THE REBIRTH

Its been seventeen plantings and seventeen harvests since the last rays of daylight kissed our thick black skins! Seventeen straight years of wandering in the darkest of nights with the distant stars teasing lights from a distance we could never reach.

But amongst the distant stars lurked a beautiful comet called peace, a heavenly body we admired so much but one that kept shooting further and spiralling away like the fireball that it is anytime we came inches closer to trapping and taming its flame.

One Wiseman is an Oracle, Two wise men are Wizards, but Three Wisemen have the penchant for making History. Like the 3 wise men who followed a star to unravel the birth of a messiah, A Wiseman from the South, One From the Savannah and A Third From the North-East would go down in history as the second batch of 3 wise men to have followed a fireball, navigated a rough jungle terrain of wild hungry beasts, and delivered a pregnant woman who has been in painful labour for seventeen years. Alas!, The King Is Born!

“When the end is nigh, strange things would happen! The sun would rise from the West and set in the East”. But I guess the prophecy didn’t see the second sun, because two suns rose from the West(Kumbungu & Savelugu) on a journey to the East(Yendi).

The first Sun anticipated a lonely journey in the company of venom bees, but much to its surprise, the Bees cowed into their combs whilst a Hundred Thousand Human “Bees” swarmed the “Sun of Strength”, in a spectacular entry of the Commander-In-Chief of the Traditional Army Of The Empire as he Journeyed towards the East! Chanting war songs into the land of peace, for peace in itself is silent warfare!

The second Sun journeyed a lonely man!, for it is a mark of Bravery to hunt alone through the Mighty Mole. The Sun of God journeys from the East to the West in twelve hours (approx), but the Suns of Man took three days to travel from the West to the East. And the Sun of Hope Ascended the Throne of Naa Gbewaa as a reincarnate of Naa Gariba.

There were no games, but there was a throne to fight for. There was never a Stark, a Lannister nor Snow, all there was were two loose strings hanging from the same rope. There was warfare! It was gory! It was frightening! Rain dropped from the skies, but blood flowed through the gulleys and gutters! Lightning flashed, but it was thunderbolts of AK47s, G3s and Mark4s that sounded. Shiny swords slashed and pieced through bellies, and fathers were buried faster than babies were born. Our conscience would tend to make us feel guilty, but history would remind us that that’s how Empires were built! The Lion has Risen, a handsome incarnate!

Three hundred pieces of neck muscle, five thousand vocal cords and a Manly Mane of Beautiful Bristles shall Roar, a far-reaching loud cry of The King Of The Beautiful Jungle! A roar not meant to scare the members of the jungle away, but one intended to sound the signal to the very ends of our stretching landmass, that the King Is Back, that law-and-order has returned to the kingdom, and trespassers and transgressors of peace and unity must either flee for their own good or give up their vicious acts of violence.

One Sun shall rise from the East Today, and would shine its rays of Hope, Peace, Unity and Love to all corners of Dagbon and beyond! Let the men jump, and swirl their heavy smocks in twos and threes till the air is filled with armpit odours, the women clap and dance their clothes to tatters, and let the children cry! Perchance their cries would soften the hearts of the gods to send down the rains for a bumper harvest this year!

Honour, Dignity and Respect shall return to the grandchildren of the Red Hunter, and the vile remarks and sour breathes that were once spat and breathed upon us shall be cleansed by the rains that would fall in the years to come.

As you rose to your Reign, It Rained! So I pray, We pray, that May your Reign be Blessed, Long, Peaceful and Fruitful. At your feet, we bow, on your command alone shall we march and halt, and you shall be our Heavenly Father On Earth, till we return to our Maker In Heaven!

In Honour Of His Royal Highness, Yaa-Naa Gariba II, The King Of Dagbon.


Writer: Abdul-Moomin Shahabdeen