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Nairaland Forum / Nairaland / General / Politics / Pendulum: A Drive Through The Forests Of A Thousand Daemons – @delemomodu (565 Views)
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Pendulum: A Drive Through The Forests Of A Thousand Daemons – @delemomodu by Abbeyunique2(m): 10:20am On Apr 02, 2016 |
Fellow Nigerians, I’m not sure how many of you
know or remember the famous Yoruba novelist,
Daniel Oroleye Fagunwa. If you’re Yoruba, and
attended school when education was still well-
rounded, you are likely to be quite familiar with
that mystical author of epic literature and
magical reality. Who has not read or heard of
the rambunctious narration and gripping
description in Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo Irunmole,
translated many years later by the master
prose-stylist and certainly the greatest
brutaliser of English language on earth, Wole
Soyinka, as the ‘Brave Hunter in the Forest of a
Thousand Daemons’.
Though fictional, this forest actually exists in
the imagination and full consciousness of
Fagunwa’s kinsmen. Before the coming and
arrival of Nollywood, Fagunwa had painted a
vivid picture of the ubiquitous spirits that
parade those movies we all love to watch. Igbo
Irunmole or Oke Lamgbodo is truly situated
somewhere in a border town between Ondo and
Osun States, in the South West of Nigeria. If
Nigeria was truly serious about tourism, Oke-
Igbo would have become a destination of
choice for tourists. The novels of Fagunwa
would have been hyped even beyond the level
of ‘100 Years of Solitude’ by Gabriel Garcia
Marquez, and read globally with relish.
Anyway, the long and short of my preamble is
that I drove through Ondo State yesterday and I
could not but remember Fagunwa, whose
personal life trajectory was as mysterious and
superstitious as the characters he portrayed in
his novels. At the time of his death, he was
said to have disappeared while stretching his
legs during a break from a long journey. His
body has never been found.
Thus I’m endlessly fascinated by Ondo State. I
researched and wrote one of my biggest covers
on Fagunwa during my stint as staff writer at
the then African Concord in 1988. I bought and
read most of Fagunwa’s works mainly Ogboju
Ode Ninu Igbo Irunmole, Aditu Olodumare, Igbo
Eledumare, Irinkerindo Ninu Igbo Elegbeje and
Ireke Onibudo. All these works flooded my
memories as we drove through Ondo State
yesterday on the way to our final destination.
I had landed in Lagos from London a few
minutes past 5.00am yesterday morning in the
company of two friends. Mercifully our luggage
came out promptly and we were elated. That
was just the beginning of our journey, Prince
Damola Aderemi, Senator Tokunbo Afikuyomi
and I drove towards Ikeja GRA. While Tokunbo
excused himself, the Prince of Ile-Ife and I
chose to travel on a long-winding journey to
Kabba in the North Central Kogi State. What
should have been a pleasurable adventure soon
became a misadventure. Wow, my God, we
started seeing samples of what to expect from
Maryland Lagos where the queues for petrol
had led to some horrendous traffic conundrum.
The confusion and chaos brought to mind the
great challenges faced by the Change agent,
Minister for Petroleum Resources and President
of Nigeria, General Muhammadu Buhari and his
able Minister of State and Group Managing
Director of NNPC, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, in forging a
new progressive path for our petroleum
industry. We managed to navigate our way
through that and drove towards Lagos-Ibadan
Expressway which sadly was far from being the
fast highway it was designed to be. We
meandered through that frustrating traffic and
snaked our way slowly trying to dodge gaping
potholes and gullies.
Our journey past the Lagos Ibadan Expressway
and into Oyo and Osun States was uneventful.
We stopped by Oduduwa University Ile-Ife,
founded by Dr Ramon Adedoyin to meet up
briefly with our friend, Mr Yomi Adenuga.
We then had the choice of which direction to
take to get to Kogi State. It turned out that we
took the longer route but it was an eye opener
for several reasons.
Our next challenge was how to refill our tanks
intermittently. We saw mostly empty stations,
over-congested ones and we came eyeball to
eyeball with the cruelest of Shylocks who
brazenly and boldly tuned and kept their meters
at N200 per litre. It was so incredible. At a
stage we decided enough was more than
enough and I came down to engage some
petrol attendants at a particularly notorious
station near Akure. First I used my smartphone
to take pictures. Thereafter, I sought out the
manager who had become incommunicado by
hiding after I couldn’t succeed in persuading his
guys about reducing the atrocious pricing. The
manager eventually appeared but denied
himself the way Peter denied Jesus. I played a
fast one on him by saying his folks had pointed
him out to me and he then owned up. I told him
I was ready to phone Abuja and get the place
shut. Shaking like jelly, he quickly called the
owner of the place.
