When The Spirit Missed The Roundabout - An Ibibio Tale

On a Tuesday morning in Uyo, an image was seen crawling out of the manhole near Itam Junction. It started as a hum, soft like the sound of a forgotten song. Then, slowly, it stretched itself out and yawned.

 

It was Etim Ndem, an old water spirit from the Cross River basin, once worshipped with goat blood. He had slept long beneath the city, curled around libations and discarded sachet water bags.

 

“Hmm, he muttered. "Where are the palm fronds? Where is the chanting? And why is everywhere smelling like fuel?” 

 

A Keke zoomed past and almost blew his wrapper away.

“Abasi mmi!” he gasped. “Is this how humans move now? No greetings? No reverence?”

 

The traffic was thick like Ekpang Nkukwo. Etim tried to cross to the other side of the road, but the cars were like angry spirits themselves; honking aggressively at him. 

A driver leaned out and shouted, “Oga, you dey mad? Move jor!”

 

Etim was offended. “Etuk enyin owoden, amedion ke ndo ekamba owo?” (“Little boy child, do you not know that I am your elder?”)

But nobody heard him. Nobody could.

 

He sighed. Once upon a time, when he spoke, trees would bow and rivers would hush. Now, his words evaporated in exhaust fumes.

 

Still, he needed to get to the roundabout. His shrine used to be near there, at a grove of udara trees where men and women brought white chalk and quiet prayers*. 

 

At Nwana Iba Plaza, a street preacher pointed at him.

“Repent! Evil spirit! The blood of Jesus is against you!”

 

Etim frowned. “Blood again? You people never tire of blood?”

He adjusted his wrapper and kept walking.

 

He reached the roundabout, but it wasn’t there anymore, at least not the way he remembered. The udara trees were gone, replaced by sculptures and LED lights. A billboard above him flashed ‘Welcome to Uyo, the Land of Promise’.

 

He chuckled bitterly. “Promise? To whom?”

 

A small boy selling sachet water stared at him. “Uncle, you wan buy pure water?”

Etim smiled faintly. “Pure water? Water wey una put for rubber bag?”

“Na ₦50 for one,” the boy said.

“You sell my own body to me now?”

 

He laughed a long, deep, river-laugh that rippled through the air. And for a moment, the sky dimmed. That night, the drains overflowed.

 

People said it was just bad weather. But some old women at Udua Iban said they heard thunder crack like laughter before the rain. 

 

The rain came down with the attitude of elders settling old scores in the village square. Uyo people scattered under kiosks and umbrellas, but one person didn’t run — a young woman in an oversized mustard shirt, holding a nylon bag of ukang ikang.

 

Her name was Mfoniso, a girl whose grandmother used to tell stories in perfect Ibibio cadence. Stories about water spirits who guarded crossroads, and how some spirits never forgot their paths even when humans abandoned theirs.

 

She stood alone by the gutter, watching the water spiral like it was whispering. Then she heard a voice.

 

“Mi edi ke roundabout?” (is this the roundabout?).

 

Her heart skipped. She turned slowly. And there stood Etim Ndem Udom, dripping and smelling of rejected sacrifice. Most people would scream. Mfoniso simply blinked and said,

 

“Nso ke Afo anam ke edim? What are you doing inside the rain?”

 

Etim startled.

“You can hear me?”

 

“I’m Ibibio, we hear things. Sometimes more than we want to.”

 

He smiled.

“I missed my roundabout,” he said.

“You missed it by about sixty years,” she replied. 

She was unusually calm.

 

For a moment, they stood in the rain. It was the moment of the old world and the new world facing each other. Mfoniso shifted her nylon bag.

“So what do you want to do now? People here don’t bow to spirits anymore.”

 

Etim looked up at the bright billboards, the taxis spraying water, the tired commuters scrolling their phones.

“Soo… nobody remembers me?”

 

“No,” she said gently. “But that doesn’t mean you have no place.”

 

He exhaled, a long sigh that made the rain pause for half a heartbeat.

“What place remains for a forgotten spirit?”

 

Mfoniso dipped her head, thinking. Then she whispered something only a grandmother would say:

 

“If humans forget the shrine, go to where their hearts still carry fear and wonder.”

 

Etim’s eyes glowed.

“And where is that?”

 

She pointed toward the city.

“Everywhere,” she said. “Inside every person running from something.”

 

Etim looked at her as if seeing a doorway.

“Will you remember me, child?”

 

“I will,” she said. “And I’ll tell one or two people. That’s how remembering starts.”

 

Etim Ndem stepped back into the gutter, his form turning into mist and grey water. Before he vanished completely, he murmured:

 

“Mfoniso mmi”

 

She smiled.

“Go well, spirit.”

The rain eased. 

 

Etim was swallowed into the drain like a secret the city wasn’t ready to keep.

 

The next morning, the gutters in Uyo flowed unusually clear. No flooding. No dirt. Not even one stray sachet nylon.

 

People said it was a miracle. But Mfoniso knew better.

A forgotten spirit had found a new duty:

cleaning the paths humans no longer honored, yet desperately needed.

 

And whenever the rain returned, it carried a low laughter; the sound of a spirit who finally understood the modern world and was learning to enjoy it.