Opinion
Titanic’s crash and anger of Olokun, the Sea goddess | By Festus Adedayo
The world is in a mourning mood. After a fruitless five-day search for a missing deep-sea submersible vessel with five passengers on board, its wreckage was eventually found last Thursday. The five occupants on board were killed in the process. The search had been spearheaded by a robotic diving vehicle deployed from a Canadian ship. The five were on a voyage to see the century-old wreckage of the famous Titanic by the time this catastrophic implosion occurred.
The robotic vehicle had found the debris of the submersible Titan on the seabed, “some 1,600 feet (488 meters) from the bow of the Titanic,” reported Reuters. Named the Titan and operated by OceanGate Expeditions, a U.S.-based company, its passengers included the company’s founder and chief executive officer, Stockton Rush who also doubled as pilot of the Titan; British billionaire and explorer, Hamish Harding; Pakistani-born businessman, Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman, as well as French oceanographer and famous Titanic expert, Paul-Henri Nargeolet. They had gone on the adventurous undersea expedition at the cost of $250,000 to each of the passengers.
The original British passenger liner named the Titanic, which its moulders claimed was unsinkable, had sunk on April 15, 1912, 111 years ago. It had collided with an iceberg. After several unsuccessful years of efforts to discover the wreckage, 73 years after, in 1985, a joint French-American expedition eventually found it out. Salvage operations to recover items in the Titanic which is said to lie in the ocean at a depth of about 12,500 feet on the coast of Newfoundland, have resulted in thousands of items found and now conserved by being put on public display. The bodies of the passengers could however not be recovered. A total of 2,208 passengers had sailed in the early morning of that day, on its maiden voyage from Southampton, England to New York City. Out of them, 1,503 died.
The crash of the deep-sea submersible vessel has provoked some interests and comments. One of such was a piece entitled The Titan disaster shows the effect of human hubris in the deep sea written by Karen Attiah, a columnist with The Washington Post. In it, she drew an inference of a probable anger of the Yoruba goddess of the ocean, Olokun as cause of the disaster. This connect was further reinforced when renowned Hollywood director and Titanic researcher, James Cameron, told the BBC in an interview that there was a definite link between the tragic crash of the two Titans as well as similarities in the crashes’ circumstances. Cameron, a submersible designer, had directed the Oscar-winning blockbuster Titanic. He had said: “I’m struck by the similarity of the Titanic disaster itself, where the captain was repeatedly warned about ice ahead of his ship, and yet, he steamed up full speed into an ice field on a moonless night. And many people died as a result and for us very similar tragedy where warnings went unheeded to take place at the same exact site.”
Samuel Johnson, the iconic Yoruba historian, in telling the story of the dreaded Bashorun Gaa of the Old Oyo Empire, unknowingly explained the Atlantic economy of centuries ago among the Yoruba. In his narration, Johnson drew a link between the river goddess, Olokun and ancient Yoruba cowries, the only legal tender of transaction that began in the 16th century. As Prime Minister of Old Oyo from 1754–1774 circa, Gaa, according to Johnson, once requested his babalawo to make charms that would enable him acquire “plenty of cowries.” He had complained to them that, in spite of his enormous powers and wealth, he had little cowries to flaunt as symbol of his political power. In reality, this was a manifestation of the competition Gaa faced from other power wielders in the empire, that they might use their financial capacity to undermine his political base. Gaa’s cash crisis was also said to have been worsened by his incorrigible children, who, like the biblical sons of Eli – Hophni and Phinehas – lorded “it all over the country (Old Oyo provinces) (and which) deprived him of the revenues which might have come to him.”
Anyway, these medicine men then gave the Prime Minister ose dudu, a medicinal soap, with which he was to take his bath. They thumped their chests as they asserted that, before sunset, humongous wealth would flood his palace. Unconfirmed reports claimed that the babalawo had secured the soap from the bowel of the Atlantic, specifically from the hands of Olokun. After the bath with the soap, a mysterious fire suddenly engulfed the Gaa compound which burnt virtually all his belongings to the hilt. However, due to the awe and dread of the Prime Minister’s powers, virtually all sectors of the Empire, from the capital to all the innumerable provinces, upon hearing of this destruction, rose in his support. Gaa’s venomous powers were such that, he could incinerate provinces that failed to contribute to the rebuilding of his lost assets and compound. Not only did they rebuild the compound, but the gifts Gaa also received in cash and materials were overwhelming. Ultimately, the Prime Minister emerged, like the mythical Phoenix, from the ashes of the disaster richer than he once was. Astounded by the link between his Olokun-given wealth and the disaster, Gaa had asked his babalawo for an explanation. According to Johnson, he had asked, “Is this the way you promised to get me cowries?” and their reply was, “Yes … by what other means could you have amassed such an abundance in so short a time?”
