If you were standing facing it from the east, the clock imagined that the time was 4:45PM. From the west, 3:25PM, and looking directly at it on that road leading from "Main Gate," it had been 7 O' Clock for many years.
It heralded the entrance to Alexandria's cousin, situated in the heart of that significant
remnant of the ancient empire of Oyo, Ibadan. To hear some tell it, it was not actually located at the heart, but near an artery of sorts that did, indeed, lead to the heart. Be that as it
may, the University of Ibadan's place in history is uncontested.
It was, and remains, a tribute to African consciousness and is, perhaps, the primary reason Nigeria enjoys the status it does today.
We will recall, will we not? That where the clock told us that the time was 3:25PM, if, that is, we are to be certain that the bearings of the compass were correct, sat a quiet drinkard
named Emmanuel Ogga.
Ogga, now that was a likeable fellow, when he was in a good mood. Like the rest of the denizens of the Ibadan's stage art department, he could often be witnessed in communion with the gods, his voice reverberating with that twinge of Shakespeare and Ola Rotimi; of ancient Greeks and modern Calabar people. Actually, he wasn't Calabar, to be sure. But with a name like Ogga, he was certainly from somewhere with many rivers, fish, kolanuts and breadfruit.
It is not that Ibadan did not have these, but it was known more, then, for cowrie shells and babalawos who sat in shrines and shouted "Ewo! Ko buru!" everytime they threw the shells
up and they landed in some formation. There were about a million of these, formations, but each time the babalawo's reaction was the same.
As were the instructions that came thenceforth; produce several agric chickens, as they were known then, those plumped up for the specific purpose of feeding babalawos. Produce several spices, a couple of yams, and if the babalawo was not the most affluent of sorts, a pot
and some firewood. I don't particularly have the most accurate translation of the term "Ewo!" at hand, but let us spend some time understanding exactly in what context it held sway.
Now, yes, I know what you are thinking. Due to the insistence of the Bini god Osanobua!, you perceive the babalawo's "Ewo!" to be similar to the Igbo/Bini-like exclamation "Ewo!." Odua's "Ewo!" is pronounced "ay-whhho!" and the Igbo/Bini-like exclamation, "ay-whoa!" This settled, we must further infer that the Odua "Ewo!" is often promulgated in reaction to an act of, well, provocation by a recalcitrant evil spirit.
The Igbo/Bini "Ewo!" is more likely to be the reaction to an incredulous occurence, such as the theft of genitals and breasts, or the publication of Abacha's bank statements. Ogga, he was no such babalawo. I don't think he'd have qualified. For one thing, he didn't carry cowrie shells. But his voice traveled across space and time whenever he spoke; of arts and
sciences, and of the incredible opportunity we of this generation of Nigerians had been given to be in the same category of the Alexandrians.
We will recall, will we not, that Alexandria, in Egypt, produced some of those mysteries which today are at the core of what is often spuriously suggested to be "modernity?" If it wasn't at
Alexandria that mathematics was fine-tuned, then it was there that astrology gained its pre-eminence. And, if this should not be the case, that the stars did not commune with the Alexandria intellectual elite, then we must take solace in the fact that weights and measures were a standard portion of the lexicon of Alexandrian intellectual discourse. Certainly. Or something in that regard.
I was a young fellow then, sitting on the grass next to Ogga and his mentor, one Dr. Nwafor of his own similar repute. Nwafor and some of his peers, Ifa warriors, freedom fighters, you know the sorts that Ibadan produced in those heady days of independence gained (from independence sought), often told me and the other children that we had been charged with the magnificent responsibility of standing upon their shoulders. Of attempting to better what it was they had achieved. And they had, make not mistake about it, achieved much.
For one thing, when Mr. Luggard arrived with his overwhelming battalion of European intellectuals, Ogga and Nwafor were considered "children." A naive appreciation, no? of what a western appraisal might deem the child-like qualities of a now very non-chimerical African thought paradigm? Condescending? Initially, but soon, Balewa, and his cousin, Nnamdi, they
made, to quote one humorous Arewa historian, a "meat mince" of Lugard's position.
But Lugard, he came with a strange sort of powder. It wasn't anthrax. And when provoked,
it exploded and made a large noise. Not unlike Ogunabali or Amadioha would, under the requisite circumstances. As was then the case, as it remains today, after the noise, many people would be lying on the floor and refuse to stand up in this world again.
This god that Lugard brought with him was not British, we must remember, but even so, it was powerful. So if he was to suggest, with his demeanor, that the Africans he met were child-like, and for whatever reasons he could do so, not many would have been eager to challenge his assertion. Until, of course, he had left and taken with him the noise-maker that left so many in eternal sleep.
And so it was, that Balewa, and Nnamdi, and that strange fellow Obafemi, they were able to circumvent the insistence of Lugard's god, and begin that conversation that is a reflection of
traditional African society in conflict with an appreciation of modern global culture, as it is today called. And so, to imagine that Nwafor and Ogga thought that we, there in Ibadan, could ascend to the heights that they had, in relieving our communion of Luggard's particularity,
to such the extent that we could have, in our stratosphere of existence, the intellectual elite of Alexandria as our discourse mates of sorts, well, that seemed a tall order.
And a tall order it was. For, it was unspoken, but eerily perceivable, that in Ibadan, at that time, we did not appreciate exactly what it took to be as unto to Alexandria. Why should we, many asked, look to Alexandria for inspiration? The answer eluded many, which is why it was most
confounding, to me indeed, that such being the case we would then choose Oxford, and its astounding ambassador (that Hugh Trevor-Roper fellow), as our model of existence. And this was why, I was to discover, Ogga and his folks spent as much time as they did in communion with the gods.
