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Two days after Akin killed Alabi, his best friend, the villagers of Ado noticed that Alabi was missing. In fact, it was Akin who cried out to the villagers that he could not find Alabi. According to Akin, after he and Alabi returned from visiting the prominent man, he went to his house, and that was the last time he set eyes on Alabi.

Concerned that something bad might have happened to Alabi, the villagers organized a search party and searched everywhere for him for three whole days. However, no one could find him or trace his whereabouts. After three days of carefully searching for Alabi in the Ado village and their neighbouring villages, the villagers assumed the worst.

“We have searched everywhere, but we have been unable to find Alabi. At this point, I think Alabi is gone,” one of the villagers said after they all returned from searching for Alabi on the third day.

“Gone? What do you mean by gone? I know Alabi so well; he would have told me if he had wanted to travel anywhere. Besides, we have checked his house; everything is complete, and it doesn’t look like he travelled,” Akin said.

“Akin, we understand that Alabi was like a brother to you. But at this point, we have to accept the truth. It is possible that Alabi is dead. Maybe he went to the forest to get some firewood, and a wild animal attacked him and dragged his body too,” another person from the crowd said.

“No, I can’t accept that. My best friend cannot be dead. We had so many dreams together. He promised me that he would perform at my wedding. Who will I now play drums with if Alabi is dead?” Akin began to cry, and the villagers did their best to console him. 

After that day, everyone stopped looking for Alabi, and life returned back to normal for the villagers. Though some villagers were suspicious that something was wrong somewhere, and they believed that Alabi could not have just disappeared on his own, no one dared to say it out.

Meanwhile, to avoid raising any concerns or questions about his sudden wealth, Akin only sold two of his gold bars, then hid the remaining four bars he stole from Alabi in his room. He knew that if he sold all the gold bars, the villagers would question him and find a way to tie him to Alabi’s disappearance. In fact, the villagers were even capable of accusing him of using his friend for money rituals, so he did not want any of that. 

Two weeks later, after the villagers declared Alabi dead, Akin suggested that they bury an empty coffin in memory of his best friend. He claimed that he would not be at peace if he didn’t do something memorial for his friend, and the villagers agreed. To do as Akin had suggested, the villagers picked a date for the burial and began to make preparations.

While the fake burial preparations were going on, Alabi’s mother mourned her missing son. She could not believe that she would wake up one day and her son would be gone forever. Since Alabi was her only child, his mother could not contain her heartbreak. She cried day and night, and she begged the gods to bring back her son to her safely just in case he was still alive somewhere. Alabi’s father was sad too, but he had to stay strong for his wife.

One night, after Alabi’s mother cried herself to sleep, she had a dream, and in that dream, Alabi appeared to her. He wore one of his best ceremonial attires and hung his drum on his left shoulder. Alabi did not say anything to his mother in that dream; he just stood from a distance and stared at her, but his eyes were bleeding, and his skin looked very pale.

As soon as Alabi’s mother woke up from that dream, she began to cry again because she knew what the dream meant. From the way Alabi appeared to her, it was obvious that he was dead, but it also gave his mother a feeling that he had been murdered, which only made things worse.

On the day of the burial, while the villagers gathered to pay their last respects to Alabi, his mother did something strange. While Akin, Alabi’s best friend, was performing at the burial, Alabi’s mother walked to Alabi’s grave, and she threw his drum and the same ceremonial attire Alabi wore in her dream into his grave.

“Alabi,” Alabi’s mother called in a bitter voice, trying to hold back her tears. Her eyes had already turned red from crying, and her eyelids were swollen.

“Do not let whoever killed you have rest,” Alabi’s mother said, “Do not rest until you avenge your death. They saw the talent in you, and they killed you out of Jealousy; please kill them. Whether it is one person or they are many, avenge your death, Alabi,” she added, while still standing by Alabi’s graveside.

When Akin saw what Alabi’s mother had done, he was a bit scared, but because he did not believe in ghosts, he stopped thinking about it and focused more on performing for the people. Since the burial was just to honour Alabi, it was not a big party; hence, a few hours after Alabi’s grave was covered, everyone returned to their homes.

That evening, when Akin went home, he felt satisfied and relieved that he had finally gotten rid of Alabi and that he would soon become the best drummer in Ado village and its neighbouring villages. He even stood in front of his mirror and practised how he would respond to greetings when people greeted him as the best drummer in Ado.

 Akin had no idea that his life and that of the villagers were about to change in the worst possible way. That night, after Akin did all he was supposed to do, he went to bed early because he was very exhausted from walking around and playing his drum all day.

A few hours after Akin went to bed, precisely by midnight, he was still in his room sleeping when he began to hear the sound of a drum playing loudly. At first, when Akin heard the drum’s sound, he thought he was dreaming, but when the sound persisted and Akin opened his eyes, he realized that he wasn’t dreaming.

Curious to find out where the sound was coming from, Akin went outside to look around, but no one was there. Meanwhile, the drum was still playing, and it seemed like its player was invincible.

After trying to trace the origin of the drum’s sound for minutes but being unsuccessful, Akin went back to bed. Somehow, he had convinced himself that he was hearing things, and it was possible that his mind had been playing tricks on him.

The next morning, when Akin went to a party he had been invited to perform at, he heard the villagers talking about the mysterious drum sound they had heard at midnight. Initially, when Akin overheard some of the villagers, he didn’t want to ask any questions, but when he heard one of them say that they could not trace the origin of the drum sound either, as it seemed to be coming from everywhere, Akin was forced to stop and talk to them.

