DEDICATION

I dedicate this book to you the reader and I appreciate you and every other person that made and will
make this work successful, especially the Almighty God who has been the pillar of my life.
 CHAPTER ONE

I sat and stared blankly, oblivious of the exact time it was. However, somehow, it seemed to me the time
was almost mid-night. The night was blessed with an amiable moonshine, garnished with the
scintillating starry sky. Intermittently, breezes caressed unhindered the inhabitants of our area outside
their respective rooms and the chilling of insects was virtually minimal. I was ruminating over what I
termed a compulsion in me in recent time when my mind quickly went wild; then the over whelming
voice came again; this time, more compelling.

“You must write your story,”it echoed.

To wade off the tormenting torment, I got up quickly from the now discomforting wooden arm-chair I
was sitting in, and walked towards the grey-coloured iron balcony of our cream-coloured one storey
building, adjacent my sitting position. On reaching there, I placed my two hairy hands on the cold
balcony to support my weight. The inner voice fiercely forced itself in again.

“Son, you must write your story,” it thundered once more.

I glanced at the faded hard blue short I was wearing; then stared blankly again. The over-powering voice
intensified its onslaught, seemingly making mockery of my helplessness.

“There is no escape for you, son. Your writing is for your generation”, the insistent voice echoed
again, this time more pervasive.

I then resolved to tell my story. Swiftly, my agitated mind raced to the place of my origin, Obosi.
It is neither a village nor a city. Obosi is a community where there is no sinner and no saint; no right and
no wrong as long as you could defend your action and in-action either with influence, affluence, sheer
temerity or brutal ruggedity.The community is known all over the country; not for fame but for
notoriety. Its notoriety is based on the fact that it is a home for all crimes.

Lest I forget, Obosi town, densely populated, sits like a dummy majestic- King, in a vegetative hilly area
that projects beautiful luxuriant landscape.

Bordered by Onitsha to North-west; Nkpor to North East and Oba to the Southeast, Obosi is located in
Anambra State, Southeastern Nigeria. Endowed with such beautiful scenery, the chirruping of birds and
the intermittent caressing of breezes is the prevalent experience.

As I rested on the grey iron balcony assailed with myriad of thoughts, my agitated mind focused
on my family lineage. My grandfather was a king, the first King of the new Obosi era; he married nine
wives and acquired for himself a village he could not fend for. Of all his numerous children, only my
father had a university education. I could guess even now that is the reason all his siblings even distant
ones ganged up against him and are still ganging up against him even till today. My father is a chartered
accountant; as for my mother, she is a secondary school teacher. For the record, my name is XOXO. Well
my name doesn't really matter. What matters is my story. I am the first child of my parents, a son. I have
four siblings, three boys and a sister who's now turning into a full-fledged beautiful lady.

With these, my mind seemed to have come back to the balcony. I felt my hands. They were now
tired. Feeling tired and drowsy, I walked lazily to the arm-chair, collected a blue singlet I dropped on one
of the arms of the chair and walked into my room, hoping to commence my story in full swing the
following day. I resolved to start my story from the age I could recall vividly; the age of five.
 CHAPTER TWO

“Xoxo, make sure you finish that assignment before I come back,” my father thundered and left us in the
parlour. The next thing I heard was the noise of his car and that of the gate; I sensed he was going out
and felt a little bit of freedom and happiness. Moreso, it was a Saturday, with a bright and promising
morning. We had just finished our morning prayer. My home is a very Catholic Christian home. We used
to wake up at 5am to recite the rosary and do the same at 10pm before going to bed. We did all these
notwithstanding our financial standing then. I was born with a silver spoon; my father was at a time the
richest man in my clan. I still remember as a child, we were then the only ones who had a television set
and a video machine. I remember we had four cars and housemaids everywhere. Also, I remember the
different clothes, varieties of food, the outings and the visitors. Regrettably, despite all the influence and
affluence, my home was not a happy one.

As soon as I saw that father had left the house, I went to look for my mother. When I was
becoming a little impatient, one of the maids informed me that mother had returned to the palour. I
then walked into the expansive living room dejected. Mother was sitting on one of the expensive and
expansive sky-blue sofas that faced the large iron shelves containing our enormous television set and a
video machine. An average in height chocolate skinned and pretty woman, she was calmly instructing
one of our numerous maids Nneka a fifteen year slim girl, what to do.

“What is it son, why the ugly face?” mother intoned and frowned as soon as I sat by her side.

“Mum, I'm tired of this constant mathematics assignment. Today is Saturday and the morning too early
for me to start doing this assignment,” I spluttered.

Mother gave a quick sign to Nneka and the latter left. Then, she drew me closer to herself smilingly.

“Come here son,” she said, cuddled me and went on. “Please try to finish your assignment. You know
how your father is. If you fail to do it, you will be in serious trouble.”

“Then tell Nwakaego to help me,” I pleaded, tears watering my eyes.

“Son, please try to understand.”

She then looked at me inquisitively and smiled.

“How old are you now my boy?”

“I'm five already mum,” I replied.

“You see what I meant. You are growing into a big boy. You see, you know that your father wouldn't
hear that someone else helped you with your assignment. I wouldn't want any trouble. One day, you will
come to understand some of the things I tell you. I'm happy you are coping with his training and I think it
is helping you a great deal especially in your academic performance,” she intoned finally and I was left
helpless.

Just then, I heard the horn of our father's car outside. I quickly stood up and rushed into our room to
begin the assignment father gave to me. It did not take long, I heard a heated argument between my
father and one of our cousins in the parlour. I came out to see what was amiss. Before my very eyes,
their argument had turned into a big fight and that our cousin rushed out and within a short time, he
resurfaced with a broken bottle and stabbed father twice on the chest and on the shoulder. He was
stopped and held by those who had rushed in with him to save the situation. Father fell down and was
bleeding profusely in deep pains. Mother was shouting and crying. I was too young to do anything; too
young to even speak. People led that my cousin away and father was rushed to the hospital. I wasn't just
too young to fight; I was too scared to even utter a word because of the manner I was raised to be
fearful. I was indeed raised with an iron hand in a home that looked like a military outfit where you only
obey orders and nothing more. Our father raised us to fear him instead of loving and respecting him. I
think that it is wrong for any parent to train a child to fear him for the singular reason that one day the
child mightgrow to disrespect and disobey that parent. I believed that if a child is trained in a friendly
manner, that child would grow to love, respect and cherish the parent and would even open up to the
parent whenever he encounters any problem at home, in the school or elsewhere.

Father ruled our home with an iron hand. Everybody, including my mother feared him. Nobody dared
come to our house and those who took the risk ran as soon as they heard the sound of his car. All my
life, I was raised indoors; I dared not venture outside the house. I had everything a child should have
except children's toys and play mates. Though we had a television and a video machine, the only moving
pictures I was allowed as a child to watch was the NTA 9pm news. I spent the other part of my childhood
solving mathematics.

* * * * * * * *

A week later, my father was discharged from the hospital. That was on a Saturday. As usual, I was in our
room doing my mathematics assignment. This was because even though, father was in the hospital
receiving treatment, it did not stop his constant instructions especially concerning our studies. The fear
of him kept me on my toes. I feared the consequences of his coming back to discover that I was lagging
behind in my home-work. On impulse, I came to the sitting room where father and mother were with
some neighbours and sympathizers. I heard father's outbursts.

“These people are unbelievable! Could you believe that despite seeing all the evidence both in the
reports and compliant I made and that of their visit to the hospital, these idiots still don't care about the
matter?” father spluttered angrily.

“If you will listen to me, forget this matter. Police only dances to the tune of the highest bidder. Haven't
you learnt anything from the burning of your house and cars which happened several times without the
police doing any serious thing about it; didn't your cousins go scot-free? You should know by now that
in this community, everybody gets away with anything including murder,” I heard mother say and
several other voices concord, pleading with father not to take further legal action against the cousin that
stabbed him. Sensing the tense situation, I quietly went back to our room to continue with my
assignment.
 CHAPTER THREE

Maria Ines Nursery/ Primary School is a two block one storey rectangular buildings. Painted light blue
and with a black coloured gate that stood at the entrance, the school has a moderate blue coloured
fence that exhibited some school drawings when viewed from along the tarred road. In truth, Maria Ines
Nursery/ Primary School is situated along a tarred road, which is a bypass that leads travelers to Owerri
road and Nkpor Junction, Nkpor respectively. It is owned by the Clarissan Missionary Sisters, one of the
religious congregations in the Catholic Church that have spread to every part of the world.

My parents, being staunch Catholics ensured that all their children attended the school; for apart from
being a school owned by the missionary sisters, it is still till date the best school in our home town.

We had finished the assembly and had just come into our class sporting white shirt tucked into blue
shorts for boys and blue dress decked with some white materials downwards for girls. It did not take
time, our teacher, one Rev. Sister Magdalene, chocolate skinned, plump and wearing a milky coloured
religious habit and milky coloured veil came in. She looked at her table by the corner of a square-shaped
classroom.

“Hei, Oluchi, come and take this rag and clean my table,” she instructed, pointing at the girl, standing
opposite the direction of my seat.

“Put water also in the wash hand basin and wash the hand towel before using it to clean the table,” the
sister added.

Oluchi, an eight year dark-skinned slim girl intoned quickly, “yes sister.” She went immediately to carry
out the instruction. Then facing the rest of us, Sister Magdalene said, “Please, if you know you can't
keep quiet, it is better you go outside. I will not tolerate anyone who will stay here and shout and
disturb me. I still have something to do in order to tidy up your results, did you hear me?”

”Yes sister,” we chorused and many of us including I began to go out to play. For me, I was very happy to
go out to play with my friends. The examination preparation and taking had taken too much time from
me. I did not want the anger of my father so I read very hard in order to maintain my first position in the
class. Now we had taken the second term exam and the time had come for us to close for the term. So
as we played, we waited for the announcement and the distribution of our results to the respective
pupils. After what seemed like ages, our results were finally announced. Sister Magdalene began from
the third position until she came to the first.

“As you would like to know, Xoxo, a very brilliant pupil has taken the lead again.” At the mentioned of
my name, our classmates, the boys shouted in great excitement and carried me up and one of them
provided a shoulder on which I sat. Before I could know what was happening, the same echo of joy and
excitement was replicated in different locations of the school classrooms and my four siblings were
carried by their friends in the same manner that I was carried, with cheers and songs because of our
outstanding performance. That did not stop until they carried us home. It was undeniable then that my
parents were blessed with five brilliant and intelligent children.

The only time I took second position due to illness, the news spread like wild fire as if to say that
something impossible had happened, to the point that father received the information from far away
Enugu State. That was when I realized that there was something about me that needed to be explored.
Apart from the sad development, I continued taking the first position until I finished my primary
education. It was boldly written on my testimonial, “he is the star of the school”.

Ironically, in spite of my great performance, in my family, my younger brother was the only pupil that
ever held the post of the head boy at Maria Ines, while I became the only one to have gone on
suspension in the school. Yet I was the only pupil till date who represented Maria Ines in external
competitions, quizzes, debates etc, the highest number of times.

I sat for sixteen external exams in my primary six and failed none; I wrote the entrance examination and
secured admission to various schools but father for a reason best known to him which I am yet to
understand, made me to be enrolled in the Catholic Seminary against my wish. Being always autocratic
and self-willed, nobody dared challenge him, not even our mother. The reason being that father
believed that as head of the family, his work was to leave instructions which must be obeyed to the
letter by both wife and children. For me, I think this is wrong. I feel that there should be some measure
of freedom in the family. Unfortunately, most African men think that being head of a family means that
the wives and children should listen and obey their instructions.
 CHAPTER FOUR

One Monday afternoon, it was during the long holidays. I was greatly disturbed about some ugly
developments that had been happening in our family, especially that between my father and his
brothers. Subsequently, I became calm and sober. I sat up from the sofa in our room where I had been
lying and put my red shorts and blue singlet. I was lost in thoughts but then was jerked out of my
preoccupation by the piercing voice of mother. “Xoxo, Xoxo.”

“Yes mum,” I answered and quietly went to the parlour where she was. “What is really wrong with you
son?” she inquired imploringly when she saw my face. “Nothing,” I reluctantly responded after some
hesitation.

“Hei, don't give me that face. I know something is disturbing you and you have to tell me what that thing
is,” she insisted, repositioning her grey-coloured blouse.

Her second stare made me realize I should not waste time further.

“Okay, let's go to the living room,” I spluttered in confusion. She led the way until we were seated on
one of the long sofas.

“All right, I am listening,” Mother said and I began after some hesitation. “Mum, I am confused.”

“Confused about what?”

“See, all my life, even till now, I don't know any of my uncles and aunties especially those from my
paternal side. I have never received a dime from any of them. All I see is that many if not all of them are
ganged up against father; mother can I ask you something?”

“Sure son, ask anything,” mother intoned caringly.

“Why does it seem that all father's brothers are in deep serious fight with him? A fight that started even
before I was born, and I am afraid of asking father because he doesn't discuss with us except when he
wants to instruct or reprimand us.”

Mother looked at me, then paused before she began.

“See son, I can understand how you feel. Your father has only one direct brother, others are his step
brothers. The only direct brother he has is the Rev Father. Unfortunately, he travelled to India, learnt
spiritism, came back and is performing what your father in his integrity felt he should not support. Your
priestly uncle heals the sick, breaks curses, yokes and bondages. I even learnt that at one point, he
raised the dead. However his powers centres on curing mad people. Because of this, money is coming in
such quantity he doesn't know what to do with them, so he distributes them to your father's step
brothers, except to your father who never supported him. You know your father is very principled, strict
and an honest man who nothing on earth would make him deny or keep silent when the truth is being
suppressed, even if it would cost him his life. Your father felt that his step-brothers are envious of him,
below his standard, uneducated, poor and corrupt, hence, he avoids them. Because your father's
brothers felt degraded, underrated, neglected and insulted by your father; they hated him, ganged up
against him and continued to plot his downfall for many years till now and somehow they are
succeeding.”
 “But mother, don't you think that it is wrong for father to look down on his brothers and others
simply because they are inferior and behave badly. See, nobody comes to our house and we don't go to
anybody's house.”

“Son, you are right. Nobody is an island but you know how your father is. However, he is not all
that uncaring. You could recall what happened to his brother recently.”

“Which one? You mean the Rev. Father?”

“Yes, you know he had been doing his things for years till it caught up with him recently. His instruments
made him mad. Actually, nobody knew for sure if it was his instruments or one of the insanities he cured
that turned against him and he went mad. Your father did not abandon him. He took it upon himself to
help your priest uncle get well by inviting another priest, Father Jude Onyeka, to pray for him fervently
for good thirteen days, and on the thirteenth day, he burnt all your priest-uncle's instruments and
miraculously your uncle got back his sanity. Unfortunately, when he saw that all the instruments from
where he got his healing powers were gone, he became furious with your father and joined forces with
your father's step-brothers to fight your father physically and spiritually. Because Rev. Father lavished
money on your jobless brothers from the money coming from his magic healings, they vowed to leave
nothing until they have destroyed your father completely.”

“Is that why Rev father is against father?”

“Yes, that is why after lending his car to your father recently, he went and reported to the police that his
car was stolen at gun point. That was why your father was hand-cuffed and taken to the police station
for criminal offense.”

“Mum”

“Yes,” mother responded, adjusting herself.

“Don't you think it is not right to help people unless they ask for it? Father went and helped Rev
Father to regain sanity and the latter saw it that father connived with Rev. Father Onyeka to destroy his
greater source of income.”

Mother reflected a little before she said, “I think you don't have to wait for people to tell you that they
need help before you render help to them; it is enough for one to notice the need for help, unless the
person who needs the help bluntly refuses the help. I don't think it is right to see your brother go insane
and then wait for him to ask for help before you give it, something you know that is impossible with
someone who has gone insane. Again, you cannot spare the things that have contributed to someone's
insanity when trying to secure cure for the person. That is why in trying to secure complete cure for Rev
Father, his Indian Instruments, have to be destroyed.”

“Well mum, your explanation seems plausible but I still think that Rev Father and his step brothers
believed that father had ulterior motive behind the burning of the Indian instruments. Further, when
you help people without their asking for it, they tend to believe you have strings attached to the help.”

“Well, son, life and problems of life are very complicated. No matter how you try, problems will always
come to one even from the most pure act from a very pure motive,” mother intoned finally.
As soon as I heard father's voice from outside, I quickly stood up and ran off to our room to alert my
siblings of father's return.
 CHAPTER FIVE

St. Paul's Seminary Ukpor is a Catholic Junior Seminary School built specifically as a secondary School for
catching young those who would indicate interest in the Catholic priesthood. It is located in a very
serene environment with long walls, big gate and many classroom blocks, dormitory blocks,
administrative block and residence blocks for priests, including seminarians on apostolic work among
others.

I entered St. Paul's Seminary Ukpor September 6th 2000; against my will. According to the
released examination results, I was the best student among the pupils that sat for the seminary exam. I
scored 100% in mathematics, 98% in English Language and 95% in CRS. During the interview, I was
among the top three and father realized I did not want to become a priest but he tried to convince me
that not everyone who got into the seminary became priest. He told me he just wanted me to
experience the seminary discipline and knowledge. I did not agree with him but I dared not say it
because father's words were more of a command than advice.

My first term in the seminary was hell; it was more of a military school than a church school. We
were controlled by the bell and rod. Nobody tells you a word. The first instruction is the bell, the next is
the whip. We were made to go to class three times in a day and the chapel four times in a day. We were
not allowed to bring into the school any provisions because the school authority wouldn't want us to eat
in-between-meals. Every meal was provided by the Catholic Women Organization. Being new to the
school, I had no friend or anybody to talk to except my frustrated world. It got to a point, I got fed up
with all the do's and don'ts; got sick of the school and all its activities and I started missing home. Then I
decided to tell my parents that on our visiting day. When the day came, that was on a Saturday, I was
sitting on one of the cement-made bench-like seats when my parents arrived. As soon as mother saw
me, she beamed a smile; she wore gorgeously made grey-coloured English dress sewn in the latest
fashion. Father was in black suit. “XOXO,” mother intoned. “What is the matter with you?”

“Mum, I'm missing home. I have no friend or relation here and I am tired of all the rules of dos and
don'ts. I don't like the seminary,” I echoed with disgust, pulling my brown shorts and check-short sleeve
shirt.

“XOXO, how many times are we going to talk about this? Not everybody who attends the
seminary ends up becoming a priest. We want you to just receive the moral training and the discipline,”
father uttered, frowning more as a reprimand than explanation.

“Your father is right XOXO; please try to understand son. It is for your own good.”

Because they were not ready to listen to my displeasure, frustration, and pain, I let them be. The rest of
their stay was more of pain than pleasure. When they eventually left, I felt a great relief mixed with
rage. I then decided I would not adhere to the rules of the seminary anymore.

I kept feigning sickness afterwards so I would be taken home. However, each time I was taken home,
father kept on bringing me back. In one of my discussions with mother the day she visited me alone, she
asked me.

“Xoxo, tell me, why do you dislike the seminary?”

“Mother, it is because I wouldn't want to see myself wearing Soutane for the rest of my life in the name
of a faith doctor.”

“But were you not told that being in the seminary does not mean becoming a priest? We only want you
to get the knowledge and discipline,” mother tried to explain.

“Mother I dislike everything that has to do with the seminary because it is based on lies.”

Mother was taken aback and she looked at me sternly. “What and how do you mean?” she nearly
shouted out of sheer shock.

“You see mother! When we came for the interview that took us three days, the food was very delicious.
We were allowed to come with beverages and provisions. The school canteen was filled with snacks, soft
drinks, bread and biscuits to buy. But when we started school, we were refused provisions. The food
was no way near the former both in taste and quantity. The canteen that was stock with assorted
provisions changed to stationery and sacramental shop. We were not given the slightest idea what we
were going to encounter. To the seminary authority, that was discipline, but to me, it was deceit and a
lie.”

After listening to me with rapt attention, mother consoled and advised me to try to stay, promising me
that I would soon overcome the distaste. Thereafter she left; as soon as she left, I became more
frustrated, unhappy and very angry that nobody could listen to me or see reason with my explanation.
Consequently, I began to behave abnormally; while my mates would be in the class or chapel, I would be
gallivanting about the fields like lost sheep without a shepherd. I began to act like a prisoner and actually
I was one. There was no body I could talk to that would understand me. Since my almighty father
wouldn't allow me to leave the seminary peacefully and honorably, I began to plot my own expulsion. In
the seminary, there were regulations that when flouted merited immediate expulsion; for instance,
fighting, stealing and leaving the school premises without permission among others.

One day, a dark slim average in height boy of my age bracket who was a senior passed me at the
corridor of our classroom; simply because he dared to blink his eyes reflectively, I rushed him and gave a
good punch on his face.

“What have I done to you?” he almost stammered in shock and surprise as he struggled to free himself
from me.

“Whether you did anything or not, does not concern me. Two of us will die today,” I spluttered as I
rushed him.

