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Ekpenyong agreed. ‘In Nigeria, if you are not a thief, you are nowhere.'

I thought he was criticising corruption, but I was wrong. ‘I liked Babangida
very
much,' he said, referring to the former military dictator. ‘When the national debt was
10 billion, Babangida was worth
33 billion.' Ekpenyong's eyes flashed with approval.

‘But that money should have gone to the rest of the country,' I said incredulously. ‘Aren't you angry about that?'

He shook his head. ‘I would do
exactly
the same,' he smiled. ‘If you go to government and come back with nothing, your people will think you have not used your head
wisely
.'

The former state governor, Donald Duke, came from Creek Town but, judging by its state of decay, he hadn't used his head ‘wisely' here. It was a listless place, a rural, goat-strewn backwater, where people made palm wine and counted the hours on their porches. Despite the village atmosphere, it was officially a town, and most houses were made of cement rather than the traditional adobe and thatch. The green lawns fronting each house gave one of the few indications that this was one of the first areas to make contact with the British.

In the tall-grassed cemetery, the headstones of English missionaries who worked in Creek Town from the eighteenth century
sprouted at forlorn angles. Their old Presbyterian Church, one of the oldest in Nigeria, had retained its original wooden pews, pulpit and organ, which had been gathering dust in the choir gallery since 1850. The church creaked with a pre-evangelical quaintness.

Back outside, Ekpenyong introduced me to a young relative of his, Benson, a good-looking twenty-two-year-old with a dark angular face disfigured by knife wound scars. Despite not having a university degree, his English was as good as any graduate, and he seemed innately overqualified to be a hotel housekeeper, the job he was hunting for. Benson had done this sort of work in Abuja and Calabar, but quit after an African American tourist falsely promised him employment in the US.

‘He said he would get me work in Atlanta,' Benson said. ‘He gave me his telephone number and said I should call him. But I never heard from him again. It's not easy to find a new job in Nigeria. If you don't have godfather
²
you cannot move.'

As Benson and I sauntered along the sandy path we encountered a masquerade. Over the decades, Nigerians have incorporated masquerades into our Christmas celebrations, with bands of masked dancers parading through the streets, sometimes travelling miles away from their home towns or villages.

The Creek Town masquerades were striking. They had smeared themselves with a mixture of palm oil and charcoal to give their bodies a glossy, jet-black hue from head to toe. Their masks were also black with grotesque human features protruding from an opulent raffia mane. The masks were decorated with monkey skulls and topped with a plume of banana leaves. The jerky crouching movements of the masked men jingled the small bells attached to their raffia miniskirts. It was so scarily compelling, I had to take a photograph.

‘They want money for the photos,' Benson told me. Reluctantly,
I paid the masquerade as well as the other three that we encountered on our way back to the jetty.

Ekpenyong was sitting on his motorcycle by the riverbank, waiting to meet a friend who was arriving on the next boat from Calabar. Another masquerade approached us, standing opposite me and shaking his creepy bells. I looked at him but gave no money. Did I need to? I hadn't taken a photograph, and I'd run out of small change anyway.

Suddenly, the masked spirit moved forward and slapped me firmly, but not too painfully, across my face. I was stunned. He slapped me again, smearing my neck with black oil. Ekpenyong rebuked him in their dialect and instructed me to mount his motorbike. As the engine revved up, the masked thug raised the small cane attached to his belt and whipped my arm with it. I was still trying to absorb what had happened when I was whipped a second time. Ekpenyong shouted at him again, but the man challenged him with wordless, defiant lunges accompanied by spooky bell-tinkling. To my dismay, Ekpenyong angrily motioned to him,
dared
him, to attack me once more.

‘Let's just go!' I screamed, tapping Ekpenyong's back. The masked man took up Ekpenyong's challenge and flinched forwards. ‘Oh God, please, let's
go
!' I begged. Quickly, a young man grabbed the masquerade and restrained him with an arm lock, allowing Ekpenyong and me finally to ride away.

‘I'm sorry about what happened to you,' an ebony-faced, silver-haired man consoled me. I was sitting in the courtyard of Ekpenyong's house, letting his wife Ekanem wipe the black oil off my face with a cloth. Both she and the man were extremely embarrassed about the incident.

‘It's OK, I'm not angry. I know it's just the one person causing trouble,' I said. ‘Is money part of the masquerade tradition?'

‘No,' the man replied. ‘Things have changed . . . it's the condition of the country.'

Though I don't believe in spirits, masquerades still retain a mildly unsettling power. As a child, the mystique of their masks, their speechlessness and obscured eyes scared me. Now, I was all too aware of the flawed, money-grabbing human beings that occasionally stood beneath those costumes; my childhood fears of masquerades were temporarily supplanted by an adult anxiety of a different kind.

‘I have reported him to the local masquerade committee,' Ekpenyong assured me.

Ekanem claimed it was an isolated incident. But Benson later told me he acquired his facial scars after fighting with a masked spirit who had tried to mug two tourists in Calabar on Christmas Day.

After lunch, I strolled with Benson and Ekanem to a bar up the hill. We were joined by Ekpenyong, his American friend Ivor, and an older man called Ekpo, who had just learned about what happened to me.