In a journal article written for the Boston University African Studies Centre by Akinwumi Ogundiran, entitled Of small things remembered: Beads, cowries and cultural translations of the Atlantic experience (The International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 35, No. 2/3 (2002), pp. 427-457) the author told the story of how Benin oral traditional history also speaks to the intervention of the Olokun in the prosperity recorded during the reign of Oba Eresoyen. He ruled from 1735 to 1737. By the way, Olokun, in Yoruba-Edo belief, was not only revered as the deity of the ocean, she was also known as goddess of wealth. Eresoyen’s cowry boom was said to have occurred when he made a peace pact with the Olokun. Palace remembrancers speak of how Oba Eresoyen initially engaged in an unending tiff with Olokun by using his spiritual powers to close tributaries in his kingdom which denied Olokun access to her waters. A palm wine tapper then mediated between Eresoyen and the Olokun which resulted in the restoration of water to the goddess. In appreciation, Olokun made a pact with Eresoyen that she would requite his restoration of access to her waters with massive wealth. She then heaped mounds of cowries, which were within her territorial grip, in the sky for Eresoyen which his palace courtiers shouldered into the palace in massive quantity.
I gave the two anecdotes above to highlight, not only the fertile beliefs, imaginations and rumours that thrived centuries ago, especially in the Atlantic commerce of the time, but also the dominant perception of the powers of the Atlantic Ocean called Okun and the lord of the ocean.
Attiah had delved into what she called “the Yoruba religious tradition” where “divine spirits known as Orishas (sic) rule over various cosmic forces and elements of nature. There is Shango (sic) the king orisha of thunder and fire; Yemaya (sic) the orisha of the ocean; and Oshun (sic) who rules rivers and lakes” and what she called “a lesser-known orisha, Olokun, who is androgynous and rules the deepest parts of the ocean where light does not penetrate.” Attiah further wrote that “the Olokun is an extremely fearsome and vengeful orisha, upset with humans for not showing proper reverence… (and) chained to the bottom of the ocean so as to restrain (her) from destroying humanity. The pressure of the deep ocean represents the origins of life and threatens gruesome, instant death for humans. It is for all these reasons Olokun is rarely challenged or disturbed, even by the other orishas.” She concluded in this piece that the submersible’s disaster is a reminder to the world that in spite of humanity’s inventions, it cannot dominate the deep, deep sea.
How true is Attiah’s linkage of Olokun to the submersible’s disaster and how dissimilar or similar is this tragedy from centuries-old mythic perception of traditional Africa? This debate about the existence of gods, goddesses and attempts to spiritize disasters like the Titanic of 1912 and last week’s have provoked philosophical debates about the existence of spirits and metaphysical objects. Are spirits real? Are there evil spirits? Is the physical the only real thing? If it isn’t, what then makes Attiah’s explanation for the crash of the Titanic unreal, mythic and fabulous, while we concentrate on what we are only able to cognize?
While the particular configuration of the Olokun is unknown, the Yemoja, another goddess of the river or water deity, is widely iterated in Yoruba folklores. Many claimed to have encountered this fish goddess who also, like the Olokun, resides in the heart of the waters. Indeed, the Yemoja, taken from Yeye Omo Eja – mother of fishes – has devotees who honour her as a source of life, fertility and abundance and built temples for her. Some people even claimed to have encountered her in the depths of rivers with dual features of a fish, complete with fins but with human shoulders and head. She is carved out as the Mother with weeping breasts and venerated for her kindness. Yemoja is also the Queen Mother who lives in the depth of the water – the Ayaba ti ngbe ibu omi. Yemoja shares her maternity renown with three other water goddesses, Osun, Oba and Oya water deities.