“If you are tired of the seminary why not go home and….”I did not allow him to finish. “God punish you
idiot. Who do you think you are? I must deal with you. All of you are liars and deceivers,” I thundered,
trying to unleash my frustration on him, but luck was on his side. Before I could do anything further,
other students had gathered and separated us. When asked to narrate the cause of the quarrel by the
students, the student did but when it was my turn, I simply walked away hoping to vent my anger on
whosever that dared confront me. I expected to be called upon by the school authority but nothing
happened.

Because fighting attracted immediate expulsion, I kept on fighting every student every now and then. I
would have resorted to stealing but unfortunately for me, there was nothing to steal. Another serious
offense that attracted instant expulsion was leaving the school premises without permission. When I
saw that fighting could not earn my instant expulsion, I resorted to leaving the school premises by
climbing over the school fence and sometimes I would pass through the school gate with confidence,
buy provisions, mostly biscuits and beef rolls, come back to the school and sell them ten times the cost
price. I did that without fear because I wanted to be expelled. At a point, all the students knew that I
was sick and tired of being a seminarian. I ran home many times but was brought back with whip.
Consequently, having no other option left for me, I abandoned myself to my fate, and hung on
hopelessly and miserably, counting the days, till one day, I found a partner in crime.

* * * * * * * *

One day, I think it was on a Thursday evening; everybody was in the chapel praying. I was reluctant to
pray with others so I hid at the back of the toilet building. I sat on a raised sucker-way cement cover,
deep in thought about the miserable life I was living, when our spiritual director bumped into me.

“What are you doing here when others are in the chapel praying?” the slim built chocolate-skinned,
average in height, innocent-looking priest in white Soutane asked me, astonished he could find someone
in such a stench-piercing abhorrent location. For it seemed to me he could not understand what a
human being in his right senses could be doing at the back of the toilet where no human could
withstand its stench for two minutes. I on the other hand could not understand what a priest, a spiritual
director for that matter could be doing at the back of the toilet during prayer time. Then he shouted my
name so loud that it seemed to have jolted me in my transfixed disposition.

“Xoxo,”he said. “What are you doing here, of all places?” Instead of answering his question, I took to my
heels and hung on in another hideous corner until the chapel prayers and other spiritual exercises were
over. Later that night, he sent for me. I came into his modest office that boasted of a medium size
wooden table decked with some files, books, writing materials; a statue of the mother of Jesus and two
wooden arm-chairs at the front. He did not offer me any seat and I did not care.

“I want you to go and fetch others who were with you,” he instructed me and paused. “See, my boy, I
don't want to punish you. I just want to advise you all on the importance of prayers. That's all,” he
added.

I stood still, gaping like a religious statue. I stared at him as if he had gone insane. When he saw my
disposition, he quipped.

“You heard me. None of you will be punished. I want to counsel you that's all.”

The lie was more than I could chew or tolerate so I lost my temper. “Father, there were no others. I have
no friends and I talk to nobody. It was the lonely me pondering over my frustrated world,” I shouted
disobediently and in deep frustration.

“Are you out of your senses? Are you talking to me in this manner with your right senses? Are you saying
that you are the only one sitting there at that time I saw you?” he fumed

I replied, “Yes father” Just then, one of the auxiliary teachers, dark-skinned, five feet, six inches tall
walked in, in his white soutane.
“See his arrogance and impunity,” the priest intoned, looking at the auxiliary teacher who then listened
with rapt attention. Then with severe stare at me, he ordered, “now get out of this place.” I left his
office; though reluctantly I had not gone of ear-shot when I overheard him say thus:

“I don't understand why some students are incorrigible and are blatant liars. Theywere three when I saw
them. They were all sitting down by the side of that toilet and what surprised me greatly was that none
of them, was talking to another. They were just sitting there looking at the sky. He was the only one
wearing the uniform while the two others were in mufti and I doubt if they were our students. I want
you to keep a closer watch on that boy. I have the feeling that he is up to some mischief,” he finally
instructed the auxiliary teacher senior seminarian.

I returned to my class room wondering why my spiritual director would invent such lies against me. I felt
he had something against me, perhaps personal grudges. I was too quick to judge. If only I had pondered
the story a bit, I would have prayed and asked God for the meaning of the spiritual director's story. The
spiritual director would have pondered his story too. While we blamed each other for what had
happened, the truth remained untold and the mystery remained hidden.
 CHAPTER SIX

One Sunday afternoon, I was sitting dejectedly on one of the numerous pavements along the corridor
gazing blankly at a space. The weather was clement as the smiling sun darted its usually intense eyes
rather softy on our school buildings as well as on grasses, school flower plants and trees. A gentle breeze
intermittently caressed our skin, giving its alluring soothing touch.

“HeiXoxo, what's up?” a familiar voice echoed behind me. I was jerked out of my melancholic world and
I turned sluggishly to see the face of the familiar voice and struggled to beam a forced smile.

“See Xoxo, I know that you are tired of staying here and so am I. I too am too sick of this place and I
want to be expelled too.” He stoped and looked to see if anyone was listening to him before he began
again.

“I have some news for you. The dean of studies is compiling some names of students for expulsion and it
is a golden opportunity for you. If you really want to be expelled, just accept before the school authority
that two of us kissed on two different occasions under the staircase and in the classroom,” Stanley
intoned.

Yes, that was his name. He was my classmate. I wondered what made him come up with all the things
he was telling me. But because I was so obsessed with the thought of my desire of being expelled, I did
not bother much about his utterances. All the same, I looked at him with a mixture of bewilderment and
irritation, and felt insulted. I had never imagined kissing a boy in my entire life not to talk of kissing
Stanley, a dark-skinned ape-like human, with big and flat nose. In fact, Stanley was the dirtiest boy in our
class, notorious for very stinking and irritating body and mouth odour that could cause any one to prefer
he never encountered him even as a saint. His condition came to a point that no one would venture eat
anything Stanley took a bite from or a spoon he had used even if it had been washed a thousand times.
The mere thought of kissing Stanley almost drove me to vomit; all the same the thought of accepting to
kiss as the ultimate plan to secure my freedom from the excruciating clutches of seminary life blinded
my sense of reasoning and I gave into his antics. So I created my own doom.

The next day, the dean of studies called me for questioning. Instantly I accepted a crime I did not
commit and was expelled from the seminary. I thought I would be happy as I left the seminary but it was
not so. Instead, my father's words kept ringing in my head: “son, if you want to be successful in life, try
to give every man his due, never break a promise or a bond, never have sexual intercourse with a
married woman; never bear false witness against anyone. Work hard and pray hard to God and God will
always meet you at the point of your needs. Don't venture into anything because others are doing it or
because it would fetch money. Always follow your heart and do that which always makes you happy and
satisfied. If you follow your passion, success will chase you down the lane.”

The seminary rector had always warned us that we should always pray never to be expelled from the
seminary. He said being expelled from the seminary attracts a curse. He said that either one suffers for a
very long time, if not for the rest of one's life or one turns into a rogue. I didn't realize the truth in his
words until I got myself expelled. Little did I know that my expulsion from the seminary would be the
beginning of my doom.

For some reasons I did not understand, Stanley wasn't expelled. It didn't bother me because I didn't ask
for his expulsion. I asked for mine only and I got it.

There are but two things I learnt about the Catholic Church while I was in the seminary. They are, that
seminary training is not based on holiness and deep spirituality, but on one's academic brilliance in
philosophy and discipline without which no matter the level of one's holiness, one would never be
ordained. For me, I think both academics and holiness of life should be married together for effective
result in the Lord's vineyard. Conversely, I had also discovered that deep spirituality/holiness without
sound educational background could lead to spiritual myopia and theological aberration and confusion.

* * * * * * * *

When I got home eventually, it was as if the world had come to an end. My father was very angry.

“So you have finally got what you want,” he uttered and went on. “Now leave my presence before I lose
my temper. You are really mad. I know quite all right you did not do what you were being accused of;
you only wanted to leave the seminary school at all cost and got it.”

I did not utter a word. I simply walked out of the living room where he and mother were and entered
our room. As for mother, she did not say a word. The sad look on her face and her watered eyes were
proof to any one that she was really in distress. I waited endlessly for me to be called again for an
interrogation but no one called me. I only heard some words in form of whispers from both father and
mother and I knew that some discussions were going on concerning the school where I would go to
finish my JSS 2.
 CHAPTER SEVEN

I became a student of Saint Charles College Onitsha in May 2002, after meeting all the admission
requirements. It was in the third term.Saint Charles as it is popularly called is a Catholic mission school.
Located along Oguta Road, Onitsha, it boasts of a spacious land space of beautiful old architectural
cream coloured buildings of the early white missionaries. At the front of the school is a very large statue
of Saint Charles and a black painted big gate connecting a seeming endless circular wall surrounding the
school.

My first week in the school was heaven. I felt liberated and in good spirits. Consequently I started well,
worked hard and was able to adapt to the school system. I met faces I knew from my hometown and
that of those who knew me before. We got along well and before long, I had friends.I was very happy.
Consequently, my academic performance improved greatly. Hence,I who used to be among those who
took the last position during examinations, turned out to be one of the brilliant students. Former
colleagues in the seminary only attributed this later development to my then being in the midst of less
brilliant students. However the truth remained that I was in an environment I liked and I took my studies
serious. I represented St. Charles in an external competition organized for schools by the Nigerian
Society of Engineers Anambra State chapter and came first in mathematics and second in industrial
technology. I received certificate of participation for it. Throughout my JSS2 at St Charles, my results
continued to improve. One who used to take 108th position in the seminary now took 2nd position. The
same feat continued in my JSS3 to the point I was recognized as the most brilliant student and the only
student to be selected to represent my school in the annual Cowbell competition. Then one day the
devil came. I was reading with other students in our class during night prep when one of our student
guardians Chimezie came and stood before me. “Follow me immediately,” he echoed with a feigned
smile. Chimezie hailed from my town Obosi, chocolate in colour, average in height and slim-built, he had
an oval face with gap-tooth that somehow revealed some sinister motive. I thought he wanted to send
me on an errand or that he wanted to beg me for my provisions as other senior students did often so I
followed him innocently. He took me to the SS3 hostel. Before I could know what was happening, he
took hold of my hand and led me to one of the cubicles.

“Look, just be quiet and don't do anything that will attract any attention,” he whispered to my ear.

Then, he tried to kiss me severally but I kept moving my head sideways to evade his kisses. I was too
shock to fight; too scared to shout and too disgusted to even breathe. This was because his mouth smelt
very rancid okra soup, cigarette and local gin. I wanted to puke but was choked and terribly devastated
to move. Then my whole body began to shake. When he saw how my body was shaking and how I
wasn't responding to his kisses he then realized that I had never been in such act before. Consequently,
he stared at me as a predator would a prey. Next, he brought out a small container skin-cream from
nowhere and pulled off his own trousers and pants.
“Remove your shorts,” he whispered in an alluring but harsh tone. When I hesitated, he quickly
unbuttoned the light-creamish shorts and pulled down my shorts. Then, he quickly rubbed the cream on
my thighs and in-between my legs. Thereafter, he swiftly thrust his manhood in-between my legs. It was
the most disgusting experience I had ever had all my life. While he was at it, I was thinking if it was a
punishment for the manner I made myself to be expelled from the seminary and wondered if I would
ever get my life back. If the incident had happened a year or two when my life had become that of a
monster, I was sure I would have committed murder that I would have never regretted all my life till I
die. As that monster continued to thrust his manhood in and out of me, I wept and wondered what
would become of my fate thereafter. After a couple of minutes, I felt hot liquid on my laps. Then he
wiped his manhood with his white shirt and wore his pants.

“Wear your shorts and get out,” he ordered me, with a threatening tone, but I was in great shock and
could not move. Actually, in my mind, I was running but my body couldn't move. When he saw that I did
not move, he felt threatened.

“I said get out of this place before someone comes here,” he yelled in a muffled tone as he gave me a
very painful slap across my face.

I cried pitifully in utter confusion, frustration and dejection. Then I sluggishly wore my shorts and in
tears, dragged myself out of the hostel. My temperature rose yet I was feeling very cold, and was unable
to talk to anybody. I walked dejectedly straight to my bunk to sleep but sleep flew from me. That night,
my friends knew something was wrong with me but they could not discover exactly what happened.

“What happened to you?” one of them who shared the same bunk tier asked me but I did not say a
word. His name was Emeka, fair-skinned and shortly-built.

“Mekus, leave him may be he doesn't want us to know,” Mich, dark-skinned and slim intoned.

One after another, they made frantic efforts to find out what was wrong with me but did not succeed.
Then, they concluded that I might have been flogged or punished, and finally left me alone when one of
them said: “Let us leave him. I know in the morning, he will be all right.”

As soon as I was left alone, many thoughts in me ran wild. I thought of committing suicide but
afterwards decided against it because I remembered mother. I thought also about going home the
following day. Again, I remembered I would not be welcomed because my parents were angry that I left
the seminary. Further, I thought of reporting the matter to the school authority but was too scared
Chimezie and his class mates would make life hell and miserable for me. In addition to the possibilities
that they might explore to ensure Chimezie escaped any accusation and punishment. With this last
thought, I miserably relapsed into my hopelessness and melancholy.

Today, I have realized, I should have reported Chimezie. Again, I have realized what many boys, girls,
and ladies who were victims of rape passed through and yet remained silent out of fear of intimidation.
Nevertheless, I have realized that I should have reported my predator to the school authority and that
keeping silent was the worst and most dehumanizing thing that eventually left a traumatic and terrible
scar on my psyche. Now, it is my conviction that any victim of rape or sexual abuse should report the
matter to the relevant authorities.
 * * * * * * * *

The next morning, I woke up not having any desire or intention of attending lessons. So I took my bath,
dressed in grey-coloured shorts and left the school. Through Oguta Road, I roamed other streets. This
continued for some days and my friends could not understand anything. However, those days away
from lessons really did some magic to my battered mind. They helped me to recuperate and I felt better.
Consequently, after some days of truancy and nursing of my injured self, I came into the class during
night prep.

“Wao, here is Xoxo, Xoxo where have you been all these days? No one have been able to see you attend
class,” Emeka shouted attracting the attention of others.

“He seems like a ghost, appearing and disappearing,” remarked Emenike, another dark-skinned
classmate who sat at the right extreme front corner of the classroom.

“Let's see if he is not a spirit,” Mich said, as he rushed out of his back seat and touched me severally.

“I think it is Xoxo,” Mich added and went on. “Do you know Xoxo, Senior Chimezie had been looking for
you?”

At the mention of the name Chimezie my heart nearly stopped beating before I could regain my full
senses. Next, before I could utter a word, Chimezie as if a ghost appeared from nowhere and stood at
the door of the classroom staring at me.

“Come follow me,” he ordered with a tone of seniority, pointing his hands towards me. Before he could
finish his disgusting words, I had fled through the open window into the thin air. I slept in the field that
night amidst cold and danger. For several nights, I did the same thing. So, it did not take time, my
classmates noticed that I no longer attended lessons or slept in the hostel anymore.

“What is wrong with you these days? You no longer attend lessons, or seen reading your books or sleep
in the hostel,” Emeka confronted me one day.

“Why don't you tell us what is happening to you Xoxo,” Mich intoned disappointedly, as he stared at me
in disgust and then looked at Emeka inquisitively.

Notwithstanding their insistence, I kept mute and was too scared to talk to them or to reveal what was
happening to me to anyone. Consequently, from then onwards, the ceiling of my square-shaped
spacious classroom became my bunk and the ceiling rats, bats and every other rodent became my bunk
mates. Indeed as time went by, I began to prefer them to the monster-students in the hostels. Besides,
these new friends were very considerate as they always excused themselves whenever I was around.

School became frustrating. It did not take time, my classmates started sending massages to my parents
that I had become a truant and that I no longer attended class. Indeed, I had no slightest idea what I was
going through. They did not know how much of a fugitive I had become in my own school.
One sunny day, while others were in the class studying, I was in the green school field alone wearing a
white shorts and a white shirt. It did not take time, I went to an unattended farm which served as my
hideout because it was somehow bushy. I was very hungry, angry and tired.

I sat just there with my eyes wide open and looked at nothing in particular. Suddenly, I heard a noise or
would I say a whisper. Next, I saw a movement in the grass and realized something was approaching me.
Surprisingly, it was a black snake, a very big and long one. I was very hungry to get up, too tired to move
and too shocked to utter a sound or shout. Because I could not do anything, I then sat still and watched
helplessly. To my utter surprise, the snake stopped coming towards me. It only stopped and started
looking at me too. We looked at each other for sometime before a prayer I couldn't figure out its origin
erupted from me thus:

“O ye serpent; O you wisdom of Old. Give me your strength and might. Give me your power and your
venom that my enemies I could destroy.”

After some minutes, the snake lowered its head, wore off its scale and crawled away. Then, as if under a
spell, I stood up from where I was sitting, picked up the scale, wore it around my neck and started
walking towards the hostel. Some students who saw me were frightened; some ran away while others
chanted my name in praise. My eyes were heavy and very bloody and my whole being shook
intermittently and very hot like a goat meat on fire. I walked into our hostel, tied the scale around my
bed post and lay down and slept off. I was so surprised no one came to disturb me and no senior came
to flog me. I slept like a new born baby. I woke up the following day, took my bath, dressed up and was
ready for class. I didn't know what to do with the snake scale so I chopped it into pieces, put it in a cup
of tea and drank it. It was just a week to the school examination and few days into the Cowbell
competition I was selected to participate in. Because nobody saw me for many weeks, another boy
named Vincent was prepared for the competition.

“See Xoxo, now that you are back, we prefer you still go ahead and represent the school. The students
want that. They say they prefer you to Vincent. However to be just, we have decided that you and
Vincent would be tested,” the head of the science teachers told me when he came into our class. He was
dark in complexion, of average height and in his late forties. “Did you understand what I said,” he added.
“Yes sir,” I intoned.

When the test came, I beat Vincent with a very wide margin and was selected again to represent the
school. That very day's night I took ill and was admitted in the hospital and for four days I was in the
hospital. Consequently, Vincent was again brought back and he represented the school in that
competition. In the same manner, the school exam came and went. I wrote the exam in ill-health yet I
did very well. I got 10A's and 2C's and we went home for the Easter Holidays. Father and mother were in
the living room when I arrived.

“Xoxo, let me see your results,” father intoned frowning. “Good afternoon sir,” I tried to greet and
wanted to greet mum but was interrupted. “Didn't you hear me?” Father yelled.

“I heard you,” I replied, opened my box hurriedly and brought out my result and handed over to him. He
swiftly glanced through it, showed same to mother who glanced through as well and beamed a smile.
“Well-done son,” she managed to say but father did not utter a word.
He paused for some time and I could sense that both he and mother were surprised. I knew they were
surprised. I knew they were surprised at the manner they exchanged glances at each other severally. I
knew their surprise came from the fact that my good result contradicted the reports they received from
both our students and teachers concerning my truancy and strange behaviour. I laughed to myself
because only I and God knew what I was going through in the school.

“Xoxo, take your things inside and go to the dining table; there is a flask of rice and stew I kept on the
dining table,” mother told me. “Thanks, but I'm not hungry mother,” I told her and walked into our room
feeling happy and liberated at least for the time being. Particularly I was happy I was not going to see
Chimezie at least for the short holidays we would have.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The third term of our JSS3 had commenced. I was walking towards the classroom one Monday morning.
It was drizzling. A senior student from nowhere accosted me. His name was Andrew. He was in SS3;
dark-skinned and at the same age bracket with Chimezie.

“Hei stop, I heard that you have started feeling big in this school and very disobedient. Make sure you
dare not misbehave before me.” he said and continued.

“Now go and buy for me some biscuits and a bottle of mineral.”

“Which brand of mineral,”I merely asked.

“Coke,” he responded and gave me a two hundred naira note. I took the money from him. I was bitter
and could not say what had come over me. I felt like tearing him to pieces. I knew I was no more that
little angel that came out of the seminary. Instead of getting what he instructed me to do, I took the
money and went back to the hostel. From then on, whenever any senior student gave me any money to
buy things for him, I would take the money and disappear without buying anything. The same thing
went with washing plates or other types of errand for them. I became hostile and snubbed them.
Because of all these, I was constantly on the run as many senior students were looking for me with the
intention of skinning me alive.

One evening, I was sitting on the raised cement made seat in the lower field thinking about my wretched
life when someone tapped me at the shoulder and called my name.

“Xoxo,” he called.

I turned around and it was Chimezie. This time I wasn't scared. I only felt disgusted at seeing him.

“Xoxo, what is wrong with you? Everybody is looking for you; all the senior students you disappeared
with their money are looking for you to eat, even Ejima,” he told me.

Ejima was a student every student dreaded the most, including the principal and the teachers.

“See, Xoxo, don't worry about Ejima and all those senior students. I am going to protect you,” he added.
Next, he held my hand so that I would not run away and led me to an uncompleted building.

