Chief Adewale always said his wheelchair was faster than most people’s legs, and he had seventy-two years of evidence to back it up. Every morning, while Ibadan’s streets clattered awake with danfo horns, roasted plantain smoke, and market women shouting “Oya, bring your money here!”, Adewale positioned himself at the top of Oke Bola slope and called out to the neighborhood children.
“Ready?” he would bark, eyebrows raised like a general inspecting his troops.
The children grinned, lined up beside him, and at the count of three, down they all went–legs pumping, sandals slapping, while Adewale’s battered chair squeaked, rattled, and flew like it had wings. The neighbors shook their heads, muttering pity in Yoruba under their breath. Kai, see this old man. Polio crippled him since boyhood, yet he’s still playing like a child. But when Adewale crossed the finish line first, arms raised high, it was always the children who cheered the loudest.
His chair was no beauty. Rust scabbed its frame, one wheel tilted suspiciously, and the left handle had been mended with cloth and duct tape. Still, Adewale would let no one discard it. Not his late wife, who once begged him to buy a shiny imported model; not Temi, his sharp-tongued granddaughter, who swore the chair sounded like a dying goat every time it turned.
“This chair has carried me farther than kings have walked,” Adewale muttered whenever anyone complained. He would pat its armrest like a loyal horse, the kind only he could see.
And sometimes – though only when the light was just right, the rust seemed to peel back, revealing faint golden swirls etched into the frame. They glimmered like secret writing, catching the sun for an instant before disappearing again. No one else noticed. Or if they did, they dismissed it as the tricks of heat and old metal.
But Adewale noticed. He always noticed. He leaned back in the chair as the children swarmed him, laughing, demanding rematches. His bones ached, his body reminded him daily of what polio had stolen. Yet here, rattling downhill on his throne of iron and squeaks, Chief Adewale felt not broken, not pitied – only alive, only fast, only himself.
And somewhere beneath the rust, the chair hummed faintly, as though amused; as though waiting.
The storm rolled in like a drunk uncle – loud, staggering, and determined to break something. Rain lashed Ibadan’s corrugated rooftops, thunder cracked over Dugbe, and lightning jabbed the night like quarrelsome neighbors trading insults.
Chief Adewale dozed in his compound, the squeak of his faithful chair beside his bed like a lullaby he’d grown accustomed to.
Then the strike came. A blinding white fork split the courtyard mango tree in half, sending sparks skittering across the ground. His chair rattled where it stood, wheels spinning madly as though invisible feet were pedaling them.
Adewale’s eyes snapped open. “Ewo! What nonsense is this?”
The door creaked. Temi slipped in, all elbows and mischief, fourteen years old and forever poking into what she shouldn’t. Her braids dripped from the rain Andrea and her T-shirt clung to her skinny frame.
“Grandpapa,” she whispered, wide-eyed, “I swear, I saw your chair glowing.”
“Chair ko, glow ni,” Adewale scoffed, dragging the blanket higher. “You children, every lightning bolt you see, you start shouting ‘witch, wizard.’ Go and sleep.”
But then the chair lifted two inches off the ground, hovering, humming, as golden lines beneath the rust burned bright like hidden rivers.
Adewale froze. His jaw slackened. His heart thudded like bata drums at a festival.
And then… clear as a griot’s song… the chair spoke. Its voice carried the playful swagger of Ibadan Yoruba, rich with sly mockery.
“Eh-ehn! Finally! A worthy backside sits upon me again. You, old tailor, do not act surprised. Have I not carried you with dignity? Did you think I was just iron and squeak?”
Temi shrieked, then clamped a hand over her mouth. “It talked! Grandpa, your chair talked!”
“Shut up!” Adewale hissed, though his own eyes bulged. “Chairs do not talk.”
The chair tilted, almost offended. “Not a chair. Throne. Forgotten throne of Orunmila’s troublesome brother – laughing trickster, breaker of boredom. Ah-ah, Adewale, have you not felt me itching for mischief all these years?”
Golden sparks leapt from its wheels, skittering across the room. For a heartbeat, little spirits no bigger than rats scrambled out of the shadows – giggling, tumbling, knocking over a calabash of palm oil before vanishing again.
Adewale gripped his chest. “Olorun maje!”
Temi grinned, awe wiping away her fear. “Grandpa… you’re a superhero!”
“I am a retired tailor,” Adewale snapped.
“You are the Wheelchair God!” Temi declared, dramatic as always.
The chair was a little shimmy. “That one sweet me. Wheelchair God. Hmmm. Adewale, let us test my legs properly. Shall we?”
