Our Rainmaker

Copyright © 2010 Lanre Alayande

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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-4502-0608-2 (pbk)

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iUniverse rev. date: 1/25/10

Contents

Dedication

Our Rainmaker

Preface:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Author’s note

Author’s Biography

"History is written by those with uncommon insight into happenings,

By those who celebrate the contributions and achievements of ordinary people, who contribute to the glory of our fatherland.

By those who make every citizen, walk tall, with a healthy heart beat, palpitating with green blood.

By those who put the heart in heartland.

Given this moment, in time, let us summon our invisible customs to put our hands on the arc of history, to be custodians of our historic present.

Let this generation rise up as a nation to the specific challenges that confronts us in communities, households, institutions, economic blocs and as a continent.

Let us act in concert, against the same immaturity that poisoned the minds of, legions of decision makers, in our land for so long.

Let this stance in the most trying times; in the most horrific circumstances discourage us as a people, to taking short cuts which overtime has corroded our perception of life. It has corroded the character of our country.

Let this resolve be our inspiration, these concerns our cause.

In the roll call of my pursuits, even though I am one, know this, I am not alone.

I believe the joy of doing or being something positive and knowing that you are advancing, is the greatest of all joys possible to man.

I have written this piece, with an unyielding measure of good hope, that those who read it will identify with a word, a sentence, a paragraph, or a page, perchance the whole piece, which will awaken a new spirit and have a lasting conviction to unearth our rare treasures. This is a clarion call to bring back the GLORY TO NIGERIA, as she reaches out to you, to share in her GOLDEN ANNIVASARY, what a Golden moment to embrace one another in the spirit of brotherhood."

To all ‘contributing’ Nigerians

Dedication

To my father, Pa Alayande, my living legend; your sacrifices and precious gift, of unwavering faith in me has served as a moral compass in my journey through life. Thanks dad for everything.

My sister, Bolanle Alayande, a stoic leader, your selflessness warms my heart.

Tope, my maid of might, Sunkanmi & Ma Alayande, your unconditional support renews me with a vigor for a new day.

To all those who have stood by me, through it all, I say a heart-felt thank you.

Our Rainmaker

Early History of Nigeria:

The story develops in the last 20 odd years before the Nigerian people gained independence from Britain. To understand the significance of the situation and the period discussed in this piece, it is perhaps necessary to remember the past as well as to put it into perspective with later history, since gaining independence was by no means the end of the journey, merely the beginning of transformation to the country we know as Nigeria, today. Nigeria is a complex society, with a rich and diverse cultural history. It has its roots in ancient times, its people developing as nature, political and economical forces drove them to adapt and change.

Recent archeological findings show that southwestern Nigeria was populated as early as 9000BC and there are signs that the southeastern part around Okigwe could have been populated even earlier.

The oldest evidence of metalworking, in archeology, is found in smelting furnaces at Taruga, dating from the fourth millennium BC. In the same period, microlithic and ceramic industries were developed by the savanna pastoralists and were continued by the subsequent agricultural communities. In the south, hunting gathering gave way to the cultivation of staple foods in subsistence farming, during the first millennium BC.

Long before 1500, modern Nigeria was divided into states, which identified with contemporary ethnic groups. These early states included the Yoruba kingdoms, the Igbo kingdom of Nri, the Edo kingdom of Benin, the Efik kingdom, the Ibibio and Annang kingdoms as well as the Hausa cities and Nupe. Smaller states to the west and south of Lake Chad were absorbed or displaced as Kanem, situated northeast of Lake Chad, expanded. Borno became independent of Kanem in the last stages of the 14th century. The existence of other states cannot be excluded, but the absence of archeological data, prohibits accurate dating.

Yoruba was the dominant force on the west bank of the Niger. The product of periodic waves of migrants, they were of mixed origin. Patrilineal groups occupied village communities and developed agriculturally. Gradually from the 11th century Ife consolidated into city states and clan loyalties made way for dynastic chieftainship. However, urbanization led to high artistic development in terracotta and ivory sculpture as well as the sophisticated metal casting produced at Ife.

The Yoruba paid tribute to a pantheon headed by the impersonal Olorun. Oduduwa was regarded as the Creator and the ancestor of the Yoruba kings. History and tradition suggests that the Yoruba ancestors migrated from the Arabian peninsula.

The earliest Igbo state and the oldest kingdom in Nigeria, Nri, emerged around 900 AD and lasted a thousand years. Though geographically small, it is considered the cradle of Igbo culture.

With the decline of the Nri around 1400 – 1600AD numerous states once under their influence became oracular oligarchies and large commercial states. Akwa rose in power due to the Agbara oracle and the blacksmith expertise. Onitsa kingdom was founded by migrants from Anioma and Benin. Igala traders settled in Akwa around 1800AD. The western kingdoms like Aboh, dominated trade in Lower Nigeria from the 17th Century until European invasion. The seat of power remained with the Cross River Igbo states as they had the biggest sphere of influence after the decline of the Nri.