“Now, zip down,” he said and put his hand in his white trousers pocket to bring out his cream.
It was then that it dawned on me that I wasn't the only victim of this wretched boy's menace; that there
were also other students experiencing the same fate like me but who were too scared to speak out or
report. It was then I realized that this monster while other students would be in the class studying or
having lessons, he roamed about the school with cream in his pocket looking for junior students to
sexually abuse. Filled with rage, I quickly put my hands in my shirt pocket and brought out a pair of
mathematics set compass, and stabbed him with all my strength three times; first, on the neck, then
cheek and shoulder. Quickly, I ran away while he shouted and bled in great pains.

I ran away from the school, never to return again, as returning would have dire consequences. Confused
as to what to do next, very dirty and hungry, I roamed the streets aimlessly. On reaching Old Cemetery, I
saw one of our students sitting on one of the pavements near a dilapidated kiosk that was no longer in
use. Dark in complexion, slim-built, bald-headed with flat nose, his white shirt and shorts had turned to
brown colour for lack of care. He tried to force out a smile when he saw me.

“HeiMecha,” I intoned as I approached him.

“Xoxo, where are you up to at this school hour?” Mecha responded.

“Chill, I just want to relax, away from school problems,” I replied as I sat beside him.

His full name was Mechanic. Although it wasn't his real name. It was his pet name and he shortened it to
'Mecha'. Mecha was the most bullied and the most despised in the school because he was always very
dirty. He was the most bullied even by his own classmates. Not being a brilliant student coupled with
other problems, he became tired of school.

“What and where are you going?” Mecha asked me.

“Don't worry, I am tired of everything. I'm just running away from a monster that was bent on killing me.
I have just taught him the biggest lesson of his life. You know Chimezie now?”

“Yes I know that monster,” Mecha replied and went on to inform me about all Chimezie's several sexual
abuse of junior students including himself.

“Don't worry. Now that we are on the same page, I will take you to places of interest,” Mecha told me.

From there, Mecha and I became partners and he took me to places I never would have imagined. He
was able to do this because, being Onitsha-born and bred, he knew all the nook and cranny of the city.
He took me to “Mami Market” where sex was almost free. Then he took me to a centre where we
played video games.

“Where do we sleep?” I asked him. “Never mind Xoxo, I have a place where someone accommodates us.
His name was Oga Charlie. He has a shop opposite our school gate,” he responded.

At this, I became a little bit apprehensive.

“Don't worry, Oga Charlie's shop is not too conspicuous as you think,” Mecha explained to calm me
down.

“All right, I trust your arrangement,” I said finally.

At night, we slept at Oga Charlie's shop, a shop where pepper soup and 'Agidi' were sold. Oga Charlie
was a middle aged fair-skinned average in height man who took everything as business and source of
making money. He harbored runaway male and female students who were looking for places to hide
away from their parents and guardians. For girls he harbored, he gave away to immoral men as sex toys
for financial gratification.

The shop though old was spacious enough. It had a bed and some wooden cushion sofas.

One fateful night, we came to Oga Charlie's shop at about 11pm and met two chocolate skinned average
in height girls hanging around the shop.

“Who are these girls,” I asked Mecha.

“They are SS1 students from Ado Girls Secondary School Onitsha,” Mecha replied.

“Does it mean they will be sleeping in the shop with us?”

“Yes, they ran out of school looking for shelter like you. One of the girls had been brought to sleep at
Oga Charlie's shop earlier by friends who were not with them,”Mecha explained to me and then stared
at the girls.

“Why did you not knock and why stand outside?” Mecha asked the girls.

“We were too scared to knock,” one of the girls replied.

Then Mecha knocked at the shop's door so confidently as if it was his own house and Oga Charlie came
and opened the door. “Good evening sir,” we all greeted in unison and all of us, including the two girls
went in.

“Evening,” Oga Charlie intoned and went to a longer cushion and lied down.

I expected Oga Charlie to ask who those girls were but to my greatest surprise, he didn't even say
anything. The girls went straight to the moderate size iron bed while I went and laid in one of the
cushions. The electric light was dim. It did not take up to twenty minutes and I hadn't even closed my
eyes when the girls began to moan in sexual pleasure. I then realized why Oga Charlie preferred sleeping
in the shop to sleeping with his heavily pregnant wife at home. While they were at it, I was busy thinking
about how to fix my battered life. I then resolved to go home to my father the next day and tell him all
my problems. Perhaps, he would help me fix back my shattered life especially put Chimezie away for
good. I was about sleeping off when I felt a hand caressing my legs. I wanted to kick off the hand but the
hand was soft, tender and feminine. Not long, I realized it was one of the girls, the one that supposed to
be with Mecha. She started sucking my manhood and before I could do anything, she was already on top
of me, riding me like one of those ladies one sees on blue film screens. I did not respond because I had a
bigger preoccupation on my mind. So I couldn't push her away, added to my tiredness mixed with the
sexual pleasure. Further, I could not understand why SS1 students could leave the comfort of their
hostels and come to sleep with two dirty boys. If they could do that at that stage of their lives, what
would they not do in say five years to come, I wondered.

The next morning before others could wake up, I had opened the door and left for home. The day was
still a little dim. Only few vehicles and people walked about to their various destinations. I trekked
home. It was a long trek from one town to another but I was ready to do it. I reached home at about
10am but there was nobody at home and I had no keys to open the doors. So I waited outside patiently
for someone to come home. I didn't know my parents were looking for me everywhere. Even teachers
and students were searching the whole school and neighborhood for me.Father was on his way to the
police station when someone told him he saw me at home. I waited patiently like a prodigal son hoping
that the Biblical prodigal parable would be applicable to me and my African Father. Hence, when I saw
father coming, I was relieved and felt very much alive just like the apostles of Jesus felt when they finally
saw Jesus. I was wrong. I didn't see an open arm. What I saw was a terribly enraged, furious, frustrated
and disappointed man.

“Where are you coming from? Where have you been? What is wrong with you? What has come over
you?” Father thundered without allowing me to respond to the questions one after another.

I tried to reply but was swiftly interrupted by a blinding slap from my no-nonsense-father. Then hell was
let loose, uncountable number of slaps rained on every part of my body and I could only faintly hear
some of father's angry words thus:

“You want to be an irresponsible child. You want to destroy your life and future?”

As he yelled and slapped and hit me, I wished I had stayed with Mecha and the two girls. I wished I
didn't trouble myself trekking tiresomely home to be just beaten. I wished I had continued to feed with
the swine than returning back to my father. I felt that if father had investigated the cause of my bad
behaviour, perhaps he would have used a different approach to solve it.

When my younger brother entered Christ the King College Onitsha, he was doing very well and his
results were good. However, in JSS2, his academic performance began to deteriorate. Father became
very irritated and questioned why endlessly. He scolded and beat my younger brother but to no avail
until I suggested that school should be changed for him. That was the only advice I gave as a child that
was taken. Consequently, my brother was transferred to Marist Brothers of the School Nteje, Anambra
State, where he finished in flying colours as one of the most brilliant students. Till today, nobody knew
what happened to him at Christ the King College that caused his poor performance or what made me
become tired of school during my secondary school days.

When father had finished beating me mercilessly to his satisfaction, he intoned after some time: “Xoxo,
go and eat your food. It is at the dining table. “I hesitated, though against my will. “Didn't you hear me? I
said go and eat your food,” he thundered. I knew it was a command, so I sluggishly dragged myself up
from the floor where I was and went to the dining room and ate the rice that was kept in a red flask
thereafter I went to sleep for sleep was one of the many things I hadn't had well for a long time. Father
might be strict and bossy, but he is very caring. Even when his financial condition deteriorated so much
because of his long years of joblessness caused by his obsessed convictions and principles, he still cared
for his children. He would always ensure that little things needed in the house were provided. Things like
toilet tissue, match box, bathing soap, kerosene was never lacking in the house. We still had our normal
three square meals only that the quality depreciated over time. None of us was ever sent home for non-
payment of school fees or had we ever looked tattered and unkempt. As for father, despite his
excruciating financial situation, he would never be seen in hotels or beer parlour. He had just a pair of
shoes, one piece of suit and a few shirts. For over ten years, father had been jobless, without any earned
salary or wage. One day, I had asked mother why father had not been working. “See Xoxo,” she said
with a sad face while struggling to fight back her tears. “Your father always quit his jobs whenever he
sees anything that is not right. He left the last job because his boss made a transaction he didn't support
as a financial controller whose advice would have mattered. Your father is so addicted to principles and
orderliness. He handles other people's business as though they were his own. No business or company
will ever fold under his watch,”mother told me.“But mother, can't you tell him to at least remember his
children before quitting any job?” Mother laughed dryly.“Son, you didn't know that your father once lost
his job because he refused to sign a document already approved by his boss to buy a car, for his twenty
one years old girl friend?” I merely stared endlessly at mother after those words and did not know what
to say afterwards.

CHAPTER NINE

I woke up afterwards with a mixture of feeling – feeling of a good sleep and that of excruciating sadness.
I felt good because I had had a good sleep that eluded me for a long time. I was very sad because my life
seemed battered and shattered, with seeming hopelessness of any remedy and no one to talk to. Father
was so much disappointed in me. He felt that after borrowing to pay my school fees, I turned to become
an irresponsible child. Here, I think he was wrong. He did not understand me. He failed to investigate
the root cause of my misbehaviour. He did not know that I had wanted to tell him everything, but the
manner of his handling the matter did not allow me to do that. All that he believed was that I was
listening to and following the truants living around us. As I was in the deep confusion of my life, sitting
on the edge of our bed, he came in with a frightening countenance. “Take this money and go back to
school immediately. If you want what is good for you, do it, but don't let me hear again that you left the
school premises,” father intoned and left our room quickly.

Just then mother entered our room. I could sense she was terribly affected by what had happened. She
was wearing a multi-coloured skirt and a black blouse.

“Son please, do not leave school again. See your father is borrowing to see that you and your siblings go
to school. Do not make it harder for him and me by your behaviour,” mother said with almost tears in
her eyes and left.

I wanted to tell her something but could not. I opened my mouth severally and shut it the same way. I
looked at the money father gave me and it was two thousand naira.“Which school is father talking
about? The only school I know is hell. What do I do,”I asked rhetorically. I thought seriously on where I
would go immediately I left. After much thinking, I felt that the only place I would go was to look for
Mecha. As the devil might have planned it, as soon as I got near the school and alighted from the bus,
the first person I saw was Mecha. “Xoxo, the man,”he shouted in excitement. He was very happy to see
me. “See, this evening is going to be hot. There will be harvest and bazaar sales at Iba Pope Awada
Catholic Church Obosi. That means more girls more fun and more pranks,” he echoed with a devilish
grin. At that moment, I wondered who was to blame. Was it my father who sent me back to school or
the demon Chimezie who sent me out of school or Mecha who was standing before me talking
nonsense? I was so confused. I couldn't go back home for fear of father's lashes and couldn't go to
school because it smelt serious trouble for me. I was left without any other option than to follow Mecha
like a lamb meant for slaughter. “Ok let's go for the bazaar,” I uttered absent- mindedly and sluggishly.
“What time is the bazaar?” I added. “Just8pm,” he said almost jumping up like a little monkey in frenzy. I
could not help but wonder what on earth we could be doing and where we would be from 3pm till 8pm.
Nevertheless, I felt a little bit excited about the fun who would have.

After walking aimlessly for about twenty minutes, I stopped and stared at him. “What is it Xoxo,” Mecha
asked, smiling. “Where on earth are we going?” I asked

“Chill Xoxo,”he spluttered.“You know I don't like doing things without knowing why.” “Don't worry now,
we have to kill time till the bazaar. I too don't know where we are going but I know it's worthwhile,” he
added. I didn't know what else to tell him at that moment. If I had known where else to go, I would have
left him at that point. We walked and talked till we got to a place I had not been before. Many students
from different schools and school dropouts and touts in tired and unkempt hair were there gambling.
The place was everything except decency. I didn't know if we got there by chance or if Mecha actually
knew we were coming there.“Now, we can kill time,”he said to me instantly. I felt he intentionally
brought me there. I was surprised and confused at the number of students who had left their various
schools for different reasons; while their parents thought they were in school. I was really saddened not
because of my condition but for those students and their parents. In order not to be a joy killer, I
comported myself and joined the boys gambling. I used the money father gave me. I thought I was
whiling away time. I did not know I had ventured into the world of gambling with its attendant addiction.
I made extra one thousand, eight hundred Naira that day. I was happy but Mecha was happier. We left
by 6.45pm in excitement but my three hours there taught me a lifetime lesson. I discovered that among
those who roam the streets are those students who have passion for football, music, acting movie,
comedy, modeling politics, or business among others would not like to be in a conventional classroom
but in academic setting that lead to the above profession. I think that African parents should understand
this and not force their children into conventional classrooms and into professions the children don't
like. Of course, formal education is indispensable but I think parents should reach a compromise with
them to engage in formal education for a time and encourage them to enroll in academies that make
their dreams come true. They should remember Michael Jackson, LeonardodaVinci, Tiger Woods, Arnold
Schwarzenegger, Lionel Messi, Chinua Achebe and others who followed their passion became famous.

Further, I realized that among students who leave school and roam the streets are the most
brilliant ones who feel nothing new are taught in schools so they leave school in search of something
new and better. These should not be sent to regular schools but to a technical school or a school meant
for the gifted brains. Iron sharpens iron, the Bible says. Connected to the above are those who are
academically backwards. These should be identified and sent to academic settings that are in line with
their dreams/ talents or passion. Finally are those students driven by different kinds of pressure. Some
students don't live with their parents. Hence they are mal-treated, troubled, sexually abused, and
frustrated among other psychological trauma. Any teacher, parent and guardian with good sense of
mentorship would understand enough to draw the children closer for proper guidance. These classes of
students should be identified and helped.

After the gambling, on reaching Oga Charles' shop, our girls were already waiting for the night.

“Hee girls, you are already here?”Mecha intoned in excitement, and rushed and hugged his own
girl, a dark-skinned girl, of average height in red dress.
The girls merely smiled.

“Then let's begin to have fun. Today seems to be exceptional, “he said looking at me.

I merely nodded, smiled forcefully.

“All right, a plate of pepper soup and a bottle of palm wine for the four of us,” I said. It did not waste
time, the ordered items were brought by Oga Charlie and we ate and drank. By 8pm, we left for the
bazaar at Iba Pope. When we got there, everywhere was lit up starting from the gates and streams of
people moved around like bees engaging in one type of activity or the other, mostly gambling. “Wao,
here is really fun. Come on Xoxo, let's have more fun,” Mecha said excitedly. “You are right,” I replied
and our girls simply smiled and looked on. I walked into the church compound and Mecha and the girls
followed. “Let me gamble a little before we eat again,” I told them and went three steps where a kind of
gambling was taking place.

There was a wide circle made with a strong rope. Every gambler stood outside it and threw money
inside the circle. Any money that entered a tiny hole made at the centre of the circle won. I played that
gamble and made more money. Thereafter, we went to where they sold jollof rice with meat, beer
among other things and ordered for food and drinks. We ate and drank and I played more gamble and
made more money.

“I think we should go home now,” Mecha's girl said softly. “I am beginning to feel asleep.”

“Me too,” my girl, chocolate- skinned, oval-faced, plump and average in height concord.

“All right XOXO, I think we should go home now,”Mecha said, tapping my shoulder.

We talked and trekked until we reached Oga Charles's shop. The shop was locked and Oga Charles was
not there.

“Don't worry, I know where the key is,” Mecha said and went by the corner of the door and raised a
plank up, collected the key and opened the shop. Then we arranged the cartons of beer and you could
guess what happened next. Starting from that day, I became addicted to gambling. I would gamble until
I could no longer gamble. It became a routine that I got addicted to it. It became worse, to the point that
it started disgusting me. “What are you saying?” Mecha asked me, as we argued about it.

“I said I am getting tired of this gambling. I want to stop it. It seems I am hooked to it. I can't even help
myself,” I said.

“Then go for deliverance.”

“Which deliverance?”

“To be free from gambling, idiot; can't you see gambling gives you money for drinks and women. Tell me
how you will be able to manage without it.”

I stared at Mecha without blinking. I could not say if he was right or wrong. I just stared at him without
saying a word.

One day, something happened that really shocked me . I opened my eyes one night and unusually the
light though dim was on. I saw Mecha naked and bent. He was supporting his weight by laying his two
hands on the parked cartons. Oga Charlie, naked too, was by his buttocks thrusting his manhood in and
out of his anus. That was the most disgusting thing I had ever experienced all my life. Before I would
know it, Oga Charlie moaned in his devilish ecstasy. The two cleared themselves and retired for sleep.

The following morning, when I went out for gambling, I asked Mecha: “Hei, what is that thing I saw you
and Oga Charlie do at night?” Mecha smiled dryly, reflected a little before he spoke.

“One good turn deserves another,” he replied.

“What do you mean? “I asked him. “Does it mean that Oga Charlie is bisexual?” “You know the answer
already, see, Oga Charlie gives me shelter and food. If I don't give in, those things will not be provided by
him.” “Or that both of you are bisexual?” I chipped in. I expected Mecha to say something. Instead of
doing that, he merely shrugged his shoulder and laughed dryly. I stared at him with disgust, then looked
away to continue with my gambling which had become my second nature. I gambled, drank, smoked
and slept in shops.

One day, we were gambling and Mecha said to me: “I overheard someone saying that everyone
including your parents and the school authorities are looking for you.” “You don't need to tell me. I
know that and my stories have gone to my parents that I am missing. I pity only my mum whom I was
told is crying always. Dad has seen that it's not a case of shouting and beating anymore; I was told he is
always in deep thought and had gone to one Fr. Gabriel Okafor who told him it was not ordinary. I
understand he had given my father some psalms and prayers and promised to pray with him as well.
That is to tell you I know everything going on and don't need an informant,“ I responded. Mecha stared
at me in great shock. Just then one of our male teachers, dark-skinned and in white shirt and black
trousers came in to look for a change. He had photocopied some documents at the next door shop and
had no change to give so he came in for some help. After collecting the change, he was about to leave
when he suddenly turned his eyes towards me. “Xoxo,” he called, astonished. I did not respond. I was
shocked and surprised he could recognize me, given the fact that I was disguised; I had put on a fez cap.

“Ibeme,” he shouted angrily my surname when he saw I did not respond. This time I was forced to turn
and look at him. “Are you not the one everybody is looking for?” he asked, frowning. “No, not me, it was
my twin brother,” I lied. “I'm also here in search of him too. I'm only here pretending to be playing game
but hoping he would show up.” He bought the story and left. Because I was addicted to the game and
hooked by the money I was making, I did not leave the spot immediately and was unaware that my
mother was already in the school. Unknown to me also MrAkwue, the teacher I told lies earlier went
back and told my mother that he saw my twin brother where he went to look for change, opposite the
school gate. My mother had shouted and told him that it must be me he saw and that I had no twin-
brother. So they ran and came to get me. As for me, as soon as MrAkwue left the shop, I knew I had
been discovered. However, the game and the money I was making did not allow me to leave the place. I
was still playing the game when my mum, some teachers and some students who were mostly my
friends from home rushed into the shop where I was. Tears were dropping off from my mother's cheeks.
As she stood before me dejected and traumatized, I felt pity for her. She had left her teaching job that
day, risked her job to come to look for me. Tears watered my eyes. “It is okay son, let's go home,” she
uttered so softly and kindly as she embraced me. Terribly touched, obliged, I followed her home. This
was less than a week to the commencement of the Junior Secondary School Certificate Examination. I
didn't even know my exam number or class, but I was put through within a few days. For over two
months, I didn't enter the classroom, opened any book or handled any biro but I wrote the exam. When
the result came out, I got 3As and 9Cs. Indeed, the result was below what I could have got under normal
condition.However, nobody knew I was going to sit for the exam not to talk of having nine credits. I
entered the exam hall thirty minutes after the commencement of each paper and left thirty minutes
before each paper would elapse because of my fear of Ejima. My being in JSS classes came and went. I
went home and life went on too but not without some unforgettable lessons. I have discovered that all
gamblers are losers and that it does not matter the type of gambling, be it lotto or lottery. Gamble -
money is like a stolen money. If you win today even if it is up to a million Naira, you will not know how
the money is squandered and you will be broke again. The day you will lose, it will be like the end of the
world has come for you. It is better one is addicted to drinking and smoking than to gambling even
though all of them will ultimately lead you to your early grave. Furthermore, there is one of our
classmates, I will never forget in my life at St Charles College. His name was Nonso. Haggard looking,
slim and dark in complexion, Nonso was neither pious nor religious. In fact, he was the only smoker in
our class when I had not even started smoking in addition to the fact that he liked women a lot. One
thing unique about this young man was that whenever he was moody, he could say things that usually
came to pass. In our JSS 3 second term, Nonso had called me “legion” and I did not understand why he
called me that. In the same vein, one day, he told a boy,I have forgotten his name; “if you play football
today,” he told the boy, “you will never play football again in your life.” The boy was adamant and began
to insult Nonso. “Who do you think you are?” he said angrily and went on. “Even if you are a witch, I
want you to know that you cannot do me anything idiot. Just mind yourself and stay away from me.”
The boy went ahead to play football. Ten minutes into the game, the boy fell from the upper field to the
lower field and dislocated his leg that it took him many months to be able to walk with walking stick;
Nonso had said such things in the past to some other students and teachers and it came to pass.
Because of such occurrences, I accosted Nonso that fateful day thus:

“Why do you always call me legion,” I asked threateningly. “It is because you are many,” he told me
hastily. “What do you mean?” I quipped, in confusion. “If I look at you sometimes, I wouldn't see just
only you but many you around you and they are always with you.” “But how”, I asked. “Please leave me
alone. You know what I am talking about. You are the one leading them,” he echoed and ran away.
Weeks later, when we were in JSS3 X, a class I created in an uncompleted building at the back of the
school, where students who were tired of school gathered to smoke, drink, gamble, talk about girls and
love and waste their precious time. That time, they were all talking about girlfriends and what they
would give them on the Valentine Day. “Why are you not contributing or don't you have a girlfriend or
love anybody?” one of the boys, fat and dark skinned and with bushy hair asked me. “I don't waste my
time loving, because all the girls are prostitutes. No girl has ever had just one boyfriend and this is the
norm till they are married if they will remain faithful. There is always an 'ex' and a 'next', and all of them
will have sexual intercourse with your so called girlfriend; you will spend lots of money trying to please
her. Is that not the same thing with prostitutes? The only difference is that prostitutes save you time and
stress. Hence, I don't waste my time loving.” These my statements infuriated Nonso so much that he
told me to my face. “You think you're leading those people around you. You are not thinking it right. You
are their slave. Your hands and feet are tied. In fact, you will remain stagnant from now to a very long
time, till love sets you free. You claim you don't love, but it's only love, genuine love that can set you
free.”

