The Forest of the Hunters

The Baobab Tree had begun to fall and no one could have halted its demise. It was ineluctable, for fate had befallen it, for perhaps it had stood long enough to anchor its people through storms, erosions, and any disruption sniffed in its vicinity.

Aba’s life resembled that of a tree. Not just any kind; a Baobab Tree. One that for years maintained our soil fertile and steady, and brought to us the only two essentials of life: water and food.

Go and tell them,

That our Aba, the one tree before which all others seem barren, has fallen.

Go and tell them,

That the longest living tree of our family has been felled, uprooted from our earth.

Perhaps the question we should ask one another as we mourn and remember is this: what are we going to do now?

Plant a new tree?

Turn this one into mere wood?

May the spirit of our brother, father, cousin, uncle, friend, neighbour, and grandfather, rest in absolute peace.

Thank you my people.

Roars, mourning and applause blended and swirled in the air that ensued.

The seated audience rose to their feet. Guns were shot, drums pounded in the rhythm of a pleasant thunder until they came to a halt, all at once, or one at a time, until silence filled the air, until murmurs from the crowd resumed.

Agbor who had just given a speech on his grandfather’s memorial day regained his seat where three other men and women sat around a square table.

They were still picking roasted groundnuts and corn from the grey baskets on the table when he sat down.

Woman 1: Your grandfather will forever be remembered. His existence is unforgettable.

‘She sighed and took a sip of wine.’

Man 1: That is true woman. Only God knows what Aba saw in his lifetime—

Woman 1: Very, very true. I can imagine he had seen a lot. Even more than any of us can imagine—

Woman 2: He had indeed seen a lot. Remember I told you he was my main textbook when I wrote my thesis years ago—

Woman 1: Yes teacher—

Man 1: Not teacher. She’s a Professor. A U-ni-ver-si-ty professor—

Woman 2: Well, I’m not quite a professor, at least not yet, as you claim and one would not be less wrong to call me teacher. But like I said, in my thesis I wanted to explore, you know, our nation from the nineteenth century onward.

‘The group hummed and harrumphed.’

Yes! What happened here? What attracted three of the most dominant empires to this far removed land? How our people reacted? And really, who were the people involved and what were their hidden motives?

The people on either side, you know?

But whatever, they assigned me to a French Historian Woman who was very friendly to me, Dr. Marguerite de La Fontaine, but who mercilessly rejected my proposal on the premise that it was too—

Woman 1:Don’t tell me she rejected your thesis! What did you—

Man 2: The Germans were better. What else did you want to write about? What is even there to write about?

‘His tone rose like that of a rebuking father.’

We can say all we want but they brought 10,000 times more to the table for our land than those Frenches and Englishes—

Woman 1: French and English, and not—

Man 2: I am talking in the plural. For all of them—

‘She let out a throaty laugh of mockery, but soon stopped when no one joined in.’

Woman 1: Show me one single thing that they brought to this country? The land they cultivated? Was it not part of Aba’s heritage that was plundered? The roads and railways? Wasn’t it entirely meant for exporting crops to their country? Show me one single thing that was done for the purpose of helping our people.

‘Her index finger pointed towards the sky.’

They had zero interest in any form of mutual cooperation and development—

Man 2: Young woman, Young woman...

‘A laugh and a nod of pity.’

Beware of drinking your soup with a fork. Where on earth have you seen a hunter feeding an antelope if it is not to trap it?

Man 1: Get to the point my brother. You are trying to say something, aren’t you?

Man 2: None of these people ever came here to help us, woman. They were the hunters and we the forest.

My point is that a hunter does not cooperate with a prey.

A Hunter does not feed a prey unless baiting a snare.

He preys fiercely and tenaciously, and the less effort spent on the catch, the better. Do you—

Woman 3: Don’t you sound like that thesis supervisor de La Fontaine?

‘She sighed and twisted her eyes to signal dismay and loose disapproval,

while Woman 1 let out another throaty laugh.’

Woman 3: Professor Tunde, please go ahead. What finally happened to your thesis and that long-nosed de La Fontaine? I remember we spoke about this at the time. And how did Aba come into play?

Woman 1: Yes professor, tell us.

Woman 2: His impression regarding the Germans is not uncommon and it made me quite shiver.

Getting back to my thesis, she said it was “too morally centric, too explanatory and diverting and it is clear that the narrator is taking a side. The accounts are not narratively objective. It would rather incite loathing of the Europeans from readers. That is something you want to avoid Ms Tunde. Our goal is to foster peace and reconciliation through history, and not foster hatred.”

