The Sad Story of Efosa

Everyone in the little community knew Efosa. He was as sturdy as a tiger clinging to its prey, as relentless as a vulture hovering over fresh meat, and he alone had the unsuspecting tenacity of a feline.

Not only did he have such fabulously interesting qualities, but there was also more to him than you’d ever imagined. He was as cunning as an aged tortoise in the children’s local folktales and could sometimes make you think he could be as harmless as a dove.

Not to bore you with unending bodily descriptions about our character, I’d go on with the story regardless.

Now, this story is like many others you have heard before but ends with a powerful twist. Like we all know, whatever happens now is only a manifestation of what has been before. The African people always say nothing new exists under the sun. Everything is but a remodification, an adaptation, a continual occurrence of what has once been in existence.

But the story of Efosa was unlike anything I’ve been told. Even the oldest woman in the village: Aria, who has lived for more than a century, bears witness to the words that I speak. She testifies that such a story has never been before in this part of our community.

An unusual sad love story.

Have you ever heard the word “L-O-V-E?”

Well, if you have, you should have remarkable tales to tie down to that word just as well as I do.

Provably one of the most misused, stereotypic, and equally maligned words on earth. Yet, undoubtedly one of the purest things that the one true God gave us comfort to lonely humans in such a wicked and deceitful world.

This story, as you’d watch unfold before your eyes, is not the usual love story. Nobody ever believed Efosa, a bastard, could be in love or other words, find love.

Did I say, Bastard? Yes, I did. And No, don’t get me wrong, I hold no personal grievances towards him, unlike mama Nkechi who has desperately made attempts to seduce him without yielding any fruitful results. That man remains unmovable and pays deaf ears to her numerous shameless advances. No, I’m nothing like that slut of a woman!

Despite my preferences, I would indeed feel privileged if he threw a glance my way on the lonely river path. After all, what woman would not yearn to have such masculinity throbbing in her very core. Don’t mind me, I’m only human after all, I cannot help but daydream even if I know such things should not be left to fester.

You see, despite having such a delectable body and unmatchable skill set, our protagonist was not perfect. Just for this tale, I’d tell you eventually what I mean by using such a strong connotative word.

Just a little patience my audience.

Patience.

For someone who is feared and revered in the community because of his physical and masculine superiority, it was quite strange as we the people of the village started to watch Efosa evolve before our eyes.

Efosa was known and called the strongest warrior in the community for several reasons. Once, not to exaggerate at all, he had single-handedly beaten a group of young thieves that had invaded mama Aisosa’s apartment during the night. They’d been harmed and fully loaded with local gun powders, coupled with knives and cutlasses. The idea had been to raid the whole neighborhood but Efosa had soon gotten ahead of them and had taught them an unforgettable lesson, never to set foot in our village again.

Imagine one man overpowering a gang of robbers?

He was a hero to many.

From someone who was known to have no care whatsoever in the world, we watched him reach his doom as the most uncanny thing happened

Some villagers even passed on rumors that he, Efosa, was a human bat. Of course, I don’t believe this, but you do know that fiction does not always fall far from facts. Even myths and folklore hide the secrets of ancient kingdoms. Oral literature is the only way we Africans have learned to pass down our history before the evolution of written literacy.

So, what’s the harm in believing whatever they had to say? A white lie or not, what other explanation was there for his hunky stature, reflective muscles, and huge bodily masculinity that could send any maiden within the village pulsing with feverish excitement.

Efosa was a mini-giant, and the only reason he was fondly called a human bat was that he was rumored to eat bats for meat and drink animal blood for water.

Remember I promised to tell you why I called him a bastard in the first place? Here it is; his mother died immediately after his birth, and no villager had ever set eyes on his father.

Born out of wedlock, his father was rumored to have disappeared the very moment their unruly affair had turned sour with the update of a pregnancy.

Talk about young men with their erotic desires and foolish decisions.

The result? Efosa’s mother, unable to bear the shame associated with being an underage single mother, had died a short while after bringing him to life.

A pitiful ending I tell you!

Don’t tell anyone I told you that too. Efosa is known to get upset whenever he hears in his own words “wife’s tales” about his parents.

Trust me, you don’t want to risk his wrath. Like I said earlier, his fury could tamper with a raging fire. He was not one to be messed with.

Now, on to the main story. I believe you have gotten a vivid image of what and who Efosa is in this community. He was a strange and reserved man until one day, a lady who had the face of a witch arrived in our community to steal him from us.