I was shocked and confused. Nobody ever understood what he was saying so we just laughed and
ignored him. However, I have since learnt that a wise man always gives ear even to the babbling of a
mad man because sometimes, it takes a mad man to say the truth. Hence, one should not be quick to
ignore what one hears because even in a nonsense, there is always a “some-sense.”

CHAPTER TEN

The day broke with soothing early morning sun. The chirping of the insects had given way to the
chirruping of birds and intermittent musical notes of early morning breeze propelled by the rhythmic
dance of the surrounding trees. I yawned as I sat up in my bed ruminating over all that I had read and
would read. I had all the opportunities because it was my JSS3 long vacation which unfortunately
marked the beginning of my woes. It was a period during which I read most. Yes, I read but only read
things that should not be read by any sane person. My late priest uncle being deeply involved in
spiritism and black magic had lots of magic book in his library. Beginning from the 6th, 7th, and 8th,
books of Moses, to the Secrets of the Lost Years of Jesus Christ, there were so many of these occultic
books I couldn't remember, but I read them all. After reflecting on some of these books I read, it seemed
I went back to sleep, or should I say into a trance and my late uncle appeared and approached me. “Do
not be afraid,” he told me smiling and went on. “I am your guardian angel.” I looked at him and
chuckled. He was wearing a soutane. I was not scared of him because I am not the kind of person that
gets scared by what normally scares people. However, I was agitated so I quickly had to respond to his
statement. “If you are my guardian angel, you must be very wicked; how can I have a guardian angel and
I'm suffering like this?” I asked him disrespectfully. “Are you really suffering?” he asked, mindless of my
disrespectful tone. “No, I'm enjoying, I'm flexing, I'm chilling,” I responded sarcastically. “What do you
want?” he asked me. The question struck me like a thunder bolt. Many people had in the past asked me
similar question but I was not able to answer it and I believe many others would not be able to answer
the question. When he asked the question, I felt like laughing but the expression on his face showed a
very serious man that did not need to be played with. “What do you want?” he asked again, this time in
a high tone. On hearing that same question, I felt like dying. I felt that was the simplest and most
important question in my life, yet the most difficult question I had ever encountered. I had for a long
time been confused about the course of study or my life; confused about my innermost desire. It was
obvious to me then that I did not care about riches as most people do. I wanted money, yes but just
enough to fulfill my aspirations and become a blessing to others. I wanted so many things in life just that
they were not the things I needed. I was just there staring at him not knowing what to say till something
spoke from inside of me, something I knew wasn't actually of me, but probably was buried in me; that
thing spoke inside me in a simple straight sentence. “I want power,” it echoed “I knew you will say that,”
my uncle said and went on. “I know your inner desires, even the one you try so hard to suppress. I knew
you even before you were born. I watched you grow. I will tell you this once son. You are not an ordinary
boy. You were born of a spirit and of flesh.” He then paused and stared at me before he continued. “The
Bible will call you Nephilium but I call you demi-god because that's what you are. Gods do not beg for
powers. They are power themselves. You already have that which you yearn for in you. All you need to
do is to exercise it. You are still a boy son. You are just a little boy but the time will come when you will
uncover all that is buried in you and you will find out you are the last key.” I looked at him as if he was a
stranger speaking a foreign language I could not understand. “Which key,” I was forced to ask him at
last. “The key of Armageddon. You will determine the end time. You have a role to play on how the
world is going to end. You are to stitch the sundered veil. But don't worry boy, you are barely thirteen. I
will guide you through the next five years but on your 18th birthday, you will choose your faith; you will
become but I beg you to think it through. Think far and beyond before you decide because your destiny
may make or destroy you; from now on, every May will be your most confused and unstable month and
every June will be your worst month. You have seventy demons and two angels guiding you; they
represent the seventy two spirits of the life you possess. They will make you and they will destroy you.
For they are your destiny.” Then he stared at me intently before he went on. “You are the bridge
between life and death, good and evil, light and darkness, truth and lies, up and beneath, heaven and
hell. You have the heart of an angel, the mind of the devil and the strength of a god. You are the left side
of the principal four. Two thousand years ago, it wasn't just a son that was born; while J.C was doing his
thing, there's someone dressed in black watching from a distance. Many people think J.C. came to die
for the sins of the world, no way. As time goes on, you will still uncover the truth about what happened
over thousand years ago. Till the time is ripe, till you fulfill your own destiny, you'll help me finish what I
already started here. I was burnt.” At this point, I was greatly shocked. However, I wasn't confused that
the man standing before me was a mad man, but the thing was that nobody was standing before me.
“Who burnt you and why couldn't you finish? If I'm to help you, at least I have the right to know,” I
asked him anyway. ”One step at a time son, you'll still grow to know, but till then, I'll be right there, no,
right here, just beneath your soul. I'll guide you from here. Sleep. Sleep on son, but now for the first
time, you'll remember son, yes, you will. Now sleep son, now sleep….. AVTAR KAAR TUMA.” Thus ended
his presence and word. I woke up wondering if it was a dream, my imagination or reality. I would have
gone about my normal business believing it was a dream if I didn't see it; while we were talking he held
a book; when I woke, I saw the same book on the floor. The book was titled: 'Jesus the Man and his
Work.' I was shocked and confused. Because I have an inquisitive and curious mind, I picked up the book
and began to read. At first, I wondered why he gave the book but after reading the book, I realized why
he gave the book to me. From then, I became emotionally and psychologically unstable. A part of me
was excited while the other part was scared and the whole of me was really confused. I was great in
need of talking to someone but there was nobody I could talk to. I was much burdened in my heart. I
didn't know what to do so I became so lonely.When I couldn't bear the burden any longer, I decided to
confide in the only person I have in the whole world, my mum. So I looked for her and found her sitting
in a wooden bench in the veranda. “Hi mum, you are here. I have been looking for you,” I said. “Hope
nothing is wrong Xoxo?” she asked. “Nothing. It's just that I have something to tell you,” I said. “Go on,
I'm all ears.” Then I began from the beginning until I finished. From the look on her face, my story made
no sense to her. I didn't really expect my story to make any sense to her. She did the one thing she
would do. She told father who also didn't say anything. When I kept insisting what I saw and that I still
saw and spoke with my late priest uncle, father called me one day and scolded me seriously. He warned
me to stop saying silly things that scared my younger ones. One day, he caught me in the library talking
to what seemed to him like talking to myself. He was scared, not because I was talking to his late brother
but because he believed I was becoming mentally deranged owing to my taking cannabis. Something he
hadn't seen me smoke before. The only thing he did was to take me to our parish priest who locked me
up in the chapel. I was greatly up-set that nobody believed my story which was the truth. I felt that the
truth could be got even from a lunatic and their children at all times even when they were telling lies.
For nothing is entirely a lie, or entirely the truth. Everything in life is a mixture of truth and lie and that's
why life is so sweet. Truth in its entirely is very hard and bitter, also in its entirety is strong and hurtful.
So the sweet stories we hear and enjoy is a well-blended mixture of truth and lies in appropriate
proportions. Until one digs deeper, one will never discover where the truth and lies lie. It is only when
one listens to his children would the person discern the truth in their lies. I was locked up in the chapel
for four days without being allowed to go out or receive any visitor except the priest who usually came
to pray every morning. I was left alone in the chapel. Alone in the chapel I thought about my life, about
my family, about my father. I remembered how we used to live luxuriously in the past, when we had so
much to eat and drink. I remembered the fleet of cars and many visitors who visited our house then.
Now, we couldn't even feed well not to talk of luxury. The only ones who still visited us were those who
mocked or sympathized with us. Travails of life made father to grow older than his age mates. Both he
and mum were both psychologically and physically devastated. I felt for them, and felt their pain. It is
better not to enjoy wealth than to enjoy it and stop having it. More painful when you have all it takes to
make it but still do not. So, every night, father engaged in midnight prayers; he cried his eyes out. He
cried to the only person he had in the world; to the one person he believes, he should cry to. He prayed,
fasted from 6:00am to 6:00pm every day yet our financial condition became worse. I pitied mother
more, seeing the burden of the family's responsibilities weighing heavily on her meagre salary as a high
school teacher. I bled more, witnessing the meekness and the calmness with which my innocent siblings
tried to adapt to the whirling storm that tossed us around. My heart ached and bled, I'm the eldest child
yet I was helpless to help my own family. I was very angry and frustrated. I felt like punching someone
but there was nobody to punch, nobody to blame. Everybody carries his own cross, that's how life is and
so I was left without a choice.

Lying there on the pew, in the innermost chambers, the most sacred chamber 1.3 billion people, staring
at that which they hold so dear and put their hopes, faith and fate on; instead of punching, I began to
laugh. I used to wonder what on earth could be told a suicide bomber that would kill himself for any
doctrine, teaching or anything at all, yet I saw myself made to believe that a bread bought somewhere
and a wine manufactured in a factory had become the body and blood of a man who died over two
thousand years ago. I believed and was willing to die to protect it. I wondered the difference between
me and a suicide bomber. I have come to accept the fact that the greatest weapon on earth is
indoctrination. With it, one can build the worst and the most loyal army on earth. In order not to be a
Thomas unnecessarily coupled with the so many stories I had heard about the Blessed Sacrament
miracles, I decided to ask a question to the one I presumed to be present.

“Are you really there?”

Looking at the round piece of white unleavened bread, I felt a little bit like a fool. Nevertheless, I
continued. “I wouldn't want to have the idea that 1.3 billion people are foolish, so I think it safe to
assume that you are in there. Why then are you so wicked?” I asked, paused and then went on.

“Or maybe as it is written, 'I shall bless whom I shall bless,' I guess we are not among those you call
blessed, so my father has just been wasting his precious time knocking at the wrong door.”
 I stared at the tabernacle a couple of minutes, hissed and then lay down. After what looked like ages, I
sensed a different atmosphere in the chapel. I felt that I wasn't alone so I sat up to figure out what was
going on; I ceased to breath for a while. I saw a man who walked out from the tabernacle. I was too
shocked to breath, too shocked to shout or even to make any move, so I sat there staring like a newly
molded sculpture about to be displayed, flabbergasted to death point. One thing that stunned me most
was that, if that man was really who I thought him to be, which he was, then he was far, very much far
from what sculptors and painters paint him. He was not fair in complexion, he was dark, not dressed in
white. His robes was dark green or chocolate or some sort. The truth was that, I was too shocked to
mind the colour of his clothe. I couldn't even observe the make or the shape of his face. All I know is that
he was not any way near the drawings we make of him. He walked out of the tabernacle very gentle, but
so majestically. He was walking in the air, he came down toward me, looked at me and smiled.

“What do you want?” He asked me. This was the same question I haven't been able to answer till date. I
always give different response to it at different times depending on my mood.

“Nothing,” I responded which was the only thing I wanted at that time. He looked at me in surprise.

“Nothing?” He asked, to be sure and I nodded in affirmation.

“Why then are you disturbing my peace? Why then are you pissed off at me?”

As if struck by a lethal blow, my countenance changed to that of an angry man.

“My father is dying silently; my mum is ageing rapidly under the excruciating weight of family
responsibilities and you are here before me, asking why I am pissed off. Okay, I'm sorry, please forgive
me; I'm happy, really very happy,” I responded sarcastically in frustration. He looked at me shortly and
went on.

“Your father is suffering because he became my friend. That's how I treat my friends; I let my friends
suffer because I too suffered. It's only through suffering will someone get a real crown. Don't they say no
cross, no crown? If you want to make heaven, practice Luke 18:22. I love your father more now. It is now
that he has my time. He now goes to church every day and prays always as if it's his last day on earth;
that is the man I cherish; that is the man I made my friend.”

I looked at him with bitterness. “That's why you have no friends; all you have are fake friends who
pretend to be your friend only during difficult times. As for me, I'll never be your friend;I will never ever
pretend to be your friend even in the worst of all times.”

In a rage, I vowed tearfully never to have anything to do with God or the Church, in this life or in the life
to come. That was my first denunciation of God and handing over my soul to the devil. With that, I
passed out.

When I woke up, I didn't know what happened to me and for how long I had been unconscious. All I
know was that I passed out but didn't know for how long. The only thing I remembered was falling
through a tunnel or something that resembled that, into a white light. Everything and everywhere
appeared whitish, seeming like a whitish desert. The only difference was that instead of sand, there was
now warm misty snow. I was wandering alone in the middle of nowhere unaware of how I got there or
where I was going to. I wandered for a very long time till I found someone. He actually came to me. I
didn't know who he was or how he looked but I assumed he was my late uncle. I made the assumption
that he was my late uncle because he was the only unearthly being I had been communicating with and
partly because he was the only one who talked to me in the manner the unearthly being did. I didn't
bother to ask who hewas.I was more concerned about knowing where I was. “Where am I?” I asked the
spirit being.

“You're in the pathway,” he responded and then called it a name I could not recollect. Then he
continued.

“You haven't crossed over yet. Anybody that crosses over can never come back. It's not yet your time to
cross. You have a big task ahead of you; a task you must accomplish. The fate of lucifer, all the demons
and millions of lone spirits rests upon your shoulders; now go back.”

He spoke in a language I could not fathom and gave me a terrible slap. I woke up sneezing and my cheek
was paining me greatly. I did not know if it was the slap from the spirit being or that from Rev. Father
Gab. When I fully regained consciousness and my vision blurred no more, I realized I had caused a panic
to my father who stood there motionless with a terrible face and scared to death. Fr. Gab dark-skinned,
and fat who almost lost it in a confused state and Uchenna, slim and chocolate skinned, who was the
leader of the Mary League were there. They stared at me for some minutes, not sure of what to say
except my father who finally uttered. “Let's go home boy”. I rose nevertheless, my head ached, my knee
shook but my heart was hardened. I had chosen my path. I had written my destiny and I had got a new
ambition which was to be the head of all criminals and the leader in the execution of all that is
incriminating. I made my mind to be the leader in all crimes, first in Nigeria before I would extend them
to the whole world, to the point that no evil or crime would take place without my consent. That was
the reputation I wanted to build, the legacy I wanted to bequeath, to fulfil my destiny as a god, god of
the street. I resolved to work hard and toil strenuously to attain the feat.

I followed my father and went home that day. I didn't tell anyone my experiences in the chapel and in
the land of the spirits; nobody would have believed me anyway. Nevertheless, I began to strive to
explore the secrets of power and black magic, dark power, real power and not the nonsense written in
the 48 Laws of Power which I had read before. I started reading, digging deeply, practicing black magic
and changing friends. My associates became the street touts; those who had nothing to lose. They
weren't actually my friends; they were more of my willing tools, the pawns of my chess board.

In this life, I have seen that nobody gives what he doesn't have; yet we expect Jesus Christ to give us
what he doesn't have and wouldn't even want us to have. It was when I had gone deep into Christianity
that I realized the truth that we are all anti-Christs. Everybody alive, including the Pope, the bishops,
priests, pastors, evangelists, apostles, the laity and the unbelievers. We preach Christ but his life doesn't
reflect in us. One of the principles of truth is that there is no contradiction in two things that are
believed to be true. If there is, then it only shows that one of the things is a lie or that both of them are
lies. If we preach Christianity and do not live Christ's life, our lives contradict our words for we are
judged by our actions and not merely by what we say. Peter denied Jesus Christ but his life showed forth
Christ's life. Judas on the other hand preached Christ Jesus but his life contradicted his words. Hence
Peter was saved and Judas was doomed. Our greatest enemy is not the devil but self. What our religious
leaders care about is self not souls. They win people, not souls. They win people and lose souls. They are
not bothered how many people make heaven but how many people they have won over for themselves.
Christianity has become a commercial enterprise. That is why these days, the so called men of God fly
P.Jays, ride expensive flashy cars, wear designers, eat and dress luxuriously and preach prosperity.
When Jesus was on earth, there were rich people who lived in fine houses, rode horses with guards and
wore expensive robes; but he didn't make himself rich despite His power and influence. Instead, He
chose a life of poverty, celibacy, chastity, humility and charity. He wouldn't eat until His disciples had
eaten. He wouldn't go anywhere without them. He brought them very close to Himself so that they
could relate with Him as friends not as servants. The blind Bathemeus wouldn't have been able to reach
Him if He had been riding on a horse. The woman with the issue of blood wouldn't have been able to
touch Him if He was surrounded with guards. He wouldn't have had the zeal to feed five thousand men
if He was eating luxuriously. Mary wouldn't have washed His feet if He had been wearing designer
clothes and the disciples would not have been close to Him if he had been living in a mansion. Jesus
wouldn't have performed His miracles if He had been living in affluence. He wouldn't have understood
the needs of the people. I believe in the saying that if you want to catch a lunatic, you must behave like
one. Our religious leaders don't possess a little bit of Jesus' omnipotence yet they play God.

I have never seen any dreaded and the most powerful native doctor flying a jet or riding limousines, yet
many of them make people billionaires. I think they are true to their calling and their gods. Our religious
leaders claim that Jesus became poor so that we might become financially rich, yet Jesus Himself said
that if we want to be His disciples, we must deny ourselves, sell all that we have, carry our crosses and
follow Him. All His disciples and their disciples did the above.

Paul and his disciples did the above. All the early Christian leaders were not left out yet our present
leaders denounce the above tenets. Jesus' name is power personified. His life is His nature. The nature
of God exemplified in simplicity, selflessness, humility, poverty, chastity and charity etc. which are the
attributes of the Holy Spirit outlined in Galatians 5. We cry that our prayers are not answered but the
truth is that we pray amiss. We ask Jesus for a spouse when He was single all His life; we ask for wealth
when He was poor; we ask for children when He had none; we ask for long life when He only lived just
thirty three years. Monks and Nuns think they are on the right track but they too are wrong. The locking
up things ended with the Pentecost. If you are saved, come out and save others. If you lock yourself up
to avoid temptation, then you have no cross to carry. From all these, I came to the conclusion that we all
are anti-Christs. As for those who claim to have gone to heaven or hell and came back after death, all I
can say to such people and those who believe them is, “sorry you've been seriously deceived.”
 CHAPTER ELEVEN

Federal Government College Warri is one of the 104 Federal Government owned unity colleges
established with the aim of fostering national unity among youths from various parts of the country. It is
a co-educational day and boarding institution that prepares students for external examination and lays a
solid foundation for higher education. The school is located at, off Ogunu Road Warri, Delta State
Nigeria. It has well-structured architectural buildings meant for both classrooms and administrative
purposes.

The grasses are always beautifully cut and kept tidy with some well positioned trees that are
strategically located for the provision of shelter and ascetics. Interesting places near the college include
some hotels, Word of Life Bible Church, Delta Broadcasting Service, Four Square Gospel Church, Shell
Club, Ogunu among others.

I was admitted into Federal Government College Warri in October 2003 after our JSS3 long holidays to
do my SS1. I was in the science class. Compared to St. Charles, it was a worse place for me and hellier. To
compound the already worse problem, I had grown stubborn much more. My worsening travails began
with an SS3 student called Bush. Dark skinned, stoutly built, with rough skin and ugly face, Bush was the
most dreaded student that was not only feared by the students but also by the teachers. Nobody
actually knew his real name; only a few did. At the commencement of every academic session, every
student from SS2 to JS2 usually were compelled to pay a hundred naira for the Bush fee except the class
captains who were in charge of collecting the money.

