Deda of Sabo Community

           DEDA OF SABO COMMUNITY

The year 2017 is for sure the most tumultuous for the residence of Sabo community. Events that happened in the year alone are enough to make a lifetime history for generations to come. Among the many tragedies of the year in the community was the great famine, which was rightly accompanied by the acute drought. It was acute because it lasted for just a week and then everything went back to normalcy. The story of how the great famine and acute drought came and went is a very exciting one. But that is not what I want to tell you now. What I believed caused a great stir to the inhabitants of Sabo community, and I’m sure, will greatly excite you too if I tell you about it now, was the emergence of a certain man in the community, shortly after the series of calamities that seized its residents.

His name was Dada, or was it Dedan? I’m not sure now. It is very important that I remember his name right. For, wasn’t it with his name that he did all the things that, at first, shocked the community, and then later, amazed and excited everyone, so much so that some started bribing him to call out his name three times and voice out a favorable future for them?

Yes, I remember his name now – Deda. Let me not mislead you, I remember his name very well. How will I not? Was I not one of his clienteles? However, I think why I tend to always forget his name, or would I rather say, intentionally forget, is because when it was my turn, he called out Deda three times, and told me that my father would die in five days’ time. I should not have gone to him. For, the same person constantly advising me against frequenting a soothsayer (Deda was more than that, actually), was the same person Deda pronounced a death sentence on.

Nobody in Sabo community regarded Deda’s words as predictions. They were far more than that – they were sentences. Of course, everybody doubted the young man at first. But when about ten people passed by Deda’s hut and he called out his name thrice, pointed his middle finger at each of them, and pronounced instant riches on the first three, sad news for another three, and death on the other three, all of which came to be within twenty-four hours, everybody locked themselves and their proteges indoors. I don’t remember what Deda pronounced on the last man out of the ten, but I do recall that when he saw Deda’s words coming to be on the first six men, he went to the market, bought a fat goat, and commanded his wife to prepare it for him, and him alone. He was reported to have said ‘let me eat my last goat meat…’ Anyway, that was the extent to which the residents—the extent to which I—feared Deda. The one person, who, even after many confirmations of Deda’s pronouncements disregarded him and moved freely about was my father. But I guess if he had known that his eldest son would, in few weeks’ time, consult Deda, who was at that time, a demi-god, he would have acted otherwise.

Deda was not from Sabo community. In fact, even today, no one can beat his chest and tell you where he came from, and where he disappeared to. Not even Kankan, who amassed overwhelming wealth from Deda’s pronouncements, or Okon, who got rid of most of his arch-enemies through Deda’s sentences. The only thing anyone can tell you about Deda is that, on the third day after the acute drought ended, he dismounted from the white horse he rode; with a smoke between his lips, saluted every living thing he came across – tree, animals, humans, and plants, walked to the outskirts of the community, and in less than a day, erected a hut for himself. The white horse with him was neither seen again, nor heard neighing in any bush nearby. And because Deda’s clienteles often reported meeting him always eating some sort of meat different from the ones they knew, everybody thought he had butchered the beautiful beast. When did he do that? Nobody could say. But then, when he was about to disappear, we all saw the same white horse reappear from whichsoever realm it had disappeared to. And rightly so, we all saw it go down, as it had done the day Deda came down from it. He mounted it, saluted the trees, plants, humans, animals, and this time, even his hut before he galloped for a few seconds and went blank. Yes, Deda and his white horse disappeared into thin air after galloping for some seconds. That was part of the mysteries about Deda that remains a myth. The other mysteries of instant wealth, sudden death, and the rest, were rightly unraveled few days after he left.

To our amazement, and the victims’ heartbrokenness, all the wealth—be it money, automobiles, or landed properties which Deda pronounced on some of his patrons—vanished as mysteriously as their conferrer did. But then, that’s also a mystery, right? For one to open his mini-vault and find it almost bereft of anything paper aside the book usually left there for record purpose. Or for one to leave his car beside another, only to come back few minutes after and meet the parking space empty of any vehicle except the ones belonging to others. But anyway, these and more were why, even though I ceased believing in Deda’s words from the day I threw the last grains of sand over my father’s grave, I still regarded him and most of his actions as mysteries. Whichever way you turn it, as you solve one mystery about the sorcerer and murderer – Deda, others spring up.

You might be surprised to hear me call Deda a sorcerer and murderer. You ought not to be. For he was all that, and more. I got to know Deda was a murderer the day I bathed my father the final and ritual bath. Close to his ears, I noticed a hole, and God knows I know my father very well to know that those holes on either side of his ears weren’t there until then. Anyway, I noticed the two holes that looked like needle-inflicted ones. I pressed the two sides and, God be my witness, remnants of the poisonous liquid injected into my father’s head spewed out. Deda didn’t only pronounce the death sentence on my father, he went an inch further – he executed him.

I didn’t tell anyone about the shocking finding. Wasn’t I the one that went for consultation? It wouldn’t make any difference even if I did anyway. Because at that time, most people had garnered quite a fortune by visiting Deda at night with bags of money and asking him to pronounce more riches on them the next morning. However, I made sure to examine the remains of every other person Deda sentenced, and rightly so, found the two holes beside their ears, and the liquid spewing out on press. Now, that was where the problem lay. I had found out that Deda himself was executing his victims. I had also found out how he did so. What I couldn’t find out was when and where he did it. I can almost swear that I was always with my father since he was sentenced by Deda. But I guess, that leads to another mystery, right? As I said earlier, as you solve one mystery about Deda, others spring up.

I am to later reach a conclusion on all the mysteries though. It is a single word, and I think I have mentioned it earlier – sorcery. Deda was nothing but a cunning, extorting, murderer, and sorcerer. I wish him bad wherever he is. And with that, I end my narration; with a curse – upon all those who swindle others at their lives’ expenses. May they never find peace, Amen.