Things Are Changing

The festival! The Friend!

Episode Three

It was another festive period in the kingdom and it’s witnessed by both the young, old, poor and rich people in the kingdom. One of the major event is the worship of the god of iron which is the epitome of all gods in the kingdom. It is called “Ogun”. The worhip of the god of iron is always done by either the king or the Bashorun as the case maybe, it is always year in year out. This year’s own is to be done by the Bashorun, the king is left out of the process this year. Bashorun Adewale, already dressed in his whiye robe, is ready to carry the sacrifice for the rites and rituals associated with the festival. Immediately Adewale was sighted coming from the upper hill with the calabash in his hands, all the people sitted at the venue of the event stood up to hail him. They fear him more than the king himself. They believe he is a god on his own. Who want to face the wrath of the great Bashorun Adewale. The materials needed for the sacrifices which includes: two live dogs and a cutlass, is already on ground for the start of the programme. Bashorun Adewale placed the calabash on the top of the god, he picked the cutlass and raised it up to cut the dog into two, as he was about to do this, he looked at his people with a terrifying eye “ Ogun, I am here this year for your sacrifice, my people are already here seeking thy face and honour. As from this moment, anyone of them who tries to cross my path or harm me, Ogun, be in charge to crush such person to death! Let him/her face your wrath! Anyone of them who goes against my order, let such person be punished by you! Paralyze them all if they disobey me! So shall it be” he cut the dog into two and dropped the cutlass. People started murmuring to one another with tears flowing from their eyes. They all dispersed for their various houses.

 Bashorun Adewale with his new wife were discussing on some issues burning in their heart when two messengers from the palace came in, “ Your lordship, the king want to see you in his palace right now, he said it’s an important issue” . “tell him I’m on my way” the Bashorun replied them. They took to their heel back to the palace .He called two of his own guards and informed them of their impromptu journey to the palace. They prepared two horse ready for the journey and they move straight to the palace to see the king. As he entered the palace, the king was the first to speak to him “ Bashorun, the major eason why I called you to the palace is to get you prepared for a battle. There’s a war going on between the Ata and Iwuse kingdom, as you know, that the Ata kingdom is not far from here and they are already planning to wage a war against us in the next three months. They sent us a message that they have won the battle against Iwuse, that we are their next port of call”. 

Bashorun Adewale was furious to hear all these, he started with his boast, “ How dare them talk to us in that manner? Don’t they know who we are? The great Isokan kingdom! I will make sure they face the wrath of sending such messages to us, where’s their messenger?” the king replied that the messenger dropped the message at the entrance of the palace and ran away leaving no trace. “ don’t worry king, we will surely defeat them” the Bashorun replied and stormed out of the palace.

Though, he is a dictator and cruel to his people, but he is always ready to defend his land. He had won over twenty battles for his kingdom in the last ten years of being the Bashorun of the Isokan kingdom. This is one of the major reasons why the people still hold on to him though he is wicked to them. But as at now, he is not loved by any, but feared by all. As he got back home, he went to his sacred room to make some findings about the war he’s to fight in the next three months.

“won pe mi mo si je

Won fi oro won lomi

Mo si da won lohun

Mo dawon lohun

Sekim lo ja agun yii

Se mo maa bori awon otami?’’

Which means “they called me for a talk in which I answered 

  They reasoned with me

  I answered them bravely

  Should I go for this battle or not?

  Will I overcome my enemies in this war?

After all these and necessary divinations, his gods replied him and assured him a victorious battle against the Ata people. He was delighted to hear this and he dashed out of the sacred room after he had already thanked them.

The next day, being a bright one, the great Bashorun decides to go to the forest to get some leaves by himself without any guards following him to the bush which was uncommon to him. The guards were surprised when he told them he doesn’t want any of them to follow him to the bush. On his way to the bush, he met an antelope on his way and he looked at it and shouted “ Get of my way you this little antelope, don’t you know who is standing in front of you, THE GREAT BASHORUN ADEWALE OF THE ISOKAN KINGDOM” the antelope didn’t move a bit. Adewale quickly brings out his charm fom his pocet and started incantation which goes thus 

  “ emi Adewale omo ekun 

  Emi ti gbogbo aiye nri ti won bila

  Gbogbo eni to ba ni kin subu ni yio subu

  Iwo eranko buruku yi, mo ni ki oyirapada ko fi ara re han mi”

Which means “ I Adewale the son of a tiger

  Whom human being sees and runs away from

  Those who wants my downfall, will surely be down

  You this evil animal I command thee to change to your original form!”

Immediately after he said this, the Antelope changed into his late mother, Adewale was surprised to see his mother in this form, he quickly bow down to show respect to her “ oh mother I never knew it was you please I beg of you that thou should forgive me. I’m very sorry for what I did. I know have already offend you for what I just did, I promise to do anything to please you. This is a terrible omen!”. He started crying, he was really sorry for what he did and he moved closer to where his mother was, the mother looked up and said “don’t cry my son, I know that you weren’t aware that I was the one that appeared in the form of antelope, if you had known you wouyldnt have done all these. If to say you were with the charm I gave you the other time when you encounter such things l;ike this then you would have known that it was me. All is well. It’s nothing”. The Bashorun was happy when he heard his mother speak of this. “ mother, what do you want to tell me that you didn’t call for me to see you myself at the sacred room?”. “ I’m here for you, Adewale, listen to me attentively, so that you won’t bite your last finger. Your enemies are many and they are already planning for your downfall and if you ain’t careful, you may fall for their trap” his mother warned. “ Who are those that wants the god of iron to use their blood as water? Who are those after me? Who wants to kill me? Is it on this earth? They should be ready to face my wrath!” . The mother looked at him and shakes her head “ ota bi ore, omo araiye buru , eni ti aro wipe o je ore si wa lo wa je ota aiye at iota ode si wa. Aiiye le, omo araiye buru jai ( eniemies like friends human beings are wicked, those who believes to be a friend is now the worst of enemies. Human beings are wicked”. The mother cleared her throat and continued with her explanation “my son, it is Baobaku, the one whon you used your own hard earned money to raise up from the gutter. He is the one who is planning to ruin you, he’s on the verge to kill you, he wants to see your wrath. My son, you see, this is the reason why I said you have to be careful with the type of people you deal with.”

 Bashorun Adewale was speechless, he couldn’t believe his eyes that, his bossom friend can think of killing him, this is weird, he exclaimed!. He was furious and shaking cause it pained him so much, he never expected it to be Baobaku, who still visited him yesterday evening. As he screamed, all the trees in the bush started shaking and they were giving a loud noise, all these, due to the fact that Bashorun is a powerful man who’s got a lot of power in him. Everything later died down and Bashorun Adewale talked after keeping quiet for some minutes, “Baobaku! The battle line is drawn between the two of us! You will surely pay for this…………..”. his mother told him to calm down that everything will be settled, she made her intention known to him that she’s ready to go back to her abode. As she was about to go, Bashorun begged his mother to please try to see him in his sacred room in the night. She agreed to come.  

 Bashorun Adewale was about to give his mother a goodbye hug but she changed back to her former state – Antelope. She later disappeared. It was then that he realized that she’s dead and it’s impossible for the living to touch the dead. He find his way back to his house, it was raining heavily that night when he got home. He was taken inside by his guards who saw him staggering in like a poor fellow. He was taking to his inner chamber before getting him a new cloth to put on. They prepared fire for him to cool his body. He was later taken back to his room where he was laid on his bed to sleep.