How can I write history without history? Was all I could think sitting across from her.

She went on to say that “You’re too emotional, which is understandable in this case, but make your paper more academically neutral or choose another topic,” And I chose another topic. Some boring accounts about Napoleon Bonaparte and the French revolution, although by then I was already done with my research on Aba's life.

Aba’s father, your great grandfather, was the last king of Nkwa land. A witty warrior revered and feared by neighbouring villages as well as the colonial expeditions. Or white men, if you prefer.

He had inherited a body of men from his own father and built it into a union of more than a thousand men after conquering nearby lands. His tactics and ruses were no less unpredictable than they were successful, thanks to which he managed to keep the expeditions away for years. But he eventually lost his life in a bloody fight against German troops headed by governor Lt. von Hammer.

This governor had developed an obsessive interest in their sacred grassland that sprang from the western highlands to the coastal lowlands.

He went on to build a road and a station through the forest connecting the two areas. Aba’s father resented and blamed the people of the coast, for they’d cowardly embraced the intruders, allowing them to disrupt their ways and impose their own.

The last king and his army destroyed stations and roads three times but the fourth attempt led to a war in which Aba’s father died after suffering a serious back injury.

With his last words he proclaimed “I want my young son Aba to continue our mission,” his noblemen had recounted.

A will that shook their skull. Why?

Aba was the son of an enslaved princess from the coast. She was not a wife in the traditional sense but property, some of them believed, and so were the products of her womb.

His other son, born to his first wife, was convinced that his father had spoken out of bewilderment. “The words of a wounded man cannot be taken seriously,” he retorted.

It was a great dilemma within the grief-stricken kingdom, for Aba’s brother – born, like him, during a prosperous harvest and therefore given a name of greatness – was called Abia. No one could have been more shaken.

Although perceived as a sacrilege, the noblemen felt compelled to manifest a dying king’s will. Still at war with the governor’s army, they had little time to spend on questions of inheritance especially when this latter was being threatened.

By then Aba was already a fearless warrior who mastered the tradition but felt betrayed by the quandary his late father had thrust him into. He even told me “it would have been better had he died at the front.”

Aba understood the elders’ power, his position as illegitimate, and the humiliation that befell his brother. Mind you, they had until then been very close and inseparable.

In fact, the last king often compared their alliance to the two wings of a bird. One without which, it will no longer soar, it will wreak havoc on its little ones, for how will they be fed and protected?

The bird eventually stopped soaring and havoc did indeed wreak the little ones when Abia decided to join the other side. The colonial officers got a wind of the situation and von Hammer immediately invited him for a deal.

Aba told me: Abia felt constrained to do so because the noblemen had turned their backs on him. He felt betrayed by his own people. We had not spoken since we returned from the battlefield and I intentionally avoided him. What was I supposed to say? What could I have possibly said?

The night of his departure, a meeting was held in which one of the elders said “A man transitioning to the other side is gifted with the ability to see that which no living man could see. If your father didn’t say your name it is because he could not see you.”

Aba’s mother and the noblemen voted to banish his brother in absentia. Devastated and clouded by grief, he consented. This one had no reason to join the enemy’s clan. One that had slaughtered his father.

The news reached Abia’s ear while at the coast. It fuelled him to make a decision: He signed a blood pact with the governor.

They cut their palms with a knife, squeezed the blood into a cow horn, and drank it in turn.

The second war was swift, unprecedented, and fatal. Abia came back just a few days later with the governor’s army to reclaim his inheritance.

That same day Aba lost his mother, a few noblemen, his father’s wives and children, including his brother, Abia.

He had not meant to take his brother’s life. He was simply defending his father’s will.

‘She harrumphed and wiped her eyes with a tissue.’

Woman 1: Did Aba kill his brother?

Man 3: What a tragedy. Jesus—

Woman 3: What happened next? Please let her talk. Professor Tunde go ahead—

Woman 1: Yes, and what about the Germans?

Man 2: It is our turn to go to the buffet. The food will soon finish, my people. And I am hungry.

Woman 2: You are right. Let us go and eat.

‘They rose to their feet and walked to a buffet full of all traditional meals one could think about: Koki, Ndole, Kondre, Eru, Achu, Kati-Kati...’

Back at the table...

Man 2: Let us eat because we shall all die one day, German or British or French. Hitler died, Charle de Gaule died, Aba died, even the Queen of Englishes will die one day. Nothing is new under the son. It is déjà vu.

‘He cut the fufu with his fingers, dipped in the vegetables and put it on his tongue.’