Janet Langlois, of the Folklore Institute, Indiana University, citing ethnographer Ellis A. B, retold the Yemoja story that had often been told as folklore in Yorubaland. Ellis had narrated the legend in his 1894-written The Yoruba-speaking Peop1e of the Slave Coast of West Africa. It goes thus: “Oduduwa, the Earth, given birth to by Obatala, who was the Heavens, also gave birth to a son and daughter. The son was named Aganju and he represented dry and barren land. He then married the daughter, Yemoja, who was life-giving water. They both jointly had a son named Orungan, who was the sky between heaven and earth. One sad day when Aganju was far from home, Orungan ravished his mother, Yemoja. She sprang from him and ran quickly, blindly away. He pursued her and was overtaking her and about to touch her when she slipped and fell, striking her head against a stone. The impact sent jets of water gushing up from her huge breasts. These waters joined to form a sweet lagoon. Her huge belly burst open and many Orisas sprang from her.”
Among the Yoruba, water has a powerful force. Waters are sacred sites with presiding spirits which act as intercessors with the ultimate divine. This provides the reason for the worship of the Yemoja in Osun as the river goddess of fertility. She is referred to as the Ajeje, a mother who has herbs in the river with which she takes care of her children and gives them longevity. Devotees say they revere the waters of Osun just as Christianity reveres rivers in its baptism phenomenon and River Jordan in particular for its spirituality. In Africa, many groups don’t go to the rivers on certain days, believing that those were the days the water spirits come out.
From their manifestations, Olokun and Yemoja are different. The differences are in their temperaments and habitation. While Olokun resides in the Atlantic, Yemoja lives in rivers. Yemoja is benign while Olokun, though is mythically perceived as the god of wealth, could also be a jealous woman who can be deadly. In spite of scientific explanations of the Bermuda Triangle, otherwise known as the Devil’s Triangle, traditionalists believe the calamities wrecked by it in the mid-20th century were caused by the Olokun who, in her anger, and in mysterious circumstances, brought about the disappearances of some aircraft and ships. Some meteorological studies have however referred to Olokun and the Bermuda as an urban legend, ascribing the calamities to “diffraction heat patterns (which) give rise to corresponding weather and ocean patterns which, to a large extent, account for the mysteries already noted in the Bermuda region.” The Bermuda is located in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean.
So, could Attiah have been right about the anger of the Olokun as cause of the crash of the two Titanics? Should we be bothered and seek extra-scientific answers to these tragedies so as to guard against them in the future? Attiah buttressed her claim with allusions to what she called the social value of certain perilous journeys. On the social media, many have wondered why such potentially perilous elite fancy should detain the rest of humanity. The world had literally been frozen due to the deaths of these voyagers while thousands of immigrants have perished in the Mediterranean without as much as a whimper from the same world. These were, in the words of Attiah, “migrants who are arguably much braver but have far fewer resources… demonized and left to die, despite the fact that all they want is the opportunity to work, to contribute value, to live.” In the same vein, the west has literally shut its ears from cries of reparations for sunken slave ships which Attiah calls “the true symbols of Europe’s ability to enslave people and exploit nature in faraway lands.”
Brandon Presser, an Op-ed writer with the Post, had joined in affirming the reckless audacity of man in going behind its province to seek to dominate the aquatic province of fishes. “Water is our birthright but also a force of great destruction, holding a record of everything it claims. To visit the depths of the ocean is not an act of arrogance, then, but something quite the opposite: an acknowledgment of our obsolescence. It’s fitting that the desire to blindly careen toward the ocean floor goes hand in hand with our curious obsession with the Titanic. The felled ship, once touted as the world’s greatest, has remained a parable for nature’s power over the mightiest efforts of humankind to assert its dominance over the planet,” he had written.
While the world is shedding tears about the recent Titanic disaster, Attiah has given us thoughts to ponder on. Why is the world obsessed with technological dominance like the Titanic, which “allow(ed) Europe to explore and pillage other countries, wipe out entire peoples and enrich itself by exploiting the Earth’s resources”? The Titanic, she said, “might be a reminder that the deep ocean is the only resource-rich realm on Earth with the power to keep White men from exploiting it.” Is Olokun then that power?
So, is Olokun angry that man is going beyond their earthly borders? Or, in the words of Attiah, “are (there indeed) some realms on Earth that are meant to be mysteries — not to be mastered”? Is humanity suffering from what the Yoruba call agbere, arrogant audacity? Or, is this absolute nonsense, in the words of Austrian philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, who saw anything metaphysical like the link being drawn between the Titanic and an angry sea goddess, as such?
