MY FATHER’S FARMLAND (Part 9&10) – OPEYEMI AKINTUNDE

PART 9
“ MY FATHER’S FARMLAND”
©️Opeyemi Ojerinde Akintunde

.

Sukki declared war after he left Ola, because something went wrong! What?

After, Axe and Torture had left the room, Sukki had forced his way into Ola. On satisfying himself, he stood up and said…

“ School girl, I am sorry but a man has to do what he has to do…”

Sukki ran out expecting to meet Torture and Axe outside but they were no where in sight…

Sukki called out in a whisper…

“ Torture, Torture , Axe.. Axe, where are you?” He got no response. He wondered where they were.

The money!

Sukki knew Torture could not be trusted with money! Sukki ran as fast as his legs could carry him towards Torture’s house.

As soon as Sukki was out of sight, Torture and Axe came out of where they were hiding.

“ He don go” (He is gone!) Torture said

“ Torture you sure say this thing wey we wan do no go back fire?” ( Torture Are you sure what we are about to do won’t back fire?)

“ Axe, Na if we no do Wetin we wan do now, Na Dat time, we go see fire” ( Axe , it is when we fail to do what we have to do now that we will experience fire) Torture said

Torture had convinced Axe when Sukki was indoors with Ola that, they should betray Sukki. He had convinced Axe that it was bad of them to rob the innocent girl of her money and her pride. He said he didn’t want to experience God’s wrath. They had agreed that once Sukki left, they would return the money to the girl and lie to Sukki that policemen had accosted them while they were waiting for him outside and since they wanted to cover his evil deed, they gave the money to the officers…

It seemed like a perfect plan…

As Torture and Axe got back into the room, they saw Ola lying helplessly on the floor with her two legs spread wide apart. Her eyes were pouring out tears on its own…

“ School girl, sorry for wetin Sukki do you…Take, Keep your moni, Sukki no know say we come here, so if morning reach wash yourself, run go keep the moni, for bank..” ( School girl, We are sorry for what Sukki has done to you, Have your money. Sukki doesn’t know we came back here, so once it’s early in the morning, Hurry and keep it save in the bank)..Torture said pointing the money towards Ola who was looking at him helplessly.

Torture expected her to stretch forth her hand to receive the money, but he noticed Ola didn’t move…

“ School girl, School girl “ he moved closer to her to be sure she was still alive. Recognition of what was happening to Ola dawned on him. Sukki had hit her with the paralyzing charm…

“ F**k Sukki…, God punish Sukki” Torture dropped the money and lifted Ola from the ground…

“ Torture.. Wetin You Dey do?” ( Torture what are you doing?) Axe asked

“ You Dey blind ? You no see say Sukki don weak this girl?( Are you blind?, Can’t you see Sukki has made this girl weak?) Torture said as he placed Ola on her bed.

“Enter her kitchen, look for water and salt” ( Get into her kitchen , bring water and salt) Torture said loudly at Axe.

Axe dashed into Ola’s mini kitchen and scattered the whole place looking for Salt. He saw a small container with the label “ Sugar”.

He brought it out to Torture….

Torture looked at the inscription…

“ You be mumu… You know read say Na suuugar…” ( You are a fool, can’t you read the inscription “ Sugar”).

Axe ran back bringing the second container with “ Salt” inscription on it.

He took a bowl and poured in water…

“ Na in be dis!” ( This is it) Axe said

“ Mix salt for the water” Torture said as he looked for a nearby cloth…

Sukki had told Torture in time past, that his father had told him Salt was a neutralizing ingredient. Sukki had told him, if anyone ever hit him with a charm, he should get water mixed with salt and make some incantations in other to regain his strength.

Unfortunately, Torture was confused, he didn’t know the incantation. He really wanted to help the innocent girl. Then something else dropped in his heart as he saw Ola’s Bible on her Bed.

In his lack of Spiritual knowledge, he picked the Bible and placed it on Ola’s chest and as he dabbed Ola with the cloth he had soaked in the salt water, he kept shouting…

“ Jesus!, Jesus !”

Ope had laid back on the bed crying, she couldn’t tell why she was crying but she felt she was about to loose something precious to her….

Tise couldn’t pray as she had to console Ope.

