Eze Okoro sells roasted plantain by the old
Shell station on LagosIbadan Road, his cart
painted with faded slogans from the oil boom:
“Nigeria’s Gold is Black.” He hasn’t eaten
proper food in three days. His daughter’s fever
won’t break, and the hospital wants cash — not
promises. His wife whispers prayers to Saint
Jude, but the candles keep snuffing out, no
matter how many he buys.
The curse started when his grandfather, a
foreman at the first oil rig in Ogoni, sold the
location of sacred groves to the British. That
night, the earth cracked open — not with oil,
but with screams. The men who took the land
vanished. The grove became a shrine no one dares
touch. Eze’s father died choking on kola nuts he
refused to share. His uncle drowned in a flooded
well that smelled of burnt palm wine.
Now, at midnight, a man in a long white boubou
appears beside the cart. No face under the hood.
Only hands — black as engine grease, trembling.
“Your grandfather broke the pact,” the man says.
Not a question. A law. The world changed then:
oil flowed, but blood paid for every barrel. If
a descendant doesn’t return the debt before the
next full moon, the curse claims the firstborn.
Eze’s daughter coughs again. The fever spikes.
The cult initiation is not in a chapel. It’s in
the abandoned refinery near Mile 12. Five others
wait — a lecturer from UI, a pastor’s daughter
with hollow eyes, two area boys who stole diesel
to pay their way. The leader, a woman with scars
like lightning on her neck, pours palm oil on
the floor. “You give your voice,” she says. “You
give your name.” Eze’s name is the last one left.
He has no money. No car. No connections. Only
the curse. The rule bites: you don’t join the
cult — you are chosen by the oil. And once
chosen, you can’t walk away. The ground under
your feet remembers.
He kneels. He swallows the bitter paste. His
tongue turns to ash. When he opens his eyes, the
cultists are gone. Only the oil remains — thick,
warm, pulsing like a heartbeat beneath the
cracked concrete. His daughter’s fever breaks at
dawn. The hospital calls it a miracle.
That afternoon, Eze walks past his cart. It’s
gone. In its place: a small plastic bag with
three kola nuts, wrapped in newspaper from 1967.
He picks it up. His fingers shake. He knows now —
the curse didn’t end. It just changed hands. The
oil still flows. And someone else is coming for
their turn.