“Give me N100 Bush fee,” our class captain, a frail-looking fair-skinned oval-faced boy told me one day
in the class.

I looked at him in confusion and disgust.

“What is it for?” I managed to ask, my temper rising.

“It is a custom in this school that at the resumption of school every session, all the students from SS2
down to JSS2 pay One Hundred Naira for the Bush fee,” the class captain explained.

This time I could no longer control my temper.

“Go and collect Pokka's fee from Bush and bring here in the next ten minutes,” I roared in rage.

The class captain was greatly shocked. This was because nobody had ever had the effrontery to
challenge the most dreaded Bush, not even the teachers let alone an unknown SS1 boy. Quickly, the
class captain left to tell Bush, crying not for himself but for me.

At Federal Government College Warri then, there was an exalted pedigree of seniority. Hence, a pair of
black shoes and long sleeves clearly marked off the senior students. A JS1 student dared not talk back at
a JS2 student let alone disobey or insult him. In a school like that, for an SS1 student to disobey not just
an SS3 student, but the most dreaded student in the school was inconceivable. That was how I became a
plague everyone avoided, including my classmates. That only confirmed what someone had told me in
the past that bad luck followed me wherever I went.

Being a 'fresher' entitles me to a one week grace before being welcomed into the usual school bully and
maltreatment by the senior students. For the whole one week, I noticed I was the only SS1 student in
our hostel who slept in the hostel between the hours of 4pm and 12am and the only one who was seen
in the hostel between 4am and 8am. Every other student at this time would go into hiding to avoid the
maltreatment of the senior students. I didn't know I was enjoying my week of grace till after a week and
a day. I had woken up like every other and as usual was walking confidently to fetch some water for my
bath.

“Xoxo,” I heard my name called.

“Hey you SS1 student, stop there,” I heard someone say. I stopped, thinking someone reasonable
wanted to tell me something meaningful. To my greatest surprise, empty buckets started falling down to
the ground were I stood.

“Make sure you fill them up and bring them upstairs,” I heard voices echo. I made a quick eye contact of
the whole buckets and they were twenty six in number. I hissed, passed over them, took my bath at the
tap and went for lessons. This was my second sin.

One Monday morning, our physics teacher came into the class. A man in his late thirties, he was dark in
complexion, plump and of average height. Soon he began to teach us about motion.

“The first law of motion states that a body will remain in its state of rest or uniform motion if already in
motion unless an external force is applied. This law is also known as inertia; that is, the reluctance of a
body to stop moving if already in motion,” the physics teacher stated. I didn't agree with this law but I
kept quiet.

Then, the physics teacher went on.

“The second law of motion states that the rate of change of momentum of a body is proportional to the
applied force and takes place in the direction of the force.”

After all the mathematics, he arrived at F a ma; therefore F = Kma. He further continued.

“If N force acts on 1Kg of mass and makes it accelerate at 1m/s; therefore 1 = kxIxI, then K = 1; therefore
F = ma.”

At this point, I was already boiling in disagreement.

“The third law”, he said and went on, “states that actions and reactions are equal and opposite; that the
product of the mass of a rocket and the speed is equal to the product of the mass of the smoke coming
out of the rocket and the speed with which they come out.”

At this point, I stopped boiling inside of me and started laughing because it was then very obvious to me
that both Newton and my Physics teacher and every other person that believed this scientific nonsense
needed serious medical examination.

“If there is any question, ask now,” the Physics teacher said when he finished teaching the nonsense but
nobody raised a hand.

I knew why. Most of the students were confused; they didn't understand. Those who thought they did,
thought it was very simple and that nothing was left to be asked for explanation.

“Since there is no question, I'll see you guys on Friday,” the physics teacher intoned, parked his books
and started to leave. He was almost at the door when I could not control myself. “Excuse Sir,” I shouted.
He turned, not with the desire to answer any question but the anger to know who the idiot was.

“Ehe, what is the problem? Were you sleeping since? Why didn't you indicate when I asked for
questions?” he asked me, rage written all over his face.

“Sir, I don't have a question sir, just an opinion,” I told him.

“What is it new boy?” he asked. “Sir, I don't think the Newton's Laws of motion are correct.” “Which of
them?”

“All of them sir, the three of them Sir,” I answered him with eyes fully curious. He came to the class,
looking like someone who just saw a ghost.

“Ok Professor, teach me,” he said. Before I answered him, I turned to the class.

“Please does anybody have a biro?” I asked them and many hands went up. Then I turned to the
teacher.

“That means when you said a body, it included human beings plus animals. Sir, a couple of seconds ago,
you were standing by the door, that was a state of rest; but you walked from there to the table. I didn't
see any external force that pushed or pulled you sir. That means sir, a body wouldn't remain in a state of
rest till an external force is applied. Maybe the law is applicable only to non-living things and not to
everything including man and animals.”

He looked at time undecidedly and I went on.

“Sir, you also said the first law is also known as the law of Inertia and that inertia is the reluctance of a
body to move when in a state of rest or reluctance of a body to stop moving if already in motion. Sir,
from the Kinetic Energy theory of Matter, the molecules of every matter are in constant motion, making
the matter vibrate about a fixed point, meaning that if not held together by a very strong force that a
body tends to move. In fact, if not held by a container, liquor, gas or fluid will move. Therefore, a body
isn't reluctant to move when in a state of rest.”

At this point, he stared stupidly at me yet I continued.

“Sir, from what you said, according to the 2nd law, F = kma. And if 1 Newton of force, acts on 1kg of
mass and makes it accelerate with 1m/s, the k = 1 and f = m. but if 2 Newton force acts on 2kg of mass
and makes moves with the acceleration of 2m/s, then k = 0.5, therefore F ≠ ma. Sir, even the law of
gravity disputes the 2nd Law of Motion, because the same force makes a stone and a feather fall with
the same acceleration despite their masses.”

At this point, the looks on his face could not be described, yet I defiantly went on.

“Sir, as for the third law, actions happen before reactions and actions are not equal to reactions; forces
acting on a circle disputes your third law too. So sir, I don't think the three Newton laws of motion are
correct.”

As soon as I ended, the teacher looked at me from head to toe and I felt that he did not want to use rage
to respond to what he felt was the babbling of an insignificant and inconsequential fellow.

“I have three things to tell you new boy,” he said and went on.

“1. You're very stupid 2. For something to be called a law in science, it means, it can never be disputed
again. 3. Disputing Newton's Laws of motion can never put food on your table; you should be more
concerned with passing your exams, getting a certificate and getting a job. This is what my teacher
taught me. It is what his teacher taught him. It is what his teacher taught him and it is what I'm teaching
you new boy.”

He paused a little and then continued. “Do you know what new boy? I don't want to ever see you in my
class again,” he said and he left.

This was my third sin. A couple of days later, we were in another physics class with another teacher. This
time, the teacher was a woman. She was chocolate skinned, plump and of average height. Her topic was
'waves'.

“A wave is a disturbance that passes through a medium, transferring energy from one point of the
medium to the other without causing permanent displacement to the medium itself,” she said and
continued.

“There are two types of waves; Mechanical waves – the type that requires a material medium for its
propagation and the electromagnetic waves – the type that doesn't require any material medium for its
propagation.”

At this point, I got confused. I didn't understand it anymore. I didn't want to ask but I was no longer
getting comfortable with the teaching.

“Excuse me ma, I don't get it ma, if an electromagnetic wave does not require a material medium for its
propagation, is it a spiritual medium that is required?” I forced myself and continued. “From your
definition ma, a wave must pass through a medium to transfer energy. So ma, it’s either electromagnetic
waves are not wave or that the definition you gave us does not really define wave.

“Are you the new boy? I learnt it's your hobby to always cause confusion and bring distractions to the
class, but I'll never give you that chance in my own class. Now get out,” she yelled.
I was shocked; I couldn't speak either. I left the class wondering what I asked that was wrong. This was
my 4th sin.

Weeks later, we were in a geography class, my first geography class ever. The class had done some
topics before I came. They had covered such areas as the solar system, and the composition of the
space; the history of space and the big bang theory; a theory that always makes me chuckle till date. On
that fateful day, the teacher was teaching us composition and the layers of the earth. “The earth has a
centre called earth core and it has a mantle; the earth mantle rotates with an intense velocity crushing
all the rocks which are known as the earth crust around it, thereby breaking them. The result of the
actions are earthquakes, volcanoes, mountain buildings and ocean basins,” the geography teacher said
and went on.

“When rain falls, it fills up the ocean basins and that is the origin of oceans.” I was confused and wanted
some clarification. “Sir,” I said and continued.

“During my primary school I was taught that rainfalls are as a result of the evaporation of water
molecules, from oceans, seas, lakes, rivers and ponds, which condense and fall as rains. Sir, the rains
that fell to fill up the ocean basins, please where did they come from?”

“Students please open your geography text books. Why does this boy always like causing confusion in
the class? Leave my class now and I don't want to ever see your face again in my class,” he yelled in
annoyance. I left the class with mixed feelings, that of dejection and curiosity because it was since then
that I became eager to know the origin of water. That was my 5th sin anyway.

From that day, I hated science and classrooms with passion. Then I decided to switch over to art subjects
and made the intention known to father but he would not bear that. He said none of his children would
ever study arts subjects as his children were all brilliant students who won competitions and that arts
students were dull brains meant for arts subject while science were made for bright brains. I didn't know
what to do as I had not got the effrontery to disobey my father. No Nigerian child could have because
from a tender age, the child already is used to the menace of cane and cable wires. At this point, I got
tired of school and became an outlaw in my own class. Any teacher that entered the class would first of
all ask if I was in the class and send me out of the class before teaching. I became a fugitive and roamed
about the school during classes. During one of my many roaming about, I encountered one of my
classmates stealing provisions from his school son's locker. “Why are you doing this to your own son?” I
asked him as I approached. “Please don't tell anybody especially my son,” the dark skinned slim boy
pleaded.

“Please here, take some,” he said and gave me some of the provisions so I would keep silent.

Later, when the boy started looking for his provisions and money which I wasn't aware that his
godfather also took, the devil told everyone I stole those things. That was the first and the only time I
was disgraced as a thief. I was so humiliated and stigmatized that even my clique from my hometown
told our guardian that I was responsible for all the missing items in our dormitory. It was actually my
worst day in Warri, a day I would never forget till I die. That was my 6th sin.

One day by 11am, I was strolling round the school when I discovered a road out of the school. It was a
broken fence at the back of the school. Federal Government College Warri is so spacious that not many
students had got to the end of it. Only the SS3 students who naturally were sick of school and classes for
some reasons knew the way. The road was hidden naturally by a plantain plantation. I was roaming in
hunger looking for some ripe plantain when I heard the cry of a girl shouting, “mummy mo, mummy
mo.” I traced the cry and discovered it was an SS3 boy who was raping a JS3 girl. I later discovered that
the boy had caught the girl outside the school premises, threatened to take her to the school
authorities, but later resorted to raping her after she begged him not to take her to the authorities. He
had commanded her to touch her toes while he raped her in that position. Usually, in my hometown, if
you catch a boy raping a girl, or two people doing such outside a house, all you need to do is to join in
the act. But I pitied the girl and felt that if it were my own sister, I would not spare the person who does
that to her. Quickly, I took a big stick, hit the irresponsible boy to unconsciousness and ran away so that
the boy and the girl would not see my face. But the girl did see my face and when she later narrated her
ordeal, she said I was the one who helped her. I became a sort of a hero among some students
especially the girls but became an enemy to SS3 boys. That was my 7th sin.

One fateful Saturday afternoon, a girl that was recognized as the most brilliant student in our class
bumped into me. She had been taking the 1st position since her JS1. She was really very brilliant and a
little bit versatile when it came to academics and read a lot. I never knew she was desiring to be with me
till the day we met. She was going to the class to read.

“Xoxo,” she called, smiling, her gap tooth heightening the beauty of her fair skinned oval face. He name
was Mary. I never knew she knew me let alone my name. She was very pretty, gentle and commanded
the respect and admiration of all because of her brilliance, calmness and meekness. She was the
cynosure of everybody's eye and everybody desired her.

However, as for me, I was engrossed with my problems that I had no time for any girl.

“Please, can I have some minutes of your time?” she asked.

“Oh sure,” I responded gladly. Quickly, she went and bought for both of us meat pie and soft drinks. Of
course, she was from a very rich family, hence could afford to buy me things with ease. When we were
seated in a class and were eating, she began.

“I really called you here because I'm really very much concerned about you. It has been a while I saw you
in class. I just want to know if everything is all right.”

She then looked at me and waited for my response.

“Well, I don't actually know what you want me to say to you, but I thank you so much for your concern.
If you are always really in class, you'll agree with me you've lost count how many times I've been sent
out of class for no just reason,” I replied and went on.

“What else am I doing in a class that the teachers and the students don't want me in?”

“You're a very intelligent boy, the most intelligent boy I've crossed path all my life. Please stop wasting
your life, ignore the teachers. Just come to the class, don't ask questions; better still, ask them privately,
so they would stop believing you just want to humiliate them.”

“Babe, the truth is that I'm actually sick of science; science is the worst thing that has ever happened to
the human race.”
“How can you say such a thing, science is the god of civilization, the god of the modern world,” she
countered and went on. “Science made it possible for your dad to talk to you anywhere you are in the
world. Science made it possible that instead of harvesting in months, we harvest in hours. Science gave
us machines as house servants; science has made life very easy, simple, livable and enjoyable.”

“Babe, wait, let me educate you on the adverse effects of science. If you don't know, nature left man
imperfectly made or should I say half-baked. Everything man does in life, animals do them better than
man. No man can fly better than birds; no man can swim better than fishes, and no man can run faster
than a deer; or the cheetah. When it comes to sex, no man can have better sex than dogs. Is it talking,
sleeping or even the violence in man, animals do them much better or much more than men. Man isn't
perfect in at least one area of human activity. In an attempt to attain perfection, man brought in this
monster called science. To fly better than the bird man invented the aeroplane. To swim better than
fish, man introduces sub-marine and swimming kits. To have more sex than the dogs man invented
drugs; to outrun the deer, he brought cars. To sleep better, instead of using the beer, he invented pills.
Then to kill more than a lion, man invented guns. What man didn't know is that nature has a way of
balancing life. A scale of 50:50 such that any slightest change on one side of the scale will affect the
other instantly. This said balance in nature is found on time and seasons. There is time for everything.
We have rainy season and dry season and each knows when to come and when to go. Even the trees
know their seasons; that's nature's perfection,” I submitted as she looked surprisingly at me but I was
not deterred, so I went on.

“A strive towards the perfection of man's imperfection is an ignorant strive towards the imperfection of
nature's perfection, may cause a total imperfection which may cause a total imperfectivity; which means
imperfecting both nature and man. If we look around, we'll see evidence of both man's imperfection and
nature's imperfection because man wants to travel underground like a grass-cutter, science digs tunnel
inside under seas and oceans and something as large as hundreds of trains with bullet's speed runs
inside these tunnels. That's why earthquake happens and we blame nature. That's why tsunami happens
and we blame nature. Just because man wants to fly better than a bird, man produced aeroplane as big
as one is, thousands of them fly the sky, yet we complain our ozone is depleting. A million lives have
been wasted just because man wants to alter nature and fly like a bird. Because man wants to be perfect
in everything, the animals are perfect in, man altered nature and now there are too many nature
disasters, too many lives lost to science and yet we love and welcome science whole heartedly.”

I paused and looked at Mary and I discovered that she was very attentive. Hence I continued with my
lecture.

“Three percent of carbon monoxide in the human system can lead to death. Yet every day, all the
automobiles and generators release billions of tons of this gas into the atmosphere into the ozone; life
span is decreasing, ozone layer is constantly being depleted, incurable diseases are rising yet man still
depends on this monster for survival. Fifty years ago, in my home town, when life span was still eighty,
and life was still worth living, if an age grade reaches eighty years, they go for thanks-giving services for
a life well spent. We called it “itoogbo”. Within a short period of time, life span dropped from 80years to
forty years. Before, they say life starts at forty; that a fool at forty is a fool forever. Now when does life
start? Why do we age quickly and die early now? The reason is science. The most amazing part of it is
that the basic thing in science, because scientists believe that even a stone resting still on a floor is in
motion. The say that sub-particles or that stone are in constant motion making the stone vibrate about
its fixed point. But the three Newton's laws of motion on which this science is based are not even
correct, yet we use them to build all the Mechanism we use in science. “

Again, I paused to observe Mary's interest in what I was saying and still saw someone who was hooked
to my lectures. Then I passionately went on.

“The physics teacher said that feather and a stone will fall with the same acceleration. I dropped a
feather and a stone, and the stone reached the ground before the feather. I asked him why they didn't
reach the ground at the same time since they fall with the same acceleration; he said it was because I
dropped them in an open space. They will hit the ground the same time if I had dropped them in a
closed space, which is in a vacuum. Then I asked him why we then do use a formula that works only in a
vacuum in solving problems and manufacturing Mechanisms in physics. Further, I asked him if we are
living in a vacuum and he sent me out of the class before your very eyes. But that's the thing about
science. During the cause of an invention, science encounters a problem it can't solve, it neglects it and
moves on. In the end, it backfires on the lives of innocent people. Believe me dear, science is doing more
harm than good.”

I paused further before I continued. “Another science laws that made me leave studying science as a
course are gas laws. Charles, Boyle's and pressure laws were taught with just one side of the brain.
Charles law states that the volume of a given mass of gas is directly proportional to its absolute
temperature provided the pressure remains constant. This means that when the temperature increases,
the volume increases and pressure remains constant. How can I believe this when I know vividly well
that increase in temperature increases the kinetic energy of the particle of any matter no matter its
state? The kinetic energy increases, the vibration of the particle matter of the matter increases resulting
in an increase in pressure. How possible is it that pressure will remain constant as temperature
increases? It's not possible. If the temperature of a gas increases, the pressure increases but if the
volume increases, the pressure begins to decrease, but it will decrease to a level where it will not
decrease again, it will begin to increase even if the volume increases. Boyle's law states that the volume
of a given mass of gas is inversely proportional to its pressure provided the temperature is constant. This
is not true because as the volume of the containing vessel of a gas reduced, the number of molecules
per unit volume is increased. Hence, the number of collisions in unit area is increased. Thus the pressure
of the given mass of gas increases but the collision also brings about internal heat gas so as the pressure
increases, the internal temperature of the gas increases and with time it comes out to the environment.
So, the temperature can never remain constant.”

At this point, I paused to see if she was still listening. When I saw how attentive she was, I was
encouraged to go on.

“Even the pressure law which states that the presence of a given mass is directly proportional to its
absolute temperature provided its volume remains constant doesn't also consider the factor “time”
which Charles' law and Boyle's law neglected. If the temperature of a given mass of gas increases, the
rate of collision increases with time if the temperature continues to increase. Then the kinetic energy
becomes so strong that the collision will now become unbearable. If this happens, they tend to escape
at all cost. If the containing vessel is elastic, it will be seen the volume will expand on its own but if it's
not, the vessel will break for infinite increase in volume. In those general gas laws of theirs, they should
try to add their factor 'time' (t) which should be considered when dealing with pressure, temperature
and volume of reality of a gas and they should experiment with a very large amount of gas.”
Mary nodded and stared at me with gesture of surprise at this point. I continued.

“X-ray as we are meant to believe is one of the very good, very blessed and very useful works of science.
It helps detect hidden fractures in the body. But the truth is that X-ray is the deadliest tool of science. It
is deadliest because it is unfinished experiment. It is unknown to science. Its name X-ray means
unknown ray. 'X' if your recall is used in science or mathematics for an unknown or incomprehensible
value. X-ray was discovered accidentally by Wilhelm Ronten when he was experimenting with the
surface reaction of vacuum tubes when bombarded with gamma rays. He kept it secret because he was
scared of the observation. He knew that if not properly observed, analyzed and understood, it could be
a gift or a trap, a blessing or a curse. But just after few weeks of inexperienced discovery, that which
happens to other scientists began to overshadow him. Uncontrollable hunger for either wealth, fame or
both, depending on personality, he introduced it to science. Science forgot that before Rontgen brought
X-ray to it, he had already tested it on his wife; after the experiment, the wife shouted, “I have seen my
death.” I don't know if science took her to be foolish or a lunatic. The truth is that they neglected her
because they were busy estimating the billions of Dollars they would make out of the monster. And how
many hospitals in the world would buy X-ray machines as well as how many ignorant people would
come to pay to see their death. Before someone could say “Jack Robinson” Rontgen had started
receiving awards from all over the world. He became immortal because as long as that killer machine
thrives, the name of Rontgen would never die. Rontgen became famous, a celebrity, a genius and most
importantly, a wealthy man just because he constructed a new fast lane of the motor death. Today,
millions of patients pay a visit every day to that death machine Anna Bertha, wife of Rontgen saw and
shouted, ignorant that the inventor of that 'Unknown ray' died of carcinoma, a tumour tissue
development from a putative epithelial cell whose genome had been altered or completely damaged to
such an extent that the cell becomes transformed and begins to exhibit abnormal malignant properties;
like the parent causative agent, its unknown to science. The origin or the development lineage of these
cells are unknown. Yet science claimed that X-rays didn't kill Rontgen; perhaps, it's my father that killed
him.”

