By Blessed Adjekpagbon
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| Left to right: Blessed Adjekpagbon, Adeniran Abdbasit Adeyemi and Abdurahman Muhammed |
Hence, on the 27th of January 2024, at about 11:30am, three fellows namely. Adjekpagbon Blessed Mudiaga, Adeyemi Basit and Abdulrahman Muhammed Abu - Yamam, that are the current fellows of the 2024 First Edition programme of the Ebedi International Writers Residency, decided to tread on it to the peak. But only one of the fellows succeeded in reaching the top as the other two fizzled out just before getting to the middle of the highest peak among the four peaks that adorns the hill. We were accompanied by the young security staff of the residency, whose name is Mr. Gideon Shadrach. He is the only person who ventured to climb with me from where the two others capitulated.
Gideon Shadrach and Blessed
Adjekpagbon on top of Ebedi Hill
The hill is very long. It lies
latitudinally on the north - eastern side toward the western area of the town.
Its length is approximately five to six miles from the Writers Residency axis
down towards the western part of the town. It has four peaks projecting on its
lengthy topography. The height is approximately up to that of a 30 to 40 storey
building. It is far higher than the tower of the Murtalar Muhammed's
lnternational Airport in Ikeja, Lagos. The tower is like a David or an ant
standing beside Goliath, when compared to the
Ebedi Hill in focus. I have been
to the last floor of the international airport tower before, in 1998, when one
of my friends was the Chief Security Officer of the SSS (State Security
Service), Murtalar lnternational Airport in the days of yore.
As for the hill, you cannot see the roof of any building in Ebedi Writers Residency and its immediate environment, except a scanty sight of trees below while at its peak. At the mid-section of the hill, all the roofs in Ebedi looked very tiny like the cups of sardine. After that level, they become invisible to the eyes like when an airplane gets to an altitude in the sky and you can no longer see the houses on the ground well, or at all. That is on the Southern part of the northern hill.. Its surface is inhabited by shrubs and fairly big and medium height trees, whose roots holds firmly into the rocky laced soil. The bottom part of it is the steepest and pretty difficult to climb to a little bit before the midsection. From the midsection, the surface is gravitationally much better to climb with steady climb and less energy consuming to the crest. Some stubborn trees that were disobedient to the command of some powerful winds, were crushed down at different areas of the hill; as there is a common traditional saying that, "When the wind blows, all trees must bow. Any tree that disrespects the commanding strides of a powerful wind, will be crushed down."
However, the northern part of the hill is embodied with a huge presence of swamp and a large river. From my assessment as a semi - skilled geographer, l observed that the northern part of the hill is highly dangerous to descend to view the base where the mangroove swamp is. It is the source and epic centre of ferocious misty winds that usually travel from the alluvium swamp to the crest, before descending its velocity to the southern side of the hill. This upward climb of the wind from the northern part of the hill and its downward plunge to the southern part of it, is the reason the southern part is cosy nearly all day long. That is why any occupant of the residency can hear the touching of the wind on the sliding windows. It sometimes make curtains to go airborne like birds in nuptial flight. When you happen to be a fellow at the residency, don't be frightened when you hear the glasses of the sliding windows slightly shaking, it is the handiwork of the cool travelling winds from the northern section of the hill, tapping on the windows, to keep reminding you to write and make sure you complete your target writing project, before the duration of your stay gets exhausted.
Nonetheless, centuries of denudation of the northern part of the hill's topography by wind erosion, has created adverse effect on it, and makes it very steep unlike the southern side which is less dangerous to climb without hill climbing or mountaineering tools. From my observation, it is very rare to see any of the natives climbing or descending from the hill. This could be because of its frightening view from below. It is abundantly populated by trees, and tends to make someone think there could be wild animals living on it.
During my ascent and descent with others aforementioned, we saw no animal on it. Only birds kept chirping at some points, as if to question our audacity of coming to their abode.
END
