‘We must not fall into despondency…’

By ‘Bode Ojoniyi

IT was a rare privilege to have been in the company of two of some of the ‘Who-is-Who’ when we speak of postcolonial Nigerian theatre world, especially in terms of what is ideologically considered as radical theatre in Nigeria – Prof. Femi Osofisan and Prof. Olu Obafemi. The two had return to see the performance of Dr. Obari GombGritjj, his play that won the prestigious The Nigeria Prize for Literature 2023 award, sponsored by Nigeria LNG Ltd. I had earlier met them in the morning session of the just-concluded Association of Nigerian Authors’ Convention 2024. The session had ended with the commissioning of an imposing two-storey building named after the slain Ogoni human rights activist and writer, Ken Saro-Wiwa. You would recollect that Saro-Wiwa was gruesomely murdered by the head of the worse military dictatorship in Nigerian history to date, the late Gen Sani Abacha in 1995. The six two-bedroom-flats-each were said to have been specially built for creative writing residency for writers who will be selected across regions in Nigeria on strict competitive and merit basis.

The two academic musketeers and comrades of all times had returned to the Chinua Achebe Hall to see the performance. They had thought the performance would start by 6pm. And, as they were arriving, I was stepping out of the hall. I had equally attended the afternoon session’s creative writing workshop led and moderated by Dr.Gomba. However, I had made up my mind to return home to read some of my final year students’ projects. I had promised to return the works to them on Monday. Hence, like the proverbial character with the said deep eye sockets who must start its crying from afar off when approaching the house of the bereaved to mourn with them, I believed I have to attend to those works early enough to be done with them before Monday. It is to allow my ‘tears’ to flow and be visible before arriving at my destination… But, stepping out and seeing these two theatre ancestors walking into the hall was a rare opportunity not to be missed by anybody. The elders say, ‘A kii r’Efon ta l’eemeji’ – hunters rarely get the second chance to shoot at a buffalo with a dane gun! This privilege, like the sighting of a comet, only happens on special occasions. As such, when it happens one must seize it with both hands. Anyway, for whatever reason, I was not going to miss such an opportunity, not in my lifetime.

Fortunately for me, I am a grandson to these two. My father(s) being Prof. Sunnie Ododo and Prof Adeoye. So, I went to them and prostrated myself before them again, as I had done earlier in the morning. They, Prof. Obafemi first and Prof. Osofisan after, extended their hands and shook my hand warmly. I joined the company with Dr. Gomba and others who came around. The two spoke about their purpose. It was then Dr Gomba told them that the performance would not happen by 6pm but by 7pm. They were not ready to return to their rooms again. We stood there and began to discuss the play: it winning The Nigeria Prize for Literature award and its performances since then. Some great performances and some less; don’t let me drop the adjectives…

It was then Prof Osofisan equally narrated the story of the performance of one of his plays, Who is Afraid of Solarin?, where, according to him, nobody laughed from the beginning of the play to the end. Prof. Obafemi was scandalized that such a play that moves in laughter even as a text could be performed without anybody laughing among the audience… Prof. Osofisan was unfazed as he maintained the reality of the story. Nevertheless, in spite of the usual calmness with which he tells his stories and jokes in the ‘Fabu’ tradition, if you are ever familiar with him, you could see that he was still arguably livid that such performance had happened in his presence. Prof. Obafemi’s reaction to the possibility of the event foregrounds its reality as nothing but a form of a taboo, an abomination. Like a desecration of the hallowed temple of the theatre by the director, his crew and the cast, just as if a swine was slaughtered on a Jewish altar to the holiness of God in the Temple in Jerusalem. His reaction to the performance story was that suggestive…

We then moved from one discussion to the other with occasional jokes dropping from Prof. Osofisan. At a point, he called Prof. Obafemi ‘a small boy’ with the claim that he is four years older than him. Of course, Prof. Obafemi protested that he has always maintained that anybody in his 70s cannot be called ‘a small boy’ again… It was all fun as we began to walk down to the ANA Hotel in the Mamman Vatsa Writers Village. As we were walking down, there was an uncompleted building between the Hall and the completed hotel buildings; it appears as part of the hotel buildings, like an extension of it. Some people were cooking something on a locally fabricated charcoal stove in the building. Prof Osofisan, again in his ‘Efe’ mode, asked Prof. Obafemi for whatever he thought they were cooking in the building? Prof. Obafemi, pausing in his stride, asked him to know the reason[s] he wanted to know what they were cooking and what he wanted do with knowing it? Prof. Osofisan, still pretentiously serious, responded that it was for research purposes, wondering if Prof. Obafemi can talk or teach anything without researching into it…

ANA Convention 2024 delegates at Mamman Vatsa Writers Village, Mpape, Abuja

We finally got some chairs arranged for us by the side of one of the hotel buildings. We sat there while we waited for the performance time. In the meantime, we would make do with some drinks. Each man according to his preference. I settled for one energy drink, claiming that I wanted to be fearless in the name of the drink. Prof. Obafemi told me I could only become fearful with such a drink. He sent for a bottle of groundnut. Eating groundnut and sipping our drinks, we began to talk about the state of Nigerian universities and the polity in general… As we began to talk about theatre and the radical movement of the left, Prof. Osofisan cautioned that we would only fall into a form of despondency if we do not just take our drinks in peace and set our minds on the performance we would later see. We must not fall into despondency, he cautioned. It seemed such reminiscences, particularly over those days, what they stood and laboured for, their refusal to leave the country in the first wave of the academic ‘japaism’ of the 1980s when others like Prof. Biodun Jeyifo left for the West, their hope of effecting the dreamed changed as envisioned by them for Nigeria, was just a mirage. An illusion, especially considering what is presently happening in the country… In spite of his counsel, we would still come back to the same issues…

Then came in a former student of Prof. Obafemi. He, not knowing the conflict on the ground about our attempt to review the state of radical literary discourse and criticism in Nigerian drama, went down memory lane how Prof. Obafemi was always being picked up at the University of Ilorin campus by the men of the State Security Service for allegedly teaching seditious materials to the students… How for two to three days, his car would be left where it was packed on the campus before he was arrested… Dr. Gomba and myself were surprised to hear that side of his story. We admitted we had never heard he went through such harrowing experiences with the agents of state suppression, SSS, now DSS… At that point, Prof. Osofisan, still unfazed, said Prof. Obafemi used to be a wanted person… We then heard about how the military government was concerned about what they alleged was teaching from unauthorized syllabus by the likes of Prof. Osofisan and Prof. Obafemi…

It was really a long evening of revelation… Part of what I went away with was the thesis by Prof. Osofisan that, often and mostly, the poor are not conscious of their being poor. He argued that the consciousness of being poor by the poor can only arise at the point the poor is able to compare his or her state with that of the rich. In essence, until a poor man has a taste of wealth, he cannot fully understand that he was or had been poor. I think this is indeed the state of the existence of most of the Nigerian middle class, the university professors and some other professionals. These are folks who think they are doing averagely well in the current T-Pain (President Bola Tinubu) economy. It is the reason they still teach around and examine students… struggling not to join any protest or strike to demand accountability of the folks in government. They have the belief that they would continue to survive, unlike the poor… They think that they are not poor… Well, I must heed Prof. Osofisan’s warning: I must not fall into despondency because of the poor state of the consciousness of some lost academics…