By Stephen Adinoyi   

“I curse them in the name of Jesus; I bind them in the mighty name of Jesus! Let your heavenly fire burns them! Burn their brain so that they will become mad! Burn their legs so that they can become crippled. Scatter all my Philistines. Destroy all my Amalekites. Destroy my Egyptians! Scatter my enemies with your blood! Scatter them now! Now! Now! ….”

Ose was hissing and turning on his bed over the shrill prayer coming out from the room of his immediate neighbour. That had been Ose’s affliction ever since Uncle Kola began his tenancy in a rooming house at Ajegunle in Lagos state. The rooms were adjoined. The rustling of pillaging rat in a room could be heard by another tenant in the next room.

The night prayers of Uncle Kola had brought sorrow to other neighbours. But Ose and Uchenna, another tenant, who was a young bachelor like him and his best friend, were the worst victims. Several complains to the caretaker of the building had yielded nothing. Uncle Kola refused to realise he was a night nuisance. The gentility of the caretaker kept his tenancy to remain to the dismay of other tenants.

Uncle Kola was a man in his mid-fifties. He was lanky and heavily mustached. He was said to be among the brilliant pupils in his days at the University of Ife where he studied Mass Communication. He was thoroughly a book man; but many believed his bookishness entered his head wrongly.

Upon leaving the university, he got a job as a senior staff writer of The Eyes Newspaper, located at Alausa, in Lagos. He was a gifted writer who got a job three months after his graduation. But, within few months of his appointment, began series of clashes with the Editor-in-Chief. He forbade the editor from editing or giving suggestions to his writes, which he claimed were divinely inspired to pillory corrupt politicians in the country. Several times, he almost brought about the closure of the media house by the government due to his uncouth, unverified reportage.

The editor would have long ago flushed out his nuisance but the restraining hand of  Chief Bisi Komolafe, the Chairman/Publisher of The Eyes Newspaper, whose wife was a relative to Uncle Kola, kept him on as an employee.

But when a very biting reportage dead to investigative journalism provoked the aggrieved victim to drag the media house to the court – forcing the newspaper house to pay a huge fine; the chairman realised it was time to pack uncle Kola out of his firm.

After losing his job, he took the challenge of setting up his own media firm, which he called The First Newspaper. It was the third editions of the newspaper that earned its closure, and Uncle Kola thrown into jail.  He was able to regain his freedom through of friends and relatives.

Since then, he fell into despair. No more steady income.  He began to freelance for newspapers of whom he had no option to allow the editors to scrutinise his writings before paying a stipend.

As for marriage, Uncle Kola had in his late forties declared a life of celibacy when the girl he intended to marry suddenly distanced herself from him and relocated. After his girlfriend left him, he branded the opposite sex as an unnecessary burden, and that it was no wonder that Apostle Paul did not marry. His church –Rock of Fire Church at Lagos Island – became a sort of a wife to him of whom he poured all his devotion and love upon.

As financial woes deepened, he relocated from his two bedrooms flat to two rooms in a rooming house. It was a residential building of ten tenants: five married couples, four bachelors of which Uncle Kola was among, and a spinster.

In a typical rooming house with the usual problems of disagreement or misunderstanding among tenants, Uncle Kola, whose nickname was Pastor owing to his religious devotion, plagued other tenants with his bloated, unreasonable religiosity that worsened every midnight.

He was also a known defaulter of utilities. He would be the last to pay NEPA bill and, in most cases, not willing to pay – discouraging the serious one from paying as no one was ready to pay for another – making the debt to swell on at every passing month until NEPA began to launch its threat of disconnection.

On one occasion, NEPA came to disconnect when they could not cough out the huge bill owed over a year.  Ose and Uchenna, after discussing with the caretaker, decided to call a private electrician to connect the light at midnight.  They contacted every tenant to release N200 in order to pay the hired electrician his charged fee of N2000, everyone quickly paid except Uncle Kola who began an admonition:

“It is a grave sin to be part of this unholy arrangement; I cannot allow the devil, the devourer to devour me by willingly giving him open arms through cheating.”

“Pastor,” said Uchenna, “this is not about church or preaching, we have been in darkness for over two weeks now since NEPA disconnected us, we are here to collect your own contribution of two hundred naira to give the electrician so that he can connect our light this night.”

“That is exactly what I cannot do. It is a sin against my God to cheat. This is cheating the government. What we should do is to come together and pay the bill, then invite NEPA to come legitimately to connect us.”

“Pay the bill?” Ose sneered. “You cannot even pay the monthly bill talk less of this big one.”

“How dare you talk to me like that? My God will supply all my needs according to his riches in glory!”

“Your God will supply all your needs?” snapped Uchenna, “is it not you, in particular, that allowed this debt to become big?”

“Vengeance is mine, says the lord! If not, I would have descended heavenly on you for talking to me like that!”

They chuckled and walked away. They had gotten used to Uncle Kola. To tarry with such being was to invite more self-confused scriptural references. The tenants paid Uncle Kola’s share of N200 and disconnected his house as soon as the electrical light was connected by the hired electrician.

