The Good Book enjoins us to mourn with those who are mourning and to rejoice with those who are rejoicing.
Last Saturday, in the wee hours of the morning, we had quickly evaded the monthly “Environmental Sanitation” day arrest and driven all the way from Lagos to Ogbomosho to rejoice with our friend, Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala who was giving out her beloved daughter, Olamiposi Modupe Alao in marriage to her heartthrob, Olanrewaju Olatubosun Aboderin.
For the very jolly-good-fellow Akala, it was a glorious day, a day of rapture, a day when joy leapt from the heart to arch the sky like the rainbow. It was a day of contrasting colours. The colours of the day were royal purple and yellow. It was a day of beautiful women dressed uniformly in deep purple. A day of women with painted faces and lipstick lips, dancing and tossing to the beat of music like luxury yachts on a stormy ocean.
Aaaah! A Yoruba woman dancing at a wedding party is a spectacle to behold. She is poetry in motion. She is a work of art. See how this one is swaying and wriggling her waste in a manner that would get Michael Jackson envious. See how another one is lost in the hypnosis of music. See all of them dancing and singing in one accord and in jubilation. The songs are familiar. Everybody seems to know them like they know the national anthem. Everybody is dancing and singing along and gesticulating. Everybody seems to be lost in the music, lost in a trance, held spellbound as they groove to the sound of Juju music, as they rock to the sound of Owambe music at its modern best.
The talking drum, one of the ingenious creations of the African race that still baffles the white man, is sounding loud and eloquent. The women dancers all seem to understand the coded language of the drums. They can decode it. Oftentimes, the language of the drum is profane and has deep sexual undertones. But that is what makes it interesting. Like the “Interpreters” in Wole Soyinka’s difficult novel, the women dancers are interpreting the cryptic messages of the drum to the uninitiated like me. Paradoxically, they are speaking out in Babel but with one voice, which is the voice of the talking drum, a spiritual voice. The lead talking drummer himself is fired up and he is drumming like crazy. The dancers have also gone haywire as they sing and dance along to the beat in ecstasy. A Yoruba woman dancing is something else.
In the heat of the dancing comes the big godfather of the day, Gov Akala, in goggles, dressed majestically in his beautifully embroidered royal purple agbada. Coral beads encircle his neck, plus a big, long neck chain with a crucifix, dangling down in a priest-like fashion. This governor is fashionable. This governor enjoys dancing and having a good time. Hey, what is wrong in that? What is wrong with wanting to live a happy life in this unhappy world? I share in the Akala philosophy, which seems to say: “Don’t worry, be happy!”
After all there is only one life to live. And you have to enjoy it. This is one joyful day for Akala. The expression on his face says it all as he gyrates to the beat of music and emit a multi-megawatts smile. A smile so electrifying. On this day of a father’s pride and joy, the joy on Gov. Akala’s face was genuine, not contrived. It was so genuine that it registered somewhere in my writer’s consciousness to inspire this headline: AKALAUGHTER!
It all happened inside a “made in Hollywood” kind of futuristic tent that is meant for the likes of Elizabeth Taylor and the David Beckhams of this world. Inside the air-conditioned tent, the decor was simply in a class of its own. For those tired and starving, after a long drive from Lagos without breakfast, there was enough to eat and drink. The best caterers in Oyo State had been invited to cater for the governor’s guests. I was made to understand that a group of friends of the governor provided the tent and all the food and all the drinks. May God give us good friends who would stand by us in times like these!
This was a high society wedding by all standards. The high and the mighty were all there. I understand the former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was there, don’t I didn’t see him. If I had seen him, I would have at least gone to prostrate before him and thank him for giving us President Yar’Adua who is currently weaving his magic slowly on Nigeria and getting us all hypnotized.
The chairman of the occasion was the former Inspector-General of Police, Sunday Adewusi, a famous son of Ogbomosho who happened to be Akala’s boss in his days as a police officer. Who else was there? Ah, our good friend, Bode George should have been there but for the unfortunate accident that landed him at a sanctuary in Kirikiri where he temporarily lives now as my next-door neighbour, next to The Sun office.
Once again, the Good Book enjoins us to mourn with those who are mourning and to rejoice with those rejoicing. This piece is not about Bode George who is currently biting his fingers and gnashing his teeth within the walls of Kirikiri Maximum Prison.
This is a wedding story, a happy story, not a sad story. Of course, wedding is as ancient as the days when Jesus turned water into red wine in Canaan. Maybe that is why many people are drinking red wine these days. As you can see, wedding is scriptural. Wedding is a day of joy and laughter for parents of the bride and bridegroom. Every father and every mother look up to the day when the children would be handed out in the emotional rites of passage called marriage. As a father myself, I have to attend other people’s wedding so that I would have people attend my own children’s wedding.
That is what drove me and my colleagues, Pastor Dimgba Igwe and the Sunday Sun editor, Funke Egbemode to Ogbomosho. The journey from Lagos to Ogbomosho is a story that should stand on its own. From Ibadan, there are two roads leading to Ogbomosho. One road is the road of hell. The road of hell passes through the ancient town of Oyo. It is a dangerous road clogged with trailers that make movement impossible. This is the road which even the Bible warns you to avoid because you could die a cheap and sudden death on it. If robbers don’t attack you, then the monstrous road itself would swallow you up along with your car and your luggage. This is the accursed rough road about which the old sage Tai Solarin once cursed us saying: “May your road be rough.”
The other is more like the road to heaven. It’s an “express road” constructed by Gov. Akala. It passes through Iwo and Ejigbo and veers off into Ogbomosho somewhere along the way. That is the road to take. We were warned that on no account should we go through the old, forgotten, decrepit, dangerous road whose story is the mirror of the real Nigeria of today.
As we got into Ogbomosho, we were greeted by billboards showing different portrait of a laughing Gov. Akala. The billboards were already campaigning for the governor’s second term in office in 2011. One billboard audaciously boasted that there was “NO CONTROVERSY” about Akala’s chances of winning hand’s down, come 2011. If a prophet doesn’t have honour among his hometown people, this one at least has among his people just like the other famous political son Chief S. L. Akintola. Ogbomosho is also home to Nigerian émigrés from Ghana. It is the home of my people. People with whom I share a common past. By the time I navigate the streets of Ogbomosho, I am likely to come across one or two old faces from the past in Ghana.
The wedding over, we made a big mistake. In life everybody makes a mistake. We made the mistake of going back to Lagos passing through the sinful road which the prophets in the Bible have always warned us against. And we paid dearly for the mistake. Oh, come and see the long armada of trailers and tankers that have taken over the road, stretching out many kilometres long and making the road simply impassable. Here, you know the meaning of hell, the meaning of anarchy, frustration, neglect, lawlessness and zero government. You can never pass this federal road and fail to heap curses on the government of Nigeria.
My friend, the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi must have cried and cried himself hoarse for the repair of the Ibadan-Oyo-Ilorin road but all cries have fallen on deaf ears. I tell you, travelling along this savage Oyo road is not an Alaafin matter! Not a laughing matter, I mean!