Michael Obi

Author's note: I am writing this to retell on Dead mans path by Chinua Achebe.
 

The ceremonial path of the dead and yet to come must never be closed or the Ancestors shall not be pleased. Micheal Obi found that out the hard way when he closed down the villages ancestral path because it went through the school and he didn’t want it there. Micheal Obi got his dream job when he became principal of Ndume Central School. Micheal worked his hardest to make the school perfect and modern. He thought it was perfect until he saw a old lady walk through the gardens of the school with no regard for it. Soon after he learned that it was a ceremonial path that connected the village to the graveyard and the village shrine, which the school had tried to shut down before, he shut it down saying it was a insult to the school. When the villagers had told him to take down the gates he wouldn’t. Even when Ani, the village priest, told him to reopen it he still said no, he would not have it defiling “his” school. Well he learned the hard way that he should always respect traditions. Two days after the priest’s visit a mother died during childbirth which the villagers thought was a sign from their ancestors to tear down the school. The next morning Micheal Obi woke up to find that the school was destroyed and the path was reopened. The next day after that a representative came to check on the school and said that there was a “Tribal-war situation developing between the school and the village, arising in part from the misguided zeal of the new headmaster.”