Mary stared at me unbelievably; I felt that she was more of wondering if I had become mentally
deranged at this point. However, for the fact that she was still paying attention to my lectures made me
to continue, having re-adjusted myself comfortably.

“See Mary, whether science denied that X-rays didn't kill Rontgen or not, the fact still remains that
anytime the body or a cell is exposed to any form of radiation, it has effects on the cell or body no
matter how small the radioactive element was or how little the time it penetrated the body or the cell.
The only thing is that if the radiation is strong and is exposed to the body for a long time, the effect of
radiation would be spontaneous and more harmful; it could be sudden death, deformation or
malfunction of the body tissue or organs or even the entire body systems. Deformations like blindness,
deafness, cancer and other diseases might set in. However, if the radioactive element is small/light and
radiation is for a short time, it would still have harmful effects. It alters the genomes of the body cells or
ever damages them completed as in carcinoma mentioned earlier. The genes of the patients would be
altered gradually to the point that it may affect the offspring of the patient exhibiting some form of
abnormalities which can't be explained by science. Even generations of the patient might start to
experience some form of blindness, crippling of legs or other types of body malfunctioning. Many
pioneers of science had died for their work to show that what they were experimenting with was very
detrimental to human health but instead of their successors to put a hold on their works, they devoted
more time to actualize these monsters. Marie Curie died of Leukaemia due to exposure to radiation; she
is a co-inventor of radium. However science will make you believe that she died from constant
assimilation of excess radiation to justify their ongoing works on radiation. Again, science tells us that it
helps us to understand our world better but in truth, it is a faster destroyer of our world.”

At this point I stared seriously at Mary as she looked at me unbelievably. “Tell me Mary what science
was thinking when it invented guns?” When she was not responding I continued.

“Do you know how many billions of lives that have been lost to gun powder, gun pellets and explosives.”
After a pause I went on. “Hitler was able to kill six million Jews because of science. Every day, we watch
the television without knowing what the television does to our eyes or what the computer we operate
does to us or the laptops on our laps etc. What was science thinking when it gave us destructive material
devices? What are the manufacturers of explosives thinking when they manufactured mass-killer
explosives? What value have they brought to our world? I doubt if Africa would be that foolish to wake
up one morning to start wasting her resources and energy, just to bring a nuclear or biological weapons
that could wipe out the world within few hours! However, this is what they want to bring into Africa, a
stupidity, a madness, an irrationality. They are struggling and they are succeeding. They have taken
away our culture, our life, our Africanism, our joys! Before, if Africans want to fight, they fight hand to
hand, bone to bone and flesh to flesh. They tested strength and manhood as my mentor painted in
“Things Fall Apart”. At the end, a few people would die and the war would end; they would reconcile,
shake hands in brotherhood and joy would be restored. Today, everything is different. Look Mary at
what happened in Nigeria between 1967 to 1970. It was not a fight; not even a war. It was a pure
manipulation of the motor death called “science”. Read 'Half of a Yellow Sun' Mary and you will
understand better. Now after fifty years, we have not fully recovered from the 'oh God' that happened.
Science knows that smokers are liable to die young yet it manufactures cigarette. Why? It is because
science does not care about human lives; it only cares about the money and names it makes and gives.”

At this point, I stopped abruptly. This was because I saw some SS3 boys coming towards the class where
I and Mary were. Before Mary could blink her eyes to ask me why I stopped my lecture I had escaped
through the window and ran into the bush.

Since then, I lived like a fugitive, always on the run; it seemed like trouble followed me like a silhouette.
One day, I was eating my moi-moi and bread walking comfortably in the school premises when I heard a
loud voice shouting.

“Hey, you new boy come here before the count of five,” a voice shouted behind me. To avoid more
troubles, since I had been trying very hard to manage what was left of my shattered life, I prayed within
me that the force that guided me intervene and let that trouble pass me by. Then I resolved to respond
to the stupid call, I who since I entered that school never answered to such a stupid call.

“Yes, what is it?”I replied as I turned to see the lunatic who was facing me. “Are you not the idiot
everybody is looking for? You're here eating moi-moi and bread as if you were sent here to eat; in fact,
disarm yourself,” the dark-slim idiot with a large hairless head intoned scornfully.

I stared at him in astonishment wondering which of us was an idiot. I that responded to his senseless call
or him. I was still looking at him when he drew closer and attempted to dip his dirty hand into my
pocket. Swiftly, I punched him on his flat ugly nose and kicked his scrotum and groins. He groaned in
pains.

“Uiuush O my God!” he shouted and fell on the ground. That was my 8th sin. Some few hours later, my
thought about Mary increased. Then I realized that I had madly fallen in love with her. Since my
secondary school education, Mary was the only student whom I believed really cared about me. As days
went by, I thought about her day and night and wished I could get the opportunity to tell her how I felt
someday. I looked for any slightest chance to be with her so I could tell her my love for her. One day, I
slipped a piece of paper into her book. The piece of paper contained my apology for the sudden end of
our last meeting and my pleading that we meet again at the same place and time. I wasn't sure if she
would honour my then current invitation because nobody ever got the temerity to ask her out. All the
same, since she told me she was concerned about me, I gave it a trial. Some minutes later, I totally
forgot about my meeting with her. I was strolling and roaming about the bushes in the school when I
remembered my meeting with her. I ran like a mad dog to the class where we were supposed to meet. I
met her sitting calmly on one of the wooden desk reading her chemistry textbook. She looked very
beautiful in her school uniform. I was ashamed and troubled and didn't know what to do or say to her
next. Hence, I stood there by the door staring at her.

“Come in,” she said as if nothing happened. I wasn't sure if I should go in or not. However, because of
my strong desire for her, I went in eventually.

“I am sorry I kept you waiting. The truth is that I didn't know you would show up. I had no reason for
being late and don't usually forget and wasn't doing anything,” I intoned as I took my seat. “Now that I
did come, what's up? Why did you request to see me?” she asked looking at me intently.

“I like you and I think about you all the time. The thought of you is the only thing that makes me smile
since I entered this school. I felt it is proper that I let you know this. I think you deserve to know about
this.”

“Now that I know, what does it change,” she asked. “I was actually thinking that there might be a slight
possibility you might feel the same way and maybe you could be my girlfriend,” I managed to say. She
chuckled and with that smile she looked more beautiful, like an angel. Instantly, I felt the urge to dive
her lips and devour it with passionate kisses.

“I'm already your friend. As a matter of fact, I approached you first. What is the difference between me
being your friend and me being your girlfriend? If I tell you “yes” I'm your girlfriend, it means I have
given you authority over me, to own me like a commodity bought in the market. In addition, you will
want to be having sexual intercourse with me and making me your sex toy.”

“I'm a gentleman dear. I don't own people. I believe the world is a free one everybody has right to live
and be happy. So I will not own you dear. As for the sex, I was actually hoping on that; I will not lie to
you, I'm hoping on making love to you someday not just having sex with you.” “You would not be able to
own me even if you tried in a hundred years. As for the sex or love making or whatever you choose to
call it, it won't happen in your wildest dream. I will be your girlfriend. Yes, but my relationship with you
will be sex-free, feel me?” she said. “Thank you very much. I hope that at least I can kiss you?” I asked.
“You can kiss me as many times as you want. However, you'll only be turning yourself on. Why will you
want to be tormenting yourself?” “Maybe if our love grow in you, you might one day want to save me
from the torment. By the way, why would you not want to make love with me? Don't you love me
enough as to do that?” “I don't actually expect such silly question from you but I will answer your
question. Fornication is a sin. Don't you read your Bible” “I've actually read the Bible cover to cover,
fornication is not a sin dear and I can prove it to you using the Bible,” I spluttered. “I wouldn't believe
you but lecture me anyway. I entertain new knowledge,” she said with much concern. “They tell us that
fornication is a sin. Fornication came from a Greek word 'porneia'which means having any sexual act
after the betrothal contract. In the ancient times, a girl is betrothed to a man as soon as she is born and
the man looks forward seriously to taking the girl as a wife. In addition, in those days, virginity was
regarded very seriously to the point that a man was respected only if he married a virgin and vice versa.
Hence, any sexual act after the betrothal had serious consequence on both parties just like our modern
world when the bride price is paid. However, if a girl is not engaged, having sex is not a big deal.” I
looked at her as she listened attentively. This made me to go on with my lecture. “Well, it's a big deal a
bit as can be seen in Deuteronomy 22 :28 onwards and in Exodus 22: 16, “if a man sleeps with a virgin,
he pays the girl's bride price and takes her as his wife or if he refuses to do that, the girl's father would
demand payment for the girl's virginity from the man who slept with the virgin.” The consequences of
the latter is that such a girl would never be able to marry again. Any man who slept with her will do
away with her as he would discover that she was no longer a virgin. Consequently, she becomes a
common prostitute and at this point, having sex with her is no more sin. However, sleeping with a girl
who is not a virgin, not engaged, and not betrothed to any body and who has not been paid any money
is not a sin at all. In fact, you are just helping to bring body and soul at peace and ease. Today, that
betrothed bullshit is no more and virginity now is more of a burden than virtue. Fornication is no longer
what it meant before. The contextual meaning has changed. Fornication now means that very sweet,
lovely, healthy moment a young boy and a beautiful girl spend together easing stress and developing
mutuality. Fornication is now a harmless sexual intercourse between a boy and an un-engaged girl who
benefits more in loss of virginity than in retaining it. Now, they still say it is a sin. The only sexual activity
that is sinful is sexual immorality; sexual immorality include sexual abuses and these include: rape,
masturbation, homosexuality lesbianism, adultery or even bestiality. Adultery is immoral because it is a
breach of contract, a defilement of vows, a betrayal of trust and fidelity. It's an emotional killer. That's
why it is a sin. Rape and adultery are sin against our fellow human beings while masturbation,
homosexual and lesbianism are sin against oneself. The Bible says we should love our neighbours as
ourselves?” I asked rhetorically before I continued. “Love begins with one's self as charity begins at
home. If you love yourself, you won't give yourself a stone instead of a bread, give scorpion instead of a
meat. It takes a mature man's organs twenty one days to reproduce lost sperm cells. When the cells are
produced, they need to go out of the body system to make way for new ones. Our body system have a
way of ejecting those cells out of the body and it is done pleasurably by having sexual intercourse with a
willing mature young lady that is having the same body signs. When I was in JSS 3 in my former school,
my classmate, NonsoObiozor told a story of how his elder brother was sick and went to the hospital
where a doctor told him to go and have sex with a girl and he would be fine. I don't know how true the
story was and I wouldn't want to say the accumulation of the spermatozoa in the body system is harmful
because I'm not sure. I have asked a couple of medical practitioners. While some agreed it is harmful,
others refuted the claim and I can't lay my hands on any lectures for the correct position. One thing I
know for the sure is that no mature man above twenty years of age could stay for one complete
calendar year without ejaculating. One could do it through masturbation, sexual intercourse or wet
dreams. Why masturbate, or meet the person of the same sex or animal before one ejaculates when
God saw the need and without our asking gave us beautiful women and the license to go and multiply.
Throughout the book of Genesis, nowhere is it recorded that Adam must marry Eve before they started
having sex. Further, no mature woman can stay for a whole year without inserting.” “Without inserting
what?” Mary asked me inquisitively. “It depends on what she chooses to insert in private part. It could
be her fingers,bottle, candle, vibrators or the real thing. Nature has a way of balancing life. Let's be
realistic and stop altering it. Well, they know the truth but they just want to frustrate us because we are
youths; they just don't want to be healthy and happy.” At this point, Mary was looking at me as if she
had seen a ghost. It seemed to me she was wondering what part of the world I came from. “Has any
one ever told you that you're a devil's advocate?” she managed to ask. “No,” I replied sharply. “Your
problem is that you are too intelligent and your mind is very searchy. Your brain is bigger than your age.
Instead of being a blessing it's now a problem to you. I'll see you tomorrow dear. My head is full for
today. Come here same time, don't ever keep me waiting again. I won't forgive you so easily next time,”
she told me as she packed her books and thereafter she began to leave. When she reached the door,
she turned and signaled me to come. I did that like a child sent to be flogged. To my greatest shock and
surprise, she drew my lips to hers and kissed me deeply and passionately. My heart stopped beating and
my whole world stood still. I was so lifeless I didn't know when she left. We dated thereafter for a couple
of weeks. During this period, I cared for her and worshipped her. However, the pressure on me kept
escalating. It got to the point where the whole senior students were looking for me to skin me alive. To
escape from them, I resorted to sleeping in the cemetery and on top of trees. When I couldn't take it
any longer, I left the school abruptly. I left Mary and all my property behind. Next, I begged for transport
fare which I used to board a bus to my hometown, Obosi. Nevertheless, Federal Government College
Warri left me with a lot of memories. It was there I discovered that all Nigerian students are not trained
in critical thinking. They just accept whatever they are taught without questioning and without even
understanding what they are being taught. I pity their science students. The only practical done in their
schools laboratories are titration and simple pendulum. There is no Ss3 student in any of their public
schools that has written the senior school certificate examination that can boast of having seen the
seven out of the first twenty elements. They only recite science topics and contents as if these were
poetry. I believe this is why despite the fairly long time we have been initiated into the cult of science,
we still invite foreign engineers and medical doctors when we face engineering and health challenges. I
have come to realize that when one has nothing to lose, one should never play the hero and

try to change what is, to what man thinks should be. Those who have tried died in the process, those
who succeeded merely had luck on their side and yet are victims of their success even though they
seemed to have lost nothing.
 CHAPTER TWELVE

It would seem that my classroom days literally ended at FGC Warri. However, it was actually at St
Charles Onitsha I collected anything called result. When I left FGC Warri, I was supposed to have
enrolled in Christ the king College (CKC). To my parents, I did enroll. Because I was meant to repeat SSS1,
I didn't enter the class for a day. What I did was to wake every morning, prepare for school but would
never enter the school compound not of talk of attending lessons. I would be at another place doing any
other thing save school. By then, I had become completely a street boy. The street had made me an
animal, a beast that had no hope, direction, no responsibility, no home, no feelings and no conscience.
No, I still had feelings because I was still rational and I still had passion for I still loved. What I lacked then
was forgiveness, compassion, sympathy, remorse, regrets and fear. In fact, I lacked the realisation of my
true self. Gambling became my only occupation and marijuana and alcoholic drinks my only source of
joy. I was twelve years then. I became a business man who traded in drugs and stolen properties. Those
who knew me wept for me. They said I was bewitched by life itself. Whenever I opened the Bible,
dictionary or any other good book, the only thing I saw was just one word 'survive'. So I did anything just
to survive. Consequently, school became tiring and boring. It had been that since my JS3. At the end, I
only managed to register my SSCE from outside my school. The first JAMB I wrote, the girl I helped
because she was sick scored 257 but my own result was not seen. It wasn't just one but up to four times.
It was as if someone somewhere didn't want me to further my education. I tried everything I could. I
understood my subject even more than my teachers, yet I couldn't pass my exams. So, I gave up
education. Being a prince that was used to easy life, I could not do menial jobs, neither could I learn any
skills nor serve any body. I became a street king. The street feared, revered and respected me as well as
bestowed on me the paraphernalia of the glory of a god. I made their wrong seem right and restored to
them that which the society seemed to have stolen from them. I hated oppression and injustice. So I
fought against anyone who oppressed anybody. I sold drugs on the streets to feed and did many things
to survive. The thought of conquering the world someday kept me moving and from been caught. Then
one day, a friend approached me where we were drinking in a bar. His name was Captain. He was dark-
skinned, strongly built with unkempt hair. “Xoxo, my man, why not join our movement?” Captain said to
me. “What do they do?”I asked. “They are freedom fighters who fight against any form of injustice and
oppression,” he replied and wentt on. “Our movement's motto is equal right and justice and they are
out to help the poor and the oppressed.” “Are you sure of this?” I asked. “Come and see yourself.” “This
sounds like my own thing. Ok I will give it a try,” I told him and he was happy. On 16th June 2012, I was
initiated into the movement. I was taught their tradition, culture and the laws of the movement. Few
months after I was initiated, I learnt the truth about cultism. Just as someone told me in the past, most
times, the worst of crimes are committed with the best of intentions. Just like the Church, government
and any other good institution, cultism was founded to really protect the right of the university students
and the handicapped in the society. Unfortunately, it was infiltrated by hoodlums and street urchins and
bums who derived pleasure in inflicting pains on others. I have come to realize that there are people
who by nature are ruthless, and irrational. They move around looking for weaker human being to bully.
They derive joy bringing sorrow to peoples' lives. With the protection offered to them by cultism, they
unleash terror and perpetrate evil and create bad names for their fraternities. Some days after my
initiation, we were six in number, walking on the street when we met a dark-skinned young man of
average height. “Beat him mercilessly,” Captain ordered us. Without asking question, or a second
thought, the rest pounced on the young man and beat him half-dead. I couldn't do that so I didn't
participate in the act. When we got to where we were going, Captain shouted angrily at me. “Lie flat on
the ground,”he yelled at me and I obeyed. “Now take our whip and teach him the hard lesson,” he
instructed the other boys. Swiftly, they obeyed and flogged me as if I was a village thief. Before the
initiation, Captain couldn't look me in the eye and talk to me anyhow. Then, I regretted what being a
cultist had reduced me to. It was then I realized how much of a mistake I made by joining the group. I
discovered I was better being on my own as the street god. As the movement had stripped me of my
immortality and bestowed on me a crown of iniquity. From this experience, I have come to realize that
most of the claims as acted in the movies or read in the books are also false concerning cult initiation or
nature of cultism. Now, I have realized that every cultist is under blood oath never to, under any
circumstance divulge what he witnessed except he wanted death. Further, it was when I became a
cultist that I came to know why many young people desire to become cultists even though most of them
regret their actions later. Indeed, cultism have destroyed lives and killed dreams in Nigeria. I think the
solution to cultism is not to outlaw it but to legalize it. Cultism has not just taken deep root in our
universities and secondary schools, but also in the primary schools and our neighbourhood. The worse is
that even our fathers are actively involved. A cultist is arrested today, the next day, twenty candidates
are initiated into cultism. Arrest or killing doesn't frighten them any longer. They only make them
deadlier. You cannot control a faceless group but you can control an identified group. Hence, I advocate
the legalization of cultism. Consequently, initiations will be in the open and not in the bushes; their
activities, oath and laws should be made open. Then every cultist would carry an identity card. They
would then have an association that would regulate their activities. This way, every cultist could be
traced and cultism would have no choice than to be forced into becoming social clubs.
 CHAPTER THIRTEEN

One day, I found myself sitting on a chair reflecting on the condition of my life. I was so disgusted how I
lost my sense of immortality as a god, having then people I answer to, being the destroyer of my own
life. Consequently, I resolved to renew and intensify my aspirations. I started looking for a way to
acquire powers of a god. Powers to control the universe and every evil in it. My goal was to be in charge
of all crimes, corruption and any other evil that happens in Nigeria and I felt the only way to achieve
these powers was to have the kind of power nobody else had or would have. Hence, I began to read
esoteric books and to practise all the simple little magic and how to cast spells literature in my late
uncle's library. In the past, during my primary school to be precise, if any of my things especially money
got lost, I would simply recite the following prayer “Jesus lost, Jesus found, help me to find my money.
Jesus lost, Jesus found help me to find my money. Jesus lost, Jesus found, help me to find my money.”
Thereafter, I would add our Lord's Prayer and a couple of Hail Mary's. Once I finished the recitation of
the above prayers, I would eventually find my money. However, since I started practising black magic,
whenever any of my things got lost, instead of the above prayer, I would simply use spells, and magic to
find my lost item. On one occasion, I lost my Motorola razor phone. Instead of prayers, I cast a small
spell and found the phone. What I did was that I bought a white candle, placed it on a clean surface
object, brought the receipt of the lost phone and cast the spell by uttering the following: “I call upon the
forces that you bound; that this phone of mine be it stolen or lost, be found. What is lost I bound be
found, take my luck and turn it around …..” I recited the above five times and made sure the receipt
burnt to ashes before I blew the flame and the ashes away. Thereafter, I saw my phone by my bed post
when I woke up. There were other simple spells I learnt that could be used to recover lost items such as
the following:

1. “Now invoke the law of three… what once was lost return to me.
2. Bound and binding……. Binding bound ……… see the sight….. hear the sound … what was
lost… now is found …. Bound and binding…. Binding bound……

3. Keeper of what disappears,…..hear me now open your eyes…….find me now what I now see
……. By moon, sun, earth, air, fire, and sea.”

