The Abandoned Child

By Ayokunle Awoleye

Dumped in the Village with an old partially blind retired prostitute grandmother, Bolaji’s mother went back to the big City to pursue her wild dreams. The quest for Golden Fleece.
Without any guidance or mentor, Bolaji became a Village menace, hunting and scavenging for survival. He goes to the local primary school daily without food and returns to meet an empty kitchen. He goes into the bush to check on his traps for Rodents before proceeding to the market square to pick up edibles for food.
He had no future ambition until he discovered the Akure Bank robbery heist hidden by the notorious Alabi gang. He was given a scholarship by the Bank and also rewarded by his local community. Part of the money given to him by the local government for discovering the loot was kept with his mother’s friend, mama Modupe.
Bolaji gained admission on scholarship into the same school with Modupe and Modupe sure made his life in school miserable because he was too local, he could not speak or write good English and he speaks with Yoruba accent. Modupe had an old grudge against Bolaji. The money he gave to Modupe’s mother for keeps was stolen by Modupe and her mother leaving Bolaji in a desperate situation. His hope for a bright future was short lived by the general distress that affected the Nigerian banking industry. He lost the scholarship award.
He found favour in his English Language teacher who became his mentor and brought out the genius in him by constantly encouraging and challenging him to remain focused on the goal against all odds. He graduated from secondary school in flying colours but no hope of going to the University because of lack of finance even though he was given admission into the university
Bolaji choose to succeed and change the situation that life was boxing him into. He went to resume at the university without any hope of completing his education because there was no money and no sponsor.
Bolaji struggled to graduate from the University by barbing People’s hair, teaching on part time basis and working as a Bar man at the Royal Gardens Hotel Owerri where he met DJ Slam, a bad boy who was always feeding Bolaji’s mind with daring escapades. Bolaji was entangled in a love triangle that he must manage carefully if he must graduate alive and in flying colours.
He attempted to join the Army Officer cadet but he could not survive the rigour of the recruitment exercise at the Nigerian defense academy because his body had been damaged by some unscrupulous Police men due to a set up by Chioma, The girl whose heart he toyed with, the girl who killed his friend DJ Slam and framed Bolaji for the death.
His only weapon was to be the best and become the Engineer he dreamed of. Will Bolaji succeed in Life? What happened when he met Modupe and her Mother years after? Did Bolaji reunite with his elusive mother? How was he to know that Baba Landlord in the Village is his biological father after all?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ayokunle Awoleye
• Release date: May 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005728328

Book preview

The Abandoned Child

There is no stopping the man who is avowed to succeed

Ayokunle Dominic Awoleye

Acknowledgements

The inspiration of this piece came from several experiences I gathered though life’s journey.

People that influenced and imparted my life one way or the other. Driving me to dare to succeed in the varying situations that I found myself.

Remember the son of whom you are. My father always said. God bless his soul, Late WO2 Pius Awoleye. My mother, the indefatigable and versatile woman, she will never bow to a challenge. God bless you and keep you in health, Chief Mrs Ruth Awoleye, you are the best mother in the world. My amiable Aunt Alhaja Adunni Adebayo, I love you like a mother because you are indeed a mother to me.

To Abosede Ayokunle Awoleye, I say thank you every day because you motivate me to keep going against all odds, your prayers and encouragements are immeasurable. Thank you for believing in me, I love you sweet heart. And to you Felix Awoleye, I say the world is yet to see your best, I believe in you.

To greats like Ayodeji Oke, Ayodeji Afolabi, Gbenga Ponnle,Yusuf Bakare, Njoku kalu, Brian Egbujie, Babatunde Saka, Kabiru Suleiman, Samali Mustapha, Olalekan Awosanya, Olu Ojo, Joseph Momoh, Akinjide Akintayo, Samuel Essien, Ignatius Osagie, Adeshina Adeishola (Oloye), Walter Muoka and Jude Edemode. You guys are friends like brothers. I respect you all. You all contributed in shaping my world.

To the present and future crew of Dasa productions, this is the beginning.

One Love!

All rights reserved.

This story is entirely fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. 

