It was a festival of ancestral spirits visiting the living to evoke blessings on them. However, the spirits of the dead, as masquerades are called in Yoruba pantheon of divinities, engaged the living in a physical confrontation leading to loss of lives and property in Ibadan, reports EMMANUEL ADENIYI.
POPO-YEMOJA, a popular street in Ibadan, will forever remain evergreen in the collective minds of culture experts and possibly historians.
The street, which perhaps derived its name from a Yoruba water goddess and patron deity of women, Yemoja, meaning “the street of Yemoja”, has also added to its popularity as a battle field where the ancestral spirits engaged the living in a violent free-for-all.
In Yoruba mythology, an Egungun (masquerade) is the reincarnated spirit of the ancestors who died long time ago. He is the masked ancestor who comes to visit his people to bless them and cleanse the society of spiritual impurities.
One of such Egunguns is Oloolu, the renowned Ibadan fiery masquerade noted for his abhorrence of seeing women whenever it comes out. Worshippers hold that any woman who sets her eyes on him will have her monthly menstrual period altered and stopped. This explains why women always stay indoors whenever Oloolu comes out on the streets.
The masquerade is also said to be the spiritual force holding Ibadan city. If it does not stage its annual festival, the worshippers believe that the town would witness a lot of terrible happenings.
To prevent this, it must come out every July to bless the town and its inhabitants and also perform spiritual cleansing of the largest West African town.
When such Egungun is angry and decides to engage the people he is to bless in a fight, the effects could best be left to the realm of imagination.
Just last Tuesday, the bizarre happened at Popo-Yemoja. The unusual happened, and the age-long culture of a people was trod on, as Oloolu was attacked. The spirit of the ancestor was unmasked, thus making the uninitiated to behold the secret of the ages on a street that derived its name from a feminine deity.
Oloolu, on the second day of its five-day-old ritual ceremony, had come out and was moving from one street and community to another. Dressed in a beautiful costume, with his aide, Ato, beside him to provide the spiritual and physical compass; admirers, mostly men and male youths also milled around him chanting his praises.
His drummers stole the show as they beat up Oloolu’s emotions and worked him up into frenzy with maddening rhythms of esa Egungun (Egungun chants and praise songs). Oloolu n bo, ero oja e para mo (Oloolu is coming, market people keep safe), so the chants rent the air.
Visibly exhilarated, the spirit moaned and muttered guttural words. He danced, jumped and staggered as though intoxicated with ethereal liquour. Each time he lurched forward, people ran and made way for him. His costume created a mien of fear around him. To the uninitiated, he was the real spirit of the dead.
From his base at Ode-Aje Oloolu, the masquerade trudged to Popo-Yemoja, where some Muslim clerics were holding a fidau for a late chief Imam of Irepodun Mosque, Alhaji Rafiu Fasasi, in the area. Oloolu, it was learnt, was asked not to pass through the street, he was said to have insisted that he would.
According to eye-witnesses, Popo-Yemoja residents swooped on the masquerade as well as his aide, Ato, who was allegedly macheted severely, while Oloolu himself was not left out in the beating of the gods.
Some eye-witnesses described the scenario as a crisis between Muslims and traditional religion worshipers in Ibadan, wondering why the attackers should desecrate the sacredness of the Oloolu masquerade.
“It is an affront to our traditional religion and belief system that Egungun, not just an ordinary one, Oloolu, for that matter, would be attacked and molested in the public.
"It has never happened before, and something must be wrong with our people. Have they forgotten that it was this religion that their forefathers practised before the advent of these foreign religions we now have around here?
“What happened here on Tuesday and Wednesday is enough to cause a religious crisis in Ibadan. They should have allowed Oloolu to pass through the street since he was not going to disturb them.
"It is a usual practice; Oloolu must pay homage to a popular high chief in the area before proceeding to other parts of the town. Preventing him from doing so is not right, to speak the truth,” a resident of Popo-Yemoja, who wants his name unmentioned, said.
An Islamic cleric in the area, who also begged for anonymity, told Sunday Tribune that the masquerade and his retinue of admirers should have heeded the advice urging him not to pass through the area since doing so would be termed pollution of prayers being offered for a late Islamic scholar.
When asked whether the masquerade and his admirers do not have the right to walk on any public road, he said Oloolu and his people should have reasoned rightly by not coming to the area when such an important occasion was on-going, saying “the reaction of the residents to mob the masquerade was not because they hate it, but because of its insistence and refusal to heed their call.”
When Sunday Tribune visited the hilly Oloolu compound at Ode-Aje Oloolu, the atmosphere was tense. In the squalid compound comprising different houses were hordes of people, mostly youth wearing menacing looks.
As some of them whiled away the time smoking heavy wraps of hemp, some sat down with bottles of liquor chatting. You could hear them talk in hushed tones about the fight and arrest of some Oloolu’s admirers.
“They cheated us, we will show them. It is time we stopped this rubbish,” shouted a youth clad in a faded grey T-shirt and a pair of blue jeans short that has seen its better days. With his bloodshot eyes, he moved up and down the hilly street showing his bulging calves that seemed to bear the brunt of his anger.