In her own words, she was a “copper shun” delegate sent from the government to serve in our local community.

Did we tell the government that we required a witch, let alone an educated one for that matter?

You can imagine the fury of the entire maidens in the community village when our Efosa began to take a likened interest in her.

He’d come out of his house very early in the morning before the sun was out in its full place of glory, whistling like he had won a lottery, with no care in the world.

Of course, I love to see him happy, I’m not evil. but you see what began to upset me the most? It was when I found that the reason for his sudden happiness was tied to the arrival of that educated witch fondly called “Copper shun” by all and sundry within the community.

One day, copper shun had gathered all the women in the community —of course, I had only heard the details of the meeting from a kindly neighbor who was sensible enough to fill me in completely with the details of all that went down there.

She had gathered the women of the village and informed them that they did not have to get pregnant every time they entered the inner room with their husbands and lovers. She knew an ‘oyibo herb’ that could prevent women from getting pregnant anytime they didn’t want to, and she could get it for them at a discount price if they were willing to take her suggestions.

Would you imagine the effrontery of that woman?! Was that what they taught them in these schools? Now, she wanted to turn all the women in the community into prostitutes like herself. Didn’t she know that God gave pregnancy to women to prevent their promiscuity with the opposite sex?

This was the problem with sending a woman to school. They’d go on to learn the ways of the white man, and fill their heads with numerous ideas and speak gibberish every time they got the chance to.

I do not hate her. Like I said before, I just do not fancy educated women like her.

Believe me, that was the least of my concerns with her arrival in this village.

It didn’t stop there and with time, her educated madness began to escalate further.

Sometimes during the day, Efosa would be seen carrying heavy gallons of freshly drawn palm wine to her house. And on other days, it was a bounty of fresh bushmeat from his traps that he’d present to her.

That educated witch!

Because I have eyes and ears everywhere within the community, I’d sometimes hear that he’d walk her down the quiet river path, both of them smiling and laughing heartily like they had no care in the world.

What did he find so irresistible in her anyway?

Truthfully, Copprshun was beautiful. But not any more than I, or the other maidens in the community.

On the other hand, It was obvious that she honestly adored him. Of course, she would, who didn’t?

But she only had to use one of those expensive and equally potent charms to catch him forever. Talk about educated girls and their mischievous ways, I don’t like them at all.

One day, I overheard him confessing to her, in his own words; “I’m complete now that I have found you”.

Well, it was a bad omen to envy love, so I let them be.

After all, what will be will be. Wasn’t that the popular saying?

A few months after this, I started to hear rumors about a wedding that was soon to happen. And it was between no other than our two lovers, Efosa and copprshun.

A wedding? Yes! for all that was good and holy, a freaking wedding! — that Witch, coppershun with her seductive charms!

Efosa had never entertained the idea of a wedding. Even when the king’s daughter, Aina, had proposed to marry him, he had politely turned her down —with all of her education and riches.

Now, suddenly, all of this was happening.

Sincerely my audience, I was upset. At first, I had entertained their affair, it was a fling, so I had thought. Now, what was this new development of marriage?

That Coppershun woman must have met an educated ‘juju man’ with potent powers to craft a powerful charm for her.

How else could I make sense of any of this?

Within months of playing around, suddenly, they’ve decided they would get married?

What a joke!

Couldn’t Efosa see that lady had him under the clutches of a potent charm?

Why are men so foolish Afterall?

On the day before the marriage that had the entire village abuzz with gossip and excitement, the weirdest thing happened.

The chief received a few visitors from the London city of Africa —Lagos. We were all excited to see both men and women dressed in clothes and hair that looked a lot like the white man’s.

I too, not wanting to miss such an epochal moment hurried straight from the river bank to the chief’s palace, and that was when I witnessed it all.

One of the delegates stood up, fondly making a show of his neatly pressed shirt and odd-looking stylish shoes. He was the tallest of all the other delegates, and he had the body stature of a solid iroko tree. Although he was not a young man—may be old enough to be twice my father, I watched as several young maidens in the village watched his every move. They mostly sighed when he spoke because he addressed the king with the white man’s accent stylishly matched with our accent.

They were all educated no doubt, and He appeared to be in charge of the retinue of delegates.

With time, he introduced himself as the son of Odubu, the hunter, and grandson to the renowned Palmwine tapper Osaremese.

Truly he was a lost son of the soil, and the air went agog with jubilation to see one of our own looking so finessed and educated.

