THE ABO ORACLE

Police Sergeant Adadevoh walked briskly and confidently towards home after a hard days work
at the Police Station. It was getting on to six o clock in the evening and Adadevoh admired the golden
orb of the sun as it sunk slowly and reluctantly into the western horizon. His house was only about four
hundred meters from the police station so he did not have to worry himself about looking for a car to
get him home.

“Hey Adadevoh!” A friend called him from a yellow painted two-storey building opposite the
side of the road on which he was walking. “Today be today! We go continue the feasting and boozing
session today. Make you go change quick quick come! Everything go be fine!”

“Sure! I go come straightaway.” Adadevoh responded promptly.

It was Corporal Adjei, who had only recently – about a month ago – been posted to Abokrom.
He was a tall, burly, dark-skinned fellow, loud mouthed, with a structure more suited to the commando
forces. He sported a thick moustache positioned such as to make you think he was smiling all the time.
He seemed to be brimming in money lately and when asked claimed to be some inheritance that had
come to him following the death of a rich uncle.

Adadevoh walked on looking eagerly forward to the feast that Adjei had promised him and
some other colleaugues for the evening. This daily feasting had begun some weeks back and sometimes
Adadevoh wondered whether Adjei was speaking the truth about how he became rich so suddenly.

Gradually Adadevoh neared Abokrom proper, a dour looking town with small cement plastered
clay buildings littering whole terrain. Here and there one could identify a few storey buildings that stood
out among the colonial style buildings. Abokrom was essentially a fishing town like Apam and Elmina
that refused to grow and it seemed the people of the town preferred to leave the town in that state.
Most roads leading to the town were a pitiful sight, with huge pot-holes gaping hopelessly all over the
place.

Adadevoh’s house was one of the first in the town – an old colonial cement building, which he
had secured from the first friend he had made as soon as he arrived at Abokrom about a year ago. When
he had arrived, he had looked around for somebody to direct him to the Abokrom Police Station. The
first person who had come his way was Ama Amponsah.

“Please, can you direct me to the Abokrom Police Station?” he had asked her.

1
 “Oh! You should have asked the tro-tro driver.” She had replied in an empathizing tone. “It is
just four hundred metres before you reach the town. I am sure you may have seen that white building
on your way here. Now you will have to walk all the way back.”

“Oh… I must have dozed off when the tro-tro passed it.” He had remarked.

It had turned out to be a very fruitful encounter. He had gone on to ask her whether he would
have anproblem finding accommodation and he was never to regret asking that question. She happened
to be the daughter of a very wealthy businessman Opanyin Amponsah, who owned three huge buildings
in the town. She had informed him that her family had some rooms to let and directed him to where she
stayed so that he could come over after reporting at his station. He had done so, and thanks to Ama, he
had a place to lay his head on the first night of his arrival in the town. Their friendship had developed
steadily from that day and now, they were virtually on the road to marriage.

By the time Adadevoh reached the Abokrom Lorry part, the sun had completely disappeared
over the horizon and the ga kenkey sellers had already brought out their tables and kenkey and fish and
were shouting out hoarsely for customers. As he took a few steps into the lorry park, Adadevoh saw the
hunch-back gong-gong beater of the town walking menacingly from the opposite direction towards the
lorry park. Something dreadful had happened, Adadevoh said to himself.

He stopped dead in his tracks and watched the hunchback curiously. The stern look on his face
and the way he swung the metal onto the gong-gong was sufficient to indicate to the onlooker that what
was coming was a dreadful message.

“Amanfo!!! Citizens of Abokrom! Hear me, hear me!!” He shouted with his high pitched voice.
“This is a message from Egya Arko, the Chief Fisherman of the town. He says that four days ago, some
burglars broke into his house in his absence, and made away with some building material s worth about
five million cedis. He is issuing a stern warning that whoever is concerned should return the materials as
soon as possible to avid disgrace. He is ginging the persons two days. Today is Tuesday the twentieth of
December. Christmas Eve is on Saturday. Egya Arko warns the person or people involved that if they do
not return the materials by Friday the 23 rd, the day before Christmas Eve, they should be ready to face
the consequence. He is warning that they should endeavor to return the materials to him otherwise, he
will expose them to the citizens of Abokrom. He is giving them up to Friday. If they return the materials
in good faith, they shall not be prosecuted. If they do not, then woe onto them! I am done! My mouth is
sealed!!”

2
 The hunchback pressed his lips together and with the stern look on his face, walked to another
part of the town to deliver his ominous message.

Adadevoh felt his heart thump thunderously in his chest. Somehow he now begin to feel
although he was a party to the crime. He then shrugged his shoulders trying to comfort himself and
walked on past the park, passed by two houses next to the park and entered into the yard of the third
building. Still deep in thought he walked on towards his room oblivious of the presence of the folks in
the yard.

