The New Eden: Ojuelegba!

By Peter Ladi Thompson

Set in the heart of an African city, the plot stretches its tentacles into the United States of America, Europe, and the deep past of Africa. The gripping story pits the modern, westernized Christian mindset against the brilliance of arcane spiritual engineering. What starts out as a love story between an African aristocrat and an American girl explodes into an epic of biblical proportions and a global fad with sinister implications.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jun 5, 2012
• ISBN: 9781449723934

Peter Ladi Thompson

About the Author The mission fields of Africa offer a good glimpse into the workings of the early Christianity that the Scriptures describe. The spiritual authority bestowed upon the church by the savior can be experienced in real time with physical manifestations that defy scientific explanations. Centuries of darkness in the African spiritual heritage form a background that showcases the light of the Christian gospel and the power of the blood of Jesus with clarity. A decade and a half of field experience and author Ladi Peter Thompson’s African roots enable a grasp of spiritual reality that give life to the Word in a fresh way. The mix of intensive years of Christian ministry with the sharp, incisive, probing mind of a trained architect makes it easy to understand the ease with which deep Christian truths are embedded into this work of fiction. Peter Ladi Thompson is the president of the Christian Guild in Nigeria and serving overseer of its multi-branched church ministries. He presents a weekly teaching program title Oracles of God on cable television and LTV. Married to Marian, an attorney, and the father of three boys, this tireless Christian activist is also the international coordinator of the Macedonian Initiative, a faith-based NPO specialized in relief work and conflict resolution in the terror fields of northern Nigeria. Widely traveled as a circuit-speaker on terror related matters, Thompson takes time out to enjoy the odd game of cricket and hang gliding as hobbies.

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THE NEW EDEN

Ojuelegba!

Peter Ladi Thompson

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Copyright © 2011 by Peter Ladi Thompson

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4497-2394-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-2395-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-2393-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011914743

WestBow Press rev. date: 08/18/2011

CONTENTS

Acknowledgement

The Principality Returns

The Bloom Of Eros

The Glitter And The Gold

The Revelation

The Scales Come Off

The Markings Of The Beast

The Prayer Hedge

Harsh Realities

The Awakening

The Promise Of Eden

Hour Of Decision

Fiery Darts

The Initiation

The New Dawn

The New Man

The Showdown

Epilogue

(Endnotes)

SKU-000473275_TEXT.pdf

The dedication will be found everywhere in between my rapturous memory of Florence Adebisi Thompson & the joyous eruptions of my bundle of joy, Eri Thompson

"They know not, neither will they understand;

they walk on in darkness: all the foundations of

the earth are out of course"

Acknowledgement

Thanks to P. Adams, Valerie, and Lillian for the encouragement.

The Principality Returns

The skies over Ojuelegba were clear on that sunny August afternoon when a new visitor whooshed out of the heavens with lightning speed and hovered over the bridge. It surveyed the chaos below with its leathery wings flapping gently in the air.

Lagos is a place where everyone keeps a sharp lookout around them and very few people ever look up towards the heavens. Even if any of the pedestrians had glanced towards the sky that day, their human eyes would not have captured the specter of this ghoulish entrant. Exu, the principality, snorted with disgust and furled its gnarled wings to settle into the motionless suspension of spiritual beasts. Its blood red eyes, sunken deep into its thick dragon-shaped head, began to survey the busy scene below, doing a 360-degree spin without moving its neck an inch.

Almost two hundred years had elapsed since Exu had been forcefully ejected from this location. Peering at the human traffic and commercial activities below, Exu shook its head slowly. "Imagine such nonsense! In those days, this place was a dreaded location, a covenanted spot where human sacrifices were scheduled weekly. It had been a place of no return for most humans, apart from the initiates of the egbe-esu¹ society. There were no roads then, just bush paths from the more primitive settlements of the pre-colonial era."

The only similarity between the ancient times and the present was the confluence of traffic. In the ancient days, sixteen paths led to the central clearing where sacrifices were offered to the lords of darkness.