After two weeks of darkness in his room surrounded by light in the rooms of others, Uncle Kola caved in. He gave Ose his contribution of N200, who, then, shared it among tenants before connecting his room.

The tenants continued to suffer the menace of Uncle Kola’s night nuisance. Every night, Uncle Kola would go to the toilet to ease himself during his prayer sessions that always began at 12am midnight to 3am.

On one certain night, he went out around 2am to empty his bladder and returned. He locked his door and continued his prayer in his parlour. It was about fifteen minutes into his prayer that he saw a figure emerging from his bedroom. The creature’s white hands were as white as the gown the creature wore.  The white muffler covering its head and face only revealed its eyes, white nose and white eyebrow.    

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Dazed with fright, Uncle Kola hurled out spiritual missiles to bind and cast out the intruder:

“You despicable son of Jezebel and Lucifer! I command and bind you in the mighty name of My Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ! Disappear from here now! Now! Now!”

Wielding his ‘weaponised’ hand up and down. But the creature seems unperturbed by the spiritual war declared by Uncle Kola, he moved closer; Uncle Kola spat out more missiles.

“Stand there! Don’t move!  You first born of Athaliah, you accursed son of Delilah sired by Satan in the pit of hell! Die now! Die now! Now!”

The white figure laughed wildly as he slowly moved towards the retreating Uncle Kola.

“I said, don’t move in the mighty name of Jesus Christ! You certified worshipper of the demonic trio of Belzebub, Baal and Dagon! I said stop there in the mighty name of Jesus!” The creature suddenly stopped; boosting the courage of Uncle Kola. “Remain standing! You demonic son of Judas Iscariot! You woeful grandson of Herod! You the godless descendant of pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar! Fall down now! Now! Now in the name of Jesus …!” Slowly, the figure moved his right hand into his gown’s pocket; he drew out a white whip and moved forward. Sensing the impending danger, Uncle Kola, now in a deeper state of panic, raved harder: “Touch not my anointed!! For it is written, he that touches them touches the apple of my …!!”  The creature lashed out the whip; it caught Uncle Kola on his shoulder.  As the creature raised his hand for the next one, uncle Kola scooted to his door with a scream of hysteria: “Egba mi o! Jesu gba mi o …!” Swiftly, he unlocked the door bolt and threw himself out as the second lash landed on his back. He ran to the building’s gate; it was there he remembered the gate was usually locked at night. He banged at the door of the neighbour near the gate, “Baba Chidinma! Baba Chidinma! Please, open the door!”

The entire family of Baba Chidinma woke up.

“Who is that?” Baba Chidinma knew it was the voice of Uncle Kola, but care was needed to be applied at odd hours.

“It is me, Kola, Baba Chidinma. Please, open your door and let me enter.”

“What is the matter?”

“I will tell you, please, when I enter.”

“Is anyone with you?”

“No, no one is with me.”

There was a chink near the door bolt of Baba Chidinma’s house; he peered through it to confirm Uncle Kola sincerity. He slid the bolt and opened the door. Uncle Kola leaped in, slammed the door and locked it.

“What is the problem Kola?” asked the nonplussed Baba Chidinma, his children of four with his wife are also in a state of bewilderment – all starring at their horrified neighbour.

“Baba Chidinma,” breathing heavily, “a demon appeared to me.”

“Demon?” the man and his wife asked in unison.

Uncle Kola nodded,“Yes, he was dressed in white. Everything on his body was completely white. Even the whip – this kind of Hausa bulala he used to whip me –was also colour. I have never seen a white whip all my life.”

“You mean a demon whipped you?” Baba Chidinma asked

“He whipped me. If I have not run out of my house, only God knows what would have happened to me. You know my prayers are always powerful; I might have been troubling the demon. I want to believe the demon lives in this compound. ”

“And what did you do, Sir? Didn’t you rebuked and cast him out through the blood of Jesus Christ?”  Baba Chidinma’s wife asked. Her utterance was of mockery veiled in the form of a concerned heart.”

“I tried my best, I unleashed the power of Christ on him; but it was ineffective. I don’t know what went wrong.”

That night, Uncle Kola did not sleep in his house; he slept in the parlour of Baba Chidinma. When it was almost dawn, he borrowed Baba Chidinma’s padlock to lock his door and headed straightaway to the house of a fellow freelancer and stay there. It was three day later; he summoned the courage to go home. Immediately he entered his house, he sprinkled anointing oil his pastor gave him all over his two rooms.  He suspended his night prayer that night and resumed the following night.

But two nights later, a repeat of the last event occurred. Uncle Kola did not even wait to confront; he jumped out to another neighbour’s house, and slept there. Very early in the morning, he borrowed the padlock of his hosting neighbour to lock his door without the nerve to go in to replace his night gown and take his padlock. He merely wore his slippers on his doorstep. He left to visit his pastor.

Meanwhile, Ose had tiptoed back to his room after uncle Kola sprinted into the room of a neighbour for refuge. In the morning, he reeled off his second adventure with Uncle Kola to Uchenna, the two friends shook with laughter that resulted to teary eyes.

Uncle Kola slept no more in his residence. A week later, he came at noon with a friend whom with some neighbours, helped him to pack his belonging into a truck and zoomed off.