Dr. Adedayo writes from Ibadan
On Monday and Tuesday last week, workers and political operatives within the precincts of the new Senate building in the National Assembly complex, Abuja, were treated to a replica of the Theatre of the Absurd. This type of drama originated in Europe and later spread to America in the 1950s. It was influenced by existential philosophy and Albert Camus’s essay The Myth of Sisyphus.
In that work, Camus captured the fundamental human needs and compared the absurdity of man’s life with the situation a figure of Greek mythology, Sisyphus found himself, where he was condemned to repeat forever the task of pushing a boulder up a mountain, and repeatedly sees the same roll down the hill as he approaches the top.
He, thereafter, juxtaposed life’s absurdities with what he called the “unreasonable silence” of the universe to human needs and concluded that rather than adopt suicide, in frustration, “revolt” was required.
82-year-old Dr. Muhammed Adamu Fika, former Clerk to the National Assembly and former Chairman, of the National Assembly Service Commission (NASC), who calls himself the “smaller Adamu Fika,” must have come across the Camus essay in deciding to lead an emergency meeting of the Council of Retired Clerks and Secretaries of the National Assembly on November 18. The emergency meeting, which was jointly held with members of the Association of Retired Staff of the National Assembly was meant to salvage the pathetic plights of the National Assembly retirees.
Eighty-two-year-old Fika can hardly gather the pace to navigate round the corners of the National Assembly, but he insisted on making the trip to enable him to preside over the meeting as the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Council of Retired Clerks and Secretaries. As his retiree colleagues, many of whom are far younger, saw him struggling to walk the required distance from the Bola Ahmed Tinubu Library, originally fixed as venue to the new Senate building, they had to provide some shoulders to lean on. At one stage, an office chair was converted to a wheelchair to ensure the elderly Fika got to certain locations. It was a sad tale, especially if you look at the essence of Fika’s trip to the National Assembly. He was there to preside over a meeting to press home the need for the payment of the entitlements of National Assembly retirees. An alarm had earlier been sounded on the different Whatsapp platforms of the retired workers of the National Assembly to the effect their members were dying in numbers. It was revealed that no fewer than 20 retired workers had died awaiting the payment of their entitlements in the recent past. Another set of retirees numbering 12 were said to have been bedridden in different hospitals across the land. That alarm was more than enough to prompt Fika and his retiree colleagues to an emergency meeting. But the sight of an elderly man, fighting a just cause on an improvised wheelchair was more than absurd.
Payment of the entitlements got stalled after former President Muhammadu Buhari assented to the National Assembly Service Pensions Board Act, 2023, which mandated the National Pensions Commission (PENCOM) to hand over assets of the staff of the National Assembly in its custody after the passage of the National Assembly pension law.
In the beginning, there were no signs that things would go south on the implementation of the Act. Three months after the National Assembly Service Pensions Board Act came into effect, PENCOM had written the management to convey its decision to hand off the pension assets of the staff of the National Assembly, while requesting the National Assembly management to provide it with account details to remit the accrued funds. The 10th Senate and the House of Representatives also provided hope for the retirees by providing a take-off grant to the tune of N2.5 billion in the 2024 budget. However, the NASS management could not comply with the request from PENCOM because the Pensions Board had not been inaugurated. Months after months, the retirees waited. Those who were already enjoying their benefits when PENCOM was administering had the payments terminated, while the waiting game ensued.
In trying to fast-track the implementation of the Act, Fika, as the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Council of Retired Clerks and Secretaries had forwarded a letter to the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, intimating them of the council’s recommendations for positions in the National Assembly Service Pensions Board.
Fika said in the letter, dated February 27, 2024, that “Considering the pathetic health conditions of our retired colleagues, Your Excellency will agree with me that the establishment of the National Assembly Pensions Board is overdue five (5) months after Mr. President’s assent.” He said that his letter was premised on the provisions of Sections 2 and 17(3) of the National Assembly Service Pensions Board Act, 2023, which indicate that the presiding officers of the National Assembly shall make the appointments subject to recommendations of the Council of Clerks and Secretaries. But some persons are insinuating that the undue delay might have been instigated by two strange bedfellows-politics and money. Where the two are involved, simply things hardly follow a straight course. However, nothing justifies the nearly 20-month delay in inaugurating the Pensions Board.