Exu remembered the flashes of primitive knives and the bloodbaths that covered the clearing each time they gathered for a feast, the trashing of bodies as victims breathed their last to offer their souls to the glory of unending bliss.

Exu unfurled its wings and descended to the road level to observe Ojuelegba better. The glorious clearing was gone, and there was a solitary police post sitting on the spot where the executioner’s block used to be!

Where are the ancient guardians of the covenanted grounds? Exu peered from right to left as humans walked past, treading on the covenanted grounds without even one twinge of fear.

The modern Ojuelegba layout is just another busy commercial centre in the Lagos metropolis but the ancient Ojuelegba was noted as the place where multiple roads meet, a perfect place for blood sacrifices to appease the numerous blood thirsty African gods whose demands were insatiable. Lagos with its teeming population of about 15 million is one of the busiest cities in the whole world. No different from the big apple, New York City, Lagos has a reputation for the fast life. This was where things happened and no questions were asked. It was a city of prodigals, the nerve centre of fast money.

Ojuelegba sits bang in the middle of all the Lagos action, it is the nexus between the wealthy island and the sprawling mainland. Viewed from the air, the Ojuelegba junction looks like a skewed crucifix. On the lower levels, cars coming from the Surulere axis come face to face with those crawling in from the Yaba end while most of the traffic speeding in from the Ikeja end of the city slow to a halt at the intersection because of the volume coming from the opposite end which is the Lagos Island axis. A concrete flyover had been introduced a few decades ago to ease the traffic burden but the spindly four lane overhead connection moving traffic from the Lagos Island and the Apapa wharf towards the deeper ends of the mainland had made very little difference. Go slow is the local coinage for the utter confusion that the mix of vehicle and pedestrian traffic in Ojuelegba represented.

The late music maestro, Fela Kuti had done a song on the confusion in the seventies and very little had changed since then! All the roads that lead into the Ojuelegba junction are flanked by commercial stores of different shapes and sizes. It was a place that buzzed with perpetual activity. Ojuelegba was a loadeded place where you had to keep your eyes wide open at all times. Beyond the noise of cars and blaring horns, the rhythm of the standard Ojuelegba cacophony was undergirded by the calls of hawkers plying their wares and hustlers doing their thing.

Everything was available for sale from clothes, food, shoes, electronics, pay-as-you-go phone recharge units, wrist watches and even frozen foods to stolen airplane parts. If you had enough cash you could even buy a second new tokunbo² car on the roadside and join the traffic. It was said that you could start out naked and drive out of the traffic fully clothed in the best of wears! The amazing thing was that you did not need to leave your car! Pickpockets, drug pushers, prostitutes and petty thieves mingled freely with the crowd of workers, civil servants, factory hands, shoppers and ‘professional pedestrians’ who had no job but were always hanging around hoping that something would happen. Hidden behind the shops and stores were a warren of dives and joints that gave the area its criminal flavor. If you ever wanted a taste of the colorful and noisy city life of Lagos, Ojuelegba was the place to visit. Just one experience would leave an indelible impression that would stay with you forever, the greater chances were that you would get your pockets picked or hustled in one way or the other.

##

About sixty metres away from the cross junction stood a building that housed numerous stores, including a musical instruments shop on the second floor. Right behind it was a brothel where cheap sluts swigged directly from beer bottles and waited patiently for nightfall when customer traffic would increase.

In another building not far away, Janet was sitting half-naked on a floor mat in a cubicle, painting her face. An old man peered into her dimly lit crib and asked for money, shaking his beggar’s can. Janet loosed a string of curses at him and spat in his direction.

You’re a useless old man, Scarface. A moron!! she shouted Do you think you can watch free shows without paying money? You better return to your village to farm the land.

Janet laughed when the old man cringed and beat a hasty retreat. Everyone in Ojuelegba knew Scarface and his tall stories. The useless fellow lived off the tips he could cadge from the criminal elements in the area and was drunk on local gin most of the time. His face wasn’t really scarred. Instead, he bore the tribal marks that belonged more to ancient times than the present.

