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Chapter 4 - The Legendary Old Man

Aiyétẹ was a prosperous Town that can be compared with other big cities elsewhere, but not as big as real city. At the heart of the Town was a large landed property resembling a garden. It was surrounded by Oríjí trees, which formed a wall round it's perimeter.

The landed property was well designed with deferent types of herbal, magical and unique plants and trees. There was a small, well designed building at the center with several bamboo huts and sheds scattered about like in a village. They were however well structured and laid out.

Under one of the bamboo shed, surrounded by local apple, pawpaw, orange and mango trees, sat an elderly man on a cushioned bamboo chair. Two adult men sat adjacently on both sides infront of him.

"Arẹmu, real war is imminent. what did I said?" The elderly man asked. "You said real war is imminent" Arẹmu answered him. "The scale had tilted too much to the evil side and when this happened, usually there will be war to balance it up. You had only being seeing small skirmishes and fracas, later there will be real War. Mind you, don't be delusioned that it has nothing to do with you. It involves you and me. The war will not therefore be limited to fracas between one country and the other; it involves relationship between all creatures and systems of the Universes. Do you now understand?" Elder Alárúgbóiṣu asked us. It was then that we understood what Bàbá had being telling us today. However, the complexity of his wisdom still left me confused.

"I can see that what I've being saying was not clear enough to you all.

"When I said War I mean WAR." He went silent for a while before continuing. "There are many ways that the war would be coming up. Some will be physically bloody; some will bother on moral values' struggles and conquests; some will be economy warfare; some will be biological and technological; while some will be spiritual in nature. You see, everyone have his or her own portions of it." He was lost in thought for sometime, before continuing.

"There were some beings who were very much advanced than us. They have advantage over us, in that some of their great Ancestors are still living till today. This was partly because of their longevity endowment, and partly as a result of their victory over us in the last war.... Humnm...." he sighed blankly.

"We, human being lost too much Origin Ancestors to the last war because some of us became traitors. They worked secretly with the enemies against their their people! The enemies also used a kind of poisonous biological and chemical weapons which had greatly affected our Universe till today, reducing our longitivity."

Pshaw... !!! Elder Àlárúgbóiṣu expressed his dissatisfaction at the whole thing.

"Part of the reasons we lost the war was because we fought individually on deferent fronts. This time around, if we don't want the alien to have upper hands we must team up and fight as one single entity." He shook his head and sighed pitifully again.

"I will be having visitors from time to time during this period Arẹmu ..., and you Ayinde, you must not be distanced to me ..... There are so many things to be done to unify some notable stakeholders ..."

As baba was speaking with us, we heard footsteps from afar. Later a man in hunter's outfits appeared from amongst the trees.

This was the first time someone would visit baba, to the best of my knowledge. After the demise of my father and mother, Baba lives a solitary life.

According to the history of Aiyétẹ Kingdom, Bàbá was one of the children and the last son of the Ancestor who migrated from Òtútù Dynasty to establish this Kingdom. He was the youngest amongst those who migrated to the place at the time.

It was stated that he was the one that carried the Ritual items used to establish the land. Bàbá should be over 100 years old. However, looking at him could be deceptive because he didn't looked his age at all. He looked more or less like a 60 years old man at the prime of his life.

All of his contemporaries were no more in this world. Those that we called Elders in the land now called him Bàbá and sometimes prostrated to him in greetings, even the oldest among them. Those I'm talking about were around 80 years old!

As we watched the visitor approached, the man stopped few metres away and started chanting praising incantations in honour of Bàbá, as hunters used to do in our traditional set-up. After completing his homages of sorts, he raised his gun up and fired one shot into the sky before proceeding forward to where we were seated.

Bàbá was in a rare smiling and happy mood when he saw the stranger. He stood up to welcome him, in a strange cultist way, like a close acquittance whom one had not seen for a long time.

"Arẹmu, go inside and bring the local Palm Wine (Ògùrọ̀) that your friend gave to me. We have an august visitor today." I quickly ran out of the shed to fetch the wine. But before I went out, I prostrated in greetings to the visitor as our traditional rites.

"Ológbojò ...!! To what did I, this old baggage owed you this honorable visit? I thought you should be at Olokun's conference by now."

"Bàbá, Alárúgbóiṣu, without cassava there could not be láfún. Without yam, there could not be pounded yam. Without you Elders who is going to open the Gates?"

"Hahahaha... " They both laughed heartily as I brought the local Palm Wine (Ògùrọ̀) and small calabashes. I proceeded to serve everyone around after the usual rites of tasting it myself.

Ayinde and I then stylishly moved to excuse ourselves. "Hahahaha.... Arẹmu, where do you think you are going? Both of you sit down. His visit concerned you too." I looked at Ayinde in surprise. He too was surprised at the turn of event. We both went back to our seats and waited for what will come thereafter.