At the end of the emergency meeting on Monday, further meetings were said to have been scheduled at the instance of the Senate President, Akpabio, his deputy, Jibril Barau and others but there were no conclusive steps, yet.
A communique released after the meeting indicated that the retirees observed that the National Assembly Service Pensions Board Act, 2023 went through full legislative process in the 9th National Assembly and was assented to by President Muhammad Buhari. It further noted that the delay in implementing the Act has caused undue and untold hardship to the retirees who are unable to access their retirement benefits, adding that while a number of the retired Staff have died, many others are bedridden due to sufferings occasioned by the non-payment of their entitlements.
According to the communique, the meeting decried the pains the retired staff have been subjected to and recalled that appropriate recommendations as per the composition of the Pensions Board have been made to the Presiding Officers of the National Assembly, in line with the enabling Act.
Like every lover of Yoruba traditional music, language and culture, I have of recent been inundated with requests to lend a voice to the newest raging fire in the Fuji music genre. Since the passage of Alhaji Sikiru Ayinde Balogun, popularly known as Ayinde Barrister or Agbajelola Barusati, there have been longstanding tiffs on whom of the trio of Ayinde Omogbolahan Anifowose, KWAM 1; self-named King Saheed Osupa (K.S.O.) and Wasiu Alabi Pasuma, was the “King.”
These musicians’ recent quest for supremacy is not new. From time immemorial, supremacy battles have been part and parcel of Yoruba music. Apparently now tempered by modernity, in the olden days, the battles were fought with traditional spells, incantations and talisman aimed at deconstructing and liquidating their rivals. Mostly fought on genre basis, I submit that pre and post-independence entertainment scene would have been livelier, far more robust than it was but for the acrimonious liquidating fights of those eras.
In the Sakara music, Abibu Oluwa, a revered early precursor of this Yoruba musical genre, who reigned in the late 1920s and 1930s, had Salami Alabi Balogun, popularly known as Lefty Salami, Baba Mukaila and Yusuff Olatunji as members of his band. Oluwa praise-sang many Lagos elites of his time, especially Herbert Macaulay to whom he sang his praise in the famous track named “Macaulay Macaulay.” In it, he sang the foremost Nigerian nationalist’s alias of Ejonigboro – Snake on the Street and prayed that he would not come to shame.
Sakara also produced the likes of S. Aka Baba Wahidi, Kelani Yesufu (alias Kelly). It was sung with traditional Yoruba instruments like the solemn-sounding goje violin whose history is traced to the north, and the roundish Sakara drum, beaten with stick and whose appearance is like that of a tambourine. Sakara music is often called the Yoruba variant of western blues music because of its brooding rhythm though laced with a high dosage of philosophy.
When Oluwa died in 1964, he literally handed over to Lefty who, born on October 1913, died December 29, 1981. Lefty, a talking drummer under Oluwa, churned out over 35 records before his demise, one of which was a tribute to Lagos monarch, Oba Adele (Adele l’awa nfe – Oba Adele is the king we want) and another to the Elegushi family. I dwelt considerably on Sakara because it is believed to have had considerable influence on other genres of traditional African Yoruba music, especially Apala and Fuji, with the former sometimes indistinguishable from Sakara.
Apala music, whose exponent is said to be Haruna Ishola, originated in the late 1930s Nigeria. Delivered with musical instruments like a rattle (Sekere) thumb piano, (agidigbo) drums called Iya Ilu and Omele, a bell (agogo) and two or three talking drums, Apala and Sakara are the most complex of these genres of traditional Yoruba music, due to their infusion of philosophy, incantations and dense Yoruba language into their mix. Distinct, older and more difficult in mastery than Fuji music which is considered to be comparatively easy to sing, Ayinla Omowura, Ligali Mukaiba, Kasumu Adio, and many others were Apala leading lights of the time. The three genres have very dense Islamic background.
The latest entrant of all the three genres is Fuji. Pioneered by Ayinde Barrister no doubt, for an Apala musician biographer like me, I am confused that Omowura, as far back as early 1970s, asked listeners in need of good Fuji music to come learn from him – “Fuji t’o dara, e wa ko l’owo egbe wa…” Sorry, I digressed.