That whole day, while at the party, Akin could not stop thinking about the experience he had the previous night. It was the first time in the history of Ado village that the villagers had encountered a thing like that. No one, not even the myths and folktales Akin heard as a child, had mentioned a mysterious midnight drummer. The most shocking part was that almost all the villagers experienced the same thing, which had never happened before.

Later that evening, when Akin returned home, he slept off immediately, and shortly after he slept, he had a very weird dream. In that dream, Akin was standing on top of a mountain, the same mountain he had dumped Alabi’s body on, and all of a sudden, a strong wind blew, pushing him off the mountain. Immediately after Akin had that dream, he woke up and realized that his entire body was covered in sweat, so he got up to shower.

After Akin showered that night, he had dinner and went back to bed. Again, precisely at midnight, the sound of the drums Akin and the villagers had heard the previous night began to play again, and this time, Akin could not sleep until dawn.

The first night it happened, the villagers talked about the incident in hush tones, but after the second night, almost the entire village openly talked about it. Sadly, this continued for a while. Every night, once midnight clocked in, the mysterious drums would start playing loudly, thereby depriving the villagers of their sleep.

When a week passed and the villagers could not take it anymore, they decided to make enquiries about the mysterious midnight drummer. By this time, because of the repetitive weird dreams Akin had been having every day, he figured that the mysterious midnight drummer had something to do with his late best friend, Alabi.

“Could this be Alabi’s way of exposing my secret?” Akin soliloquized while he was pondering on the issue one day.

“No, ghosts are not real. This is just a coincidence,” Akin tried to convince himself. But deep down, he had a conviction that the things that had happened in the past days were not just a coincidence.

Also, since Akin had killed Alabi around midnight, which was also the time the drumming began every night, he was certain that Alabi’s ghost was haunting Ado village, but he couldn’t say a word to anyone. So, when he heard that the villagers wanted their chief priest to consult with the gods of their land, Akin tried everything he could to stop them.

To do that, Akin hosted parties almost every day, and he invited the villagers to come and celebrate with him. He also performed something special each day, and for a while, he was able to hook and distract the villagers.

After several days of hosting Lavish parties to distract the villagers from what had been happening, the villagers finally went ahead with their plan. They went to their chief priest, who was also aware of the mysterious midnight drummer and told him to find out who was depriving them of their sleep.

That same day, after the chief priest consulted the gods in the King’s Palace, he asked for Akin. In no time, some of the Palace guards went to Akin’s house and took him to the Palace.

Upon arriving at the King’s Palace, Akin was shocked to see the Ifa chief priest, The King, and his Kingsmen waiting for him.

“Your majesty, may you rule forever,” Akin prostrated and greeted the King,

After he did that, he greeted everyone and asked why he had been summoned to the King’s Palace. As soon as he asked the question, the Ifa chief priest said, “Tell us where you buried Alabi’s body.”

“I don’t understand what you mean. Alabi went missing, and no one found his body,” Akin lied.

“You can lie to man, but you cannot lie to the gods. I know that you killed your friend Alabi; we all know,” the chief priest said. The King and Kingsmen who were all there could not believe that Akin was responsible for Alabi’s death and disappearance. They were so shocked and angry at the same time.

While the chief priest was questioning Alabi, some of the villagers began to gather at the King’s Palace. They were tired of the mysterious midnight drummer and how much it had affected them.

When Akin saw that he could not escape and that his secret had already been exposed, he told them the truth, but he showed no remorse for what he had done.

“Yes, I killed Alabi, and I do not regret it,” Akin admitted, ” you all treated him like a god, favoured him more than you favoured me, and I could not watch that anymore,” Akin said with a smirk on his face.

“You’re such an evil person, so you killed your friend, and you were still the first person to cry to us that you had not seen him,” one of the villagers said.

“Wouldn’t you have suspected me if I didn’t?” Akin asked. “You used to call him the best drummer in Ado; now that he is in his grave, is he still the best drummer?” Akin asked arrogantly. The King, the chief priest, the Kingsmen and even the villagers could not believe Akin’s audacity.

“Tell me, why would Alabi and I go to perform for a wealthy man? At the end of the day, he is gifted four bars of gold while I get just two. Why?” Akin asked in a furious tone. 

“You are not even remorseful that you killed a friend who was like a brother to you?” One of the Kingsmen asked in shock.

“No, I am not and I will do it over and over again,” Akin answered before he suddenly began to clap and take off his clothes.

“Why are you dancing?” The King asked Akin. It was strange because no one was singing or playing drums around them.

“Don’t you hear the drums? Alabi is playing the drums. He is calling me to that mountain,” Akin answered in a very weird manner. It was almost like he had lost his mind.

In the presence of everyone, including the young and old, Akin took off everything he had worn and began to dance. At that point, the villagers realized what had happened; Akin had run mad, but because of his atrocity, no one tried to hold him down. The villagers of Ado watched as Akin danced around the village until he eventually led them to the mountain he had pointed at.

At the mountain, the villagers found the remains of Alabi’s body, which had already begun to decompose. They carried the remains of his body and gave Alabi a proper burial. Then, in the process of clearing out Akin’s house, some villagers found the box of gold he had stolen from Alabi. Knowing that Alabi’s old parents would need the money most, the villagers gave the box of gold to them, and they saved it in memory of their late son.

As for Akin, he eventually wandered out of Ado village, where he ultimately died in the forest. To this day, the legend of the midnight drummer is told to children as a lesson to be contented with whatever they have and not to let Jealousy fill their hearts.

The end.

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