As seconds went by, people began to ask hushed questions.

“Wait! Did he just say he was the son of Odubu? The same Odubu that was the son of Osaremese, the grandfather of…”

No way! I could not believe it myself until I began to look more closely at his face. The resemblance was striking. Even a blind man could not deny it.

But, how could this be? Wasn’t he dead already? Why did he look so polished and educated suddenly?

The Osaze that we all knew was nothing like the man that stood before us all.

The last words he spoke confirmed all the hushed thoughts and whispers at once.

“I am here to see a woman called Susanne.”

What a pity.

The chief’s place became as quiet as a graveyard at once.

It was true. He was indeed Efosa’s father. Efosa the bastard was not a bastard after all. He had a father who was alive, healthy, educated, and a direct replica of him.

“So, it is true?” the women of the village began to whisper amongst themselves.

Wasn’t Susan the mother of…?

Before long, while we stood there, the news reached the ears of Efosa and he too had run to the chiefs palace leaving his wedding preparations behind to confirm if the man who sought Susanne, his mother, was truly his father.

He was accompanied by no other than the copper shun witch who was soon to become his wife in a few hours.

No one was prepared for the next series of drama that ensued after Efosa arrived at the scene flagged by his witch.

Even I, who is the ‘ofofo of all the ofofo sombori’ had never heard a tale like this one.

“Daddy?!” coppershun suddenly yelled at Osaze excitedly. “What are you doing here? The wedding isn’t until tomorrow.” The foolish girl continued to blabber on, ignorant of the situation on ground.

“Did you decide to come here earlier to surprise me?”

Speaking of surprises, the whole village was not ready for the surprising development that was to be revealed.

Dad?

Why was Efosa’s soon-to-be wife addressing her soon-to-be husband’s father as such?

And why was she looking at him with so much familiarity and excitement?

Was she… And Efosa…. .?

“Susanne is no more” one of the elders declared sadly. “She died a few days after childbirth —leaving a son behind. There he stands before you, your flesh and blood.”

The silence that held the community was like death.

We watched as flickers of emotions washed past Osaze’s calm face as his eyes festered on every inch of Efosa. They looked like the same person—only that one was bigger and poorly dressed as opposed to the other.

It was a disgrace to see a man weep, but Osaze rushed towards Efosa and hugged him publicly. “My son! you look a lot like your mother,” he muttered with tears in his eyes.

Copprshun was the first to faint—to my delight of course. Being that she was the educated one amongst us all, her brain had been quick to figure out what was going on.

Her father was also the father of her husband-to-be.

It was a disaster. An abomination. Two siblings set to get married?

Tufia!! May the elders forbid!

Even the gods and ancestors would turn in their graves.

As Efosa tried to revive the love of his life, Osaze burst into tears publicly as he narrated his story to the waiting ears of the elders and community.

Few weeks after Susanne, his lover, and mother of his son, Efosa, had become pregnant. Contrary to the tales that besotted the village, Osaze had gotten a one-time job offer in Lagos.

Eager and happy for the opportunity for a better life, he had traveled to Lagos, promising his pregnant lover of his return.

During his first six months in the firm, he had been awarded a scholarship to leave the country for better education. Hoping to return yet again, he had sent word to his lover—which never reached her —and left for the abroad.

five years later, educated and refined, he forgot about Suzanne and their child and had met and married coppershun’s mother who had given him three sons and one daughter.

Upon leaving Nigeria, he forgot his promise to his lover and continued to raise his family in the urbanized parts of the city.

Until recently, his daughter, Coppershun, had invited him to the village to bless her marriage.

Only then did he remember his forgotten promise. Hoping to right his wrongs, he had come immediately to the chief’s palace in search of Susanne and their child.

The village was dead still as we listened to Osaze recount the story of his past.

Efosa in sorrow fell to the ground in tears. He was a victim of everything.

He just realized that his fiancee was his stepsister

What an unfortunate world we live in.

What an elusive trick of fate!

Efosa, the human bat eater, only saw to fall in love with his sister.

The Irony that this small world played on us all.

Next time, when I tell you this is an unusual love story, you should better learn to take my words seriously.

The story of Efosa till today remains on the lips of both old and young. An unusual sadness remained in the village for a long time after Efosa’s vow to never fall in love again.

In fact, before packing his bags to leave our community forever, he had vowed never to get involved with a woman for the rest of his life.

This is the story of Efosa: He had tasted love and it had burnt him rather badly.

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