Enter Gbenga Aluko.
"Afrika freak, pepsi cola freak freak, oye, Onoriode." As you will recall, will you not? this was the song that preceded the now infamous University of Ibadan Puppet Show. The words are inaccurate, but if you say them fast enough, they sound like the theme song. The University of Ibadan Puppet Show showcased such puppets as "Dagga the evil eye" and others.
Back then we the children delighted in the puppet show, laughing heartily at the antics of Dagga the evil eye and his cohorts. And the University of Ibadan stage arts department
laughed with us. They enjoyed the fact that we appreciated what benevolence in art the gods had blessed us with. But did they appreciate what benevolence in art the gods had blessed us with?
And why shall I suggest this question? Because, at the same time as we loved watching the puppet show, there existed another show called Sesame Street. Sesame street, why, they used things called Muppets. To be sure,the Muppet is slightly more sophisticated than the puppet.
Even if it has to acquiesce to being pulled by strings, it still manages such the level of independence as suggested by the mind of the artist that, and most amazingly, it seems alive!
Dagga the evil eye, well, we knew he was a pillow stuffed with wool and painted black.
This was a puppet! Not a Muppet. A Muppet, why, a Muppet had some independence. Some independence. And, viewed through the eyes of us who were the witnesses of the gods, the Muppet had something called thought! Thought. It had Thought.
If we think about it long enough, we will see that the Muppet was more intelligent, more indigenous, than the puppet. For a Muppet was a puppet, as history lives the gods, but the Muppet was in communion with its ancestry, as the puppet is in communion with generic insistencies.
But for years, while we had a puppet show, we had nothing to counter Sesame Street and its batch of Muppets! Nothing! But I didn't know, then, what this meant, until that era, when I met Gbenga Aluko.
I once had an economics teacher named 'laja. Laja could quote and unquote until your eyes turned inwards. We, in OUR childish foolishness, sometimes had jokes about 'laja's ways, but having gone through history, it is hard to imagine anyone of us "youth" not respecting the fellow or what he stood for. His depth of analysis was a certain indication that, and if we wanted it, Ibadan in its existence could lay claim to a brother/sisterhood with Alexandria, and not Oxford.
So, when I met Gbenga Aluko, that night on the Island of Oduduwa reconciliation, that is found somewhere near the constellation of is and isn't, and he told me that he was a friend of someone
who, to me, looked remarkably like 'laja, I was ecstatic. For many years, as Ogga and Nwafor and the Ifa warriors and the stupendous polyglots confided in me that the Alexandrian dream of communion was fading if we didn't act decisively, I had come to imagine that perhaps, in fact, Dagga the evil eye would win the battle of the African arts. That our manifestations of arts, the expressions of our spirit, would be Visible only through puppets and not, at the very
least, Muppets-but in context, of course. In context, of course.
So when I met Gbenga Aluko that evening, as Obafemi and Nnamdi continued arguing against the light of distant galaxies, suggesting that they BOTH were fighting for the same thing, I, well, felt, well, happy.
For Gbenga Aluko, he is not, as his friends have sometimes suggested, a "small boy." Admiringly watching Dagga the evil eye, he is not. "Do you know thought?" I asked him. He laughed so heartily that I was embarrassed. "Do you know African truth?" I further asked.
He seemed to keep silent, in the face of this tyranny of mine. I showed him my badge. It said: "Ganja Ekeh, Sesame Street." He showed me his. "Gbenja Aluko, Sesame Street." We both laughed and laughed and laughed.
Finally, we both knew, freedom had come from the source. For history can not be toyed with. It is what is real, and we will, as I have told you many times, be what we effectively have
been.
It was many light years since that meeting that I was to see Gbenga Aluko again. He was dressed in a robe that had many titles. The least of these was "senator." I don't know what that means to the Ibadanites or Alexandrians, but it seems to be something that confers a degree of historical responsibility upon a person.
Need I remind you, we don't take this lightly, but in the least. But in the least.
We do, but not so, understand? I waved a greeting to him and he acknowledged me. When his voice got to me it said, "the reality is different from the ideal." That is, he said that there is
a difference between thought and manifestation of the thought. He was sitting answering questions, the microphone had "United States Department of Defense" written all over it, as though we wouldn't know. And there he was. "Gbenga Aluko, Sesame Street."
But it looked all wrong. People said that he was too old to know Sesame Street. They kept saying to him, the people, that he was indeed of the University of Ibadan Puppet Show. And he kept answering that it was not so, but it was so. The conflict between African traditionalism and modernity. How can we look to Sesame Street for answers? Must we not be independent? And the gods wept. Because our people espoused that "Dagga the evil eye" was a symbol of independence. And they wept and wept and wept.
And Gbenga Aluko, even as his badge said "Gbenga Aluko, Sesame Street," continued to
suggest that he was of the University of Ibadan Puppet Show. Because he could not challenge what seemed true; that he had learned from Alexandria. That he grew up in Sesame Street And, in fact, remained a child of Oduduwa, through and through.
Over the next few weeks and months and years, people could not stop talking about it. Gbenga Aluko, Sesame Street or University of Ibadan Puppet Show? The paradox remains, and just as controversial I imagine, but as I walked away in that silence of one who sees, I heard Ogga whisper, "pssst! Don't you understand? This could be the scoop. This could be the one. How Gbenga Aluko underdeveloped Africa!" I smiled wearily because I understood what he
was saying. We were very happy, but we were very sad. The time was 3:25PM.
Guides