Facial scarifications were now an anachronism in Africa. If anyone had cared enough, they would have noticed that this old man’s tribal marks were distinct and bore no resemblance to any of the tribal designs that indentified the different clans of old. Modern Lagos had totally forgotten that there was a special design of tribal marks peculiar to an ancient secret society.

Ojuelegba was a modern translation of the ancient description of the men who bore such marks. Scarface claimed that all the land in the modern Ojuelegba territory originally belonged to his family, but the government had cheated them because of their lack of education. He often boasted, whenever he could get anyone to listen, about the good old days of his forefathers when their name was feared by all. But life was too fast in Lagos for anyone to have time for tall stories that could not put food on the table.

##

Out in the streets, Exu had finished its survey of Ojuelegba and could hardly hide its disgust at what it had degenerated into. Its gnarled ears had picked up conversations here and there and knew that the ancient name was still in use. It was no longer a name of dread! It was no longer a name of fear!

Exu’s body quivered with rage as it saw people marching all over Ojuelegba without even paying obeisance to its covenant lords. Exu reared itself to its full height of eighteen meters, threw back its horrible neck, and screamed out the word OJU-ELE-GBA in an ancient dialect long forgotten by the inhabitants of the land.

The earth trembled for a few seconds, and a momentary hush descended on Ojuelegba with people craning their necks to see what was going on. The policeman on duty ceased directing traffic and looked around in panic at the sea of faces going about their duties. A taxicab driver jammed his brakes suddenly, and a pile-up ensued behind him. The momentary lull receded, and the normal noise began to resume as a fight broke out in a side street.

Deep in the surroundings, the inhuman shriek of Exu had triggered a similar effect, but its echoes did not last long, and only in one case was there a marked and prolonged reaction. It was the beggarly old man, Scarface! He had fainted when Exu’s cries hit his ears, and his body began to jerk spasmodically, foaming from the mouth. The prostitutes gathered around him and poured water on his face to revive him. He came to with his lips moving, but something had changed about him. He sat up and began to mutter ancient incantations that had not been heard in a hundred years. Then he stood straight and tall. His stoop was gone and the wrinkles on his face seemed to have disappeared. There was an uncharacteristic sureness in his step as he walked out trancelike, ordering the prostitutes out of his way.

Out in the streets, Exu was vibrating with anger and streaks of colors were emanating from its body. He stamped its three toed foot into the road and everything began to vibrate. The next day’s newspapers would report that a strange tremor of unknown source had hit Ojuelegba. Before the vibrations died out, strange looking beings—teraphs—began to emerge from below the earth while other equally grotesque spirits of different shapes and sizes crawled from the invisible creaks and the deep corners of Ojuelegba.

They all shrieked with a mixture of fear, admiration, and respect when they saw Exu before hitting the floor totally prostrate.

You have returned, yes you have returned as you promised! they cried.

In a short while, there were thousands of demon spirits surrounding the lone figure of Exu, bowing in respect and hissing venom at human passersby who were oblivious of all the activity.

The old man had found his way to the centre of Ojuelegba. He stepped in front of moving cars and strode on, not caring about the curses hurled at him by irate drivers. Scarface joined the sea of demons paying obeisance to Exu and lay prostrate on the road, chanting ancient incantations that human ears had not heard in centuries.

This was a strange sight to many and a crowd gathered to watch the old man. No one else could see what the old man was experiencing, and a rumor arose that the man was attempting suicide. The policeman left his spot and shouted at the prostrate form of the wizened old man, but was totally ignored. The old man was lost in glorious worship of the devil! It was an experience that he had savored as a youth when his grandfather had initiated him into the egbe-esu cult. His face was lit up with an expression of sheer ecstasy as he beheld the evil beauty of Exu.

The traffic cop snorted with disgust, spat onto the ground, and returned to his post, shaking his head profusely. Imagine an old man like that using gbana, a local heroin derivative.

"What on earth was life coming to in Lagos?"

