Our next leaders should enter a pact with Nigerians with a modern version of ‘saworoide’ and ‘ade ide’. If they renege on the pact, they should pay for breaking the pact
By Olukorede Yishau
In the second week of April, ace cinematographer and movie director Tunde Kelani announced that his late 90s movie, Saworoide, a collaboration with Professor Akinwunmi Isola (now late), is set to get a sequel. The announcement confused me because another movie of his titled ‘Agogo Ewo’ was a follow-up to ‘Saworoide’, though with a different title.
Now, I guess Kelani is capitalising on the fact that the follow-up bore a different title to make another socially-relevant film.
With Isola gone, I look forward to seeing who Kelani will work with to make Saworoide 2.
The first ‘Saworoide’ is about a town called Jogbo, which has so much in common with Nigeria to the extent that one will not be wrong to see it as the country Frederick Lugard hurriedly cobbled together.
In Jogbo of the past, the king was required to enter a pact to be faithful to the community. Breaking this pact was met with death upon the activation of the ritual of ‘ade ide’ and saworoide. Latter kings, however, resisted the pact and corruption took over the land.
‘Agogo Ewo’ is about political reforms and the extent political actors will go to resist them, including consulting babalawos and pastors.
Kelani, in later years, made another deeply political work, ‘Arugba’. The movie is built around the Osun Osogbo festival, which was in the news recently over the Osun government’s warning against drinking water from the Osun River because of contamination. The river is believed to have healing power because it hosts the Osun goddess. If the last scene of the movie involving Adetutu, who is the arugba, and her boyfriend is all you see, you will be tempted to see the movie as a love story, and if your knowledge about the festival is all you rely on, you are bound to see it as a movie on the Osun deity, but ‘Arugba’ is more than those. It is a very political work, which remains relevant to this day.
This work is like allegorical works of art such as ‘Animal Farm’ and ‘Glory’. Without being versed in the background to the works, you will read them like ordinary stories and a great deal will be lost in the process.
Throughout the movie, you will never hear the names of ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, the late Bola Ige, the late Sunday Afolabi, President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the late MKO Abiola and other figures who have been involved in the post-1999 political era. But, for any viewer who understands the country, it becomes clearly evident that Kelani hid behind the Osun Osogbo festival to deliver a political drama about our troubled nation.
In the movie, there is a Kabiyesi, the traditional ruler of a town, who likes calling everyone else thief when his hands are not entirely clean. This Oba has a chief called Onikoyi, this chief is always at a loggerhead with him and there are clear allusions in the movie that depict the area controlled by this chief as Lagos, the Lagos presided over by Tinubu between 1999 and 2007. Obasanjo and Tinubu had so many disagreements, the major one being over the creation of local governments. Obasanjo seized the funds for the councils. Tinubu stood his grounds and found ways to keep the local governments afloat. A number of these disagreements can be gleaned from the movie, including the governor’s open defiance of the President.
There is also Aare Alasa, who is the king’s friend despite their personal disagreements. When he decides to leave the government, another chief berates him for his action despite being invited to “come and eat”. This is a clear allusion to Chief Afolabi who berated Ige for an action perceived to be against Obasanjo despite the fact that Obasanjo invited him, an opposition party member, to “come and eat” in a Peoples Democratic Party government. Ige had then replied that he was in government to serve and not to “eat”. Afolabi was Minister of Internal Affairs.
A former Osun State Governor and Ige’s protégé, Chief Bisi Akande, said his mentor intended to resign from the government before he was killed on December 23, 2001.
Akande, in his book, ‘My Participations’, recalled that the late Ige confided in him his plan to leave as the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice.
There is a scene where the Kabiyesi is challenged by one of his oloris for not investigating the cause of the death of his brother, Adewale. He responds by saying if one person’s own does not spoil, another will not benefit. When a gathering being addressed by the brother is shown, he is wearing the popular MKO Abiola cap and he stutters like the winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election and throws proverbs here and there. Abiola and Obasanjo have Abeokuta as their town. This perhaps was why they were called brothers in the movie.
There is also a scene where someone faults the Kabiyesi for declaring hastily that one of his chiefs was killed by armed robbers when no investigation had been carried out. Obasanjo did this when Ige was murdered in his bedroom while serving in the PDP government.
Kelani gave an inkling of what to expect in his new baby. From the snippet, the work will dwell on challenges Nigeria has found difficult to surmount. We will see corruption, abuse of power and favoritism. We will see how cash donated by donors is mismanaged. We will see the Oba trying to manipulate the electoral process, and we will see instances of corrupt men labeling others corrupt, as is common in Nigeria. We may also see how men of power don’t care about the people.
These sort of messages are relevant for a time like this when our next set of leaders are warming up to take offices.
My final take: Like I once wrote on this space, our next leaders should enter a pact with Nigerians with a modern version of ‘saworoide’ and ‘ade ide’. They should be bound to us via the ‘agogo eewo’. If they renege on the pact, they should pay for breaking the pact.
* Yishau is a newspaper columnist and author