Woman 3: Professor Tunde, what did you say happen next?

‘she broke the chicken wing with her teeth and pushed it into her mouth.’

Woman 2: Aba soon became a rebel. Or at least that’s what they said he was.

Looking back at your speech I don’t think he would agree with the term Baobab.

He would have preferred The Rebel because he continued to fight his father’s mission under that title.

The governor soon took hold of Nkwa and appointed a new king. One of the noblemen, a puppet who did as he pleased—

Woman 1: That governor was the real king—

Woman 2: Aba moved to a nearby village with some of his men and managed to rebuild an army in less than no time. It wasn’t as big and strong as his father’s but their common enemy strengthened their resolve.

They boycotted roads, stations, plantations and markets built by von Hammer’s body. In no more than five years he had succeeded in pushing back into Nkwa, but it became more and more difficult to convince his people.

The governor had built a huge banana and cocoa plantation that enriched the village people and brought new business prospects. They began to see their presence less as a hindrance.

Aba soon became The Rebel and his cause over the years grew insignificant. The governor encouraged the new king to inform the people that Aba had betrayed and taken Abia's life in an attempt to seize his inheritance and go against his father’s will. It was an easy story to believe, for he was born of a slave.

Man 3: So Agbor is actually from Nkwa?

Man 2: His grandmother was from the coast. He is francophone like me—

Woman 2: Not so fast. I do however like your identification as francophone. Great turning point. When the war broke in 1914, Aba saw in an opportunity to reconquer his land. By then his reputation as rebel had solidified with his army. He had taken a break for about a decade just to learn their ways—

Man 2: The best way to defeat an enemy is by conquering them—

Woman 1: That is why he spoke German, French and English?

Woman 2: German soon became the language of trade—

Man 2: But not a language of survival as French and English today. Which is why I still maintain that the Germans were better. They did not force us to speak their—

Woman 2: He soon got baptised in a catholic church, but he never surrendered his faith to the church. It was the best way for him to learn how to write and read and speak like them—

Man 2: It was strategic and not conformity—

Woman 2: Which language did he learn first?

Woman 3: WILL YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH BEFORE I—

Woman 2: She is right to be excited, I would have asked the same question. The church was mainly English and it was indeed strategic and it worked.

The first world war was a glorious event for Aba. He saw, for the first time, panic in the officers' midst.

He saw them retreating and sending most of their forces overseas, and in that he saw an ultimate occasion to strike.

His hopes renewed when von Hammer died on the battlefield and gradually his troop began to retreat. This was about a decade later.

A new army was trying to conquer the area and some of them promised they were coming for succour—

Man 2: Nobody comes to your house just to help you—

Woman 2: That he had understood, but nonetheless convinced his army to fight with the British under the commands of Sir David Westwood.

The agreement was that his people would regain their land and have ultimate sovereignty if only they fought at their side, which of course didn’t happen.

Once the former expedition retreated, Sir Westwood left the country and a different commander, Sir Kingsbury, took over. Soon it was heard that the country had been divided between the French and the British empire.

Aba's village was divided into two, one part became French and the other English. He found himself at the border. Well, he was told that he was at the boarder is the most accurate thing to say.

Sir Kingsbury offered him a deal based on a letter left by Westwood: you get a portion of your land, you keep your army and your king title, you can continue to plant and harvest to cater for your family or you get absolutely nothing. He did not understand the implications at first. He couldn’t understand their language properly and couldn’t trust any translator—

Woman 1: Those translators sold us ever since the time of slavery—

Woman 2: The military surveillance had greatly increased after the war and most of Aba's army perished in the war with just a few wounded and useless left. Around that time he had already lost two of his sons and a wife in an earlier war. He still had two children left.

He also fell in love with a woman called Meza who lived five villages away from Nkwa. They met during his years in exile as a rebel and she helped him a great deal with an army. Meza fled French territory to become his wife in British territory. She was the reason why he had accepted the offer. She was pregnant and their love was unbreakable.

Aba swore an oath the night he killed Abia: that he was going to fight for his father till his death.

However, it later dawned on him in the last battlefield, as he saw the the number of people falling as never before, that perhaps his father had meant Abia instead of Aba on his bed of agony. Perhaps the noblemen had misunderstood and his brother was right all along.

He wondered if it had been necessary all along. Perhaps his brother was right all along? Perhaps he was fighting the wrong cause?

Aba now had the chance to love and be loved by his family and people. And that is what he chose. And that is all that mattered. Agbor, your grandfather was a real hero. A Rebellious Baobab Tree I would say.