I kept casting spells and learning simple magic. I grew in spirit and was enjoying the whole exercise till
one day, I found the book titled 'ClaviculaSolomonis'. I read about all the seventy two keys of Solomon,
how to conjure, summon, invoke and evoke demons. I was consumed by the desire to rule and govern
men, and yearned uncontrollably for the acquisition of power that no man had ever possessed and was
filled with an unquenchable hunger to become god on earth. Little by little, step by step, I saw myself
drifting into the dark and walking into the valleys of the underworld. When my soul had been totally
satiated in the world of demons , when I knew I had already lost every sense of sanity and humanity,
with a very adventurous enthusiasm, I invoked my first demon…..Lady Ashtaroth, the goddess of love.
How did I do this? I shut every door and closed all the windows that not even a beam of light could
penetrate the room. Then I lit a white candle and started staring at it. I stared at it for a long time,
rehearsing in my mind all the evil and abuses that had been meted out against me. I was enmeshed in
enormous bitterness, anger and rage; so much enraged that even before I began the rite, I already felt
the presence of Lady Ashtaroth. Then I began:

“hailAshtaroth! great Goddess of love and war! lady Lucifer of the Twilight; O mighty Lioness of love
burning desire.

I humbly invoke you, O queen of heaven and earth. I invited you to come forth from the sky, to come
forth from the ends of the earth and come forth from the depths of the underworld. Hear my prayer oh
blessed whore of Babylon and greet me as your servant and friend. I wish only to get to know you, and
to rejoice in the fiery light of your majestic spirit. Hail Ashtaroth.” At this point, the whole room started
turning around as if there was a hurricane. Instantly, the room was filled with this strange scent that was
neither pleasant nor foul, just significant. I felt like I was being taken away into the atmosphere. Under
normal circumstances, I should have been scared to death but my mood at that point was something
really beyond the ordinary. I felt like I was in a world out of the world; as if I was in a world between
worlds. The Ashtaroth came riding on a horse. She was very beautiful and looked nothing like a demon.
She was so pretty and very calm that I felt if demons were this calm, I wouldn't mind becoming one.
Then she looked at me with such tenderness and affection and seemed so caring and loving. Probably, it
was her nature or that this was arranged to manipulate and lure my devotion and win me over. However
it worked on me. “My child,” Lady Ashtaroth said as she looked at me with such an enticing affection. “I
feel your pain. I see your sorrow. I feel your loneliness. I see you're lost. You are lost in your world. The
world you are supposed to rule. Nobody understands you,so nobody loves you; because everybody
dreads you, they try to strip you, so they can rip you. You're bitter and angry. You are frustrated and
disturbed, but it's a pity I cannot help you. You have in you the shroud of Belial. You cannot be guided,
led, controlled or subjected. You have no master, you're your own boss and sticks only to your own laws.
All you need to do is discover yourself and become. Maybe you should invoke Belial to help you discover
yourself. Till then dear, disturb my peace no more.” At this point, I lost consciousness. I didn't know how
I passed out but I remembered everything that happened. I started from that day to invoke Belial but
couldn't succeed. I tried all I could, tried all the invocations I could dig up but couldn't invoke him. So I
gave up. One fateful day, I was sleeping. Suddenly, I started having strange feeling that someone was
present in my room. The feeling was so strong that it came with a scent. I tried to wake up but couldn't.
As if in a trance or dream state which I knew then was a reality, someone came like a wild beast at first
to scare me and when I could not be frightened, he came like an angel, duplicated into two angels which
I knew to be just same person. “Why have you been disturbing my rest?”I could not answer the question
so I remained silent. I was actually so shocked to answer the question. “I know your problem. You're too
scared, too religious to embrace yourself. You have been so much indoctrinated in your religion that
you're now blind to see life as it is. Your problem is that you are a god who has been brainwashed to
become an angel. Humans don't know the power they carry; angels and demons have no power of their
own. They have no free will. They are subjected to humans and to which ever deity they are loyal to;
they are just but mere messengers. Humans have free will. They're created in God's likeness, they're
gods in their own right and they have the power and authority to say whatever it is they want and it will
be. Only but just few humans know this truth and they use it to control the world. You shouldn't be the
one working so hard to summon even the smallest angels or demons. They should be the ones working
very hard to get you. Now son, let me show you the truth you don't know. Read this and be liberated.”
Then, he gave me a demonic Bible and left. After reading the demonic Bible, I was confused. A
development that surprised me greatly. I was seriously contemplating whether I should become a god or
not. To me, that would be the key to the power I sought enthusiastically and yearned for. I wanted to
grab but then, something within me kept telling me that it was a Greek gift and that I should be careful.
However, the problem was that for a long time, I had been contemplating that was the means of
liberating my family especially my father from those who oppressed him. Again, many people were
owing my father and many others were selling our lands and claiming my father's lands simply because
he had no body to fight for him. My father refused to perpetrate evil like others. He chose to stay true to
his God. This notwithstanding, his God failed him; his Church too failed him. The truth he stood for
rejected him for it refused to vindicate him. Every night, he would pray and weep to his God. He would
recite the rosary as if it was billion dollars presentation, but it seemed the Immaculate Virgin Mary was
too busy and heaven too was far to hear him. I was always abused as a child. My parents inculcated in
me from infancy the doctrine of turning the other cheek. I was prohibited from fighting as a child. No
matter the ill- treatment meted out to me, I was instructed I must have to come back home and report
to my parents. Consequently, I became an object of abuse by classmates and peer group; they knew I
wouldn't fight back and I too was scared of fighting back. However, I was not scared of my mates but my
father at home. I was too scared of getting into trouble because of him. No matter how justifiable I
might be to have taken up a retaliatory action, I would always receive serious beating at home, because
from the gospel according to my father, if I wasn't in the way of trouble I wouldn't get into trouble. I
always tried to swallow every ill treatment so that it would not reach home. It got to a point, everybody
in my village knew me as the one who took all the beatings so, this affected my psychology when it came
to my relationship with people, in addition to the fact I was born autistic. When the beast in me couldn't
tolerate it any longer. When it finally broke its chains and broke out of the cage, when I became the evil
spirit of the street, I got myself entangled to a fraternity that became more or less my authority figure.
So, I once again was subjected to beating because I wouldn't go against my ethical ideology of equal
rights and justice. Hence, I saw this my becoming a god thing as a way out, the break away from all the
injustice, maltreatments, abuses and evil meted out against me and my immediate family. All the same,
something was still holding me. I had this strong feeling that something was wrong somewhere, that
everything wasn't all right. So, I didn't go on, I didn't become, not that I couldn't be, I abandoned the
book where I hid it for couple of weeks. One evening, I was in my room watching a movie when all of a
sudden, the television tripped off and the grey coloured clock that hung on the wall fell and broke.
Immediately, I felt something, the presence of a strong angry spirit in my room. As immediate as it
came, it vanished and I went into what seemed to be a trance. My late uncle came to me, this time
around not as petty as he used to. It seemed that he was angry or disappointed or something like that. “I
knew the reason you are having a second thought; it is because of your faith but I will teach you a truth
you don't know,” he said. He looked intently at me and then went on. “Your entire life son, you were
lied to. Christianity is one big body of lies and secrets. First of all, Christianity is a movement brought
down to us by the white men to make us forgive and forget the ills they did to us. Before the colonial
masters invaded any country, they will send the missionaries first, to teach the people about forgiveness
and the meekness of the heart and soul; to preach against vengeance and to teach the people that
vengeance should be left to God. After indoctrinating them to be zombies, the colonial masters will
come to first of all destroy their culture and tradition and impose on them the white man culture; they
will milk their resources both human and natural and use them to develop their own homes. The white
men used Christianity as insurance while robbing others. I'm not against Christianity. But against the
concept behind Christianity. Christianity died with Paul. It started with Paul and ended with him. The
modern Christianity is not religiously inclined but politically oriented. The sacred book of Christianity
was collated by Constantine, a pagan ruler who sought majority. Constantine saw that Christ before he
died garnered for himself a large multitude, that even after his death, his followers multiplied.
Constantine knew that fighting majority would be very disastrous, so he amalgamated Christians and
pagans. Of all the books written by revered followers and teachers, he selected a few, which favoured
both the Christians and the pagans and called it the Bible. To favour the pagans, he moved the Sabbath
day from Saturday to Sunday, in respect of the Roman sun god and moved Christ's birth from 6th
October to 25th December, in respect of the Romans' feast of paganism. To favour the Christians; the
divinity of Christ was instituted, eighteen years of his life that revealed his carnality was removed from
the book.” He paused a little before he continued: “The Bible itself contains lies and deceits. There are
books in the Bible whose authorships were lied about. Apart from historical errors and inaccuracy and
unaccountability from the creativity (Genesis) to Revelation, it covers up or should I say teaches 'truth'
with lies. How can you tell the truth by telling lies? Some of the books of the Bible according to Barth D.
Ehrman were not written by the people you thought wrote them; books like 2 Peter, Peter did not write
2 Peter. It was written by ‘God knows who'. Out of thirteen letters of Saints Paul, only seven were really
written by him. Letters like 1 Timothy, Ephesians, Laodicea's, 3 Corinthians etc weren't written by Paul.
Paul sensed that someone was circulating letters in his name that's why in Galatians 6: 11,Colossians
4:18, 2 Thessalonians 3:17 and Philemon 1:19, Paul inserted signatures by saying, “I am writing this with
my own hands. Bible scholars call those lies and deceit “pseudoepigraphs” Christianity is the whiteman's
religion; they even brought racism into it. Jesus was Jew, a black man, yet they paint him white. Satan is
very and purely white, yet they paint him black with horns.”

He paused again before he continued.

“If you really want to know the truth my son, now let me burst your brain. Opposite of life is death; of
good is evil, yet all come from the same source. Forget what you were told my son, God and Devil, Jesus
and Satan are all the same person. Angels and demons, Holy Spirit and evil spirits are of the same spirit,
from the same source and of the same purpose. Jesus didn't come to die for our sins, but to atone for
His sins and that of His Father. God created man in His likeness, man is god and is naturally cruel and
evil, and so is God. When man makes mistake we call it nature. God took flesh to die and begged for
forgiveness for all the evil and natural disasters He meted out upon man, especially to the Israelites. God
naturally is both good and evil. He said it Himself in Genesis 3: 22 “and the Lord God said, 'Behold, the
man is become as one of us, to know good and evil.'” He created angels to help him run his good
errands, and demons to help him run the evil ones but to him, they weren't fun. They have no free will;
the angels are always and only subjected to this good will while the demons are always and are only
subjected to his evil will. He procreated himself by creating man. He saw in man his true nature and
since He hated Himself, He hated the most powerful part of Him. He cast Him out and called him devil,
meaning the evil one. Darkness is the other side of light; evil is the other side of good; they are all two
sides of the same coin. The devil is the other side of God. He set out rules for man so that man will have
restrictions as to what he can do and for Him to have absolute dominion over man. If you didn't know,
Adam wasn't the first man He created neither was Eve the first woman. Check out Genesis 1:27: The first
men and women He created, He created in his own image and likeness. He created them to be gods for
they were immortal and He gave them no laws. They are Zeus, Poseidon and the other pantheon gods.
He saw the power they had. He saw His very own cruelty in them, so He created a second man. He made
this man mortal; made him out of dust so that He could control him. Genesis 2:7. The only thing that
makes man fear God is mortality. If man were immortal, man would not need God. That immortality is
what is being offered to you now on a platter; become immortal like me and rule the world. Then he
further paused before he went on.

“I was supposed to be dead since ten years ago, but here I am discussing with you. You're the chosen
one dear; the future of hell and its devils lie on your shoulders because in you there is no good and there
is no evil. Evil and good means same thing to you, just the circumstance. You're the image of old itself.
There are four principal good and four principal evil; they are called the cardinal four, and they both are
keepers of the gates; the gates of the two worlds. With the sign of the cross, you'll get the four principal
good, the father, son, …and the Holy Spirit. God is opposite of evil, light is the opposite of darkness; the
four principal evil the opposite of the four principal good so the son is exalted above the father. Then
you will have Satan which is the son on the North, Belial the father on the South, Leviathan on the West
and Lucifer on the East. When you study the principal good, there is no one on the West and the Holy
Spirit is the binding force between the father and the son. On the principal evil, Lucifer is one the East,
Satan and Lucifer are one and the same person, so there's actually nobody on the East. Leviathan is the
binding force between Satan and Belial. You're neither good nor evil, and you are both good and evil,
your soul is on the west side of the principal evil. You're the binding force between good and evil,
between heaven and hell forming the inverted pyramid of old. Your soul will stitch back the sundered
veil. Jesus gave his soul to sunder the veil from up to button; he descended to hell, spent three perfect
days before resurrecting. Christians misinterpret this scenario. The sundered veil isn't correctly the
reunion of man and his creator, but the separation of the cardinal fours. The evil is passage ways
between two worlds. Jesus didn't travel to the underworld to retrieve the key of life or of heaven or of
whatever it is the church teaches these days, but went to lock up the tail side of the cardinal four. But
you will unlock it, your soul will, all you need do is become and accept immortality and rule.”

He paused again, probably to see the effect his words had made on me before he continued.

“They say the devil is a liar, but read your bible and you will see that God is the one who actually lied to
man from the beginning of creation. God told Adam in Genesis 3:17, that when he ate the forbidden
fruit was the day he would die. But the devil told them the truth; he told them it wasn't a forbidden fruit
but the fruit of knowledge. The devil made them know that if they ate the fruit, their eyes would open
and they would gain knowledge like God. God didn't send Adam out of Eden because Adam disobeyed
Him; God sent Adam out because he didn't want him to eat the fruit of life and live forever, Gen. 3:22.
He knows mortality is the only leverage he has on man and he being a very jealous being guides and
guards it more than any other thing. Check out Isaiah 14:11-22, many Christians think Isaiah was talking
about the devil. He was actually talking about Jesus. Jesus was the one who said he would ascend to
heaven and be with God; He's the one that said he was God. Ezekiel 28:16-17, was still talking about
Jesus. He was the one who got violent and fought in the Church. He was the one who was knowledge
and epitome of wisdom and beauty. He was still the one who was laid and flogged before kings. Psalm
109:6; who do you know sat at the right hand of God, Satan. You know the devil to be the giver of
adversary and evil deeds but I king 5:4 made us know that God is the giver of adversary and evil. You
know Jesus to be son of God but Job 1:6 made us know that Satan is the son of God. You know Satan as
the Lucifer, and you know Lucifer means morning star, the bright morning star. Check out Revelation
22:16, even Revelation 2:24-28 made us know that there is more to the mystery of Satan than already
revealed. Satan is known as the serpent of old; Moses molded serpent in the wilderness, lifted it up at a
stake and people were saved too. The button line is, Jesus and Satan are one and the same person. You
will have to change your name son; your official name from now shall be Jesus Lucifer, which literally
means, Jesus the bringer of light, or Jesus, the light bearer, or Jesus, the bright morning star. Choose
your destiny son; choose carefully and be wise…..”

Thinking that all the things he told me were true, I made up my mind to become. In truth, all his words
seemed to me to be true until I found the truth. Consequently, I went to the law court and changed my
name to Jesus Lucifer. I started my crossing the gate journey on 31st October 2008 and finished crossing
the four gates on 15th December, 2008, just a few minutes before my 18th birth day. I was supposed to
seal the covenant with my blood, the very first blood of my adulthood, after which I would become, but
the devil gave me condition. He gave me rules. I hated conditions; I hated rules. The devil gave me
eleven rules which were:

1. I should not give opinion or advice unless I am asked to give.

2. I should not tell my troubles to others unless I am sure they want to hear them.

3. That when I am in another's lair, I should show him respect or else I should not go there.

4. That if a guest in my lair annoys me, I should treat him cruelly and without mercy.

5. That I should not make sexual advances unless I am given the matching signal.

6. That I should not take that which does not belong to me unless it is a burden to the other
person and he cries out to be relieved of it.

7. That I should always acknowledge the power of magic if I have employed it successfully to
obtain my desires, else I would lose all.

8. That I should not complain about anything which I need not subject myself to.

9. That I should not harm little children or hurt the overly aged.

10. That I should not kill non-human animals unless for food or when I am attacked by them.
11. That when walking in an open territory, I should not bother anyone and that if someone bothers
me, I should ask him to stop. If he does not stop, I should destroy him.

Then, he concluded that with all the above rules, I would rule the earth, get everything I want and
dominate all things. However, he quickly added that I had a problem even though I had all that it took to
become a god. He said the problem I had was my emotions which he said was my weakness.

“The difference between gods and men are emotions,” he told me and went on. “God lacks emotion,
that's why He had that mind to give up His only begotten son to such cruel manners of death. You're too
emotional. You can get angry very easily and can kill a man over nothing. You can fall in love so easily
that you'll make stupid mistake over nothing. Your family is the only leverage over you; they are your
Achilles' heel; they are the only way to get at you; they are your soft spot. Kill your family and you'll
become a god. You'll lack all the emotions and you'll become untouchable.”

It was at this point I realized the truth of the word, 'the devil is a liar.' Throughout my entire life, all I did,
all the risk I took, my soul I sold to the devil was all because of my family. To fight for my father and to
liberate my siblings; to wipe tears off my mother's face because the once pretty woman was fast aging
as a result of too much weeping every night. I could not make out any sense from the idea of killing my
family. I wondered what use it would be for me to be alive in this world if I should lose just every one
member of my family. Since my childhood, I've been suffering from autism; I find it very hard to relate
freely with people. I had no peers and no friends. Because of that, I live like an outcast in my home. My
family saw my behaviour weird and strange. They saw me different, without knowing how much I loved
them. In fact, I love my family so much that I could give my life for them. I knew then my condition and
how unpredictable I was. Despite all these short comings, my family took the pain and still put up with
me all these years. That's why I worship them to be sincere; I'll worship virtually anybody and anything
that will care about me no matter my eccentricism. My father and I were more of cat and rat even till
now yet I know that man had suffered a lot and had done a lot for me and because of that, I adore him
even though he doesn't know that. All I ever did was for the sake of my family and all I even wanted to
do was still for my family yet that devil was standing right before me telling me to eliminate them all. I
was too shocked and angry to utter a word, so he continued.

“Son, I know that it might be kind of difficult for you to kill your family given how you feel for them, but
it's the only way son. I've never done this before, but I'll make this easier for you. I know your father
gave you and is still giving you lots of hard times. I know you hated him because he wants to control you.
If you really have to earn immortality son, kill just your father to prove your competence and I'll take
care of the rest of your family for you.”

At this point, I was struggling hard to control myself. If this fool was flesh and blood, God knows I would
have beaten him to death and gladly face the consequence even if it's death sentence. However,
because I couldn't touch him, I didn't know what to do to him in order to hurt him as he had done to me.
As a result of the little gleam of light still remaining in my already darkened heart, I remembered
Matthew 4:10.

“Get lost old fool, never meet me again,” I confidently told him to his face.

“Watch how you talk to me kid, this is 21st century. I get people like you lost. I'll forgive you because I
love you and I'll give you time to choose your destiny. It's 12a.m already. If you don't kill your father,
you'll die on your 25th birthday,” he declared. “If I have the spirit of Belial, that means I'm your father
and I answer to no one. I have no master and nobody gives me orders, or instructions or condition. So I
say get lost,” I countered.

“I'll give you seven long years to think about; happy birthday kid,” he told me and left. From all these my
experiences, I have come to understand that the devil is not particularly a liar but a monster. He would
creep into one's life, searching the person's innermost desire, twist it and tempt the person with it. The
two major tools the devil uses to tempt and get into humans are frustration and desperation. He is
always lurking behind waiting for a frustrated or desperate person he could use as a willing tool
especially an idle mind. The first temptation of the devil ever recorded in the bible is in genesis 3 where
Satan, told Eve the truth that if she ate the apple her eyes would open and she would have the
knowledge of good and evil. I have come to realize that the only thing the devil does is to tell someone
something as if it is the whole truth. He withdraws information and wouldn't tell the person the details
of what the person is getting into till the person gets into it and is stuck. Then he'll control the person. In
the same vein, what the devil didn't tell Eve was that if she ate the fruit and had the knowledge of good
and evil, she would be free and wouldn't need God anymore and that God would abandon her and leave
her alone to choose her path. Finally, the devil didn't tempt Jesus till He was hungry. So I advise that we
should be careful about what we are hungry for. We might just get it!

* * * * * * * *

After my encounter with the evil one who predicted my dying at the age of 25, I spent the rest of my life
lonely, lost, and alone. Nobody knew what I was going through. I was scared to make exploits because I
believed there was no need for them as I would soon die. On the other, hand, I had resolved that killing
my father wasn't an option either as I would nerve do that even for a billion dollars. That two options
were, either I died and await my fate in eternity, or someone up there might just look not on my sins but
on my condition and have mercy on me. Hence, I lost interest in my education. I believed it was a waste
of time and finance. I was in dire need of serious help but who should I talk to? I believe a person gives
advice based on the experiences one had. I did not think anybody on earth had ever treaded this ugly
path. I, all the same felt some persons might have had and that those who did, walked it to the last
moment of their lives and eventually became the devils' slaves. I believe that nobody had ever hung in –
between. So I thought.

