₦airaland Forum

Viquetoria’
Writing is a profession that needs patience and perseverance for one to succeed. Even when you do, the pecuniary reward is so disappointing it can discourage anyone that is into it for the money. It is not like the music profession where you can become a millionaire overnight. First, are you into writing because you think it can provide you with the comfort of life? If you are, better perish the thought.  Few writers get to achieve the feat of getting rich, even in America. You don’t believe me. Go to Ask.com and ask the relevant questions. You’ll be amazed at the answers you’ll get.

I am not trying to discourage you but I don’t want you to have false hope like I did. I am comfortable today not from my books sales but from what I made before I retired from National Oil now known as Conoil.

I don’t know how good you are but you have to be good before you can get a publisher for you books. First I’ll advise you to get some writing software that will take your writing to near perfection. The best for now is AutoCrit but it is online writing software. Another is Whitesmoke which is online too. If you want an offline tool, then StyleWriter is the best for you. Although it is the most expensive out of the lot, it is the one I use because I am not always on the net.

Join a writing group like Agent Connect where you can post your writing for critique. A writing group will give you a frank but sometimes brutal assessment of your work. You can also post your work into bloggs where many people can see it. If you don’t know which blogg to use, you can type my name Ajibola Oluti on google. It will show you some of the blogg where I posted my work. You can begin to use them too.

If you think you are good and need to see your work in print in a hurry, Lulu is where you can achieve that aim.

Good luck and God bless

Above is the title of my book. I would be grateful if someone after reading the first chapter of this my book can tell me what is wrong with it. I have been trying unsuccessfully for the past two years to get a publisher to publish it.

A man who puts aside his religion because
he is going into society, is like one taking off
his shoes because he is about to walk upon thorns. –Cecil 