While KWAM 1 emerged with his Talazo music from the ashes of his being a music instrument arranger for Barrister’s musical organization in the early 1980s, the feud in the house after Barrister’s death erupted when narratives allegedly oozed unto the musical scene that KWAM 1 referred to himself as the creator of Fuji music. He however promptly denied the claim. For decades, Osupa and Pasuma were locked in horns over supremacy of the Fuji music genre. In August 2023, the two however seemed to have decided to thaw their feud as they shared stage with Wasiu Ayinde, at Ahmad Alawiye Folawiyo, an Islamic singer’s 50th birthday celebration in Lagos. KWAM 1 glibly acted as their senior colleague at the event.
As an indication that they are no bastards of the teething and recurrent supremacy battles that emblemize traditional Yoruba music, the three Fuji music icons seem to have gone into the trenches again. It first started with Taiye Currency, an Ibadan-based alter-ego of Pasuma picking a fight with the musician who self-styled himself Son of Anobi Muhammed’s Wife. In a viral video, Currency had disclaimed reference to Pasuma as his “father” in the music industry. In another video not long after, KWAM 1, like some kind of father figure, was shown asking Currency to apologize to Pasuma.
A few days ago, a video of Osupa went viral. Therein, he was chastising a particular hypocrite he called “Onirikimo” and “alabosi”, who is “stingy and is ready to shamelessly collect money from those under him.” Osupa also claimed that this “shameless elder” had strung a ring of corn round his waist and should be ready to be made fun of by hens. Watchers of the endless tiffs among these Fuji icons swear that KWAM 1 was the unnamed Fuji musician Osupa was casting aspersion on.
The trio of Sakara, Apala and Fuji music also witnessed such petty squabbles. While many claim that the fights were promotional gambits aimed at having their fans salivate for their hate-laced musical attacks against one another, some others claim that the rivalries were genuine. In the Apala music scene, Haruna Ishola and Kasumu Adio fought each other to the nadir, with Adio, who sang almost in the same voice and cadence as Ishola, suddenly vamoosing from the musical scene. Rumours and speculations had it then that a mysterious goat bit Adio and rendered him useless. While Ayinla Omowura also fought Fatai Olowonyo, Fatai Ayilara, among others in the Apala genre, the duo of Yusuff Olatunji and S. Aka also feuded till their last days. This is not to mention the interminable fight between Kollington Ayinla and Barrister.
If the tiff between the trio of KWAM 1, Osupa and Pasuma is about age and Yoruba traditional respect for elders, KWAM 1 would easily go away with the trophy of the best of the three. However, if philosophical depth, musical elan, research of lyrics and deployment of Yoruba language are at issue, none of the other two musicians can unbuckle Osupa’s sandals. Osupa began his musical career in 1983 as a teenager and has gone through the mills, his late father being a musician, too and Awurebe music lord, Dauda Epo Akara’s musical contemporary.
Unlike their predecessors, the three Fuji musicians are literate and should thus address their musical issues in more mature manner. Osupa even recently bagged a degree from the department of Political Science, University of Ibadan. One thing they should know is that, whether one is supreme to the other or not, their fans will readily queue behind the brand that delights them.
Two incidents happened during the 1994/95 NYSC service year, which I was part of in Birnin-Kebbi, Kebbi State, and they gave me profound culture shocks that I still remember till today. I would equally say that those incidents probably justified the Federal Government’s decision to float the scheme.
We were told that part of the reasons General Yakubu Gowon floated the NYSC was to ensure national integration, cohesion and exposure of young Nigerians to cultures of other parts of the country other than where they were born.
First was the shock of seeing a director that I was attached to in the then Government House, who had just taken a new wife, and sat among drivers, gate men and other junior staff to dine. I saw them seated round a huge iron pot of Koko, a local delicacy, exchanging one big spoon made of calabash, as each took turns to use the spoon to eat the delicacy. It was as if I was witnessing a scene where children of a big family were struggling to catch a portion of food or where people were eating Saara, as they say it in Yorubaland.
As I walked past the noisy crowd, I was transfixed seeing the newly-wedded director among the lot. He saw me standing still, as I couldn’t comprehend what he was doing there, and he got the message. ‘Taiyo, (as he used to call me) you won’t understand,’ he said as he waved to me to keep going. When we later saw, he explained that what he just did was a way of assuring the commoners that ‘we are all one,’ as they felicitated him on the new bride. But I could not fathom how the occupant of a ‘huge office’ as that of a director in a Government House , would sit among “commoners” on a tattered mat to share a single spoon and eat in public.
