Previously on IN ANOTHER MANS LAND

“He no go go anywhere!” One of the other men under the tent interjected strongly. I gave him the “so you were listening” look.

“Na him be the head of the oracle in his village, he cannot do what he is saying.” He said, dropping the plier in his hands.

***

I looked at Mr Ifeanyi who refused to deny or affirm the claim. I was in some alternate universe that didn’t have the casual spirituality I was used to. I had only seen this kind of reality in Mount Zion movies.

“Oracle?” I asked out loud and imagined Mr Ifeanyi on a white wrapper and white chalk markings on his face. His bloodshot eyes from communing in a strange language with the gods of his fathers overnight. His daily life in the shrine made from palm fronds. He didn’t fit the Nollywood image in my mind. Save for the cigarette he was smoking, he looked like an ordinary 30 year-old on the wooden bench. But we know no man according to the flesh. Even if he had made human sacrifices to his gods in the past, God still saw Mr Ifeanyi as who He intended him to be from the beginning. So I clutched my Bible, waiting for Mr Ifeanyi’s response to my question.

“No dey talk that thing, I no dey play. I go find church wey I go go” He retorted at the interfering man that I was almost convinced.

“He go go church, I believe him,” I said out loud to the plier man, surprising myself. Suppose he didn’t find his way to church soon, he would have found his way to God in ten years time. That was my hope.

Days later, Gideon and I were to do a follow-up of those we had spoken. A concerned me who wanted to make sure Mr Ifeanyi heard my voice was thrown into a spiral of . He denied ever being talked to by any NCCF corper even though he affirmed that he was Mr Ifeanyi. I sighed as I dropped the call. That oracle had a grip stronger than Dangote cement.

Cotinue reading here: https://heartychristianstories.com/in-another-mans-land-episode-2/