People around me knew I was not my normal self. My father knew I needed help and tried his best to
help me. If there was a price to pay for my restoration, I knew my father even though penniless would
pay it double.

Unfortunately, he didn't know my problem. I became an alien even to my own self. Nobody saw my
struggle. All those around complained about my problem. At a point, I was even scared of those that
loved me the most. I kept running away from those I was supposed to be close to. I tried even to run
away from my very own shadow. My life was a waste. The only friend I had was the mirror on the wall of
my room. My only source of happiness was music and alcohol and the only job I did was the street. To
worsen the matter, this time around, I had lost my position in the street. I didn't control the street any
longer. I was no more as powerful as I used to be. So, I survived only on crumbs from the street. I bought
stolen phones, laptops and motor bikes from the street at a very cheap price and resold them to make
money. I lent money to frustrated gamblers with interest that even I knew quite well was exorbitant for
the receiver to make any profit. Next, I started associating with rich women as old as or even older than
my mother. I had sex with them in exchange for money, gifts, comfort and protection. I knew nobody
loved me. Well, my parents and siblings loved me. However, to me, their love did not count because I
felt they ought to love me since we are a family. I believed it was their duty to love me. After all I love
them too. Apart from my immediate family, I had no friends. For me, all that mattered was business. My
mamas kept saying they loved me but I knew better. I knew it was the sex and their devilish desires they
loved and that the day I stopped giving them sex, their love for me would die. My popularity with
mamas grew so much that women I didn't know called me from different towns and states I haven't
been to for the weekends. The pay was always good. As I felt death already awaited me soon, I was not
scared to die any more. It became so bad that I started having sex four to five times daily. I met a
women that taught me internet fraud and another that supplied me fake currencies and gun-nuts for
sale. In this manner, I spent five years of my life. This is the summary of five years of my wasted life. In
all of these, I'm very grateful to God that I was never arrested by the police for once. I had no directions,
aim, future and no plans for my life. I spent the rest of my days expecting death to the point I had no
time to enjoy the filthy life I lived. I was really angry. I was angry with God because if He hadn't let my
father suffer so much, I wouldn't be in that mess. I was angry with my family because if it hadn't been
because of them, I would have been a god on earth; I was also angry with myself because if I wasn't so
searchy, I wouldn't have been in that mess. I was in addition angry with the devil because he would
never give anybody anything without conditions. At the same time, I was angry with everybody in the
world because they're so blind to see and understand the world we live in. I walked around with a heart;
always having this funny feeling that if I could just punch someone on the face, probably, I could feel
better. I got myself into three different blood oaths. First, I took a blood oath when I was initiated into
cultism. Second, I sold my soul to the devil and thirdly, I took a blood oath when I told my mammas that
I was never going to leak their secret till I die. My life was just like a leaf on the river. And even like that
of a boy on a swing, or a pendulum, tossed to and fro; it was like taking ten steps back. It was as if I was
travelling round a circle only to always find myself at the same spot. They said if one looks up, one will
be delivered because there is a God up there and that if one looks forward, one would be delighted
because one's dreams lie before the person. Unfortunately for me, when I looked up, I saw no help.
When I looked forward, my vision was blurred. So I lived my life being just a shadow of myself, with
nowhere to go and nobody to talk to.

Since I only talked to myself, I became my own consultant. The only friend I had was the mirror on the
wall. One moment, I would be totally broke. I lived my life on the run. How could I be able to outrun my
own self? How could I escape the curse I brought upon myself? I came to realise at that point I should
turn to God but I saw that as hypocrisy. How could I run, knocking on the very same door I cursed and
slammed? In addition to that, it seemed to me I was tied up with that same thing that usually happens
to every youth which is being ashamed always to apologise for that very wrong they are not ashamed to
do. Consequently, I kept wishing then that life was a dream and that probably, someday someone might
just be kind enough to shake me till he woke me from that bad dream. Every day then, I saw myself
grow hopelessly and hanging on a balance with no sight of remedy. That was the condition of my life
until I finally relocated to Abuja.
 CHAPTER FOURTEEN

It was evening. The weather had been clement in Abuja where I was residing. I had gone out to purchase
few things and I was walking lazily to my apartment, when I met my neighbour then. He was clutching a
black medium-sized thick cover Bible in his arm-pit. Dark –skinned and average in height, he was in black
trousers and white shirt. His handsome face lit up as he stood before me.

“Why not join me for a programme in my church this evening?” he hurriedly echoed and went on.

“Since I have been inviting you, at least you should try to honor this invitation even if it's just
once.”

“What is the name of your church again?” I asked him without concern.

“Foundation of Truth Assembly FOTA,” he uttered excitedly and continued.

“Even if you don't want to come for the sake of God, at least come for the fun in it. I have told you this
severally man, there is fun there. I meant to say it's fun. Just come.” I laughed wearily until he left. I
didn't even in my life imagine anything fun coming out from a worship centre, even if it is held in a
stadium by Jay z and Beyoncé. In the town where I was raised up, it is imagined that only those that had
lost in the race of life went to church so they could see where to hang their hopes till death. I knew
Themmy was the ladies' man. I knew his own version of fun was beautiful girls being around; to be
around ladies whether in the school, church or anywhere else. Unfortunately, I had up to 999 problems
and girls were no way one of my problems. So I always declined his invitation to the church.

One Sunday morning, I was supposed to go out with some boys but was left out even after I had taken
my bath and was ready to go out with them.

I was angry and restless. So I decided to go out to a cool and fine place. I boarded a bus. To my greatest
surprise, Themmy and her church members were also in the same bus.

“Hei you have to come with us. This is God's plan. You can't refuse this time around,” Themmy said to
me excitedly. “All right, you've won this time,” I told him, without he knowing that I had no intention of
crossing the door of their church, let alone seeing the face of their pastor.

What I had planned was that since they hold their service in 3J's Hotel, while they would be going on
with their church service, I would be keeping myself busy with two chilled bottle of beer at the hotel's
bar. Unfortunately for me, I forgot that in life man proposes and God disposes. Indeed life has a way of
playing on us, putting us in situations that are humiliating or frustrating till things fall into place. Actually,
I forgot my wallet at home. So, when we reached our destination, I couldn't buy drinks in the bar or
permitted to just watch others drink while I had none. Even if this was permitted, I wouldn't just do that.
Having no other option, I was forced to go to the only place in the hotel where I would be welcomed
without being questioned. Hence I entered the church, and no doubt was fascinated by the
coordination, from the decoration, the Choir, the Ushers and members of the church. In fact, everyone
seemed so happy and relaxed as if they had no problem of life at all. Instantly, my judgment about
church especially the Pentecostal churches changed. Before then, back home, only poor people were
thought to go to church especially the hopeless who thought were looking for where to hang their
hopes. Others who were seen in the church were boys and girls who were not in school and claim to be
decent as to be seen in hotels and social gathering. The pastors then, looked very poor and hungry. So
they revered their church members, especially the rich ones who they depend on financially. On the
contrary in the church I entered, both the rich and the poor, young and old mingled and were happy
praising God together. There, I saw that every church member revered their woman- pastor as if she
were the holiest person on earth. What really amazed me most was to see a woman – pastor for the
first time in my life and the love that she and the rest of the congregation radiated. The pastor's
personality was charming, her smiles captivating and her voice fascinating. My first impression about her
was why such ravishing beauty could be wasting her life in the church instead of enjoying her life. I
watched her preach and it was greatly moving. I was greatly touched and wished I could come back after
so I could see more of her and hear her preach the truth about life that focused on the heavenly race;
but I knew my desire was not possible. I felt I had no business with God or church. I reasoned that if fate
wanted us to meet again, it would bring her to a club or somewhere we could chat over bottles of beer
and not over the gospel. Towards the end of church service, first timers were called out but I refused to
go out. I sat longing for one or two bottles of beer, wondering why people should be wasting their time
and resources over someone that was non-existent when a hand tapped on my left shoulder and a voice
beckoned me to stand and go for the first time call. I was very irritated at that moment because I didn't
mean to be there, worse still couldn't have a beer. I felt like punching someone but for the mere fact
that I wouldn't want the beautiful pastor to see me as a tout, I went to the altar, did all that was asked
and waited for the reception. We were given a small card each to fill in our contact details. When I filled
mine, I didn't know one of the ministers was watching me. “It costs us money to print these cards and
we are here for serious business, not for some sort of a joke. Even if you don't regard us, don't you have
respect for the almighty God? Why should you combine the name of our Saviour with that of the devil?”
the chocolate skinned handsome young man asked me angrily. He took the card from me. I was calm
because I had no strength to argue with him. I had abandoned the devil and was only waiting for the day
he would come to take me. However, for an inexplicable reason, I still retained the name 'Jesus Lucifer'
just for the fun of it. Consequently, I just showed the minister my identity card. He looked at it and then
looked at me in shock. “You must see the pastor,” he intoned and took me to her. Sitting face to face
with the woman I admired from afar, my whole world stopped for a while. It seemed I could just forget
my name. It was just the two of us and I was extremely shy to speak. “What's your name dear,” “she
asked with such humility and captivating voice and smile that would make someone not to tell her a lie.
“My name is Jesus Lucifer, but they call me Pokka, Pokka Messiah,” I responded after some hesitation.
She looked at me tenderly and repositioned her charming body slowly. “No dear, I want the name on
your birth certificate,” she said, “Oh my real name? I'm Xoxo Emmanuel,” I replied. “You have a nice
name dear. God's with us. Why on earth will you throw that away for a curse?” she asked inquisitively,
her eyes sparkling in a surprising manner. Unhesitantly, I gave her a rundown of the meaning of my
name. “I'm a pastor dear. I don't want to argue scripture with you, but I'll only teach you one truth now
if you'll let me,” she said, paused briefly before she went on. “Before Jesus left, He gave His disciples the
power that whatever they bind on earth would be bound in heaven and whatever they loose on earth
will be loosed in heaven. Jesus is a name, an ordinary name that even some people bear. However, the
fact that 2.1 billion Christians unanimously agree the name is powerful and performs miracle, so, it is.
That same 2.1 billion Christians including other religions unanimously agree the name Lucifer is a curse,
so it is. My dear, I want you to do me a favour. I want us to be friends.” The favour sounded to me as if I
was the one being favoured. However, I did not say anything. Actually I didn't know what to answer.
Nevertheless, she continued, “If we are going to be friends dear, I'll have to collect your I.D card and the
affidavit. You'll have to stop bearing the name, Jesus Lucifer, Pokkah Messiah, or any other it is they call
you,” she told me. To me, that was a fair deal just that I was then not good in sustaining friendship well
or make it last long. Again, I didn't know how long that one would last. All the same, I accepted the offer.
“Since we are now friends Emmanuel, tell me about yourself,” she told me. “Mum, I don't think you'll
really want to hear the truth,” I said. “I want to hear it; every single bit of it,” she replied and took me up
to the gallery where it was just only two of us. “All right, begin,” she said to me. I started from the
beginning until I finished. I was pleased that she listened even to every minute detail of mine. After
about two hours of my miserable story, I was soaked with my own tears to the point that I had a runny
nose. She calmly offered me her handkerchief. I didn't know earlier that I was so heart broken that all I
needed all these years was just someone to talk to, a shoulder I could cry on. Then she began. “Two
things I've just discovered about you are: one, you're a disturbed angry bitter boy; two, you're lonely
and alone. You are so lonely that you built a wall around you. You don't want to get out and you don't
let anybody in. Now let me clear your doubts; let me teach you before we continue. One, science is not
the worst that happened to humanity. In fact science is the best thing to ever happen to humanity aside
salvation from Jesus Christ.” She paused a while before she went on. “I know science has its flaws. That's
because the inventors of science, humans, aren't 100% efficient. We aren't perfect. We're not God. I
know science has killed many people but they are just war casualties, collateral damages. Every good
thing has its price, for our salvation. Jesus paid the price and it was death. For independence, people
pay the price. For freedom, people still pay the price. I guess you're conversant with the saying that
everything that has advantage has disadvantage. To know if something is good or evil, compare its
advantage to its disadvantage. If the advantage is up to or more than 60%, it's good. You can't deny the
advantage of science dlear. Look at your phone; you use electricity; you visit the hospital; your life
revolves around science dear; you can't live without it. You can't fight science with science. You're not
as stupid as those Boko Haram who claim science should be abolished yet they use science. If you hate
something, reject it absolutely, not using it while you hate it. Boko Haram boys fight science with
science. They ride cars, make phone calls, use guns, which are all products of science yet they claim they
fight it. Embrace science dear and quit unleashing your bitterness to that struggling baby.” She paused
shortly, then she continued. “As for Chrstianity, I'm so sorry it got infiltrated along the way by power
seeking mongers. Jesus knew somehow that Christianity would face challenges but He also know it
would prevail over its challenges. That's why He told Peter that the gates of hell would not prevail
against it; yes it will try, but it will not prevail against it. Somewhere along the line, Christianity got
powerful. You and I know power corrupts. It made Christianity become both religious and political.
That's what brought about Pentecostal reformation, to strip Christianity of its political powers and
strengthen its religious base. Everybody had done things in the past they are not proud of. Christianity
grew like a little girl, was misled, jeopardized and infiltrated. However, it has grown and no longer a
baby now. It's a mother now and has learnt from its past, its mistakes and most importantly, it has
grown strong now. Don't judge it with its past. Instead judge it with the present and the future. Embrace
it and congratulate it because it has been trying so hard over the centuries to correct its past mistakes.
Have it in mind dear, it wasn't even Christianity that lost track. It was the adherents of the Christian
faith. They were toughened and darkened by the whips, by the words and arrows that persecuted them.
They were bullied, persecuted and pushed to the wall. So they lost the track and become like their
persecutors. They say the best way of defense is counter attack; its how it defended itself and got its
independence and freedom. Dear, learn how to forget the past and move on with the present so as to
ascertain the future; nobody mingles with the dead. The past is dead and gone. Leave and move on
dear. It doesn't matter how salvation was handed to us. What matters now is we're saved.” Then she
paused momentarily and continued: “I don't know how you got that philosophy of yours that fornication
is not sin. One of your many problems, in fact, your major problem is that you're too intelligent and
naturally controversial. Fornication is a sin dear. First of all, your parents must have taught you against
it, the society frowns at it and you can't really proudly do it in the open. I don't want to start quoting
chapters and verses for you but just know that fornication is total disobedience to your parents and a sin
against the society. Search yourself, tell yourself the truth, would you like your daughters sleeping
around, because fornication is not a sin?” Again, the charming pastor stopped abruptly before she went
on. “Dear, opposite of good is not evil, opposite of light is not darkness, as opposite of heat isn't cold.
You can measure good; you can measure light; you can measure heat but cannot measure cold or
darkness or evil. Cold is the absence of heat not the opposite of heat. Darkness is the absence of light
not the opposite of light. Evil is the absence of good not the opposite of good. We can only find evil in
the heart of man when God has left the heart, when the conscience is dead. My dear, the devil is not the
opposite of God. The devil can only come in when God is shut out. He can only operate in the absence of
God. If God and the devil are the same person, how can a kingdom stand when they fight each other?
How come the devil flew at the mention of the name of Jesus Christ. I don't want to go into scriptures
for you dear. I want you to understand Christianity as it is in practical life experience is not something
that could only be real and not felt. Nobody fights himself. It very obvious to all of us that light and
darkness have being at war since time began. If God and the devil are the same person, they couldn't be
so in logger heads with each other.” She stopped, looked at me kindly and went on. “Mary the mother
of Jesus, despite the fact that she's already chosen to be the vessel through which salvation was brought
to man, God still had to send the angel to seek her consent and free will. He asked her if she would or
would not. Mary replied, behold the handmaid of the lord, be it done to me according to the will.
Despite the fact that Jesus’ mission was already concluded here on earth, yet, at the 11th hour, He was
still shown what He was about to face and his consent and free will was sought. He still replied, “let it be
done to me according to thy will.” Many people say the devil make them do something but it is not true.
God and devil can never force you to do anything that is not your will. That's the difference between
humans and angels /demons. We humans have free will but they don't. What I am trying to tell you dear
is that the devil can never have power over your soul unless you willingly submit it to him. He can't take
you or take your life. He can only try to frustrate and pressure you till you willingly give it up. Judging
from our discussion so far dear, you seem to me to be a very strong and brave young man. Don't let him
pressure you to give in your life or that of your family dear. Learn from Job. My dear, you'll turn twenty
five and nothing will happen to you. In fact, your life will instead start having meaning from twenty five.
Don't be afraid dear, the Lord is with you. I am and will always be by your side. I'll be with you all the
way. Just don't let me down by losing your faith.” At this point, she stopped again to observe my
disposition. Seeing I was still attentive to her, she continued. “The only way the devil can pressure you to
give in your spirituality is to frustrate your carnality dear. From your story so far, you aren't doing
anything now. So the big question is, what do you want to do and what can you do? I don't want you to
answer me now dear. I want you to think it through and give me a reply on Thursday,” she said. I was
astonished to say a word. So I just nodded. “That means I'll be seeing you on Thursday then?” she
added. I nodded again. However, a part of me didn't really want to come, but a part of me was longing
to come back. By the time we finished our discussion, it was really getting late, around 6pm. Everybody
had gone save the woman-pastor’s body guards. The bus that conveyed me to the place had left. So, the
pastor gave me seven thousand naira (N7000) for transport and patted me on the back. “It is well,” she
told me and I went home that day full of life. I felt as if a thousand tons of weight had been lifted off my
chest. I was so happy and thankful to Themmy who made me come to their church. Throughout the
night, I reflected seriously on all the things and the treatment given to me by the amiable pastor. I
thought about her charming personality, how she didn't preach or condemn me but only showed me the
truth. She knew there was no kind of preaching I hadn't heard before. In fact, her Christian belief is so
peculiar, unique and charming. Though she believes that heaven is the ultimate goal, yet she feels that
while one is here on earth, one needs to work towards a fulfilled and fulfilling life. Her only aim is that
her flock while aiming for heaven will as well aim at being comfortable here on earth. She started by
giving me life and helping me in so many other things she could. She believes in the integrity of hard
work, genuine hard work. Again, she is a mother who has understanding. She doesn't look at one but
looks into one. She understands even one's inner-most desires and aspirations not expressed. She
makes one feel like the most important person in the whole world. I used to hate Pentecostal churches
because I thought their pastors were using their churches to milk their poor members. However, for the
first time in my life, I met a pastor who is not even a signatory to her own church bank account. I met a
woman who would tell one the truth no matter how unpleasant and difficult it might be. A woman who
does what is right and just; a woman of faith who even if one does not read the Bible but follows her
teaching and life style, one would still go to heaven after death. What saved me wasn't the preaching. I
had that countless times. It wasn't the church or the money or the life. It was the love shown to me. For
the first time in my life, I felt being loved. My parents and siblings love me but I felt it was their duty to
do so. After all, I am a member of their family; outside my immediate family, no one had shown love to
me before. That is since my childhood, I had never had a friend, girlfriend or best friend. Since I started
using mobile phone, my contacts never exceeded thirteen. I was alone and lonely that I had nobody to
talk to. Nobody really cared about me until I met a woman that loved and cared about me. She was not
like those women I befriended in the past who turned me into a sex slave in the name of love. This
woman accepted me for who I am, cherished, cared and loved me so much that even if I had cut her
right hand, she would still stretch out her left hand to hug me. Even if I am given ten lives to live, I
wouldn't be able to repay her. The most surprising thing is that she never expects anything in return.
She made me to realize that the purest form of love and charity is giving without expecting anything in
return. I was lost and forgotten when she found me. I was groping in the dark till she shone her light. I
only existed till she gave me life. She taught me how to love, beginning from loving myself and let others
love me. She is my pastor, my spiritual director, my mentor, my mother, my sister and my best friend.
She is the only female angel I know. She is all I have because she helped me become all I ever wanted to
be. Most importantly, she leads me to Jesus and is helping me maintain my relationship with Him, I can't
say I am a saint now because nobody is. However, I am trying hard to become one. It is very easy now
for me to stay on track and focused because of all the love I see around me, love from my FOTA family. I
don't misbehave again because now I have an authority figure. The one person I answer to. The one
person in my whole life I know I would never disappoint. I just want the angels and every good man and
woman to know that I found a goddess in Abuja. Her name is Sharon AdefunkeKasali. There is a God in
FOTA and He is truly alive. Jesus gathered His disciples with love. Pastor Funke is sustaining her flock
with love, genuine love; the love of Christ, the love that cost nothing yet means everything, the love of a
mother. You will know the truth and the truth shall set you free. The truth I know is that only love can
set you free. Love set me free and I love you too mum; even the heavens know that.