And before Adewale could argue, the chair zipped forward, slamming beneath him and scooping him up like a rider mounting a horse. The wheels spun with fire.
“Hold on!” Temi shouted as Adewale shot through the courtyard gate like a rocket.
The night became a blur. He sped past okadas stuck in rain-flooded potholes, scattering drivers who cursed and crossed themselves. He sliced through Beere market, sending pepper sellers shrieking as their baskets flew. He burst into Mama Sade’s buka, rolled straight across the floor, and emerged on the other side dripping beans and stew, laughing like he hadn’t laughed since boyhood.
“Ha! Ha! Ẹ̀mi náà tún lè rin!” he cried. I too can walk again!
The chair whooped beneath him, sparks trailing gold in the rain. Temi chased behind, shrieking with laughter, as Ibadan watched the impossible blur past: an old man, a battered chair, and the beginning of a legend.
At first, Adewale tried to be discreet. A seventy-two-year-old man had no business flying through walls or racing danfos in traffic. But the chair – it tempted him. Each day, its voice hummed in his bones like palm wine bubbling in a calabash: “Eh-ehn, old man, why so serious? Small laughter won’t kill you.”
And so, one Saturday morning at the men’s ayo gathering under the almond tree, Adewale positioned himself against the usual rivals. Pa Sunday polished his cowries with the solemnity of a priest; Pa Rafiu hummed war chants like ayo was a battlefield. They expected another long, stubborn duel.
Instead, Adewale smirked. “Let us see if your cowries can keep up.”
The chair vibrated, golden sparks zipping across its frame. As Adewale dropped his first seed, the cowries in the board raced forward on their own, clattering like possessed dice.
“What!” Pa Sunday cried, slapping his knee. “Cheating!”
“Not cheating. Speed,” Adewale declared, as his chair zipped in circles around them, the ayo board spinning midair, seeds flying like fireworks before landing neatly in his own house.
The children howled with laughter. Even the groundnut sellers dropped their trays to watch. Pa Rafiu just shook his head. “This man will disgrace us.”
By afternoon, Adewale’s fame had doubled. And by evening, it had tripled, because he could not resist one more stunt.
He wheeled into a politician’s rally at Mapo Hall, blending with the sea of sweaty bodies, listening to Chief Kolapo’s booming voice promising new roads, new jobs, new hospitals. The chair whispered, “Empty words; let us dress them properly.”
And suddenly, as Kolapo spoke, each sentence unfurled into the air above his head in giant glowing letters:
“FREE EDUCATION FOR ALL – (LIE!)” “NEW ROAD TO JERICHO – (YOU WILL WAIT TILL JESUS RETURNS).” “I LOVE THE PEOPLE – (I LOVE THEIR MONEY).”
The crowd erupted. Some laughed until tears ran. Some jeered. Kolapo’s face darkened like storm clouds. Adewale wheeled away whistling, his laughter echoing through the streets.
Word spread fast. They called him the Rolling God. Children sang songs about him. Market women whispered his name as if invoking protection. Okada drivers raised fists in salute when he zipped past.
But not all were amused.
One sticky night, Temi crept into the courtyard. The chair glowed faintly, almost expectant. She grinned. “Just a small loan.
Grandpapa won’t notice.”
The chair purred under her as she rolled silently into the night.
By dawn, the whole of Oke Ado buzzed with scandal. Auntie Morenike’s wig had floated above her head in the middle of gossip, dancing like a palm frond in the harmattan wind. Two rival buka owners woke to find rude slogans painted across their zinc walls: “YOUR SOUP HAS NO MAGGI” and “FANTA INSIDE WATER!” The mayor’s compound gate bore the bold message: “THIS MAN IS A BIG BELLY WITH A SMALL BRAIN.”
Temi wheeled home at sunrise, giggling. The chair hummed with satisfaction.
Adewale, however, nearly choked on his pap when he heard. “Ah! This girl will finish me.” But he could not help the smile tugging at his lips. Mischief ran in their blood.
By the week’s end, Ibadan was alive with theories. Some declared the Rolling God a blessing from heaven. Others swore he was a witch riding mechanical juju. Children tied toy wheels to their slippers, racing down alleys shouting, “I am Adewale!”
And in the shadows, a different ear listened.
Chief Kolapo, the very politician humiliated at Mapo Hall, sat in his air-conditioned office, gnawing his lip. He had heard the rumors of a glowing throne, of impossible speed, of divine laughter. He didn’t laugh. He thought of power. He thought of immortality.
“A golden chair,” he murmured. “Not a toy, not a joke. A throne. If such a thing exists… it belongs to me.”
His advisers trembled, but Kolapo’s eyes gleamed. He would find this Rolling God, strip him of his miracle, and claim the chair for himself.