“ Ope, I really don’t understand why you are crying!” Tise said in frustration

“ I have a feeling Ola is dying…” Ope said

“ I reject it in Jesus name!” Tise said

“ You know what, I am not going to join you in this pity party “ Tise said as she also started shouting

“ Jesus!, Jesus!”

Micheal had woken up from a frightening dream. He was the boy who had hugged Ola after her speech at the Theater hall.

He had seen the girl, Ola, who had sacrificed her education for her siblings in his dream…

He saw her walking away from the school, he saw her siblings trying to reach out for her, but they couldn’t get hold of her hand. He saw her twin sister crying and he also was crying, blaming himself for not helping her…

Micheal woke up frightened, and he suddenly felt he should have helped the Lady.

“ But, I was the one who anonymously contributed N100,000 out of the N500,000 that the student body gave her!” Micheal tried to convince himself of helping Ola already

“ But you have the capacity to do more!” Micheal’s conscience replied

“ Ok.. I will do more…” Micheal said as he went back to sleep…

“ Won’t you at least pray for her?, that’s another way of helping!” Micheal’s conscience pricked him again…

Micheal sat up and also started calling out the name of Jesus!

“ Jesus!”

Oba had a terrible night as he had over 10 dreams of seeing different graveyards… He woke up trying to do his devotion, when he checked his phone and saw Ope’s 20 missed calls. He had put his phone on silent.

“ 20 missed calls!” He knew that was not a good one…

Ola knew her strength was coming back to her. The more the robber was calling ‘Jesus’. the more strength she was gaining…Strength entered her hands. She moved it…

“ She don move her hand!” ( She has moved her hands) Axe said

“ You sure?” ( Are you sure?) Torture asked

Axe nodded…

“School girl, if you don Dey Get strength, tell me!” ( School girl once you start gaining strength, tell me!) Torture said…

Ola nodded her head , and Torture was elated…

“Jesus name Dey work ooo” Torture said in excitement….

“ Torture, Axe…Torture Axe!” Sukki’s voice rang loud from a far distance…followed by sporadic gunshots…

“ Where una dey, bring my moni or else blood go paint street” ( Where are you, bring my money or else there will be blood shed.)

Axe and torture froze in fear…

“ Torture, I tell you,make we carry this moni go give him…”( Torture I told you, Let’s give him the money) Axe said in fear

“ No… No…” Torture took the money and hid it in Ola’s kitchen. He grabbed Axe hand’s and dashed out of Ola’s room…

Ola wanted to tell him thank you but her voice was gone…

Though Sukki had raped her of her pride, but she still had reasons to be grateful, she was still alive…

Ola laid on the bed hearing the sporadic gunshots…

“ God, please don’t let Sukki kill Torture and Axe…” the compassionate Ola prayed silently in her heart as still in her pain she was thinking of the wellbeing of another person…,

The battle became bloody… No one could come out of their houses. Sukki had asked for the money and Torture had lied the police officers had taken it from him. Sukki was ready to let all hell loose… His father did not help matters too. His father told him he would back him up to fight the police….

Sukki kept shooting with the hope the police will show up….

Torture knew what was best for him and Axe. They hideously fled Town….

Ope and Oba tried to get out of school by morning to see Ola, but because of Sukki’s display of gunshots, the school management had ordered the security not to let any student out of the gate….

Ola was all alone in her room……and all she could do was ask God for Mercy. She wanted to make heaven if death came calling…. and she kept asking God a very important question…

“ God, I fasted and prayed for three days and the only prayer I prayed was that your purpose be established in my life…Is going through Rape part of your purpose for my life?”…..

PART 10
“MY FATHER’S FARMLAND”
©️Opeyemi Ojerinde Akintunde

Sukki suddenly realized he had been outsmarted by Torture and Axe when one of the other boys told him he had seen them boarding a bus…

“ Axe, Torture blood go flow…” Sukki said as he beat his chest. His intention was to visit their parents’ house and spill some blood. As he made a turn towards Torture’s house, he began to hear sporadic gunshots, which had more effect than his ‘toy gun’….

“ Soldiers….Soldiers” Some of Sukki’s boys ran towards him informing him, that someone must have called the soldiers from the nearby barracks.

