I know you’ve been following me since I left school, boarded the train, and took to the alley.

Why didn’t I run?

I’m not scared of you anymore. Right now, I’m scared for you.

Be careful the way you drag me into a corner, shove me against the wall, dig your puny fists into my belly, and search me for valuables if you do not want to incur the wrath of my father.

Yes, it’s a warning.

You laugh. Do I even have a father?

I do now. And you won’t believe me when I tell you who he is. But let me first tell you how I met him.

How long has it been since my father first came into my life? It was barely one hundred and sixty-eight hours ago, yet, it feels like I’ve known him forever. (Do the maths, that’s just a week.) Mothers can’t mother children without their fathers. I never knew I had one. My mother didn’t know much about him either, except for the tribal markings on both sides of his cheeks. A sign that he was an Oyo indigene of the southwest of Nigeria.

The day he first appeared at our doorstep was on a night when the rain poured down heavily with bone-chilling, howling winds. Around that time mother was still out on the road in search of a bus after closing her shop at the market for the day. My father was clothed in a red tunic studded with cowries and a pair of black shorts that reminded me of an initiate of the Secret Juju Society in the local movies. He was a large man with thick muscly arms and thighs that made me wonder if he was an athlete. Somehow, he was undrenched by the rains. Not even a strand of his plump dreadlocks or any of his many beads were wet. Nobody under that kind of rain—not even those who had umbrellas—was left untouched by it.

He forced his way past me, sat me down, and told me he was not one of those strangers that mother had warned me to steer clear of. He claimed I had his blood in me and that I had the lightning in the skies running through my veins.

I snorted a laugh which made him frown. I’d been electrocuted a couple of times before, so how was that even possible? But this story isn’t about me—it’s about my long lost father who turned out to be a god.

You laugh. How do I know he is a god? Patient now. I’ll tell you how I know. But first, let me tell you who he was.

Over the centuries, my father had gone by many names: Sàngó, Jakuta, Badé, Olukoso/Obakoso and Àrábambi—don’t mind my pronunciation of the last one. It isn’t Yoruba.

When he was Sàngó, he was the third Alaafin of the ancient Oyo Empire and a royal ancestor of the Yoruba people. The word “alaafin” simply means “the owner of the palace.” You could just call him king. He succeeded Oranmiyan and Ajaka, his older brother. Babami—my father—is a brave, wise, powerful, and violent man, even when he was in mortal flesh. He was so loved by all that he was even worshipped and praised.

In contrast to his older brother Ajaka, who proved so cowardly and weak that when the king of Owu requested tributes he’d pay them immediately simply because he didn’t want to brew a war between both kingdoms. I didn’t blame him. He was just being peaceful and pragmatic. But my father frowned at this. Soon after, he deposed his brother and banished him, then went after the Owus and dealt with them severely in battle and slayed their king.

He brought Oyo out of its shame and into its lost glory. He conquered many villages and cities and made Oyo the greatest empire history knows her to be. That’s why the Yorubas in those days and now say, Oyo o se egbe Baba enikan—Oyo is nobody’s father’s mate!

My father had three beautiful goddesses for wives: Oya, the goddess of whirlwind and storms; Osun, the goddess of rivers and purity; and Oba, the goddess of beauty and marriage.

Calm down now, I’ll tell you about them. Women must play a vital role in a man’s story, Babami had said.

He had first married Oba. Then Osun and then Oya. Oya had always accompanied him to battle even when he knew the odds were against him. That’s the ancient reason why Oya is his favourite.

(Don’t tell them I said this to you.)

Anyway, Oba and Osun knew Oya was his favourite and it sparked jealousy between them. This not only made him love her more but drew her closer to Babami and she became his Àayò, his princess consort. She was so close she had access to his èdun àrá—his thunder stones, which nobody, and I mean nobody, knew where he kept them. He said he had gotten them from a goddess that dwelled in the eye of a tornado. Babami has a way around women. I hope he teaches me that one day.

(Also, I must remember to ask him what role my mother plays in this or what chance she stands against these powerful goddesses when they discover me and her. That’d be tomorrow when he strikes at my doorstep again. But I digress. Let me continue.)

Every man or god must have an enemy no matter how good you are, my father said to me. If you don’t have one then you’re probably a living corpse.

At the time he was still Sàngó the king, he had two generals. One was Timi Agbale aka Òlofà Ina, meaning “the one with the arrows of flame.” This man could literally set villages and cities ablaze with just a release of his fiery arrows. The second was Gbonka also known as Eliri. His fist could dent the Earth’s crust with a single blow. He was so dangerous that he posed a threat to Sàngó even in death.

These two generals had disobeyed Babami’s order not to match Owu in battle. Oya had advised him to get rid of them for their disobedience and so Babami sent them to govern the border towns of the empire. You see, Òlofà Ina obeyed him but Eliri stayed to pose a threat to him; and Babami didn’t like that.