  1--DEFIANCE
“Anetor, Anetor, Anetor,” the Ovia High Priest voice reverberated above the din of the town people who trooped into the town centre to watch the town elder’s emergency court session.
The High Priest pointed a finger with a dirty fingernail at me. “You, you you,” he shook like a banana leaf in a violet whirlwind. His knife-like eyes the colour of ember ran over my body from head to toe.  I shivered, not from cold but from the penetrating stare of his eyes. “How many times did I call you?”
“Three times sir,” My shoes become sole object of admiration. “God give me strength. Fortify my spirit. Proof to the unbelievers today that their tradition runs contrary to your commandment,” I prayed under my breath. I shook my body to calm my frail nerves.
Dressed in the full regalia reminiscence of the yearly Ovia festival, the Ovia High Priest sat on a high backed chair facing the town people. Eight senior chiefs sat by his sides dressed in their traditional festival outfit.
The chiefs’ eyes fixed on my eyes rolled up and down in their sockets. The High Priest dress, starched and bedecked in native decorations, would intimidate most mortals and non-mortals alike.
With my hands held behind my back, I faced the chiefs. My big worn-out bible firmly in the cup of my fingers, gave me comfort and confidence.
Cool breeze caressed my face. Leaves dried by the end of the year harmattan dropped from the big Iroko tree on my hair. I shook them out of my hair. The High Priest looked at me with disapproval in his eyes.
Underneath the big iroko tree, the rest of the chiefs sat in semicircle behind the eight senior chiefs. They looked ready to pass judgment on those who by their action or inaction offended the gods of the land. That day, only one culprit stood before them.
I looked at the placid faces of the town people. I shrugged. I will show these people I worship a living God. I will open their eyes to the reality that Ovia-a beautiful ornate bronze, carved in the image of the devil by itself; lack the power to punish any man.
“What the devil made you disobey the elder’s instruction?” The High priest asked. His bright face bored into mine.
I stared right back at him. “I did not sir,” I shifted from one tired leg to the other. I waited for their predetermined ‘justice.’ This they dispensed with gusto for a god that cannot defend itself.
“You mean you were part of the team that cleared the market road and the road to Ovia shrine?”
“No sir,” I would love to kick the stupid face of the High priest in, stuff the blood into his monkey mouth and watch him beg for mercy. The thought warmed my spirit.
“I told you he is stubborn,” the most senior elder said, his voice filled with satisfaction. He clenched his fist. He would love nothing better than hit the stupid boy who became a Christian only yesterday, who now thinks he could disobey the elders with impunity.
“Sir, how could you say such about me? You know I am a law-abiding citizen of this town who would never disobey the elders without valid reasons.”
“Why then did you refuse to take part in clearing of the two roads,” the elder asked. He nodded at the other elders as if for confirmation or approval, “please tell us.”
“Because today is Sunday.”
“Tuah,” the High Priest spat, “but you do eat on Sundays, don’t you?”
“That is different sir,” I opened my bible. I browsed for a suitable quotation to back me up. “It said here that we should honour the Sabbath and keep it holy,” I cleared my throat.
A bright light hit me. A man dressed in snow-white apparel stood before me. He tapped me lightly on my shoulder. He pointed at the High Priest and laughed. The man vanished. I closed my eyes. When I opened them, I saw the High Priest in a new light. I choked inside with suppressed laughter at his ridiculous outfit.
“My fathers,” I continued. I picked my words, as one would talk to little children, “as a pastor and a founder of my own denomination, it would be improper for people to see me among those clearing the market road on a Sunday.”
“May thunder break your head,” one of the elders        I could not remember his name kicked the empty keg of palm wine before him. He looked at the broken gourd, his face a mask of fury. He glared at me as if somehow, I broke the gourd myself. “Is it not just yesterday you went to pastor school? Is it what has gone into your head now?”
I covered my face with my palms. The man’s head reminded me of a big cocoyam. To call anyone a cocoyam head is to say the person is a dunce. People knew the chief as not too brilliant, which makes cocoyam head, suits him.
Laughter built up from the bottom of my stomach ready to explode. I turned my face away from him and held my sides. I placed my palms on my face. I held my lips with my fingers. If I released my lips by mistake, the laughter would come out in torrents.  I brought my bible to my face to prevent the elders seeing my merry face.
“Will you put that stupid book down!” The High Priest shouted with venom in his voice. “You dare tell us you cannot work on Sunday. Does that bible of yours not said something about obedience to your elders and giving to Caesar what is Caesar and to God what is God?”
His perfect quote of that biblical passage did not surprise me. Even the devil quoted the bible.
“Anyway,” the High Priest continued, “we have killed a fowl and prepared it, but the fowl belongs to Ovia. You know what that means.”
Ovia is the most powerful god in the town. Everybody dreaded the god. No one swear falsely by Ovia for fear of retribution. The god rewrote its own code of crime and punishment. The god meted out automatic punishment to those who goes against its principle. 
The custom of the town forbade any man to turn down the elder’s invitation to clear the market road. No one in his right sense would dare turn down invitation to clear Ovia road. People struggle to do it. Why my absence offended the elders baffled me.
Whoever refused invitation to clear the market road must buy a goat or a fowl for the elders. In anticipation that I would buy one as a fine, the elders grabbed the next available fowl. This fowl, someone already dedicated as a sacrifice to the god Ovia.
