Abiku is a word in Yoruba

Yoruba language

Yorùbá is a Niger–Congo language spoken in West Africa by approximately 20 million speakers. The native tongue of the Yoruba people, it is spoken, among other languages, in Nigeria, Benin, and Togo and in communities in other parts of Africa, Europe and the Americas...

. The word is derived from Yoruba: (abiku) "predestined to death", which is from (abi) "that which possesses" and (iku) "death". Abiku refers to the spirits of children who die before reaching puberty; a child who dies before twelve years of age being called an Abiku, and the spirit, or spirits, who caused the death being also called Abiku.

Ben Okri's

Ben Okri

Ben Okri OBE FRSL is a Nigerian poet and novelist. Okri has become the leading figure of his generation of Nigerian writers who have largely abandoned the social and historical themes of Chinua Achebe, and brought together modernist narrative strategies and Nigerian oral and literary...

 novel The Famished Road

The Famished Road

The Famished Road is the Booker Prize-winning novel written by Nigerian author Ben Okri. The novel, published in 1991, follows Azaro, an abiku or spirit child, living in an unnamed most likely Nigerian city. The novel employs a unique narrative style incorporating the spirit world with the "real"...

is based upon an abiku. Debo Kotun's novel Abiku, a political satire of the Nigerian military oligarchy, is based upon an abiku. Gerald Brom's

Gerald Brom

Gerald Brom is an American gothic fantasy artist and illustrator, known for his work in role-playing games, novels, and comics.-Early life:Brom was born March 9, 1965, in Albany, Georgia. As the son of a U.S...

 illustrated novel, The Plucker

The Plucker

The Plucker is a 160 page novel both written and illustrated by Brom. There are three parts to the story, in 22 chapters, and over 100 illustrations in full color....

, depicts a child's toys fighting against an abiku.