By Anote Ajeluorou
Like most intellectuals of
his day in the 1980s and the 1990s in Nigerian universities, who were fiercely
radical and marxist in thinking, Omotoso had had to relocate when the scorching
heat of the military era drew too close for comfort. This was quite apart from
the Structural Adjustment Policy (SAP) that had begun to turn to shreds every
vestige of academic prestige Nigerian universities previously enjoyed.
Early in the 1980s, he wrote the only book in which Nigeria
is the central character, Just Before Dawn, which got him into trouble with the establishment, with characters
like Olusegun Obasanjo heading to the courts to stop the publication and other
Northern elements, who protested against the books in its fact-fictive
narrative that cut too close to those to whom truth was a dangerous
inconvenience.
So, Prof. Kole Omotoso relocated to South Africa, according
to him, since he couldn’t quite dislocate the terrible system that had firmly
taken root in his native country, with the military’s reluctance to return to
the barracks for democracy to flourish.
In the question and answer session at Government House in
his hometown, Akure a fortnight ago and as part of the celebration of his 70th
birthday, Omotoso gave insight into some of the things that shaped his artistic
and political life and how much the two, together with the religious element,
have affinity in his formative years in Akure. Omotoso stated categorically
that when an individual couldn’t dislocate current stiffling system that breeds
social anomaly, the right option would be for him to relocate to where he could
engagingly make contributions.
He said, “When you can’t dislocate, relocate; do not get
used to nonsense. If the resources you have cannot dislocate what is an
inconvenience then relocate. It wasn’t easy to go. My problem was that of
national identity, which nobody was ready to solve. Nigerians are ready to
accommodate anything – mediocrity, lack of service, including constant power
outages.
“Never make a habit of emergency measures. No way will I
live in a house with a generator even if it means not coming back to Nigeria.
In Nigeria, through mediocrity and absence of integrity, governance has become
impossible. In South Africa, people don’t keep quiet when things don’t work;
they keep talking and protesting about them. We’re being boiled progressively
and we don’t complain. We must not leave issues of governance to government
alone; there must be alternatives to governance.”
Now that he is 70 and Ondo State Government is prevailing on
him to return home, it is hard to see how much his abhorrence for the systemic
failures back home will serve as deterrence to remain away. With Chinua
Achebe’s death at 82 in exile still raw in the nerves of the literary
community, it would be a wonder if Omotoso wouldn’t do a volte-face in his
exile years. This is in spite of previously making a will to have his remains
and that of his late wife cremated when he couldn’t return to get a new
passport whene it expired during the dreaded days of Gen Sanni Abacha.
OMOTOSO’s formative years
could best be described as romantically idyllic. As a child he had his fill of
the thrill of oral tradition swamping him from all sides and he almost got
sucked into its irresistible vortex of intermingling of traditional music,
drumming, storytelling but particularly that of becoming an Alagbe, an itinerant street musician who performs for money.
That was how much allure oral performance and street theatre had on the young
Omotoso.
He recalled fondly, “I was cut out to be an alagbe! There were some music I’d hear in Akure and I
couldn’t move. I didn’t want to go to school; it was one parental imposition I
hated. I was attracted very much to the street theatre. I’d hide my books in
the bush and wander after performers, but parents have the best intention for
their children”.
On his growing up years in Akure, Omotoso also nostalgically
recalled, “I grew up on the streets of Akure at former Bourdillon Road. I grew
up in a place where there was interface between oral culture and literary
culture. The other was the performance, which was a critical part of the daily
life. It was a congregation of the politics, where no two people belonged to
one political party or religion in one house yet there was no friction or acrimony.
“It was easy for me to combine the political in an artistic
purpose, and to blend the two. I always talk about the need to link the
political and artistic purpose”.
But, indeed, imagine Nigeria’s art community without an
Omotoso! Such a sad loss it would have been if he had followed his passion for alagbe, street theatre performer! Although he missed out on
it, Omotoso was to make up for it in his seemingly quaint choice of study –
Arabic literature and theatre! He’d been admitted to study English at
University of Ibadan, but he didn’t see any challenge in that course of study
having read virtually all the literary works available at the time. He needed a
challenge and Arabic came handy.
Omotoso had been fascinated by a mate’s Arabic name and the
chanting of Arabic letters and figures as he passed by a mosque and just
couldn’t get over the sheer charm of that language. When the opportunity
presented itself after he decided against English, he promptly enrolled for
Arabic and became one of the first non-Moslems to study that course. But it
came with a price when he began to teach; some zealot in the Arabic Department
at University of Ibadan rose against him as a non-Moslem teaching; for them, it
was sacrilegious. He was forced to relocate to Obafemi Awolowo University,
Ile-Ife, then University of Ife.
According to him, “Arabic is a fascinating culture. I was
fascinated by Arabic; that was why I studied it. But by wearing an Islamic
dress, I was accused of defaming Islam”.
EARLIER, Ondo State Governor,
Dr. Olusegun Mimiko was conducted round ‘The Kole Omotoso Exhibition — Akure to Jo’burg’, a
photograph exhibition mounted by Omotoso birthday organisers, the Odia
Ofeimun-led Hornbill House of the Arts at Akure Cultural Centre. In the
photographs could be seen Omotoso right from his formative years through adult
life and some of the milestone events that shaped both his artistic and
political vision as a cultural producer.
It provided a fascination both for Mimiko and other guests
for whom the photographs afforded a certain cultural-historical trajectory as
seen through the life of Omotoso as an artist and humanist. Ofeimun said the
photographs would be donated to any cultural organisation in Akure that has the
capacity to exhibit them as educational materials that would inspire young ones
and the public alike about the life of Omotoso.
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