The other incident was quite pathetic. My friend, Tunde Omobuwa, was posted to a school in Yauri, in the southern part of the state, for his primary assignment. But he found the place boring on weekends. So, he arranged to always be with me on weekends.
One such weekend, we decided to take a stroll round the streets near the Government House. We took off from the place of my primary assignment, the Federal Information Centre; bought corn beside the office, and started ‘blowing’ the ‘mouth organ’ as we strolled. We were too engrossed in our gist and the sweetness of the corn to note that some young boys were trailing us, praying that some leftovers of the corn would drop for them to scavenge. Somehow, the two of us dropped the corn cob almost simultaneously. We were more than taken aback by a commotion that erupted at our back. Four eight or nine year-olds had descended on the supposed leftovers and broken the corn cobs into pieces. I was again transfixed as if one was hit by an electric shock. Remember that feeling when you play with electric fish?
I was moved to tears as I had never ever seen a group of children scavenging on nothing as it were. I beckoned to the kids and offered them N20, which was the highest denomination at the time, and with some smattering Hausa words told them to go buy their own corn from the same place we got ours. As they left, heading to the corn seller, I couldn’t erase that ugly sight from my mind. Was it really possible that some people scavenge on nothing this way? I was later to see incidents of children swarming around restaurants and pouncing on near empty plates.
These incidents told me clearly that the North was a different place and that the life of the boy child is not only risky and endangered but sold to stagnation and deprivation, unless you are one of the lucky few.
Having benefited from the free education policy of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) between 1979 and 1983, when the Second Republic was terminated, I knew that there is a lot the government can do in educating the children. In my secondary school days, I was the Library Prefect at one point, and so I saw an excess of books supplied by the government to our school. So, I was an example of the feasibility of free education. It was the same way the Action Group government had handled education in the years preceding Nigeria’s independence and the First Republic.
So why can’t the state governments in the North declare free and compulsory education for the young ones out there? Why should children be made to scavenge on empty corn cobs just to see if they can find pieces of seeds left over?
And why was my director giving drivers and gate men in the Government House false hope that they were all the same, instead of him to challenge them to seek to lift themselves up the social ladder?
I think there was no excuse for the North not to have adopted a free education policy, just as Chief Obafemi Awolowo did in the South-West. And if we say the North needs to look itself in the mirror, you again remember the efforts by President Goodluck Jonathan to educate the multitude of Northern children through the Almajiri Schools. That government built more than 400 of such schools, which were abandoned because it could upset the oligarchy. The oligarchs forgot the truism that the children of the poor they refuse to train today won’t let their children sleep peacefully.
But the governor of Borno State, Prof Babagana Zulum, appears to have got the message. Last week, I was thrilled to see him organise a summit to reform the Almajiri system.
The Almajiri education system is a traditional Islamic method of learning widely obtained across states in northern Nigeria. Through that system, which is tied to Islamic teaching, youths, especially boys are kept out of the formal western education system. I don’t know why the teachings by Islamic scholars cannot go alongside that of Western education as it obtains in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and other Islamic countries that are doing well economically and in the world of science, technology.
While addressing the summit, Zulum had mentioned the need to address the root causes of insecurity through the provision of education for citizens of Borno, adding that improper teaching of Islamic studies has contributed to the emergence of Boko Haram insurgents in the state.
According to him, to curtail whatever is the adverse effect of Almajiri education; the Borno State Government has established the Arabic and Sangaya Education Board to introduce a unified curriculum for Sangaya and Islamic schools. He said that the reform would include establishing Higher Islamic Colleges to cater for Almajiri children and blending the religious teachings with the secular curricula as well as skills.
He said: “The Sangaya Reform is a great development. It will give Almajiri a better chance in life, particularly the introduction of integrating western education, vocational, numeracy, and literacy skills into the centres, which are also described as Almajiri and Islamic schools.
“Distinguished guests and esteemed educationists, government’s intention was to streamline the informal and formal education systems to quality integrated Sangaya School for admission into colleges and universities.”
One would have thought that governors with radical postures like Nasir el-Rufai and others before him would have proposed this type of reform, but it is better late than never. Zulum should be supported to get something out of this.
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