Ama Amponsah raised her head from the fufu she was pounding and gazed at Adadevoh, in
utter amazement. With her mouth wide open she watched Adadevoh enter his room. It seemed very
astonishing because Adadevoh always arrived home bubbling with new jokes. She quickly washed her
hands in the pan of water by her side and rose up from her seat.

“Wait for me Kojo!” She said to the young man pounding the fufu.

Kojo Amponsah, the young man of about twenty years was Ama’s younger brother. Like her, he
was dark and stocky, and about five foot four inches tall. This was in contrast to Adadevoh who was
quite tall – at about six feet and light skinned.

Ama walked with much concern towards Adadevoh’s door and entered the room without
knocking to find Adadevoh seated in an arm chair in a supine position with his hands clasped over his
face as though he had lost something valuable.

“Adadevoh! Is anything the matter?” Ama asked with some concern in her voice.

“Oh No! I was just thinking of the message which the gong-gong beater brought this evening.”

“Oh, you have now heard of it eh? In this town we don’t report such crimes to the police oh!
The burglars carried materials worth millions out of Egya Arko’s house…. After all the sacrifice that he
made to get those materials. I pray that they catch those armed robbers. They want to earn without
working for it! Tweaaaaa! I support Egya Arko! It is very good he has gone to consult the Nana Abo
Oracle!”

“And you think the Abo oracle can catch the armed robbers? I don’t believe in such things
anyway.” Adadevoh tried to pull a brave face.

3
 “You sit there as if you were an accomplice in the crime. I tell you…… the year before you came
to this town… that was two years ago, the oracle did wonders…. You just wait and see…. Some armed
robbers came all the way from Mankesim to raid the Abokrom Rural Bank. They killed the night
watchman, and wounded two others seriously. We advised the Manager to consult the Nana Abo
Oracle… and you know what happened? All we realized was that five strong men, all naked, came
walking queerly to the rural bank one hot Monday afternoon, an at once, they were grabbed. That was
the sign the Custodian of the Oracle gave to the Manager. As for this town, nobody steals here oh! It is
only outsiders who are brave enough to engage in such criminal acts. Anyway, your fufu is getting spoilt,
so I will go and finish pounding it.”

Ama walked briskly out of the room feeling satisfied of the lecture she had given her husband to
be.

Adadevoh sank back into his thoughts. He had already started developing suspicions. This new
corporal had been throwing parties here and there boasting that he had inherited a huge sum of money
from his Uncle and had also inherited a huge coconut plantation back in his home town. Good money
does not behave like that, Adadevoh said to himself. He was in a serious dilemma. Should he turn down
the corporal’s invitation or should he go. His mind vacillated from one decision to the other. Suddenly he
begun to hate the corporal. No! He would not go to the party. Prevention is better than cure, he
remarked to himself.

He heard a loud knock on the door and immediately knew that it was Kojo bringing his meal.

“Come in!” Adadevoh said startled, as the knock had jostled him from his deep thoughts.

Indeed it was Kojo, and in his right hand was a basket containing Adadevoh’s evening meal. This
had been an almost routine operation ever since the first evening he arrived in the house. He took the
basket from Kojo, and placed it on the center table in the room. No! He was not going out on a boozing
session with the corporal. He would content himself with Ama’s fufu.

Adadevoh took the bowls out of the basket, and placed them on the center table. Kojo in turn
walked over to the clay cooler at the corner of the room picked a jug lying on a short table by the cooler,
filled it with water from the cooler and then came to place it on Kojo’s table. He walked out of the room
smiling to himself and wondering why Adadevoh was not rocking the whole house with his thunderous
jokes.

4
 Adadevoh set hungrily onto his fufu obviously pleased with the decision he had just taken.
Corporal Adjei and another corporal Mustapha were new in the system and were very close
companions. Indeed, Adadevoh felt he had always suspected these guys. What made him have
reservations about them were the three unemployed guys who had come along with them into the
town. From the corporal’s own mouth, they were close relatives who were looking for work as drivers or
labourers in town.

As Adadevoh was just about finishing his meal, Ama entered the room and sat down in an arm
chair opposite him. He looked up at her and could not wonder how fortunate he had been to have
grabbed this beautiful, dark and plump twenty-two year old lady, about eight years younger than
himself, with such charming eyes that sparkled like the stars in a cloudless night sky. Ama had just had a
bath and had put on a neatly ironed blue evening dress.

“Kojo!” Ama called her younger brother. “Please come and clear Uncle’s table!”

