CHAPTER 4: DIOS; BORN OR CREATED A REBEL?

CHAPTER 4

A few years later, Dios had become a rebel of sort in the heart of Bonny. Aged Sir Diogo began to notice that his business would close down after his demise when Estevo would take over from him. The problem he foresaw was no other than Dios who had become a full-fledged man and was now living on his own, away from Sir Diogo’s canoe house and seldom visited the slave depot. His declining face that was once adorning Bonny Island became one of the rarest around the busy Island. However, within these periods of time, he had gotten for himself a loyal servant in the person of Ojamu. Ever since Ojamu lost his teeth, his loyalty became divided; one for old Sir Diogo and the other for younger Dios who they saw as awaiting successor of the conglomerate. He would come around, and give orders to Ojamu; greet his father, and stayed briefly around, wandering before walking away. Over time, the last spot on which his mother stood struggling, begging and lastly cursing Sir Diogo before she was forcefully chained and taken aboard Ship Jesus became his pilgrimage spot.

“Mama, you are not dead yet. I know. We will always meet here. Stay strong and alive till the throne returns back to you. This is your heritage. Not in my life time will I forget”. He would always say this before leaving, and would rain down the earth soil he was holding while speaking those words to his mother’s eerie memory.

One day, on a Sunday, Dios was enraptured in the memories of his enslaved mother while promising her the eternal remembrance of her name throughout his life. Sir Diogo, out of curiosity, peeped from the upstairs balcony of his canoe house. He saw Dios making some pronouncements on the same spot he had become used to as his own mecca each time he showed his face to Sir Diogo, and decided to eavesdrop. He came downstairs and walked smartly close by so he could understand what was going on with Dios.

“I will never forget your love and I will go all out to prove it” was what Sir Diogo heard before he coiled back into his house. There was no doubt that what Sir Diogo heard that morning would certainly not go down well with him without a quick fix.

Bonny Island had become anything unsettling for the Lisbon-born slave baron who first visited West Africa at a very young age, especially since the day he heard Dios making promises to his late mother, Ugegbe, who died of stroke in a plantain plantation in Madeira. He went on developing fear for Estevo who was yet to set his foot for the second time in West Africa. He started thinking and planning how to take Dios out of the way before Estevo took over the business empire the Negroes Backs Company had become.

Sir Diogo travelled to Calabar in the early morning of 4th January to pay a surprise visit to his brother, Reverend Luiz, during worship hour at the Saint Gregory Parish. He quickly put off his cigarette and entered the parish building to have communion administered to him by his beloved brother, Reverend Luiz, who was in charge of the service.

Immediately he took his communion and sat down in a wooden chair close to the altar, he turned around and saw a good harvest. It was a church of new and young converts who became attracted to the mode of worship the Portuguese missionaries were teaching them. They were a parish of able-bodied young chaps and he acted blind that day and all went well. After the church dismissal, Sir Diogo went into the parish lodge and had a long discussion with Reverend Luiz.

“You have strong, able-bodied young men and women around here and their farms look greenly healthy too. They will do well in Madeira if taken to plantations there. They are chesty and look energetic too”, Sir Diogo said while throwing his eyes around a wooden upstairs, as he watched parishioners and passers-by going to different quarters.

Reverend Luiz took a very long laugh.

“You must not close the church here because you find them good for business. We have also trained some preachers. Please, don’t cross to this place lest you kidnap our catechist and preachers. Please, don’t scare them. We need them here. They are even learning fast and leaving behind some of their cultural practices that do not represent any positive thing”, Reverend Luiz appealed.

“Well, that brings me to this issue bothering me”, Sir Diogo enthused.

“What is it, Diogo?” Reverend Luiz curiously asked.

“Dios has changed recently. I don’t understand that Eboe man anymore” he said with every facial indication of worries.

“You mean your son, Dios?” Reverend Luiz asked.

“Well, yes, Dios”, Sir Diogo scornfully said.

“What’s wrong with him?” Reverend Luiz enquiringly asked.

“He is no longer living in my house. He visits and goes away. And often times, he stays briefly in the harbour and promises his late mother what appears to me as revenge”, Sir Diogo worriedly said.

“It may not be what you are thinking. Eboes are of the best people out there”, Reverend Luiz said.

“Except they seldom forget things. Their memory is like that of an elephant. It is worrisome to be seen as their enemy. I have spent most of my life in Biafra, but I must admit this about Eboes. They love apportioning punishment to people they believe that offended them”, Sir Diogo said.

“Well, that’s human”, Reverend Luiz said.

“I know it is human. Eboes are so good in waiting for this”, Sir Diogo avidly said.

“Could it be that he understood that you sold his mother?” Reverend Luiz asked.

“I think he now knows what happened that fateful day. And as days come by, I see passion for revenge all over his face. And my fear now is, very soon I will leave for Lisbon. How will Estevo, my son, take over the business around Dios whose presence is everywhere around Biafra? Won’t he murder my only son to get revenge for his Eboe mother?” Sir Diogo fearfully said.

“Hahahaha. You are taking it way too far. Dios is a gentleman. I don’t see him as a dangerous man. Yes, he was born of an Eboe lady, but you are still his father. It’s even high time you started persuading him to get married and raise a family”, Reverend Luiz said.

“He doesn’t even consider it. The last time we had a discussion about it, he wasn’t even sure he wanted to get married. I thought by now he must have raised a family with Miss Agueda who comes around from Bight of Bini until he called off the romance”, Sir Diogo said.

“Do not worry. Nothing bad shall happen to Estevo. Even though Dios is Eboe, they are still brothers. He will protect his own”, Reverend Luiz said.

“I pray his own becomes my son. Because the way he talks to slaves these days baffles me. He has developed a soft spot for them”, Sir Diogo said.

“That’s not a problem. After all, they are still human beings”, Reverend Luiz said.

“I know they are human beings, but God Almighty had placed certain people above others. They are beneath us, and nothing is hanging there to change it”, Sir Diogo said.

“Well, I don’t know yet, but they are reading the Bible now. I even found out that they are fast in learning mathematics”, Reverend Luiz said.

“Yes, I must say, they are fast in learning. But that notwithstanding, they are Africans and somewhere beneath us. Reverend Luiz, this we must not forget”, Sir Diogo said.

His visit to Calabar had broadened his understanding of the Efiks and the closer nationalities around them, especially with their hospitality as the parishioners and villagers made sure that food items were sufficient in the Reverends’ Lodge. It was things they willingly gave in the support of the new religion that had found them. At least, in all the raids going on, none had been kidnapped inside the Church, even though they were daily losing parishioners to slave raiders outside the Saint Gregory Parish, especially in the farms.

Saint Gregory parishioners always took time to pray against invasion of the parish by slave raiders. So far, it appeared to be working, because asides the uproars the slave raiding was causing among their families in their interior villages, the parishioners were safe whenever they were in the parish, even though some were captured on their way to the parish and some while leaving the parish. It was only the news that it was creating and the sorrowful faces it inflicted on them were seen in Saint Gregory parish, Calabar. In this instance, the church and the parishioners were safe when they congregated. There was no doubt that the respect the slave raiders had for anything white, especially white human beings, and more especially for Reverend Luiz around Calabar had hypnotised the raiders to see local people in the parish as special, at least until they left Saint Gregory ground. The church in the hand of Reverend Luiz was really marching on above all the odds they faced as a branded people.