‘I'm so sorry. Why do these people expect money? They do
nothing
,' he said, before performing a disgusted imitation of the masquerade's bell-tinkling stance. ‘What is
that
?'

‘Those boys are from Akwa Ibom State,' Ekanem emphasised. ‘They are Ibibios, they're not from here.'

The six of us sat down at the bar and sipped soft drinks while making idle chit-chat. Suddenly, the dogs scrambled to their feet and began barking aggressively. The same bellicose masquerade had arrived and was approaching three teenage girls. They ran away from him, half laughing, half whimpering in fear.

‘They want money,' Ivor the American said. ‘They like to target women and girls because it's easier.'

The masquerade sauntered off.

Ivor was an anthropologist doing research on the Efiks' male-only secret society, Ekpe. The society is named after a spirit, for whom the men are said to act as messengers. Traditional Efik society was governed by Ekpe members who – in their role as mediums
of the spirit – were consulted by villagers to settle disputes. The Ekpe society set and enforced the community's laws, disciplined wrongdoers and organised masquerades, which appeared during the funerals of chiefs or on special occasions, such as Christmas. The Ekpe society's power was sacred, and even kings had to abide by it. When the Efik people began trading with the Europeans in Calabar, Ekpe evolved to govern the rules of commerce too. These days, modern government has eclipsed Ekpe's power, but some villagers still defer to it as a last resort. The society is now technically open to women, young people and foreigners – anyone who can pay the initiation fees.

‘I've joined Ekpe too,' Ivor told me.

‘Do they normally allow outsiders to join?'

‘Oh yeah, anyone can join. You have to take part in a secret initiation. But a lot of people don't want to join any more. Some Christians are against it.'

Ivor was fascinated by the durability of Ekpe's cultural influence. ‘Many of the slaves from here were sent to Cuba,' he said. ‘Even today you can still find Ekpe societies over there.'

A short while later, Ivor and I paid a visit to Ekpenyong's elderly father, Muri, at his house close to the jetty. His home was a modest affair with a discernible British influence. Old photos and a framed Certificate of Traditional Chieftaincy hung on the walls. The mantelpiece was a Victoriana-style clutter of figurines, photographs and a 60-centimetre-long model of a royal Efik canoe. This elongated version of a traditional canoe was carpeted and had a roofed enclosure in its centre. Nearby was an old photograph of Muri in his younger days, dressed in traditional garb, sunlight bouncing off his domed skull. The photo was taken during the Isim dance, a dance of regeneration that the children of royalty perform when the
obong
(king) dies.

‘Ekpenyong didn't tell me he was royalty!' I remarked.

‘He's like that,' Ivor grinned. ‘He won't tell you these things.'

Muri's full title was His Royal Highness Muri Cobham. Like many Efiks, his ancestors had adopted an English surname.

‘Can you tell me about Creek Town's history?' I asked Benson. He chuckled and looked down at the floor.

‘What?'

‘I know very little Creek Town history,' he explained. ‘I know more about the outside.' In this post-oral Information Age, people's knowledge tended to be skewed towards modern federal history or Western history.

It was left to Muri to give me the facts. At eighty-three, he spoke extremely slowly, much like my paternal grandfather. Between questions, his rheumy eyes stared into the distance.

‘There are four villages in Creek Town,' Benson translated for me. ‘Adakuko, Mbarakom, Otong, Efut. Before Christianity, Ekpe was the only government. Then a man called Honesty brought the missionaries here . . .'

Muri, although old and listless, was discernibly bored by this conversation. I changed tack:

‘What was life like when you were young, and how have things changed since?'

The old man livened up immediately. ‘In the old days things were cheap and not difficult. Now,
everything
is a problem or struggle. The masquerade boys are a problem. Ekpe used to run Creek society. But the government has divided us into many local authorities. Each one is governed by a clan. This can cause problems because the head of one clan cannot intervene in the problems of another. Sometimes there is a lack of unity in decision-making. If God wants to put an end to this system then let him come. We are tired.' He wiped his face resignedly.

‘If you are against the law of Ekpe you have to pay a penalty,' Muri continued. The Ekpe secret society still had its uses, even though it has been relegated to a ceremonial role. Infighting clans still call upon it as a last resort to mediate in disputes. But for the
most part, the authority of Ekpe and elderly folks has been corroded by modern government, especially in relation to the more quotidian aspects of Creek Town life.

‘Sunday used to be a rest day,' Muri said. ‘You were not allowed to play traditional drums. But now it happens. If the elders challenge it, the youngsters defy you. Government is in the young man's hands. It is no longer in the old man's hands.'

A man of Muri's age must have digested all these social changes with difficulty. Mounted on his wall was a black-and-white photo of a female relative who had been fattened for marriage.

‘People used to spend Christmas here,' Benson's grandmother informed me, scratching her short shock of white hair. ‘Now they spend it in Calabar. They like the carnival and Christmas Village. Our market used to be so big. Look at it now. Only a few small things they are selling. Everybody wants to go to Calabar Market.'

Creek Town still clings to a few old traditions. People still bang the
nkong
, a metal instrument, to send messages from village to village; a bell is still rung to announce deaths, and the old cannon is fired during regattas, festivals, coronations and for royal deaths. But these were minor stitches in an unravelling tapestry.