Adadevoh gazed deeply at Ama, and begun to ask himself whether her story about the Nana
Abo oracle was true. He had heard such stories before. There was one about the armed robbers who
were found sweeping their victim’s house with the stolen items lying haphazardly over the floor of the
house.

“Adadevoh, I can see you don’t believe what I have told you about this oracle. Nobody steals in
this town oh” Ama said emphatically. “No! It stopped ages ago when someone invoked the power of this
oracle. It is not a joke. The thieves had to carry the stolen items on their heads six times around the
town!”

“What about if the thieves also have some powers backing them?” Adadevoh asked.

“The stolen items will still be found, as in the case of the rural bank burglary. The oracle is
foolproof. You just wait and see. The burglars have really stepped into the hornet’s nest!”

After Kojo came to clear the table, the two continued their conversation deep into the night,
until they begun to nod their heads out of tiredness and retired into Adadevoh’s room.

******************************************************

On the morning of the twenty-third of December, a day before Christmas, Adadevoh once again
said goodbye to Ama and set out for work. For two days, he had tried to keep a great distance between

5
himself and Corporal Adjei and his friend Mustapha. Something kept pricking his conscience that the
three had committed a crime. They had kept asking him why he had not come to their feast but he had
put them off by saying he had not been very well. He also wondered whether they had not heard the
gong-gong beater. The news was all around town. Or perhaps his suspicions were wrong. Whether they
were right or wrong, Adadevoh reaffirmed his resolution to keep away from Corporal Adjei and
company lest he fell into the hands of some unmerciful oracle.

Adadevoh crossed the Abokrom Lorry Park and stepped onto the road leading to the Police
station. Some twenty metres ahead just by Corporal Adjei’s house Adadevoh could see a huge wooden
truck with four men arguing heatedly in front of it. As he drew nearer, he realized that the men included
his two colleagues Adjei and Mustapha.

“What is happening?” Adadevoh asked as soon as he got close to the melee.

The two looked at him and begun to put their case across.

“Sir, about five days ago, these men came to sell some building materials.” One of the men said
pointing at the three unemployed guys standing in front of Adjei’s house. “Later on, we realized that all
the hinges were broken and all the mosquito proofing had been torn up. And the locks…. We can’t even
open them with the keys they gave us. The WCs they sold to us are all cracked up. We have brought the
building materials back and they don’t want to give us our money back…. Just look at the WCs!”

“Where are you from?” Adadevoh asked them.

“We are from Apam,……these people came in a truck with all the building materials and had
wanted to deposit them with a storekeeper, but this storekeeper directed them to us because he knew
we were putting up a building.” The other man, a tall lanky person dressed in a blue political suit
answered.

“Then how did you know they were from this town?” Adadevoh tried to probe further.

“We are just fortunate that one of our workers happened to know them. It was this worker who
told us we could find them here.” The man replied.

Adadevoh was pensive, in deep reflection on what was transpiring. So his suspicions were true.
The Abo oracle was in operation. The building materials had found their way back to Abokrom from
Apam, a town fifty miles away.

6
 Suddenly, as though possessed, the unemployed fellows, Adjei and his bosom friend Mustapha,
climbed hurriedly onto the truck and begun to offload the rest of the materials. In no time, a crowd had
gathered around the scene.

“”What is happening?” Adadevoh heard a voice ask behind him.

Adadevoh did not answer. What astounded him was that the material being offloaded were
WCs with weird looking cracks gaping all over them. The five men got down from the truck and much to
the shock of the crowd, pulled down their trousers and begun to ease themselves into the WCs. After a
few long minutes they rose up and in unison, lifted the WCs onto their heads and dashed in a beeline
through the crowd and begun racing towards the Abokrom town proper.

“Nana Abo akye hon oooooooo!!!! (Nana Abo has caught them oooo!!!)” A young child of about
twelve years of age shouted jumping hysterically all over the place. He then begun trotting after the
culprits who were walking terribly fast with urine and excrement from the WCs dripping onto
unmercifully onto their clothing.

The crowd followed and in no time the news was all over the town. The procession continued
with tall an stout Corporal Adjei in the lead. He was followed closely by Mustapha who had already
begun to shed tears. Adadevoh followed disbelievingly trying to call his colleagues but in vain.

“Shaaaammmmeee!!!! Hooooooo!!!!! Shaaaaaaaaaame!!!!” the crowd shouted and hooted at

them.

When they reached Egya Arko’s house, the five strongly built culprits collapsed one after the
other and fell heavily onto the ground all smeared with urine and excrement.

Adadevoh turned and walked away from the crowd. What Ama Amponsah had told him was
indeed true. The Abo Oracle was deadly, accurate and unmerciful.