Meanwhile, in his compound, Adewale sat with Temi under the mango tree. The chair hummed between them, glowing faintly.
“Grandpa,” Temi asked softly, “why you? Why not a king, or a pastor, or even Kolapo himself?”
The chair answered, its voice lower now, almost tender:
“Because this man carried joy when the world carried pity for him. Because even with broken legs, he laughed. Thrones do not choose power. They choose spirit. And yet—tremember this—every throne attracts challengers. Mischief cannot live unopposed.”
The mango leaves rustled in the night breeze. Adewale’s laughter faded to a frown. For the first time, he wondered what price joy might demand.
Temi had always loved a good dare. So when Chief Kolapo’s sleek black SUV rolled up outside the compound one evening, windows tinted, promises dripping from his smile, she leaned closer instead of running.
“Ah, my clever girl,” Kolapo said, lowering his voice as though confiding a secret. “I have heard the Rolling God has a partner. Mischief runs in your blood, eh? But what is mischief without an audience?”
Temi crossed her arms, suspicious but intrigued.
Kolapo opened a leather briefcase. Inside lay fireworks, paints, bundles of crisp naira. “Help me with one prank; just one. Imagine the laughter when we set Ibadan ablaze with light.”
Her eyes widened, and the chair beneath her purred. The mischief in her veins warred with her common sense. She remembered Grandpapa’s warnings, but Kolapo’s words were honey. Just one prank, she thought. No harm.
But when she wheeled into his waiting hands, the trap snapped shut.
Kolapo’s men surrounded her, chanting strange incantations he had bought from a back-alley priest. Golden chains of light lashed out, pinning the chair. It bucked, screamed like metal tearing, and Temi was thrown aside. Kolapo laughed as he seated himself.
“Eh-ehn. Now this throne knows a true master.”
The streets of Ibadan shuddered. From the chair’s wheels poured spirits – monstrous shapes with bellies of coins and eyes like spinning naira notes. They lumbered through the markets, swallowing kiosks whole, spitting out glowing malls and neon billboards. Hawkers vanished, replaced by hologram salesmen. Jollof rice smoke was smothered under the stench of plastic wrappers.
The city was mutating, twisted into a greedy paradise. And at its center, Kolapo rode high, the golden throne sparking with corrupted light.
For Adewale, it was a second kind of polio.
He sat in his compound, staring at the empty space where his chair had always waited. Without it, he was just an old man again – legs dead weight, body aching, neighbors’ pity returning like an unwelcome shadow.
“Fraud,” muttered Pa Rafiu at the ayo circle. “All that flying, all that glowing; it was just tricks.”
Even children, once his loudest cheerleaders, looked away when he wheeled by in Temi’s borrowed school chair. No speed. No sparks. Just rusted silence.
Temi wept. She refused to eat, refused to sleep. The guilt gnawed at her belly. She knelt by Adewale’s bed one night, her voice cracking.
“Grandpapa, I killed it. I killed the Rolling God. I thought it was fun, but I gave it to him. I ruined everything.”
Adewale studied her, his face lined but calm. Slowly, he reached out, taking her trembling hand in his weathered one.
“Child,” he said softly, “my legs failed long ago. I crawled through the dust while others walked tall. But you know what never fails?”
Temi shook her head, tears spilling.
“My laughter,” Adewale said. “Even in hunger. Even when people looked at me with pity instead of respect. I laughed. That is why the throne chose me, and you. Not because we are strong, not because we are rich, but because we refuse to let sorrow swallow our joy.”
The words cracked something open in her chest. She clung to him, sobbing, and for the first time since the theft, Adewale laughed again – quiet, rough-edged, but alive.
Outside, the neon glare of Kolapo’s Ibadan burned against the sky. Inside, grandfather and granddaughter sat hand in hand, plotting.
“We will reclaim the chair,” Adewale said, eyes gleaming. “We will remind that greedy man that joy is stronger than money.”
Temi nodded fiercely, guilt hardening into resolve.
And for a moment, in the shadows of the compound, the air shimmered, as if the spirits themselves leaned close to listen.
Ibadan had never looked so ugly. The air glowed with the headache-blue of neon billboards. The streets, once alive with roasted corn smoke and chatter, now choked under the stench of plastic packaging. Malls sprang up where palm trees had stood, swallowing space for markets. Kolapo’s money-spirits patrolled like guards, snatching coins from children’s hands, stuffing other people’s mouths with credit cards.
But in Adewale’s courtyard, laughter still lived.
