By Anote Ajeluorou
Nobel laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka has long been in forefront of those who decry the abuse to which power is put in most part of Africa and the developing world. He is known to have engaged the powers-that-be on its legitimate use, especially when it runs counter to its benefit to the larger society. Having fallen victim of such power abuse in the early days of Nigeria’s independence by being imprisoned, perhaps no one else knows better the sting of power when wrongly applied.
Some 50 odd years on, there is
no abating the invidious manner to which power continues to be put in the hands
of those who have subverted every democratic means to acquire it. And as ever a
writer of first class mien, Soyinka has once again drawn attention to the
illegitimate service to which power is constantly put in the pursuit of
personal ends while thwarting the aspirations of the majority it ought to serve.
Indeed, Alapata Apata (which the
master himself calls ‘a play for Yorubafonia: Class of Xenophiles) is the
foremost playwright’s metaphor in the appropriation for self that which it does
not qualify to have. By so doing, what appears innocuous, wrongful application
of stress patterns on two words – Alapata
Apata - changes both their meaning and range in a manner that reinforces
the oddity of a society that is far gone in excesses of the absurd.
And so Alaba the first class
butcher goes into retirement after a meritorious service that puts the name of
his country first. But he does not forget how in a bid to straighten the school
atlas it broke the globe, which makes him to drop out because his father
refused to pay for it. For Alaba the world since has not lost its crookedness
what with an atlas that remains bent forever, a world that would not be
straight no matter what anyone does. It’s such a world that spews forth such
characters like Daanielebo and the General to torment the souls of others with
their greed and selfishness that seek to corner everything good thing for
themselves.
Daanielebo was a former protégé
of the General, twin evil geniuses who are now at each other’s throat as they
seek to outsmart each other and corner the commonwealth (in this case, the
minerals in Alaba’s rock) for their personal use. These are two men with whom
Alaba has the misfortune to stand up against in their ribald quest to seize
control of the rock on which is suspected to have huge deposits of precious
metals. But Alaba the keeper of the rock of his inheritance is a man of deeper
nobility, a former Ifa acolyte, who
was dismissed for not discerning enough to be taught the rudiments of a
powerful oracle like Ifa less he
misapplied the knowledge.
Nevertheless, Alaba’s few months
of apprenticeship would seem to have equipped him with enough powers to
confront the duo of Daanielebo and the General or perhaps his simple innocence
in being the rightful owner of the much sought-after rock gives him enough
power to repel their aggressive advances on his simple habitation. Either way,
Alaba comes top against the two power-lust personalities of his time, whose
avarice can consume an elephant in a single sitting.
In any case, Alaba’s retirement
from butchering work is symbolic and even symptomatic of the absurdity of those
in power who have a penchant for celebrating certain days and months they have
stayed in office. Alaba is celebrating his first 30 days in retirement not
unlike what most elected state functionaries do in Nigeria’s democratic set up.
He has in tow a schoolteacher as his adviser, who schemes up things for him, as
Alaba concretises his retirement by sitting atop his inherited rock ‘doing
nothing’, just as government officials apparently do nothing but find occasion
to celebrate their days, months and years in office, as avenues of frittering
away state’s resources.
Teacher: Transparency is the
key, I told you. That is what prevents temptation and backsliding. When you sit
up there, where everybody can see you cannot perform, knowing that everybody’s
eyes are on you, you have no choice. We can all bear witness to you working
assiduously industriously, methodically and conscientiously at doing…? (Raises his hand. What follows is like
practised routine, with him conducting)
Alaba: Nothing.
Teacher: Thinking…
Alaba: Nothing.
Teacher: Producing…
Alaba: Nothing.
Teacher: Transforming…
Alaba: Nothing…
Teacher: Innovating…
Alaba: Nothing.
Teacher: Proving yourself
capable, summarily of…
Alaba: Nothing. Nothing.
Nothing.
Teacher: But always full of
sound and fury, signifying…
Alaba: Nothing. Oh, Teacher, you
are a tower of strength.
Teacher: I know you give me
credit but, lest I be accused of abusing copyright, of plagiarism- the greatest
crime our profession can be guilty of – that last one was from the Bard
himself, William Shakespeare. But he was of a different tack altogether. For
truly teaching by example, one stands on the shoulders of the Great Teachers,
those who have taught us that it is possible to spend four years, eight years,
even decades in office, with resources envied by the world from the North Pole
to the South, with all the manpower available for cooption and yet end up
doing…
Alaba: Nothing.
Teacher: Excellent!...
Alaba: I feel inspired my
mentor. Energised. Ready to take that 100p-day target head-on.
Teacher: And then a year, then
five…
Teacher dreams up a scheme to
upgrade Alaba’s butcher’s signpost to his status as a retired butcher and asks
his pupil Picasso to embellish it. But herein lies trouble. A pupil of no
Yoruba descent, he does not know where to put the required ascent to give it
the proper meaning; what he ends up with the assistance of Alaba is Esu’s handiwork in confusion. Alaba
relies on his abeti agba (dog-eared)
cap for inspiration in guesswork manner – head you win tail or you lose!
Of course, it ends up wrongly
and Alaba unwittingly awards himself a chieftaincy title that invokes the anger
of royalty to summon a court sitting on his rocky perch. He is fined heavily
for his impertinence, and it would seem Alaba’s breaking of the school atlas to
make a crooked world straight would forever remain crooked, also with
everything else. But Alaba soon finds reprieve for his uncommon bravery in
repelling both Daanielebo and the General, sole tormentors of ordinary folks
for which he gets a royal pardon and a reinstatement of a title he mistakenly
awards himself in wrongly applying the ascents.
SOYINKA’s new play Alapata Apata
is an exhilarating political satire that employs the everyday occurrences of Nigeria’s
political absurdity for effect. Alaba the butcher represents the people who,
unlike Alaba, have not mustered enough guts to confront their
tormentors-general to a standstill the way Alaba does to the two old foes. Alapata Apata is a dense play with
multiple layers that equally yields multiple meanings.
Alaba’s rock, the subject of
many inquiries from those who want to make it big in dubious ways, is fittingly
Nigeria, with its many endowments in natural resources, a country also equally
endowed with equal number of looters all scheming to outdo the others in their
bid to corruptly enrich themselves at the expense of the people like Alaba. But
Alaba has the resoluteness lacking in the Nigerian polity.
But also, Alapata Apata is Soyinka’s mild rebuke for those who would not make
efforts to pronounce unfamiliar names or words properly. He sees it often
enough in his globe-trotting, especially in play productions that are
essentially African that induces a certain laziness in the actors to fake bewilderness
at the unfamiliar.
This book is a read for all. A get a copy of the Book Alapata Apata by Wole soyinka at Sunshine Bookseller: http://www.sunshinenigeria.com/alapata-apata-a-play-for-yorubafonia-class-for-xenophiles-by-wole-soyinka
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