No part of this book may be reproduced in any written, electronic, recording, or photocopying without written permission of the publisher or author. The exception would be in the case of brief quotations embodied in the critical articles or reviews and pages where permission is expressly granted by the publisher or author.

To the loving memory of Mrs Juliana Awe. The best mother in-law.

Chapter 1

At the advent of the significant turnaround of my life, I was at the most feared place in our village. This was a place everyone had been warned against moving near. However, curiosity got the better of me as I stood about three poles distance from the obscure secluded house. My one and only friend, Pharaoh, stood by my side as I felt drawn to it.

Far from every other house in the town, the mystery about the house needed to be unravelled, but by whom? Many that have dared into the heart of the house did not return to tell the story. Those that managed to get inside and come out alive could not tell the tales because they lost their vocal cords. They can only point their fingers at the building and shake their heads sadly.

Two years ago, some kids had wandered into the house while hunting for rodents in the surrounding bush. A rabbit ran into the house and one of the lads, not ready to forfeit the kill, chased the Rabbit into the house. He was, immediately, followed by a second child. The third child, however, stopped in the heat of the chase as he remembered that his elder brother entered the house a year before and was yet to come out of it. He shouted at his friends to come out of the house but was too late. 

Sharp and piercing screams engulfed the air, making him flee the scene, not waiting to investigate the matter. Despite running into ant hills and tree stomps, he didn't stop running until he got to the village. Charging and screaming out of the bush, he was visibly scared and shaken. He was eventually held down by some adults but was only able to tell them what they heard from inside the house after his friends ran into it.

However, as he was trying to narrate his experience, he became choked. Like one with an epileptic seizure, his tongue kept poking out of his mouth until he could speak no more. Everyone fled, abandoning him and scared that whatever had befallen the boy could affect them also. The boy died abandoned on the spot with eyes wide opened and his mouth covered with the biggest tongue beyond anyone's imagination.

The mysterious disappearance of the two boys, alongside the eventual death of the third boy, compelled the village hunters to venture on an expedition to uncover the mystery of the house. They went at night with the native hunting lamps, Dane guns, and various charms prepared by the village chief priest, Baba nla.

Five great hunters, fortified with charms and dangerous war armament, entered the house, and, till today, they are yet to return. Their families are left desolate and heartbroken even as some still think their father would return someday, but the villagers know better than being hopeful. I always wonder what had happened to them.

The gruesome stories about Alabi's house are unending, and every family repeatedly warned their children about, straying close to the house. Consequently, whenever we went to the stream to swim or fetch water, we watch the haunted house from afar and take to our heels before anything happened to us. We harboured this eerie feeling that some imaginary force could pull a child off the track road to the house, and the next thing will be the piercing scream from the child.

And that made me remember the owner's story. His name was Alabi. He used to be a very notorious thief that ravaged the whole town and neighbouring villages. He led a gang that set up roadblocks along the highway, which tore through our town, to rob unsuspecting travellers of their valuables. They were murderers and kidnappers. Since there was no police station in the village except for the local vigilante team made up of our local hunters, the dreaded Alabi gang left everyone in awe.

The two parties later agreed that the gang would not torment the villagers. Thus, the villagers gave them a free hand to operate. 

Prior to starting the gang, Alabi had come to our village as a cocoa merchant, buying dried cocoa seeds from house to house with his measuring scale. At the end of every week, he took bags of cocoa seeds to the big city for sale. Rich and well-respected by all, he also lent out money to people on interest. Then he settled down in the village by marrying two women from our village. These women, however, were friends, and they later bore him six children within four years. 

We were told that he was actually courting one of the girls, and was planning to marry her, having met with the girl's family for a marriage proposal. But, somehow, the girl's friend became pregnant. The two went about like Siamese twin. So, everyone assumed destiny had hastened her own marriage too because of their friendship. Thus, we expected news about her marriage to the father of the child but nothing of such happened.

As expected, Alabi married his fiancée traditionally by paying her bride price, and she also became pregnant for him. 

The wife's friend, on the other hand, eventually put to bed and gave birth to a split image of Alabi. There was confusion in the small town as the news spread like a wildfire that Aduke had a baby boy for the husband of her best friend, Larape. That was how Alabi married Aduke also, and they lived together in his newly built house on top of the hill.