Trust me, we were very patient. The director
begged me to take it easy with him. He reeled
out details of all the esoteric process he had to
go through to get his allocation and I actually
pitied him. I’m practical enough to know the
Nigerian system can’t and won’t change
overnight no matter the sermons being
preached by APC operatives. We reached an
agreement that he would reverse the meter to
the normal price and we can then all pretend
that all was well while negotiating individual
rates subject to class and status. I was told
some people were ready to pay N500 per litre.
Well, well, well. That’s my wonderful country, a
land of opportunities overflowing with milk and
honey if you can squeeze or dig deep enough.
Don’t ask me how much we paid eventually. I’m
sure life continued as normal at this particular
filling station as soon as we left.
We drove past Ilara Mokin, home town of
business Titan, Chief Michael Ade Ojo,
Chairman of Elizade Group and founder of the
Elizade University described as one the best
private tertiary institutions in Nigeria. We also
saw the Federal University of Technology, Akure
(FUTA) as we passed. We took the turning
which bypassed the town of Akure. My mind
raced back to the year 1983 and the
conflagration that razed down many properties
and killed some politicians and their supporters
in old historical town. I wished I could drop by
to say hello to the Ondo State Governor, Dr
Olusegun Mimiko and his hospitable wife Yeye
Olukemi Mimiko, to chitchat about politics and
the state of the nation. Despite our heated
disagreement over his crossing over to PDP, we
have remained friends and I actually love some
of his progressive projects, especially his pet
health project.
We moved on towards Owo and it brought back
tears of nostalgia while remembering the
number of times I visited my boss, Chief Akin
Omoboriowo, at Owo Prison during the first
coming of Major General Muhammadu Buhari.
Politicians were hauled into detention and it
was a period total confusion. I was barely 23
then but gained immense experience and
exposure. We drove towards the Akoko axis and
noted Akungba, the hometown of late Ondo
State Governor, Chief Adebayo Adefarati, that
immortalized the name of Chief Adekunle Ajasin
with a State University. We saw the picturesque
hills of Ikare-Akoko but sadly the Federal roads
were in sordid states of disrepair. Only if these
roads were good, internal tourism would have
been a regular pastime like it is in the United
States. Shame!
Of course, we drove through Oyin Akoko and I
remembered the former Inspector General of
Police, Sunday Ehindero and his younger
brother, my mentor, Professor Sunday Ehindero
and their niece Bose Ehindero who have
ancestral links to the place. We soon crossed
backed into Ekiti State via Omuo Here the road
was beautiful and it was like Eldorado as we
saw firsthand the salutary work on road
rehabilitation and construction carried out by Dr
Kayode Fayemi as Governor of Ondo State.
However, our excitement was short-lived as we
curved into Kogi State. The roads degenerated
into more of the same bad stuff that we had
witnessed earlier. What struck me though, was
how people built beautiful mansions in run down
towns and villages, what I love to call living in
expensive ghettos.
The road towards Kabba nearly dismantled the
bolts of my body. I even pitied the convoy of
cars we rode in as they slapped their tummies
on stony slabs after giant boulders. When the
road seemed endless, we saw the first sign that
we were entering Kabba. We had come all the
way from Lagos for the funeral of our friend,
Ralph Lewu’s mum, Deaconess Veronica
Ebunoluwa Lewu. At the time we left Lagos, the
Virgin Atlantic plane that brought us had not
yet boarded its return passengers to London
Heathrow. We had said Bon voyage to Princess
Kemi Aderemi, my friend’s wife, who was on the
flight to London. You won’t believe she landed
long before we arrived Kabba was even already
approaching their home in Milton Keynes before
we got to Kabba. By the time we eventually got
to Kabba at dusk, the whole formal event was
over. Happily, it was not all labor lost as Raph
had a night party afterwards in his country
home where we were able to relax after such
an arduous journey.
I want to just show you the suffering we have
to endure as Nigerians and say I do not envy
our President. Where will President Buhari and
his team indeed start from? The cross is very
heavy. |
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