PROLOGUE
PROLOGUE
The year is the 29th of December 1983. The preacher is walking along a derelict street, somewhere in one of the slums, dotted along the railway line at Ebute Metta. The time is 05:30 hours, too early for anyone living in Lagos to move out, especially in that shanty area, but the preacher, apparently oblivious of the danger of the hour and the place, picks her way through the fog of the harmattan. The preacher is a young lady in her early-twenties and must be very pretty but the fog, which seems to be working hand in hand with the white shawl covering the head and eyes of the preacher, effectively prevents any curious observer from picking discernible features of the face. The time and the shawl were deliberately chosen to serve this very purpose. The preacher’s left hand, hidden inside a flowing white garment reaching down to her bare feet, clutches a small basket. Inside that basket and completely covered by the white garment is a baby girl; a day old baby girl, peacefully asleep. Firmly gripped in her other hand is a bell, which she rings after taking every three or four steps. “Repent and come to the Lord Jesus. He is the Way, the Truth and the Light.” Her voice, a singer’s voice, travels far. “Jesus is the answer to all your problems. There’s no problem, in your life, he cannot roll away. Therefore, call on him now.” As she walks along that dirty street, her eyes dart furtively around, from one side of the street to the other. She is apprehensive and waits for the right opportunity as her bare feet carry her to the edge of the large open gutter which runs behind the sprawling Nigerian Railway Workers Quarters at Ebute Metta. She stands by the edge of this open gutter and cries out “Jesus says come all ye that are heavily in labour and he will give you the best”. She was not sure whether it was the “best” the Bible says or the “rest”, and reading the Bible, which she passionately detests anyway, is never one of her chores. But, she is not about to arouse any suspicion, so she smoothly continues “Just cast your burdens at the feet of Jesus”.
She cuts short her sermon. She has finally reached her destination and she does not want to draw attention to herself anymore, least of all a crowd of salvation-hungry faces. She bends her knees slowly, lowering the baby-basket on the littered ground and slowly, very slowly, straightens herself again. “I’m surely going to cast away my own burden today” she mutters to herself as she casts quick, furtive glances around her. She knows the situation is now dicey because, the moment she lifts the white garment off the basket, the cold and dry harmattan, will wake the baby up into a bawling attraction. Finally, she decides, there should be no finesse about it as she yanks the flowing garment off the basket and scurries out of the place. She has spent barely five minutes by the large gutter.
PART I
