School: Zamani College, Kaduna
16 Years, Female

The parliament of embodiment had assembled. The place was a circular clearing in a lush green forest surrounded by the serenity of beautiful mountains. The date was October 1^st 1960. The reason was simple. The new nation had been born. The first to arrive at the clearing was an old man called ‘Otito’. He represented the ancient ones that were known never to lie. Following briskly behind him was a young beautiful and energetic woman called Justice. She was the law and order. Her origins are a mystery, but many were known to seek her. soon other embodiments arrived.

Honesty came in with strides of tiger; Faith was elderly and had a crown of white hair. Wisdom was ubiquitous young boy with sparkling eyes and finally Loyalty entered the clearing like a king accompanied by a large entourage. Otito called the parliaments to order and asked them to be sited in a manner where they surrounded the clearing, then said “My people, the true embodiments of the heavenly fathers, you are welcome” He cleared his throat and continued, “W are all here today because a new nation has been born.” Murmurs spread through the assembly and the people nodded vigorously. “This then calls for a new mind for the new nation!” lamented Wisdom. “Yes indeed” agreed Justice in a sultry voice. Then an immediate and sullen silence spread through the crowd. They heard footsteps approaching the clearing. A woman with a long black hair and hazel eyes appeared. Her skin was as dark as ebony. “I’m Love,” she said. “Love?” Otito asked. “Yes, Love” she said. A silent look passed between the embodiments. Then, she was welcomed with a slow movement of heads. With sudden alertness, Faith asked, “Where’s the mind?” “There” Love smiled and emerged with a calabash from behind her. “Ah! The calabash,” Loyalty commented eagerly. Soon, the elders embarked on an amazingly fast process of bringing out their gourds from within their clothes.

Everyone was soon holding one or more such gourds in their right hands. The calabash was placed at the centre of the clearing and Otito spoke, “I’m Otito, lord of the true beings. Today a new nation would be born and hence a new mind must be created for the nation. In this calabash we all see here is the mind. In fact, I dare say that the calabash is like the mind. Fragile and easy probed. Lining the calabash is a thick layer of palm oil. This is a conscience. Without the conscience, the mind would be empty, and all the embodiments and parts of ourselves we wish to include in the mind would be useless. The conscience is what holds the mind together. It is what fills it up. Now, we shall begin the process that many of you have long awaited”. The embodiments when stood up briskly and arranged themselves in a single straight line behind Otito waiting for him to process. The ideology was simple; they were to put part of themselves in the calabash. This they did every time a new nation was born. They all believed that every mind of every nation required different quantities of what they the embodiments represented. Moreover, there was a certain euphoria involved in giving a nation its mind. Otito approached the calabash first and raised his gourd to the sky while saying “O man of the new nation, in this mind that we shall give unto you, I, Otito, king of truth in two drops, so as you will be truthful in all your endeavours, you shall only hear the truth, and speak the truth. Let this truth, set you free.” With this, he poured a little blackish liquid from his gourd into the calabash and walked back to his seat. Next in the line was the beautiful Justice. She squatted beside the calabash and raised her two arms in opposite directions and recited, “I, Justice give three drops of justice; they shall be unto you like your arms, man. They shall weigh the evidence correctly and give out punishment only to those who deserve it. You must always remember to choose right from wrong”.

With those words, she emerged with a gourd with water-like liquid and poured it into calabash. Hurrying Justice out of the way. Honesty approached and kneeling in front of the calabash, said simply, “Man of the new nation, may you do unto others what you want to be done unto you.” Pouring the content of his gourd, he rose and made way for Faith. Faith slowly approached the calabash. The reflection of the sun made his hair almost white. And finally after chewing upon some kola, he said, “in your time of sadness remember, this is your nation and have faith.” The ubiquitous Wisdom walked smartly towards the gourd and in silence simply poured the contents of his gourd into the calabash and made way for Love.

Love was innocent and has she said her incantations, she poured a little too much of her contents of her gourd into the calabash. The repercussions of this, the mind didn’t have only love for fellow man, but only for worldly things like money, power and social status. After this ritual procession was over, the messenger was sent for and Otito handed the calabash to him and said, “This is the mind of a patriot, a true nation builder and believer, handle it with care and spread it through the land.” The messenger looked into the calabash and saw it all. He saw trials of the nation. The war brought about by the excess love of money called greed, excess love of power called oppression and many other failings of the land.

But still, the messenger smiled because he saw what would conquer all this seemingly innocuous feelings. He saw Ireti, he saw Nchekube, he saw hope.