The ballot box, carved from iroko by Egbé’s
founding chief, still sits beneath the old mango
tree where village meetings once lasted till
moonrise. It holds no paper — only the names of
the dead, etched in charcoal and sealed with
palm oil, each name a soul who voted before the
white men came. This is how Egbé counted votes:
not by ink, but by memory. The elders swore the
box would never leave the soil, and the soil
would never forget.
In 1964, when the first national election came,
the regional commissioner arrived with three
soldiers and a steel briefcase full of
prestamped forms. He said the box was “primitive.
” The village elder, Baba Tijani, stood barefoot
in the dust and replied with silence. That night,
he buried the box deeper, under the root of the
sacred baobab, and lit three candles — one for
each of his three sons who vanished after
joining the Northern Youth League. The box
became a secret. The election was won by a man
who paid three goats to every headman.
By 1966, the military coup had come and gone.
The new regime demanded voter lists. The
district officer came with a jeep and a
clipboard. He offered money. Baba Tijani gave
him a calabash of water. The officer drank, spat,
and left. But three days later, men in civilian
clothes returned — not soldiers, but men with
radio sets and eyes like men who had seen too
many funerals. They dug where the baobab’s
shadow fell at noon. Found nothing.
The next morning, the village woke to the smell
of burning tires. The school was shut. The
church bell rang once — not for prayer, but for
warning. Baba Tijani walked to the town square
where the new polling station stood, a tinroofed
shed with a lock that clicked like a snake’s jaw.
He carried no cane. Only his wrapper, folded
tight. He sat beneath the same mango tree, now
split by lightning, and watched the voters line
up. Young men in sneakers, girls with kenteprint
headties, men who had once sold yams in the
market now wearing suits bought with oil money.
One by one, they dropped their slips into the
box. None looked at him. None spoke his name.
At dusk, the agent from Lagos arrived — a man in
a linen suit, smelling of cologne and fear. He
carried a briefcase that hummed. He said, “The
box in the ground is illegal. The vote must be
counted by machine.” Baba Tijani did not move.
The agent snapped his fingers. Two men stepped
forward, shovels in hand. The crowd held its
breath. The earth cracked open. The iroko box
was there, untouched, its seal still wet with
palm oil. The agent’s face went slack. He
reached in. Pulled out one name. “Okechukwu
Nwosu,” he whispered. A man who died in 1953
during the Aba riots. A name no living soul had
spoken in over a decade.
The agent fell to his knees. Not in prayer. In
recognition. The box was not a relic. It was
proof. The dead had voted. And the living had
lied.
He ordered the men to leave. Took the box.
Carried it to his car. But before he drove off,
he turned. Looked at Baba Tijani. Said nothing.
The old man nodded. The car left. No one spoke
for three days.
On the fourth morning, the ballot results were
announced. The candidate who had stolen the last
election was unseated. Not by court. Not by
protest. But because the people remembered what
the box had always known: that some votes are
not cast — they are inherited.
The box was never seen again. But every child in
Egbé still learns to trace their grandfather’s
name in the dust before bedtime. And when the
wind blows just right under the baobab, you can
still hear it — the soft, dry rustle of names,
turning, one by one, like leaves remembering the
season they were born.