Soon, Alabi's fame spread around the village and surrounding environs as the young wealthy cocoa Merchant that has his house close to heaven and married two close friends.

Within four years of marriage, Alabi had gotten six sons from his two wives and five bicycles, with which he and his assistants go about buying cocoa seeds from farmers.

CHAPTER 2

I happened to be one of the village's little urchins. I lost my grandma four years ago at the age of nine. On that particular day, I had returned from school to see her still sleeping in her mat, just the way I left her before leaving for school in the morning.

I didn't disturb her; instead, I went into the hut that served as our kitchen and met it as messy as it was the previous night. And to cap it all, there was no food waiting for me. I did not eat before going to school, and I did not eat at school, so I was starving. Quickly, I changed my clothes into my worn-out Buba and Sokoto and left the house to look for food.

I did not bother to wake grandma because she might have eaten some food before going to bed. It is "all man to himself" in the house. Growing up, I did not know my real mother and did not care to know her because grandma spent every of her remaining life to curse her. The tirade came mostly when I had been up to my mischief. Grandma would swear and curse my mother wherever she was.

So, I definitely knew that it could not be well with my mother wherever she was, for no living human being can succeed in any endeavour having his or her mother wake up every day to send curses to her instead of prayers and blessings.

According to what I gathered, my mother returned from the big city some thirteen years ago with me as a baby and, a week later, she abandoned me with her mother and disappeared.

Her mother, my grandma, was blind in one eye and was battling arthritis on her left leg, making her stoop and walk about with the aid of a walking stick. She could not farm or trade, implying that she had to survive on charity. Then, my mother came to add me to the old woman's burden.

People say my grandma bore only my mother when she was serving a big man's family in the big city, years ago. She was never married and had led a rough and careless life in the city before she lost an eye to a fight with a fellow woman over a man. Unfortunately, the bad eye left her unattractive to men, and consequently made her financially broke and returned to the village.

At that time, she returned with her ten years old daughter, my mother. Before long, my grandmother became the mistress of all the widowers and randy men that wanted to satisfy their lust. Her daughter joined in the trade eventually, which later became the motivation for leaving for the city when she came of age. She went there to do what she knew best and returned to see her mother, until eight years later, when she came to drop me in the village.

On this faithful day, four years ago, after I changed into my Buba and Sokoto, I went into the nearby bush to check the snares I had set the previous day. Seven of my twelve snares caught bush rats. I collected the catch and went to mama Mulikat's Buka to sell five of them. After she paid me in cash, I bought some cups of Garri, vegetable, and palm oil and headed home to prepare eba and soup.

After the food and soup were set, I expected the aroma from the rat-meat soup to wake grandma from her sleep as usual, but it did not. Even when I finished eating and cleaning the kitchen, grandma did not wake up.

When the time came for me to hit the town and play with my friend, I told my sleeping grandma that I would be back.

I went straight to the market square with my nylon bag. And as I had expected, I met Ajanaku and Sola there with their bags too. These boys, unlike me, were not enrolled in school. So, they beat me to market square today. 

Our village market is set every three days. There, people from surrounding villages and ours bring their wares to sell. The next day, they would move to another village's market.

Not wasting time, I greeted my fellow scavengers and left them, seeing that their bags were already bulging with goodies.

Goodies? Yes! We pick up anything edible that the traders throw away, ranging from fruits to foodstuff, rotten tomatoes, withered vegetables, and infested mangoes or pawpaw. We moved towards the butchers' stand and picked bones that were beneath their tables. 

There was a fierce competition between the local dogs at the butcher's end and us. The moment a butcher began cutting-up a bony piece of meat, the dogs and us were always prepared to dive for the bone the moment it was thrown away. I had been bitten several times by Pharaoh, the most notorious and strongest dog in the village. Pharaoh could be placed as the father of eighty percent of the dogs in the village.

We always pray for the butcher to mistakenly throw away the actual meat instead of the bone. Sometimes our prayers were answered.