Wading through the sea of honking cars, he tapped the hood of a bright and shiny new BMW and began to grapple with the logjam that had resulted from his momentary absence.

The Bloom Of Eros

Ensconced behind the steering wheel of the fully loaded, new model BMW 7 series was Akintunde James Johnson. JayJay as his friends called him winced with pain as the crappy traffic cop tapped his car, JayJay hating to have any scratches on his gleaming ride. JayJay was a Lagos big boy! An unrepentant, unmarried yuppie that had everything to live for in God’s own country! JayJay was headed for the Murtala Mohammed International Airport and was not in the mood for any delays. Shaqeena his black American beauty was coming into town and JayJay had shut down all his African queens to give her the best of Naija. "Incredible, unbeatable, dependable . . . . out of Naija, straight from Naija" JayJay hummed along with the voice of Meester Nice whose lyrics were coming from the digital, high quality integrated sound system fitted into the BMW.

Tapping the dashboard with his index finger, JayJay increased the cabin temperature in his ride by a shade because the air was chilled and getting too cold. Little rivulets of condensed water seemed to nod in agreement as they ran down the tinted glass windows of the mobile. It was hot and humid out in the street but JayJay was having none of that—this was a life to be enjoyed. He licked his lips in anticipation as he ran his mind through the days plan. Pick Shaqeena then drop off her stuff in my pad, head for the Polo Club, let the boys salivate over her for awhile, do dinner at the Meridien and then retire to the crib for the real action. He swerved to avoid a craterlike pothole in the street and almost ran into a Lagos red cab that was doing the same. Both cars managed to avoid the collision at the last minute and JayJay heaved a sigh of relief and turned his full focus to getting to the Airport without incident.

His cell phone rang and JayJay tapped the steering wheel to answer the call. It was his elder brother Olumide Steve. Even though they were blood brothers JayJay and O.S. were like chalk and cheese. O. S. was the perfect older brother whose impeccable character was the joy of their parents. He graduated on time with great grades and had since served in their fathers company boosting the annual profits by a factor of three. O.S. got married to his college sweetheart when he was 25 and had stayed content and faithful for 17 years. His children were doing very well in their Swiss school. JayJay the bachelor at 38 was still rocking the town without any sign of remorse.

Whassup dude? Steve’s rich baritone resonated from the factory fitted hifi speakers in the BMW.

Man no die, man no rotten! JayJay retorted.

The old man wants to see you tonight said Steve

JayJay replied quickly No way man! Not tonight.

Are you alone bro? Steve inquired

Sure said JayJay but I have these scheduled meetings already and won’t get off till late. Can’t I see him tomorrow?

I don’t think he will like that but I will let him know you are busy. Take care of yourself okay and remember that AIDS no dey show for face oo! Steve chuckled and cut the phone.

JayJay was now approaching the Murtala Mohammed International Airport road and gunning the accelerator of his BMW, he headed straight for the VIP car park. A few armed soldiers were on guard duty as usual and one waved his gun in the air to bring the BMW to a halt a few feet before the gate leading to the decrepit VIP parking facility.

"Yes Oga? You be diplomat or gofment offishal?³ The soldiers face was set in an ugly scowl. JayJay beckoned to him and offered his particulars which was a piece of paper with four neatly folded five hundred naira notes in it. The transformation was magical as a huge beam covered his face. Two thousand naira was good money for an underpaid, malnourished soldier with two wives and eleven children. Whirling round with a smart salute he cleverly palmed two of the five hundred naira notes and presented the rest to the other guard details who promptly threw the gates open with great flourish while assuring JayJay that the car was safe and secure in the VIP car park.

JayJay stepped out into the tropical heat and made his way to the pickup area where arriving passengers would exit. The pickup route had been converted into a pedestrian zone to keep the unemployed and criminals away from disembarking passengers. Access to this area was again manned by soldiers to whom JayJay presented another set of ‘particulars’ before strolling towards the arrival hall.

"Who would have believed that Shaqeena would ever visit Africa?" It had all started with a prompt on his