Learning from the tale of Baba ni Baba Agba.
Baba ni Baba Agba ( The great ancestral elder father) was also known as Agaja ( giant) by his friends while they grew up because of his burly nature though his real name was Durojaye. He stopped buying footwear from the market at the age of ten and wore locally made ones suiting his leg size. He was the only son of the then chief priest, which made him love black magic.
“ You will never lose and always win, if you follow my footsteps” his father said one night while they were in the shrine performing rituals as usual.
“ How can I always win?” he asked his father optimistically.
“ Make use of black magic to your advantage in any situation you find yourself,” his father answered with a smirk and a grin.
Two years later, Durojaye’s father joined his mother in heaven and died while he was in SS2, but Durojaye couldn't learn from his parents' significance and tragic fate that you can't always win, and if you can, his parents would have won the fight against death.
Durojaye became unruly, uncontrollable, and wild, becoming one of the known bullies around. He was expelled from school because he wanted to teach the mathematics teacher a lesson that he would never forget.
Durojaye was a nuisance in the class and after various warnings which he never cared about, Mr Nwapa, the no nonsense mathematics teacher made a scapegoat out of him and gave him the scrutiny of his life and he felt defeated believing he had lost to the teacher so the second day, he brought a native padlock taped with red clothes and white cottons bragging to all his colleagues that he will lock Mr Nwapa’s voice for good and his teacher would not be able to speak again. The matter escalated and led to him being expelled.
He left school and vowed never to come back and continue his life. He will intentionally wear his school uniform, leaving home and going straight to the forest to hunt. Durojaye hunted for a few years and grew to become a timber man and a well-known one in the region.
Life favoured him, but he never took leaving school as a loss; he took it as a win because he always said that if he had not been expelled, likely he might not be as wealthy as he was. Durojaye was a man whose name echoed through the forests and marketplace. He was not just a seller of logs, but he was the most successful timber merchant in the region, owning trucks, workers, and acres of felled land.
But behind his wealth was a fear; he never made a move without consulting black magic and the forest Oracle. A way he knew to make him win and never lose, no matter the odds.
Every morning before his trucks rolled into the woods, Durojaye visited the small shrine beside his compound. He bowed before the calabash, whispered chants, and waited for signs. If the cowrie shells fell open, it means success and wins, and if they fell closed, it means loss, and Durojaye will stay at home no matter how promising the business looked.
For years, his life ran exactly as he directed and the divination predicted. The days of rainfall when he sold and made gains like never before, the days of warning turned into resting days, and his losses were almost not losses, but his profits were constant.
He usually bragged, pushing his chest out, and said that win some, lose some is not for his kind, as he always has the forest spirits on payroll.
One Monday morning, his biggest customer called from the city offering double payment for a full truck of iroko logs. The deal was irresistible, the kind that could buy him a new truck and expand his yard, and as usual, Durojaye followed his ritual ways.
He sat before the shrine, scattered the cowries, and waited, but this time, the cowries fell violently, almost jumping out of the mat, signifying losses.
Angrily, Durojaye left his shrine and visited his father’s shrine. The priest of the shrine, an old man with sunken eyes, frowned deeply.
“ The road is full of losses, do not go, and if you travel, the forest will collect back what you have taken from it”. The priest concluded.
Durojaye stiffened. He heard warnings before but never with such dread. Loses rang in his ear.
“ I can never lose if I could play my card well, and I have never lost one,” he soliloquizes.
“So you mean I should watch and let that money pass me by” he barked.
The old priest simply shook his head , he said, “ Durojaye, you have won many seasons. Today is not yours to win”.
“Say that no more,” Durojaye said, standing up.
“ Do you know my journey, and how I made my wealth? I am a man who makes bad days good, and I am going to do it again and prove you wrong,” he concluded boldly and walked out of the shrine.
Durojaye believed he was untouchable after escaping loss all these years but never reasoned it as a privilege.
Ignoring the warning, he gathered his men, loaded the biggest logs on his strongest truck, and began the journey home after cutting. As he drove a turn before getting home, the sky darkened without rain. The road became too quiet, and halfway through the bend, a logging chain snapped loose. The logs shifted, and Durojaye tried to control the steering, but the weight overtook him. The massive truck tilted and then rolled off the embankment. In seconds, the timber he once commanded with pride became the same weight that pinned him, crushed him, and silenced him.
His worker screamed, villagers rushed but nothing could free him.
On his last breath, he whispered what only he could hear.
“All because I don't want to lose anything, now I have lost my life”.
After the accident that claimed Durojaye’s life, the village mourned him. His wealth remained, his timber yard still stood but the man who believed he could bend fate and magic had met the only law stronger than it.
Life doesn't take commands, it gives consequences. Some people said that the forest spirits finally collected their debt, others said pride drove him faster than any truck wheel ever could but all agreed on one truth.
He won many years, but lost the one that mattered most.
You may guide fortune, but you cannot threaten fate. You can't win every day. You win some, and lose some.
The story was passed down from generation to generation.
Durojaye is an ancestor.
We referred to his story as “ learning from the tale of Baba ni Baba Agba.