“My elders, I don’t know ‘what that means’, but it is written in this bible,” I lifted it up for all of them to see. “‘Thou shall not steal.’ You elders grabbed a fowl that does not belong to you and roasted it. This is contrary to the law of God and the teachings of the bible. You elders expected me to replace this fowl. I cannot do this because my bible also said, ‘thou shall worship no other God but me.’ If I replace the fowl, it means I am providing a sacrificial offering to your god, which my bible forbids. I am sorry my elders, I cannot do this.”
The eyes of the elders changed from red to something terrible. Some opened their mouth unable to close them. This could not be our own Noah. Noah could not utter those words. Who is Noah? They shook with murderous rage. If they had the power or if it were to be in those bygone days, they would sacrifice me there and then to their gods.
“You dare call us thieves and insulted the gods of our father’s land?” One of the elders asked, his face registered his unbelief. “If a child says his mother will not sleep, he too will not know peace. Elders, let us go. The gods he insulted would deal with him.”
Their threat did not move me. The gods did not scare me. By themselves, the gods are powerless. The course of action of the elders scared me a little. They would go to any length to prove the gods dealt with me.
The elders left one by one, shaking their fist in my face to suggest I was in trouble. I prayed in silence.
The people in the town believed anybody cursed by the High Priest dies after three days. No one could remember since the birth of the town, one incidence of disobedience to the elders.
No one would dare refused to buy a fowl for the elders on demand. I not only refused to buy the elders a fowl,    I refused to replace the one dedicate to Ovia which the elders killed. The whole town discussed in hush tones the imminent death of Noah before seven days. It was not a question of if Noah would die but how and when.
They waited for my death. The elders visited me in the night in all kinds of forms. Masquerades appeared in my dream with cutlasses to harm me. I fought them and defeated them. Sometimes, they appeared in my dreams but in daytime. I still defeated them. Twice I opened my wardrobe to find black mamba-an African deadly snake- coiled inside. I would dip my hand into my pocket and came out with snakes. When I called Holy Ghost fire, they disappeared. Fire ignited on my bed a couple of times. I invoked the blood of the lamb and it dies.
To counter the antics of the elders, I embarked on three days dry fasting. I asked the living God to throw confusion among the elders.
When I lived the life of sin back in 1992, something happened that kindled my hope in a loving God who is ready to grant all my wishes.
I became a Christian at an early age because my father practiced the religion. My father believed Christianity does not compel one to abandon his tradition. He sacrificed a goat once in a year to his personal god in his room.
One Sunday, I came back from church as usual and prayed. That day, I prayed as I never prayed before. I did not know why, but something kept urging me on.
In a vision that night, a man told me to stop smoking. He slapped me several times.
“Stop your life of sin and give your life to Jesus Christ.”
“How do I do that?” I asked.
He slapped me again, “Just give your life to Christ.”
When I woke up, I became a changed person. I became born-again.
A big timber tree demarcated my landlord’s land and the High Priest. My landlord cut down the tree. He claimed its ownership. This act angered the High Priest who called a meeting of the elders to call my landlord to order.
The elders instead of doing that declared the timber belonged to my landlord. The High Chief shot at my landlord when he saw him on the land the second day. He vowed to deal with the elders one by one.
Many of the elders took side with my landlord because of his wealth while a few took side with the High priest. This incident created confusion among the elders. They forgot about my case while they tried to settle the rift my powerful prayers created among them.
When I did not die after three days, I became the talk of the town. Many people trooped to my house to see me. The church I started in my house with only my relatives no longer contained the people that came for worship and prayer.
The night after Sunday’s service, I knelt down and thanked God for His miracles. 
An incidence that happened in my own village few years back after my pastoral training confirmed me as a man with great anointing.
There lived a paralytic woman of many years of suffering her disability in my village. One day in my dream, I found myself in the woman’s house. Many demons with horns surrounded her. They bowed down and parted way for me to pass on my way to the woman’s bed. I prayed for her and healed her.
The next day I told my brother that God wanted me to go and cure the paralytic woman. When we got there, I said to the woman, “Madam God sent me to you to pray for you so you could receive your miracles. Do you believe Jesus can heal you?”
“I believe,” replied the woman.
I prayed and commanded the woman to walk. As I prayed, the woman fell down. She cried as soon as I touched her. She screamed I should stop cutting her legs with razor blade. I prayed until sweat covered me all over.  I commanded the woman in the name of Jesus to walk. The woman stood up and walked.
The following Sunday, twenty-five souls converted to Christ in my church. The room we used as church could not contain all the people that turned up for service. Many stood outside the windows to listen to the sermon.
The following day, I rented a six-room apartment in the town, which I converted to my church. Six months later, three Pastors came under my tutelage. Everything went without ugly incident until the event that made me fled the town for Lagos happened.