The Nobel prize-winner brilliantly wrote this evergreen memoir with the pen of a prolific writer and erudite dramatist as he momentarily dragged his readers to some of his best-kept secrets.
Soyinka clearly explained how Uncle Bola Ige’s fluency in the Hausa language miraculously saved the duo from a painful death in the hands of drunk ‘Kill and go’ soldiers after the 1966 coup in Ikoyi Lagos.
Papa Kongi also went down the memory lane of his personal grudges with former President Olusegun Obasanjo which dated back as far as 1965.
This memoir may not appeal to readers with visceral revulsion for grammatical complexity associated with Soyinka’s writings but I recommend this book for you to understand some of Kongi’s personal struggles for human liberty and justice.
As WS always says: “Justice is the first condition of humanity.”
What really inspired Soyinka as a certified Olori Kunkun(stubborn person)to be combing every nook and cranny of the entire universe for Ori Olokun(Bronze head of the sea god)? This dangerous but thankless journey took him and Olabiyi Yai(Yoruba scholar from the Benin Republic) to Bahia village in Brazil, Dakar in Senegal and London in England, and then back to Nigeria.
The controversy attached to Ori Olokun started with that German archaeologist, Leo Frobenius who accidentally dug up the original Ori Olokun bronze in Ile-Ife during the colonial era. To cut the long story short, the British colonial officer in Lagos seized the Ori-Olokun from Frobenius and unlawfully packaged it to British Museum in London.
Ori Olokun is the logo of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.
Yai ignorantly misled Soyinka that Pierre Verger, a respected ethnologist once confessed to him that the original Ori Olokun, stolen from Ile-Ife was in the studio of a Brazilian architect known as Carybe in a town known as Bahia in Brazil. At the end of the day, it was a fake Ori-Olokun disguised as the real one in Carybe’s studio.
Obasanjo was the Head of State when Soyinka traveled to Brazil with Yai in search of Ori Olokun. Soyinka could not trust Obasanjo not to betray him to the Brazilian police force to arrest him.
Pierre was a lecturer/researcher then at the University of Ife and the university authority deliberately delayed his travel back to Brazil not to disturb the Soyinka-Yai espionage trip to retrieve the missing Ori Olokun.
Soyinka was so obsessed with Ori Olokun as he attempted to burgle into the house of the alleged illegal buyer in Brazil on one fateful night. He even tried to befriend one pretty Senegalese lady working at the British Museum in London in order to get hold of the original Ori Olokun bronze. The trick worked at last for WS.
At last Soyinka and Yai were invited into Architect Carybe’s studio in Bahia, Brazil. They all ate good food and enjoyed nice wine together. Carybe took his two ‘Olori Kunkun’ guests round his studio located in his apartment and Yai signaled to Soyinka to see the assumed ‘missing’ authentic Ori-Olokun safely locked up in a glass shelf. Soyinka smartly tricked his host, went upstairs while still inside his apartment, and grabbed the ‘missing’ Ori Olokun, and put the Bronze treasure in his camera bag. Time to escape from Brazil!
Soyinka quickly drafted a telegram for the Nigerian embassy in Brazil to be sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Lagos: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, BUT INCONCLUSIVE. STOPOVER IN DAKAR TO PURSUE INQUIRIES.
When Soyinka and Yai arrived in Dakar, Cheik Anta, Senagalese archaeologist cum historian tested the retrieved Ori Olokun and dropped the bombshell…”This is a fake Ori-Olokun and not the original one.” It all boiled down to total wasted efforts for both Soyinka and Yai.
As they both checked the Ori Olokun(made of hardened clay, not Bronze), they saw an inscription of ‘BM’ at the dark corner which means British Museum. BM produced ‘look-alike’ Ori Olokuns for sale!
Soyinka returned to Nigeria with sadness to explain his frustrations in search of original Ori Olokun to his trusted friend, Professor Ojetunji Aboyade who often acted as ‘peacemaker’ between him and Obasanjo.
Aboyade appealed to Soyinka to accompany him to Dodan Barracks to explain his trip to Brazil to Obasanjo.
Soyinka refused to meet ‘Dodan Devil’ as he jokingly called Obasanjo but at last, Aboyade ‘forced’ him to meet Obasanjo.
Obasanjo apologized for the whole fiasco and quickly said :
“Look, Wole, if I wanted to get rid of you, I would put you against the wall and shoot you. But I could never send you to a strange country to be killed or injured. I would never send a fellow Nigerian to another country to be killed. I could never do that. It is against my soldiering training.”
Pierre was wrongly kicked out of Ife University after police interrogation and he returned to Brazil and promised never to visit Nigeria again over this wrong allegation of Ori Olokun theft.
Soyinka regretted the maltreatment of Pierre and tried all means to apologize. He tried to invite him back to Ife University through the foreign affairs ministry during Shagari civilian regime but he was denied visa many times because he was on the forbidden list.
Soyinka traveled many times to Brazil to meet Pierre in order to set the record straight but he avoided WS like a plague.
Pierre died some years ago without making peace with WS.
Soyinka philosophically declared: “Reconciliation with that misused scholar was one that I truly craved for, but appeasement must now be delayed until our reunion under the generous canopy of Orunmila.”
To Be Continued… Happy 89th birthday, Baami Oluwole Oguntoyinbo Akinwande Soyinka.
(Partial Book Review) by Dare Lasisi.