bad, either through some quirky law of Nature’s balance, call it karma, yin-yang, or whatever, or simply—as promptly concluded by his wife and extended family—enemy action!
Have you sought divine intercession? At the beginning he lived up to his nickname—the Scoffer. He preferred to knuckle down to preparations for the assignment at hand and his new status in life. Money he was prepared to spend for celebrations, but he balked at the idea of submitting himself to divine busybodies in his earthly failures, successes, both, or absence of any. After all, he had succeeded in keeping divinities at arm’s length throughout a humdrum career—in his view, more accurately described as lack of spectacular recognition. He preferred it that way. It enabled him to indulge in his favourite hobby, which was simply problem solving, especially of the statistical kind. He had been and still remained a reticent mathematical genius. That had its compensations, its material perks. An internal auditor but with unaudited earnings. He saw no reason to complain or jubilate. It was all strictly business, and Badetona was genuinely possessed of a retiring temperament. Left to him, he would even have discarded his princely title, but that was now part of his existence, and it also had its advantages.
Jaiyesola, however, saw it differently. The position lacked public recognition. A prince without a throne—it would not be the turn of his royal line for another century. And then, despite the streak of genius that he had exhibited all the way from schooldays and into public service, in her own parlance, nothing to show for it. She looked at his close circle of associates, some of them members of the prestigious Motor Boat Club of Ikoyi, or the Lagos Island Indigenes Club, Freemasons, and Rosicrucians, and felt that Badetona was short-changed in social entitlements. The title of internal auditor sounded in her ears like a life sentence in solitary confinement on a diet of garri and water. So she took her case to God, albeit without her husband’s knowledge. Who was to tell her that it was not a wife’s duty to boost her spouse to greater heights?
Then commenced a series of omens. Prayers answered, and in such generous helping, Badetona began to encounter a flurry of mishaps that moved, in her view, beyond mere coincidence. First his customized computer crashed. That was unprecedented. Next he stubbed his toe against a protruding table leg—the left toe!—it was one of those ultra-modernistic designs that catered more to sensation than sense. Was it a coincidence that she had terrible dreams that same night? It did not take too long afterwards before the newly appointed chief executive director locked himself out of doors, having left his key wallet in the office. Jaiyesola had also traveled for her Christian pilgrimage, undertaken two weeks after her return from accompanying her Muslim friend to Saudi Arabia for the lesser hajj—both were followers of the ministry of Papa Davina’s Ekumenica. His phone battery also chose that night to run down—ah yes, the long-distance call from Jaiye in Hebron, with a protracted argument on why she should not fill her suitcase with holy water from the River Jordan, where her spiritual journey had next directed her feet.
The Scoffer slept that night on the back seat of his SUV, locked in the garage. He had returned late from yet another party in his honour, and his mildly groggy condition—he was a moderate drinker—wasted no time in sending him off to sleep. Opening the garage door for some fresh air the following morning, he heard a scrabbling in the top jamb. Before he could look up to investigate, a scaly creature dropped, landed on the balding middle patch of his head, its thin claws instantly trapped in the surrounding tufts of foliage. Bade’s first thought was Snake! Next, Scorpion! He leapt out under imminent heart failure, uncertain how to deal with what he could not see, collided with the housemaid, who was just reporting for duty. She took to her heels, screaming for help against the intruder, before she realized who it was. The mystery squatter seized on the confusion to escape, thus finally identified for what it was—a lizard. The maid would later narrate “the scariest moment of my life” to Mrs. Badetona on her return from pilgrimage. Confronted with her report, Bade roared with delight and added it to the list of portents. His last contribution, a mere week earlier, had been the black cat he had found sitting on his car bonnet as he stepped out of the supermarket. He relished the rapidly changing registers on Jaiyesola’s face, especially when he went into details over the one-sided confrontation. The cat refused to budge even after he had started his car and begun to inch forward. My dear, that cat, I swear, kept staring at me through the windscreen as if to complain that she had been looking forward to the ride. I had to stop and engage the security guard to help shove it off, so I could drive off.
Were all these little more than an occult buildup towards the pièce de résistance that was yet to come? That momentous day considerately awaited his wife’s return from pilgrimage, so that news reached her within minutes of the occurrence. In Badetona’s own words, This one shook me to my binary heels! While Jaiyesola rubbed her hands heavenwards on receiving the news, giving further thanks that she had indeed made that year’s pilgrimage a dual-purpose voyage of devotion—thanksgiving and protection—the prince found himself compelled to admit that something appeared to have gone loose since his elevation. All the euphoria of advancement evaporated with the horror that unfolded at the bus stop along Ikorodu Road, just before the Maryland overpass. And he had been caught within that event only because he, recently moved from a humdrum desk to head a brand-new glamorous parastatal, chief executive director on the rare Level 17, etc., etc.—known nationwide as the super permanent secretary scale—had chosen to queue at that bus stop like any common worker, awaiting a ride to his housing estate. He could have phoned a taxi company or flagged down one of the ubiquitous keke napep, the Indian import tricycle taxi. He opted instead for the commuter. Badetona, one of the most live-and-let-live, self-adjusting humans one could hope to encounter in a field of reversals, felt tickled by the notion of himself, a prince and super-sec, doing a little slumming, mixing with local yet distanced commuters whom he normally viewed through the tinted windows of his air-conditioned, albeit battered, SUV. Never in his life could he have envisaged the consequence of that crackpot decision as he stood in line. For once, the hardened Scoff
er was forced to revise his calculations on the law of probabilities.
Badetona followed a pragmatic mode of existence that left him very much attached to his ancient, creaky, but still serviceable SUV. A mere two days after his wife’s return from Saudi—he lost that argument; her excess luggage bulged with outsized sachets of certified holy water from the River Jordan, plus other objects of veneration from the tourist arc of holy sites—his long-suffering vehicle broke down along Ikorodu Road just before the turnoff for Gbagada heading for Oworonshoki. It took the form of a multilayered, cracked china rattle that he had never heard before, as if a box of domestic discards was being sorted for a jumble sale. He sighed, irritated that this should happen on a day when he happened to be at the wheel himself, having granted his driver a three-day leave of absence to travel out to a village for the prelude ceremonies to a betrothal. His driver was taking a brand-new wife.
Bade manhandled the car into the slip road—fortunately, traffic was light. The loafing area boys emerged from nowhere, as usual, to lend a hand. His mind turned, by long habit, to predicting how his wife would read this new interruption in routine, and he smiled at the cleverness of a response that was already under formulation: Well now, you’ve just returned from Jerusalem with a full bag of good-luck pouches, talismans, and reliquaries. You received predictions and prescriptions from the Senegalese marabout who scalped you and your Muslim friend in Saudi for nearly half your shopping budget. How come there was no prediction of the impending crack-up of my vehicle engine? Definitely first round to him! And he was prepared for her retort: Why should it take a marabout to repeat what I’ve been shouting all these years? Abandon that junk heap and get something befitting your position! That was the moment he would deliver his coup de grâce. Before she could enjoy the vindicated smirk of a long-enduring wife, he would slam his hand on his thigh and silence her with his welcome surprise: Quite right, dear—let’s go. I was only awaiting your return to help me choose our new car. Ready? Too bad the new status vehicle decided not to wait. Worse, what followed totally wiped out any carefully rehearsed banter, witty repartees and silly teases, all ingredients of a married life that did not lack for genuine bonding and affection. Bade truthfully regarded himself a lucky husband.