WHEN President Olusegun Obasanjo referred to a latent Yoruba party culture as Owanbe (“S/he was there”) years ago, he was being clinically accurate. In Ikorodu, Lagos, it is traditional to invite friends to a friend or relation’s party, setting up your own tent and helping the host to expand the celebration. Evidence that this practice pervades the Yoruba world is provided by the alias of a famous Ilorin minstrel, Aduke Abolodefeeloju. In Yoruba, “abolodefeeloju” (ode literally means ‘outing’) simply references what we have just noted; it means “one who helps the person hosting a party to expand it.” This person is not, in the language of Nigeria’s apex court, “a meddlesome interloper”; (s)he is a culturally situated performer, a true friend/or relation who assumes your party to be his/her very own, because in Africa life is collectively lived.
Nowadays, because of modernity, the primordial culture whereby nearly every well-dressed person is welcome to a party regardless of whether or not they have been actually invited is under scrutiny, particularly among the Yoruba community abroad, but it has remained resilient. A personal example will suffice. Recently, I was at the 60th birthday event of a popular politician in Ibadan. But I wasn’t actually an invitee of the host (or celebrant as we say in Nigerian English): I was there to see someone else. No one stood at the gate, turning back anyone not attired in the aso ebi used on the occasion. That would have been pure anathema, but worse than that actually happened in London on September 30, when a party host lashed out at guests, warning whoever was not attired in her aso ebi to leave the hall or risk cosmic consequences.
The elderly lady, who was celebrating her 70th birthday in the UK, was shocked that some guests had the temerity to dig into the sumptuous plates before them when they had not purchased her aso ebi. Speaking just after food had been served, she warned the offenders to leave if they intended to attain age 70. She added: ‘‘Anyone that did not buy my clothes should leave. I am speaking from a place of anger. If you eat the food, it will come out from your nose. If you don’t go out, I’ll send you out myself. Don’t provoke me.’’ In Yoruba, it is a sacrilege to harangue one’s guests in this manner, whether or not you have actually invited them directly, but the host made it clear that the offenders were having their last meal on earth. In other words, the amala they were eating would hasten their journey into transition, hence I have characterized it as “amala ajerorun.” Strangely, even while the majority complied immediately, certain gentlemen and ladies continued their meal, apparently reasoning that they would need a full stomach for the journey to heaven. Do not marvel at my coinage; the Yoruba sometimes reference transition matters in food terms, which is why warriors sing during war time: o n polowo o, o n polowo, eleko orun n polowo (“He’s advertising his wares (2ce), the eko vendor of heaven is advertising his wares,” eko being a meal typically wrapped in leaves, a solid form of ogi/akamu). If you refuse to take caution, then a bullet may find a home in your belly. It is not for nothing that the Yoruba say of the dead that they have collected and eaten ekuru (a meal made from beans) from ebora (ghommid).
To be fair to the woman in question, she had made her preferences clear in the invitation cards sent out before the incident, and has now replaced her curses with prayers. But the underlying assumptions are still warped. Time was when parties were purely joyous occasions; when, as our people say, the host “filled the home with drinks and the roads with oka ” and did not expect to reap any financial rewards. Today, because, as they say, adultery requires calculation, parties have become transactional; a money-making gimmick, particularly among “society women” and slay queens, the vermin called “happening babes.” That is why the September 30 spectacle unfolded in London. Even if the woman in question is not typically a foul-mouthed mock-spout, she was so discourteous. Has she never attended a party without wearing aso ebi? As they say in Yoruba, olopa ewo ni t’epe? (Why should a policeman, mandated to arrest a suspect, be placing curses on him, saying he would perish with the case?) Just why should such a small offence, if it was an offence at all, attract such ferocious curses? Why not ensure that only those attired in aso ebi gained entrance into the venue in the first place?
Chinua Achebe, Nigeria’s greatest novelist, tells us in Things Fall Apart: “A man who calls his kinsmen to a feast does not do so to save them from starving. They all have food in their own homes. When we gather together in the moonlit village ground it is not because of the moon. Every man can see it in his own compound.” The Yoruba also say “Ife la n bore je’eko,” (“It is love that causes one to partake in a friend’s eko”). The people who leave their homes/businesses to attend a celebration are not doing so because they lack food; they are doing so to show love and to honour a cultural contract. As long as Yoruba culture subsists, it would be impossible to preclude aso-ebi defaulters from attending parties. The fact that such people do not purchase aso ebi does not mean they have not come with gifts, and it is also a fact that some people actually purchased aso ebi but are not appearing in it because they have been disappointed by their tailors.
The Abami Eda spoke of animals in agbada. I have seen animals garlanded in gele (head gear), their brain brimming with fire and brimstone. Such women with an empty cranium under a forest of hair, a category of women the Yoruba call Iya were, treat people like trash. If you happen to be their maid, prepare for your death with no funeral. And you don’t want to have them as a landlady!
Re: Paul Kagame: Face of a fraud
Thanks for your tell-all article about the ruthless rule by Kagame in Rwanda. Very revealing. The second line to the last sentence should read CHARLES TAYLOR, not Samuel Doe who is now was killed in Liberia during the country’s political crisis Well done. Mr. Abiodun, Parkview Estate. 0810 350 1024
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