At the close of the market on that day, I returned home at 7pm with a full nylon bag. Yet, mama had not moved from the sleeping position. Not worried about mama, I emptied my nylon and boiled my collection of bones and meat fat. Then, I poured this into my vegetable soup, making the pot was full. I was happy because I was sure that when mama woke and saw what I had prepared in the kitchen, she would be happy too and say nice words to me. Well, at least, for a while before I commit another offence that would make her curse and swear at my elusive mother.

I washed up the fruits I gathered and cut off the bad portion from the pawpaw, which I ate up for dinner. The rotten tomatoes and withered vegetable will be taken care of by mama before I return from school the next day. At least we will have food to eat until the next market day in three days.

I went to sleep with a full stomach. It rained that night, and I dreamt of bathing and playing in the rain, that I was urinating in the rain as I was bathing. When I woke up the next morning, my mat and cover-cloth were soaked with urine. At thirteen, I still bed-wet once in a while. I packed up the mat and cover-cloth to spread them on the line behind the house. After which I dressed up and dashed to school. Mama had not changed her sleeping position. In fact, she did not snore as usual, and I wondered why.

I returned from school later in the day to see a crowd gathered outside my house. I was not allowed in to see mama immediately. They said that she was dead with maggots swarming her mouth and eyes. The women cursed and scolded me for not realising that my grandma had been dead for over two days. After all, I have been sleeping under the same roof with her corpse. Everyone present had a harsh word to say to me. 

Later, I went into the house to see the corpse of mama as she laid motionless. The youths dug a grave by the side of the house, and she was unceremoniously buried at midnight. I did not cry; I was simply indifferent. It was when I went into the kitchen after everyone had left that I realised that my pot of soup was empty and washed clean. The fruits and vegetables were all gone! 

The realisation of this made me run outside and started screaming and shouting. Some people came to hold me and sympathise with me, but I ran from them. They could not possibly understand why I was screaming. Well, this was some years back. 

CHAPTER 3

My story will not be fully formed if I don't finish the story of Alabi. As the evil of the house called on to me, my mind wandered the history of the house. His wives, Aduke and Larape, became the bane in his life. These one-time best friends became sworn enemies. Larape refused to forgive Aduke for her betrayal while Aduke hated Larape for her selfishness. 

Which woman will see the opportunity of marrying a well to do a young man like Alabi and not fall for it? After all, polygamy is not taboo, she demanded from Larape on one of their encounters.

A stiff competition started among the women. Larape indicated interest in selling Adire local fabric. To that effect, she regularly travelled to Abeokuta to make her purchase. Then, she returned to the village to hawk her wares. In fact, she later secured a shop, where she displayed her wares on market days. Not restricting herself to the village, she also visited other villages on their market days.

Before long, Aduke also took up the same trade, making Larape mad. First, it was marring her husband, and now she had ventured into her type of trade. 

Why not choose another trade, Larape shouted as she challenged her when she first saw Aduke displaying clothes in a new shop at the market square.

Selfish woman! Selfish woman! Aduke shouted and repeated these words like a broken record.

Larape sold off all her clothes and, in two weeks, she stopped selling clothes, leaving the business for Aduke.

They both had three sons each and were ready to have more had Alabi not taken it upon himself to avoid the two women. He never intended fathering six children in such quick succession but for the women in his life that were trying to outwit each other.

Larape, later, went round the village as a thrift collector, encouraging traders to save daily and paying them their money upon request or at the end of the month after deducting her commission. She used a bicycle for her trade; she was called 'Iya alajo' (the mother of thrift).

No sooner had she started the business than her fame went viral throughout the neighbouring villages. She had to extend her coverage to the four communities that shared boundaries with us. Unable to cover all parts, she employed two other women as her assistants. And soon enough she became a money lender. Like her husband, she was notably wealthy as could be seen from the glow of her skin, the expensive 'Aso oke' pieces of jewellery, shoes, and bags that she wears. 

Aduke's clothes business, on the other hand, did not thrive. It collapsed after six months as the rate of debtors doubled, and she did not have any money to continue the trade.

It was when she eventually ventured into the thrift business that everyone known she was really a trouble brewer. However, Larape had gone far into the business to feel