Oba Koso (The King Did Not Hang) – Review 1

The embedded media is an interview of the Late Duro Ladipo, sourced from this location. Nigeria is very diverse culturally, many of the of various people group have very rich history, culture and tradition. In his book, “Kingdom of Yorubas”¹, Robert Smith quoted Michael Crowder who said that “The Yoruba and Bini Kingdoms were purely African states whose growth was stimulated neither by contact with Islam nor Europe”. In other words, the Yoruba and Bini Kingdoms had organic growths from within.

The more I look at Christianity in South Western Nigeria, the more I see the influences of the strong history and culture.  Christianity has changed South Western Nigeria, but in another sense, South Western Nigeria’s history and culture has intermixed with the Christian message to create a very Yoruba gospel, a gospel that has spread like wild-fire across, Nigeria, Africa and wherever Africans are found in the Diaspora. I told a story (just one story as there are many stories to tell)  of this eclectic event  in my book,  A Jar of Clay, Part 1: Made in Nigeria.

This is a two-part article on the story of Sango, the fourth king of the Yorubas whose reign ended tragically when he took his own life.  Sango hanged himself after being deserted by his closest allies, Oya (his wife) and his most loyal servant, Biri.  Today, I will write briefly about one of the people who refreshed the story of Sango in our memory, Duro Ladipo.

Duro Ladipo was raised in a Christian home, his father being a man of the cloth. However, he was extremely fascinated by his culture and therefore sneaked to various Yoruba festivals. Despite the influence of  Christianity, the Yoruba continued to celebrate their culture.  Most Yoruba towns would celebrate the Egungun (Masquerade) festivals during which masquerades come out claiming to be “ara orun” ( heavenly beings). Masquerades would dress in their colourful attires and covered with fetish devices all over their bodies. At Osogbo, where Duro Ladipo grew up, there would also be the celebration of Osun, the goddess of the river. I found masquerades scary, but others like Duro Ladipo were drawn to them.

Each of the various people group in Nigeria has contributed immensely to its development in many ways. The Yorubas have contributed a great deal in performing arts. It is not a surprise that our first Nobel Price Winner , Professor Wole Soyinka is Yoruba and he took the award in Literature. Soyinka has a distinguished career in writing plays. Of course there are other notable authors from other parts of Nigeria: Chinua Achebe, Christopher Okigbo and Cyprian Ekwensi, to mention just a few. One can argue that without the Yorubas, there may not be Nollywood.

If you grew up in the South Western part of Nigeria, you were spoilt for choice. I tell people I have never taken to Nollywood because I watched all that I needed for a lifetime while I was growing up.  The award wining Laolu Ogunniyi brought excellent productions to Western Nigeria Television (WNTV) which eventually became Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) .  I found Laolu Ogunniyi’s blog as I searched for “Winds Against My Soul”, “Secrets To Be Kept Forever” and “Candle In The Wind”. In a nut shell, young people like me growing in South West were treated to diverse and excellent artists in both Yoruba and English productions. In parallel with what was happening on TV were travelling artists like Duro Ladipo, Hubert Ogunde, Ishola Ogunshola, etc who travelled from cities to cities with their theatre. Eventually, the best of these artists took to the Cinema.

Those people did not just produce to entertain, they also did so to educate us about our culture and also to promote it. They did not produce to titillate us. Instead, they were interested in stimulating our minds and reminding us about our culture and history.

In Oba Koso (The King Did Not Hang), Duro Ladipo brought back to us the history of one of the Yoruba kings who became a Yoruba deity. Duro Ladipo clearly took the project seriously, engaging with written history critically and challenging written history using oral traditions. In the beginning, foreigners to Africa claimed we had no history. However, history scholars across the world now accept oral tradition as a valid source of history and have techniques to corroborate it with archaeological findings. I was once told that when princes were taught history in the olden days, it was accompanied with whipping, so that they don’t forget! Was this true or not, I don’t really know but it was to emphasise that oral traditions should not be taken as inferior to written historical account.

When you read the preface to Oba Koso, you will note that Duro Ladipo read what is considered the most authoritative book on the Yorubas, “The History Of the Yorubas”, written in 1921 by Samuel Johnson, a Yoruba himself. He then proceeded to do his research by visiting the various kings of the relevant Yoruba towns. On the basis of this, he disagreed with aspect of Samuel Johnson’s account.

Nevertheless, there are common ground between Duro Ladipo’s account and Samuel Johnson’s:

• Both agreed that Sango was a King in Oyo
• Sango was feared by his subjects and had power to cause thunder and emit fire from his mouth
• Sango faced a crisis that resulted in him leaving his throne
• Sango committed suicide by hanging
• His followers created the myth of “Oba Koso” (The King Did Not Hang)

Duro Ladipo’s life was cut short at the age of 55. I remembered it was shortly after his latest TV production, “Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo Irunmole”, a book written by D.O Fagunwa. The translation of the book,  “Forest of A Thousand Daemons: A Hunter’s Saga” by Wole Soyinka is still available on Amazon.co.uk.

In the next blog, I will write about the two different accounts of Sango’s tenure as king.

I will be grateful for your thoughts and feedback.

References

1. Kingdoms of The Yorubas by Robert S Smith. 1969. Methuen and Co. Ltd.