Arochukwu kingdom emerged after the Aro-Ibibio wars and later formed the Aro confederacy, dominating the Midwestern and eastern Nigeria with pockets of power in Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon. Based on the judicial oracle of Ibini Ukpabi and backed by the military force of Ohafia, Abam, Ezza and Akpa, together with neighboring allies, further cooperation from the Abiriba people made the Aro a powerful economic force.

Igbo Gods were numerous, egalitarian and reflecting Igbo society as a whole. A number of oracles and local cults were revered but the central deity; Ala (Earth Mother and goddess of fertility) was venerated at shrines throughout Igboland.

During the 15th century Oyo and Benin developed into political and economic powers, while Ife became a religious center. Respect for the function of the oni of Ife’s priestly station plays a major role in the Yoruba culture. This model of governance was adopted in Oyo, controlling several smaller city-states. State Council named the king and served as a check on his reign. Unlike the forest bound Yoruba, Oyo in the savanna drew on cavalry forces an established hegemony over the Nupe and Borgu kingdoms, developing trade routes to the north.

Before becoming a dependency of Ife in the early stages of the 14th century, Yorubaland has established a community in the Edo area east of Ife. In the 15th century it became an independent trading power, effectively blocking Ife’s access to the coast, just as Oyo isolated it from the savanna. Political and religious power resided with the oba. Benin, accommodated approximately 100 000 people, at its height, in an area roughly 25 square kilometers, encircled by three concentric rings of earthworks. By the late 15th century, Benin was in contact with Portugal. At its apogee, it encompassed parts of southeastern Yoruba and western Igbo.

The savanna portions of Nigeria developed into organized communities, largely as a result of trade. Early prehistoric inhabitants were wildly scattered in the 3rd millennium BC, adjusting to the encroaching desert as the desiccation of the Sahara began. Trade routes over the Sahara linked western Sudan with the Mediterranean (Carthage) ports and with the Upper Nile, establishing avenues of communication and cultural influence that remained open until the end of the 19th century. Islam made its way into West Africa along these well established routes in the 9th century AD.

At this time a string of dynastic states, including the early Hausa states, stretched over western and central Sudan. Most powerful among these, were Ghana, Gao and Kanem. Though not yet within the borders of Modern Nigeria, they played a vital role in the history of the Nigerian savanna. Ghana’s decline in the 11th century leads to the Mali Empire and the resultant consolidation of much of the western Sudan in the 13th century. With the breakup of the Mali, a local leader (Sonni Ali) founded the Shongai Empire in the second half of the 14th Century. Situated in the middle Niger region and western Sudan, it took control of the trans- Saharan trade. Ali seized Timbuktu in 1468 and Jenne in 1473, building on trade revenues and with the cooperation of the Muslim traders. His successor made Islam the official religion, built mosques and brought Muslim scholars to the region.

Though the western empires had very little political influence on the savanna region pre 1500, they had an enormous cultural and economic impact, which became more pronounced in the 16th century, especially as they became synonymous with the spread of Islam and trade. During the 16th century, much of Northern Nigeria paid homage to either the Shongai in the west or to Borno in the east.

Borno’s history is closely linked to that of Kanem, which achieved imperial status in the Lake Chad basin by the 13th century. Kanem expanded westward to include the area that became Borno. The mai of Kanem and his court accepted Islam in the 11th century, same as the western empires. Islam was used to consolidate the political and social structures, though many established customs were maintained. Women continued to exercise considerable political power.

The mai, using his cavalry and an inchoate army of nobles, extended Kanem’s authority into Borno. By tradition, the territory was conferred on the heir to the throne to govern as an apprenticeship. In the 14th century, dynastic conflict forced the ruling group and its followers to relocate in Borno, resulting in the Kanuri’s emergence as an ethnic group, in the late 14th and 15th century. The disruption of civil war in Kanem in the second half of the 14th century resulted in the independence of Borno.

By the 11th century, some of the Hausa states (Kano, jigawa, Katsina, Gobir) had developed into walled towns, engaging in trade, servicing Caravans and into manufacturing various goods. Till the 15th century, these small states were on the periphery of the major Sudanese empires of the time, constantly pressured by Shongai to the west and Kanem-Borno to the East, to which they paid tribute. Armed conflict were usually fuelled by economic concerns, with coalitions of Hausa states mounting wars against the Jukun and Nupe in the middle belt to collect slaves, or against one another for control of trade.

Islam reached the Hausa via the caravan routes. Recorded in the Kano Chronicle, is the conversion of the ruling dynasty of Kano, by clerics from Mali, demonstrating the extent of the imperial influence of Mali to the east. Acceptance of Islam was, however very gradual and nominal in the countryside where folk religion continued to exert a very strong influence. Despite this, Kano and Katsina, famous for their mosques and schools, came to participate fully in the cultural and intellectual life of Islam.

The Fulani, originating from the Senegal River valley, began to enter Hausa country in the 13th century. By the 15th century, they were tending livestock in Borno. With their ancestral system of livestock management based on transhumanance, they gradually moved eastward, first into the centers of the Mali and Shongai empires and then into Hausa and Borno. Some converted to Islam as early as the 11th century, settling among the Hausa and becoming racially indistinguishable. They constituted devoutly religious, educated