In his quest to put an end to these menaces, he had commanded Eliri to go to Ede to destroy Òlofà Ina believing the two would end themselves. But Eliri didn’t do that. Instead, he captured Òlofà Ina and brought him back to Babami alive. Babami assumed it was all a ploy and the fight was staged. So he demanded a rematch in the courtyard of his palace.

After an eternity of battle, Eliri emerged victorious.

(I wished I was there to see men that powerful go at each other. That’d be a sight to see.)

Eliri posed more of a threat to Babami now, and so my father ordered Eliri be burnt to ashes. Yet Eliri mysteriously appeared to him. “Just as the sun gives the moon and the stars an ultimatum to shine, so do I give you three days to vacate the throne for your infidelity.” Babami told me that this was exactly what he had said to him. He said these words were the greatest threat he had ever gotten in his mortal life. And yes, it had made him boil with fury, even as he was telling me his story—to such an extent that my father poured out fire out of his lips.

Did I forget to tell you my father literally breathed fire like a dragon when he was furious?

Jakuta—the one who fights with stones—rushed to get his thunder stones from Oya only to find out that they were already stained with her menses. Babami didn’t fret. He went to the hill to reaffirm the potency of his weapon since he couldn’t find the goddess in the eye of the tornado to fix it for him at that moment.

Unfortunately, the whips of thunder he created struck his palace at the foot of the hill, killing all his courtiers, soldiers, guards, horses, cows, and the palace herself.

Losing everything to the inferno, Oba and Osun blamed one another for allowing Oya such access to Babami that they engaged themselves in a fight. For goddesses, their fight was so terrible they courted disastrous floods in the process. The result of these floods were rivers that were named after them. The Oba River and Osun River still flows in modern day Osun State, Nigeria.

Oya, on the one hand, felt great remorse for her sin. She retreated to the forest where Babami had found her and buried herself in the river she created. The river today is River Niger.

(You know it? Good. Now, back to Babami.)

He was heartbroken. He said he couldn’t bear the sadness that he abdicated his throne and left the city after the incident. Babami only reigned for seven years.

The chiefs and members of his royal cult (called the Baba Mogba) followed their king, persuading him to return. The chiefs failed at this. On their way back, as they approached an Ayan tree in a place called Koso, they broke the news that their king had committed suicide by hanging himself on a tree. However, only a few of the initiates who did not return knew the truth.

(The truth? Don’t worry, I’ll tell you.)

Gbonka had ambushed my father. Yes, the dead man. Then challenged my father to a fight in the forest. Who dares challenge Sàngó to a fight in the forest?

But my father was so weak from his recent losses that he was reluctant to fight. Yet he vanished into thin air only to appear in the sky to strike down his enemy and those who peddled the rumours of his death with bolts of lightning.

Hence, he was named Obakoso/Òlukoso which meant “the king who did not hang himself.”

(Electrifying, right?)

That was how my father’s journey to becoming an orisha began.

Like every great Yoruba legend in history, Sàngó was posthumously deified as the god of lightning and thunder—and judgement. He is known globally and is worshipped as an Orisha in the Americas. This was as a result of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The fifth day of every week is even dedicated to celebrating him.

A lot of myths still surround my father. Some say he was the son of a Tapa woman from Nupe kingdom and was raised by his grandmother, a powerful initiate, which somehow explains why he was indomitable. In that story, his name was Àrábambi, I think. Others say he was among the original Seventeen Olodumare, the Creator God, sent to populate the Earth, while others yet say he sought the favor of the spirits of the rivers, the beasts of the forests, and the fairies of the skies to become the powerful being he turned out to be. Some tales even had it that he was the one who founded the idea of tribal markings on the body as a means of identification among his people—and also for beautification—though initially it was a means of punishment he meted out on those who defied him.

However, all of these are true. He was many things and still is. I probably have siblings too. I’ll tell you their stories another day . . .

Now, back to the question of who he is. He’s no superhero in your comic books or on your TV screens, nor is he any of the idols in your shrines and temples. He’s my ancestor. He’s my father. But you already knew that.

So how do you know your father is a god? If he has many names and titles, many praises to his name, many feats, many enemies, many birthdays, many beautiful women who are also goddesses as wives, many followers, and many myths and stories. If he has all that, then he definitely is one.

So next you must know who I am and what I will be. My true name’s Jakuta. Jack for short. But you mortals can still call me Jerry. Junior is nice. Triple J sounds gangster.

I told you I’ve been electrocuted a couple of times before. But did I die? No, I’m still fit as a fiddle. No burns or scratches, except for the constant tremors in my fingers. Did I also tell you I found sparks recently between them?

I’d love to tell you more. But first, let me go.

You tell me I tell a good story and I would make a great storyteller.

What audacity!

I lift my hand to the sky and whisper an incantation. My eyes spark. You don’t run but wait to see if my stories were true.

The sky cracks open suddenly and lightning bolts whip your behinds. You scream like little girls and scatter into a run, the back of your feet nearly slapping your napes as the whips keep doing their job.

Now, at least, you believe.