My name is ‘Idaogun,’ which means the Sword of war. But people used to call me Ida (Sword). I am from a small village, Oke, in the western part of Africa. The story I’m about telling you describes how I found myself in Whiteman’s land. In Africa there used to be wars among the villages, towns and communities. In my village we used to boast when it comes to war. We had great men that are lovers of war, they never fear to see the ground mark with red.

Despite our achievements in wars, our neighbouring village, Iko is still a hard nut for us to crack, they too had great warriors and we never think of stepping on their toes. But their drum is booming too much. Within a year the Ikos had invaded us twice and they took away our people and many of our properties. They burnt our huts and rendered us homeless. This made us to take the bull by the horn and decided to fight back, we wanted to recover all our lost.

We could not dispute that the Ikos were powerful. In fact one of their great warriors was their head herbalist. The man, called ‘Oro’ which means ‘sting’ had the power to change to anything, either living or non-living. But we, the people of Oke, also made sure that we had enough preparations. We even used human beings as sacrifice to all the sixteen major gods in our village and we invited the spirits of our ancestors to follow us to the war. I as a person and as the war lord did extra preparations. I worshipped my wonderful and magical sword with two hundred and one snails. I inherited the sword from my great grandfather, the man was a great war lord and when he was about to die, he said the first new born baby boy in the family should inherit the sword and I was the one. That was why my parents named me Idaogun, because a sword had been waiting for me to inherit.

I had used the sword in different wars and it had killed uncountable numbers of people, both in the war and at home. Any time I was holding the sword, the spirit ‘to kill’ was always on me. I could still remembered the day I used it to kill three men at a spot for a mere keeping an empty guard of palm wine in a standing position. They deceived me that palm wine was inside and I was annoyed. Unfortunately for them, I was holding my sword and I used it. Even the god of iron, a lover of palm wine, hates to see what the men had done and the god supported me when the oracle was consulted whether I had done wrong.

On the day that we started the war, I led my people to Iko with my shinning and bloodthirsty sword. We were singing war songs and most of the songs were praising me. The people believed that with me and my sword, victory was sure. They relied heavily on me.
We entered Iko and we started killing them. We caught them unaware and this gave us an upper hand. We had killed and captured many as at the fourth day of fighting.
In the morning of the fifth day, Oro came to our camp and said he alone had come to fight us. We all laughed and replied that his last day on earth would be on that day.

According to his word, the man started by throwing sands at us. To my surprise sands from the ground made my people to be falling. Oro would just go to those that fell and cut their heads. Fear gripped us. Nobody could approach him and all the arrows and gun shots directed at him did not enter his body, instead the man kept on waxing strong. I went to him with boldness and used my sword to cut his head. I was surprised when I saw that his head did not fall. It attached immediately. On seeing this, the rest of my people ran away and all the slaves we had captured ran to Oro’s side. I was left alone facing him and I had decided to fight until my last breath. Oro himself knew that he was facing a man. He had thrown sands at me several times but I did not fall. We wrestled and wrestled until both of us were tired. He turned to lion and I cut it with my sword. He quickly turned to a big snake and I cut it again. He now turned to a whirl wind, full of dust and rolling to my side. This time around I did not know where to cut; I was just cutting the wind when I suddenly realized that something gripped my hand and took away my sword.

Before I could know what was happening, Oro appeared with my sword in his hand. ‘Man pass man’, he said, pointing to me with the sword. I was afraid and did not know what to do again. He ordered the Ikos to bind me and both my hands and legs were tied with a strong rope. For six days I was lying down at the spot. There was neither food nor water to take. The rain and the sun said I was in trouble, the rain would wet my cloth and the sun would dry it. What a shame to a whole warlord! ‘Death is better than ignominy’, I used to say everyday but I did not know how to kill myself.

On the seventh day, the Ikos together with their king came to mock me. They poured honey on me and this attracted different flies. I could not send the flies away since I was bound. All I could do was to shake my body and I stopped this when they started drumming and singing for me.
In the evening somebody came from one of the big villages around and they sold me as a slave to him. It was this man that later sold me, together with four others to a white man. The white man brought us to England and sold us to different people at the port. Since then I have been in the white man’s land. I realized that all the blacks at where I was sold came from different countries in Africa. We were speaking different local languages and we could not communicate. Our masters even prevented us from learning English. He hated us and treated us badly. We used to work in sugar cane plantation and our mouths were padlocked so that we would not eat the sugarcane. Look at the holes in my lips, ‘he touched his two lips’, the two holes are to hold the padlock. We used to eat only the dinner for a day and it was this time that our supervisors would open our mouth. Very early in the morning, they would lock it again. This we did until the abolition of the slave trade.

Now I felt something should be done in Africa to stop the wars. There should be positive changes in our lives. In the past we had worked to sell our children, we sold our best and we sold our future to the whites. Now there are nepotism, tribalism, despotism, political and religious crisis, bribery, corruption and oppression. All these are still War Within. It is time we wake up because our fellows have gone far. Let us weigh the water and the oil and know the heavier. Why are we fighting against ourselves in Africa? It is the work of the devil. All these wars should stop.