Sukki knew soldiers were more brutal than police officers. Instinct told him this was the time to bow and run from the stage….He rushed into his father’s power chamber.

“ Father, the soldiers are coming… It was Torture and Axe that took the money..I need to get out of here fast…” Sukki said to his father in his mother tongue…

“ You are right.. You need to get out of here right now!” His father replied

Sukki’s father gave him a charm that could make him disappear and in few seconds he was out of there….

Ola laid on the bed thinking about her virginity, thinking about how she had dreamt of her future husband being the first to ever make love to her… Her father had shown She and Ope their mother’s pant that had her virginity blood on it…He had told them proudly he was the first and only man their mother ever slept with before she died and that was why he couldn’t bring himself to marrying someone else after their mother’s demise.

Ola felt more pain as she thought of how unfortunately she had lost her own virginity not on her volition, but by rape. She felt pained for a belief she had once had about girls who were raped. She used to be of the opinion that any girl that was raped, asked for it based on her interaction with the opposite sex or probably her way of dressing, but now she knew better. She concluded in her pain that Anyone who had ever been raped whether by chance or by facilitating it was a VICTIM.

Tears flowed down her face as she tried to gain enough strength to pull herself together. She knew she needed a bath, because knowing who Ope was, Ope was going to be at her place any moment.

“Sukki ending my call abruptly must have raised suspicion in Ope, and I don’t want Ope and Oba seeing me this way! I can’t afford to have them unhappy, it will affect their academics, Ola get up!” Ola encouraged herself

However, Ola’s Body was not responding to her motivational talk, also her emotions were betraying her…

“ God! Why?” Ola finally screamed out in her heart as she had tried so hard not to blame God or say anything against God since Sukki left

And like a flash, Ola remembered her Father’s words….

“ I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead” Baba Jenriayegbe had told his children during one of his Bible study time with them…

“ These words were spoken by Paul the Apostle and it has been my life motto… Oba, Ope, Ola never give up on your dreams until you achieve it. Some flops might come along the way, some unplanned casualties may come to scare you or discourage you from your dreams, you must go past it and leave that experience in the past…Say this after me loud and clear…
MY PAST IS IN MY PAST, I PRESS FORWARD TOWARDS MY FUTURE BECAUSE THAT IS WHERE MY GREATNESS LIES.”

The trio had repeated after their father…

“ Now listen, what does it mean to press?”

“ To exert pressure” Oba had replied
“ To strain” Ope had said…
“ To push” Ola had said

“Good, So whenever you face challenges along the journey of life, you must rise up, because you have not achieved your goal. At that point, you may be weak but you have to push, you have to strain yourself, you have to exert pressure on yourself to move to your desired future…”

“Where is the Bible verse, Father?” Oba the bookworm had asked

“ Philippians 3: 13-14”

Ola remembered that day so clearly as she laid on the bed… At that moment, She knew she had not gotten the answer why God allowed the rape but she had gotten what she needed to do…She stretched her hand to pick up her Bible and opened to that portion of the Bible…She was using the New living translation, her version read..

“ No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead”

Her tears flowed as she understood what God was trying to tell her…

“ Ola, you haven’t achieved your vision of becoming wealthy to help lives, therefore forget what has just happened, it is your past, though a recent past, but you need to press forward.”

With those words dropping into her heart, Ola put in all her strength and rose from the bed. Her tears had no break, it flowed ceaselessly.

Her legs were wobbly , so she laid on the floor and dragged herself to her toilet…

Her strawberry soap suddenly looked like evil, so she took her detergent and took her bath with that instead, sitting on the floor…

Towards Evening, Oba and Ope were able to get out of the school. Micheal had visited Ope at her hostel earlier during the chaos.and handed over N150,000 to her. He told Ope, she should give it to Ola as a gift to invest in whatever business she wanted to go into. Ope was elated but also afraid as she had not heard from Ola.

Ola’s Landlady who was an elderly woman had paid her a visit, apologizing for not coming to her rescue when she was being robbed…

“ My heart and prayer was with you, but I couldn’t do anything as I was scared that ruthless boy could shoot me.” She had said apologetically. She had called a carpenter to fix Ola’s door…

Ope and Oba got to Ola’s place, and on reaching her, Ola had composed herself but there was a problem…

Ola couldn’t speak again…