Pantheon

The invitation sent to the school by the organization indicated that if the school was interested in participating in the BOBTV competition, they are to come up with a short documentary, a drama or a docudrama!

The competition was organized by a renowned TV organization!

Exhibitions, fairs, seminars and other activities were also organized around the competition aimed at promoting the nation’s television industry

The Vice-chancellor of the school invited the dean of the Faculty of Social and Management Sciences, they discussed the invitation and decided it would be a good experience for the students as well as an avenue to test their resourcefulness

Invited to participate in the competition were the Theatre Arts and Mass Communications departments.

The dean spoke with the Head of department of the Mass Communication department, the HOD spoke with some lecturers.

It was agreed that the best students in 200L, 300L and 400L should be selected for the project. Such students wouldn’t be adversely affected academically by the distraction such a project would likely constitute for an average student

The students would have to research, conduct interviews, shoot, edit, and post produce the documentary.

They will also have to travel 575.3 kilometers (9 hours, 7 minutes) by road to the event and stay in a hotel throughout the one week long duration of the competition

Two lecturers were selected

Both had strong backgrounds in theatre and one had actually produced a movie

A team of the brightest and the best students was assembled

Three students each in 200L, 300L and 400L respectively

The lecturers divided the students into three teams: Researchers, Reporters and Producers

A two man research team was sent to the Palace of the Oba (King) of the community

At the end of the day, they arrived at three possible landmarks: A river synonymous with the town, the throne of the Oba and a mountain in the town called Oke-Oore (Oore Mountain)

After much deliberation, it was decided that the river had practically been over exploited as a topic and getting remembrancers, story tellers and Griots who would accurately furnish the team with the needed information might prove to be a big challenge

The throne would make for a fine topic but there was nothing new to tell

They settled on Oke-Oore (Oore Mountain) as the subject of their documentary

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Oke Oore was a unique work of nature

It was a very vast mountain, not quite high but very wide

On this wide mountain there were several rocks

These rocks were artistically and almost deliberately carved by nature in such a manner that suggested deification. It was quite awe inspiring

There was no way anybody would be on this magnificent work of nature and not give a thought to their deliberateness and perhaps their maker

The traditional worshipers were not exempt

They had capitalized on the work of nature and built palm frond shrines and white cloth/red cloth barriers suggesting extra-mundane activities all around the mountain

There were 201 rocks of different shapes and sizes on this mountain

All the rocks were named and offered different forms of worship

There was one dome shaped rock on the mountain called Oloriko, which everyone who comes to the mountain must prostrate for

There was one that one must not pray to but curse! (Its worshippers believed it to be a deity of opposites! If you curse yourself before it, you will be blessed and if you bless yourself before it, you will be cursed!)

There was one called “Oku” (The dead) the rock was twisted and carved exactly like a corpse and many others

Though no huts or sheds were allowed on the mountain by the adherents for their own comfort

 Many of them sleep on or beside their chosen rocks in worship night and day

Their appearance was terrible

Shrunken eyes, tattered clothing, demonic aura

A look at them would easily remind one of the famous characters in Michael Jackson’s Thriller

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When the students got there, they met the guide

The guide was a man in his early 40s though he looked much older than his age

He had brown teeth and a menacing look

He was a stark illiterate

A juju man whose hut was not connected to electricity

According to him, his job was hereditary

He was the custodian of all the powers at work on the mountain

And the only one vested with the power to conduct the weekly animal sacrifices offered to the mountain

The guide quickly went to get all the priests and priestesses of the rocks together

The students had offered some financial incentives and the guide wouldn’t mind the quick cash

When they got to the entrance of the mountain and they were told it was a must to prostrate to Agba, the gate-keeping rock by the entrance before they would be allowed into the mountain

Two of the students, Christians, said they would never ever bow to an idol!

The team leaders reasoned with them, explained to them that idols are nothing!

These things are mere rocks that these ignorant folks were attributing meaning to. For the sake of research, it makes much sense to do as they say and get the information needed for the documentary

The two students disagreed

The Rock represents a graven image

The Ten Commandments said “Thou shalt not bow to a graven image”

It is a sin to bow even if it was for research purposes

The two students returned to school

 Later in the day they went to meet with the young man in Jeans and T-Shirt (He was also a part of the team and their friend, they were in 200L at the time)

“Brother so and so, how could you betray the Lord like that? Why didn’t you leave with us? How could you prostrate to a demon in the name of research? You have betrayed the Lord!

He smiled

People always assume their duty as Christians include being the spiritual police of other people. Isn’t the individual believer supposed to work out his or her own salvation with fear and trembling?

Are Christians not supposed to be led by the Holy Spirit all the time?

If a Christian had expressly been told by the Holy Spirit to do something, should people’s opinion matter?

“I am the ark of covenant, they have Dagon! What do you think would happen?” he replied

“The Bible says we should flee every appearances of evil. Even if the Holy Spirit had spoken to you and given you the go ahead, you should have considered the faith of those who were looking up to you who could easily misunderstand what you did and walked away!”

There was no point reasoning with them.

They had taken offence!

The next day they were officially dropped from the team by the Head of Department and replaced by two other students from 200L

The interviews lasted two days and it took another two weeks to put the documentary together

The team travelled to Abuja to defend the project

Time passed

They all graduated

Six years later,

The man in Jeans and T-Shirt was in a church service

A man came to testify

He said he was from Iwo, he was the guide to Ooke-Oore (Oore Mountain)

Some students came to the mountain to shoot a documentary

They were from a nearby Christian University

The students were mandated to prostrate before entering the mountain through its groove

Some students refused to prostrate and left while others prostrated

They conducted their interviews and left

From that day, all the charms and the demons he had inherited and mastered stopped working!

There was nothing he didn’t try

Nothing worked

He went to the University

He wanted to locate the students

The security people at the school gate didn’t let him into the University

Plus he didn’t know the name of any of the students

He gave up

After two years of suffering, he went to consult a bigger priest in Ile-Ife

He was told that a strange power had come to the mountain and killed its potency

There was only one power capable of doing that in the whole world

It had to be the power the students came to the mountain with

He went to a church and became a Christian

The priests and priestesses disbanded

Some continued to worship the mountain but others, especially those who were there when the students came to have the interview had no option but to leave

The demons simply refused to work with and for them

After becoming a Christian, he got baptized and became filled with the Holy Spirit

He is now an evangelist in a village close to Iwo

As he listened to the man’s testimony, the young man in Jeans and T-Shirt blessed the name of the Lord

Christians walking in human understanding have forsaken their supernatural inheritance. God called us gods, why should we die like mere men?

The Holy Spirit was supposed to lead us into all truth! We weren’t supposed to be the one’s leading the Holy Spirit.

The young man in Jeans and T-Shirt didn’t know the impact their visit to that mountain would have on the Kingdom of Darkness

All he knew was that he heard the Holy Spirit clearly when he was told to go ahead and comply with everything asked of him in the course of producing the documentary, including prostrating for rocks, the priests and priestesses of the Oke-Oore mountain in 2007!

He met the guide at the end of the service

It was a great reunion

 He is still happily supporting the evangelist in his mission work

 

 

PS: Dedicated to Late Miss Omolara Adetola (Nee) Oladiran (10 June 1987 – 6^th May 2017)

(The lady who narrated the documentary)

For us to live is Christ and to die is gain

You have the Victor’s cap Omolara

You have eternal rewards