It began small. Temi, face still swollen from tears, painted bold words across a mall wall: “LAUGHTER NO GET TAX.” She darted away before the money-spirits caught her, breathless and giggling. The next day, children released a storm of chickens inside a bank, feathers and squawks scattering through the sterile marble lobby. Customers cheered.
And then, Adewale wheeled himself into the center of Oje market, his voice carrying above the din. “My people! Kolapo thinks joy is cheap. He thinks he can sell it in plastic bags. Let us show him joy cannot be bought!”
No speeches, no polished promises. Just pranks. Tricks. Truth dressed in laughter.
Word spread. The blind griot, Mama Shakirat, sat on her stool at the market gate, singing in a voice that cracked stone: verses about Kolapo’s greed, his belly fat with stolen wealth, his throne stolen from the people. None could look away.
Beside her, Tunde the Deaf drummer pounded rhythms that thundered through Ibadan’s veins. Though he could not hear the beats, he felt them in his chest, and the people danced, danced until the billboards flickered in confusion.
Wheelchair users, crutch-walkers, epileptics, autistic children, all joined. They played tricks on the money-spirits: tying cloth round their eyes, swapping neon signs for painted slogans, replacing mall escalators with slides that dumped shoppers into fountains. The city roared with laughter.
Kolapo fumed, shouting from his golden throne in Mapo Hall. “These are not people; they are pests! Mischief cannot defeat money!”
But Adewale only laughed louder. He wheeled at the head of the procession, his battered spare chair creaking, no sparks, no gold, only rust and stubborn joy.
“Listen well, my people,” he called, voice clear as iron. “With or without the chair, we have power. Fun is power! Laughter is rebellion! If money builds walls, joy will fly over them!”
Children repeated the chant. Mothers echoed it. Fathers stamped their feet in rhythm. The griot sang it. The Deaf drummer thundered it.
And Ibadan answered back.
What began as whispers of the Rolling God became something larger: a movement not of one man, not of one chair, but of thousands – laughing, dancing, refusing to be swallowed by neon.
And Kolapo, watching from his palace of greed, realized too late: he was not fighting a crippled tailor. He was fighting a city.
Festival day dawned not with drums but with the shriek of neon.
Kolapo had declared it a holiday for his “new Ibadan.” He stood upon the golden throne at the steps of Mapo Hall, his body stretched grotesque, skin gleaming like polished bullion, fingers like hooked coins. Around him, the spirits of greed lumbered through the streets, swallowing stalls and spitting out glass shops, tearing mango trees and planting neon billboards.
The city groaned under its glitter.
And then, from the other end of Beere road, came another sound.
Drums. Voices. Laughter.
Adewale led the procession, wheeling in his battered chair like a king in exile. Temi danced at his side, face painted with bright streaks of palm oil and chalk. Behind them marched the carnival of resistance: griots singing, Deaf drummers pounding thunder, children juggling chickens, aunties balancing buckets of water that splashed like fountains onto the neon walls. Every prankster, every market woman, every “pest” Kolapo despised had come.
Ibadan was rolling.
The crowd surged into the square, clashing color against Kolapo’s gold. Where his greed-spirits lumbered, tricksters tied cloth round their eyes and sent them spinning into fountains. Where neon screens blared advertisements, griots sang louder, drowning them out with verses of truth.
And at the center, Adewale rolled forward until he faced Kolapo.
The politician sneered, his voice amplified by the throne. “You again? Old cripple, see how the city bends to my wealth. Do you think laughter can buy bread? Do you think joy can build roads?”
Adewale straightened, his eyes sharp. “Bread without laughter chokes the throat. Roads without joy lead only to sorrow.”
Kolapo raised his golden hand, and the greed-spirits lunged. Adewale closed his eyes, then opened them with a spark. He began to tell a riddle.
“What walks without legs, sings without a mouth, and fills the city when money fails?”
The spirits froze. Their bellies trembled. Adewale grinned. Laughter.”
The spirits cracked, gold flaking off like paint.
Kolapo roared. “Tricks! You cannot…”
“Another,” Adewale interrupted, his voice ringing. “What is lighter than gold, stronger than chains, and spreads faster than fire?”
The crowd shouted the answer to him: “Joy!”
The spirits shrieked, collapsing into puddles of melted coins.
Kolapo’s form twisted, swelling taller, veins glowing like bullion wires. “You think you are clever, old man? Then let me see you laugh at this!”
He hurled a wave of neon fire across the square. For a moment, even the carnival faltered.
Then Temi, mischief blazing in her eyes, whistled sharply. From behind the crowd came a cart piled high with yam flour. Buckets tipped. White powder shot into the air, sparkling like powdered lightning. Children lit small firecrackers Temi had hidden inside, and BOOM – pounded-yam fireworks exploded across Kolapo’s gleaming body.
