Ike marched forward aggressively, you could see buds of sweat dropping down his well bulit body. At that moment he was like a man possessed by the gods, and every step he took at that moment got him closer to his destiny.
As he got closer he felt different, he could sense that this new land was different.. He quickly looked around and, he could feel the presence of mother nature in this new land.
Fertility he yelled out almost immediately
'Indeed the kingdom of Oba was blessed with a huge deposit of arable land, and a good amount of rainfall which means that they could grow a good number of crops all round the year'.
Wow, he exclaimed.. He had heard a lot of stories about this beautiful kingdom which had a lot of potential to grow any agricultural crop. He had always thought it was too good to be true, until he stepped foot in this beautiful kingdom.
He quickly conducted a simple soil test and the rest was astonishing. The land was extremely fertile.
The next day, he woke up early, said his morning prayer to his chii and headed immediately for the king's palace.
On reaching the king's palace, king Oloye welcomed him with open hands, Ike quickly told him of how he journeyed from the far east in a trace of black gold in his kingdom.
What do you mean by black gold? The king asked him with keen interest.
Well, he continued agriculture is the new black gold, and I have travelled this far to this fertile land to do large scale farming.
You see, a fortune teller instructed me to leave my land and come to a land in which he will show me. A land he said was flowing with milk and honey, here I'm in search of that land.
The king knew his land was fertile but then his people were lazy and they preferred to party and make merriment rather than farm.
After a long deep thought, the king asked Ike how he could help him. Ike told the king he needed a good amount of land for farming.
The king granted his request and gave him fifteen pieces of land near the river.
Not before long Ike started farming on the land.
He planted maize, rice, cassava and palm trees on the farm.
While the people partied and danced all day, Ike would be tilling the soil and watering his plants. The people referred to him as a stupid stranger who was wasting his time tilling the soil.
In due time the gods smiled on Ike and he had a bumper harvest.
He quickly sold off his farm produce and bought more lands, agricultural implement and continued farming.
Within a space of five years, Ike single handedly became the richest man in the whole kingdom.
He acquired more farm lands, and he started exporting agricultural product to the other villages around.
Within a space of ten years he became so prominent, he took a chieftaincy title and married the second daughter of the king.
indeed fortune had smiled on him on a foreign land.