A handful of policemen were also on hand at the compound with their vans parked outside to prevent breakdown of law and order. If the police could not stop them from smoking hemp, at least, their presence prevented the transference of their anger on passers-by.
On entering the compound, this reporter was taken to a crowded parlour inside a dilapidated building where Ato Oloolu and some elders were probably holding discussion about the attack on their masquerade.
A youth having only a pair of army-green shorts on lay unconscious on the floor beside a table on which Ato sat. With the presence of grim-faced people in the room, it was not difficult to note that all was not well.
According to Awise Oje of Oloolu, who also claimed to be his Ato, Kazeem Omotosho Ojeyemi, the Muslims who attacked the masquerade are to be blamed for the whole crisis. He said the masquerade was out to bless the town and cleanse it of all spiritual impurities when they were attacked.
“It is the masquerade that helped Ibadan to be as large as this, and not any other religion. This town was peaceful when there was no other religion. We started having problem in this town the moment another religion was introduced to us.
“Each time we want to celebrate our festival, Muslims always come out to attack us. Yet without Oloolu, Ibadan cannot be peaceful. If Oloolu refuses to carry sacrifices and Aboke refuses to do his part, there can be no peace in this town."
Another youth held a fetish object wrapped in nylon, and stood beside Ato as he spoke on the incident.
This reporter was similarly taken to a building housing the attacked Oloolu in the same compound. The man with a squint left eye and tribal marks adorning his cheeks walked with a limp.
Clad in a light yellowish lace, his right hand was heavily plastered as he walked barefoot, just as his scalp gleamed in the coy sunlight that managed to shine in the showery July weather.
His fume knew no bound as he narrated his ordeal to an elderly man who came to sympathise with him. “They said I’m dead, you all can see that I’m alive. News men carried the story of my arrest and death, you can see, I’m still alive.
His countenance changed when told news men were around to speak with him. As if answering ethereal calls, he rummaged his pocket and brought out a fetish object to attack “erring” journalists.
The Olori Alagbaa of Ibadanland, Chief Ojetunde Akinloye Asoleke, described the masquerade as that of warlords, noting that its origin had to do with Kiriji War.
He described the encounter of Oloolu with some Muslims in the town as religious crisis, noting that they never wanted masquerades to exist in the state, “yet they (imams) are strangers here. This is not their first time of attacking us.”
However, Sunday Tribune went round Popo-Yemoja, Sakapena, Akobi, Idi-Arere and other areas where the masquerade and its followers were said to have engaged residents in confrontation.
The widow of the late Imam of Irepodun Mosque, whose fidau was on-going when the crisis started, Mama Amudat Fasasi, said the masquerade and his followers attacked those who were observing the prayers, though he had been given money and drinks to steer clear of the area.
“Our visitors, who came from far and near, mostly women, sat on the road at Popo-Iyemoja observing the prayers. All of a sudden Oloolu and his men stormed the venue of our prayers stoning us and scaring the women who must not see him.
"They started stealing purses and bags and other valuables, though we had given them money when we heard they were coming.
“Our youths rose against them and sent them away. They, however, returned the following day damaging vehicles and shooting sporadically. A young girl was shot by them and carried away at Sakapena. We never expected this. It took us by surprise.”
A community leader and chairman of Idi Arere Landlord Association, Chief Lawrence Adetunji, decried the incident, adding that he witnessed the wanton destruction of property by miscreants who followed the masquerade, adding that since he knew about Oloolu, the masquerade had always thrown residents of the town into mourning.
“They fought with Ajagbe mo keferi during his time. In 1982, they fought in Ayeye. They fought in Oosa Oko during the time of Mufu Oosa Oko, it has always been like that.
"They shot a girl who was hawking koko, the girl, I learnt, died the following day. The second one was a girl who was shot dead and was carried away in their vehicle. They said they would go and use her for rituals."
A cleric, Olusegun Adetunji of the Christ the King Ministry, Onitsha, Anambra State, who came to see his father during the fateful day, had his saloon car damaged by Oloolu’s men.
“I am an indigene of Ibadan; I came principally to see my dad. I left my car outside my compound only to learn later that my car has been damaged. Not much later I started hearing gun shots. We had to run for cover. In those days, they said Oloolu shouldn’t see women, I don’t know he has developed aversion for motor cars too.”
Messers Adekunle Smith, Rasheed Raji, Rafiu Adeyemo, Ismaila Abiona, Mufutau Olasupo, Abobade Onisango, all in Idi Arere and Sakapena areas of the town and many others narrated how their cars were damaged. They said valuables such as car tapes, car batteries were also stolen by Oloolu’s men during the crisis that lasted barely four hours.
A commercial motorcycle operator, Adeleye Alaba, had his motorcycle carted away by the men, while many kiosks and lock-up shops in Idi Arere and Sakapena were damaged during the crisis.
Many residents, who spoke with Sunday Tribune, have therefore urged Oyo State government to assist in monitoring the activities of masquerades and other traditional religion practitioners in Ibadan and environs, noting that the Oloolu masquerade and his people never meant well for Ibadan as it claimed.
To them when the guarding spirits of a people begin to haunt them, their benevolence to humans then becomes a subject of controversy.
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