The golden giant staggered, covered head to toe in sticky yam paste. The crowd roared with laughter. Even Adewale slapped his knee until tears streamed. And with every laugh, Kolapo shrank smaller, his gold tarnishing.
“Stop… stop this noise!” he bellowed, but his voice cracked, no longer amplified. The throne beneath him trembled, torn between masters.
Adewale wheeled forward. His hand touched the armrest, and for the first time since its theft, the throne hummed warmly again.
Kolapo clutched it desperately. “No! It is mine! Mine!”
But Adewale did not wrench it away. Instead, he turned to the crowd and raised his voice.
“This throne is not for one man. It is for all who carry joy despite sorrow. Today, Ibadan will sit with me.”
Gasps rippled. Then, one by one, he invited them.
Mama Shakirat, the blind griot, lowered herself onto the seat. The throne glowed, amplifying her song until even the neon screens wept.
Tunde the Deaf drummer sat next, and the chair thundered with rhythm only he could feel, shaking the spirits to dust.
Auntie Morenike, wig floating like a crown, sat and cackled, her laughter booming through the streets. Children climbed onto the throne in pairs, giggling. Each burst of joy struck Kolapo like a hammer, driving him back, smaller and smaller, until he was nothing more than a sweating man in a stained agbada.
The spirits of greed scattered into smoke. The neon bled from the sky. Mango trees reappeared where malls had stood. Ibadan exhaled, alive again.
At last, Adewale rolled onto the throne himself. Golden carvings blazed, brighter than ever. But instead of seizing its glory, he looked at the people, spread his arms wide, and laughed.
“Behold,” he said, “the true Rolling God is not me. It is us… all of us together.”
The chair hummed agreement. Its glow burst into the air like a second sunrise, not blinding, but warming, wrapping the city in light.
Kolapo slunk away, stripped of gold, of power, of laughter.
And Ibadan erupted in drums and dancing, their carnival of resistance now a carnival of victory.
Ibadan woke the next morning not to neon, but to birdsong.
The greed-spirits were gone, and with them, the glittering scars of Kolapo’s false paradise. Stalls reappeared where soulless shops had stood, mango trees unfurled green shade over crossroads, and the markets smelled again of roasted plantain instead of plastic. The people laughed as they swept away the golden dust that Kolapo had left behind, their brooms beating a rhythm almost like drums.
Children were the first to honor what had passed. In every corner, they scavenged old wheelbarrows, stools, and discarded crates. With palm fronds for canopies and bottle caps for decoration, they built their own little “thrones.” They raced them down the sloping roads, shouting, “Rolling God! Rolling God!” and tumbling over each other in joyous chaos. The laughter filled every alley, ringing louder than any politician’s speech.
Adewale sat outside his home, his old wheelchair creaking under him, the golden throne nowhere in sight. He stroked the armrest fondly, as though it had never left him, then shook his head. “Even gods know,” he murmured to the children nearby, “laughter does not retire.”
The throne itself had not vanished. It still shimmered in Ibadan’s heart, waiting. But no longer did it belong to one man, or one mischief-maker. It appeared when a market woman cracked a joke to ease her neighbor’s grief; when a Deaf drummer pounded joy into the streets; when a blind griot spun a tale so sweet that even sorrow forgot its name. The throne had become a spirit of choice, a spark that rose whenever someone dared joy over despair.
And so Ibadan thrived, stitched together by mischief and laughter, its people knowing that wealth was not in malls or mansions, but in the way they carried each other through hardship with grins wide and unbroken.
One evening, as twilight washed the rooftops purple, Adewale and Temi met at the crossroads. Temi had tied up a battered wheelbarrow, painted with slogans and dripping with glitter. Adewale wheeled up beside her, his chair rattling like a loyal old friend.
“Ready, Baba?” Temi grinned, pushing her barrow into place.
“Child,” Adewale said, sparks already glimmering faintly beneath his wheels, “I was born ready.”
They pushed off. Down the slope they went, an old man and a girl, side by side, laughter tearing through the dusk like drums. The wheels struck stone and sparked gold, faint but unmistakable, lighting their path.
From the balconies, children cheered. From doorways, aunties clapped. From the heart of the city, the golden throne flickered into being – just for a moment, before dissolving into their laughter.
Ibadan, restored and brighter than before, carried their echo long into the night.
For in the city of the Rolling God, joy was never finished. It only rolled forward.
Bella Chacha is a Nigerian writer whose works have appeared in Brittle Paper, IHRAM Publishes, Channel Magazine, Incensepunk, Cosmic Daffodil Journal, and many more.
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