Alagba Adebayo Faleti, a renowned poet, writer and actor, is now a graybeard. And you can’t mistake the visible features: frail and wizened body, bent back and shaky voice. But his memory is still impressively intact. Recently, the respected Octogenarian, also a wordsmith, welcomed BABATUNDE SULAIMAN to his home in the Ojo, Ibadan area of Oyo State, where he fielded questions on a number of interesting issues that have given him fame in life
HOW true is the report that you were born in 1930? What do you guess my age to be?
I can’t really say, but you look much older than 83.
If I was born in 1930, how old should I be now?
You should be 83 years old.
Well, there is something interesting about my age. In those days, nobody wrote down anything. But they marked incidents that happened around the time of your birth. When they wanted to calculate my age in the primary school, it was put at 1930. After I left the primary school, I didn’t go to the secondary school immediately. I was teaching and moving here and there. If you wanted to sit for the Cambridge School Certificate Examination in those days, you would be required to declare your age and if you were above a particular age, you would not be allowed to sit for the examination.
So, my declaration of age indicated that I was born in 1935. But I later thought that it was unnecessary, having jumped that hurdle. I remember that when we were processing the Cambridge School Certificate Examination, my principal then was Mr. Chukwuka Okonjo, who is the father of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. He was a great disciplinarian, but we all loved him. He asked me how old I was and I replied that I was born in 1935. So, he shouted, “Are you saying you are 15 now?” But I said that was what was put in my Standard 6 certificate.
Why didn’t you proceed to the secondary school immediately after your primary school education?
When I left the primary school, I took up a teaching appointment as a pupil teacher in Oke-Odan in 1946. After a quarter there, I came back to Oyo. I was feeling lonely; I was still young and there were no friends. The Catholics later invited me again as a teacher. But after some time, I came back to Oyo again and then the Catholics posted me to Ejio. So, I was moving from Oke-Odan to Otu and then Ejio as a pupil teacher. I was bored and I wanted to further my education. But my father was not a Christian.
He was not a Catholics, so he couldn’t send me to a Catholic college and he wasn’t a Baptist, so he couldn’t send me to a Baptist College either. So, after some time, I decided to come to Ibadan to look for a job because the Standard 6 certificate was a big deal then. I didn’t tell my father about it and I just came to Ibadan on an adventure. However, I ran a risk in Ibadan at Ogunpa area. When I was leaving home, I kept my certificate in a can box, which was made of a cigarette case. While I was asleep at the foot of the bridge at Ogunpa, a pickpocket came and stole the cigarette case, containing my certificate and money. Luckily, as I was pacing up and down in the area, I found the can box. But they had taken the money and left my certificate intact; so, that was how I recovered my certificate. I had people I could put up with, but I didn’t want to sleep in anybody’s place. I asked people to help me get a job. At a time, I wanted to be a soldier and I went for the interview in Ibadan. But my chest was not wide enough, so I was not enlisted in the Army.
Consequently, I had to go back to Oyo. But after a while, I made another attempt to come back to Ibadan without telling my father again. My mother was in Ibadan then, while my father was in Oyo. As I said earlier, people were searching for a job for me and eventually, they got me a job as a house boy. Although I had been a teacher in three schools, I didn’t mind. I was told my father said one day in Oyo that he was going to look for me and would find me, though he didn’t know where I was living. So, he came to Ibadan on a certain day accompanied by his cousin. By that time, I had got a job as a house help and I usually followed my boss to his office at Jerico, where he was a cocoa inspector. He lived at Ita-Ege, but worked at Jerico. He had a bicycle, which I usually rode to meet him at his office. Then, when he closed, he would go back home on his motorcycle, while I rode behind him on the bicycle. So, one day, as I was riding the bicycle through Gbagi Street, my father suddenly crossed out on me and said, ‘Debayo’. Ha, I was surprised to see him! His cousin, who came with him, was also surprised and that was how he gave me the mandate to come back to Oyo before that year’s Christmas- and I did.
Meanwhile, when I was in Ibadan before I took up the job of a domestic servant, I had apprenticed myself to a sign writer. So, when I got back to Oyo, I rented a shop called Kani Su’ru Art Studio. My boss was an Ijebu man and he had a drama group. At that time, I used to go with him to rehearsals. So, when I got to Oyo, I founded my own drama group called Oyo Youths Operatic Society because opera was the most important thing then, where you did all your dialogues in songs. Most of the people in my drama group were students of St. Joseph Catholic Schools, Asogo, Oyo. And I was lucky that my father didn’t discourage me.
I remember you said you couldn’t be registered in either the Catholic or Baptist school because your father was not a Christian. But are you from a Christian home or a Muslim home?
My father was a traditionalist. He was a babalawo and he refused to be a Muslim.
So, let’s talk more about your drama group…
(Cuts in) As an amateur group, you would collect money to buy drums, maracas and costumes etc, but I didn’t allow all that; so, it was solely financed by me.
Why?
It was the best thing to do and it paid off because when there was a crisis, nobody could take anything away. The first play I staged was Suuru ati ogbon and the story had to be subtitled in English. Somehow, there was a crisis in the rehearsal, involving a man and woman who were to be husband and wife. I didn’t know that the boy I chose would eventually ‘toast’ the girl that was to play his wife. Because the girl didn’t show any interest in him, there was always a quarrel during the rehearsals.
So, it was agreed by the group that the boy should be expelled. We printed posters and we pasted them around Oyo, Ilora, Iseyin and Ogbomoso during the Christmas period. However, the boy we drove away went to the school and claimed that I was trying to introduce their class to bad things. One day, they came to our rehearsal and said the reverend fathers said they should not partake in the drama any more. It was very serious and I was downcast. The group insisted that we would go ahead with the performance and turn back any student from the school. So, that buoyed my spirit and we went on with the performance. Some of the strong members of the group stood at the gate and those we recognized as students of that school were not allowed to come in. It was during one of the Easter holidays and when the school resumed, they sent away all my group members, who were from the royal house.
They were either the children of the Alaafin, the father of the present Alaafin of Oyo, or his relations. Let me also state that I was a tax clerk in the local government council then and the law didn’t permit me to do anything under the council. My boss called me and said the Alaafin wanted to see me. I had made up my mind to leave the council and go back to my practice. I think the news got to the Alaafin and he said if his children were not allowed back into the school and I was driven away from my office, there should be no sign of my drums in the whole of Oyo. All these crises would have put me into great trouble, but my father didn’t worry at all; otherwise, it would have complicated the matter. They went to beg the reverend fathers and they took the children back, but with a warning that they shouldn’t attend my practice any more. So, I began to recruit people who were self-employed like artisans. So, we staged a second play and they didn’t send me out of job again. So, that was what I was doing before I went to the secondary school.
You said your dad was a traditionalist, so were you also a traditionalist at some point because I know you are a Christian now.
Who is a traditionalist?
But you said your father was a babalawo or herbalist?
You see, there is a difference between a babalawo and an herbalist. An herbalist is a medicine man, while a babalawo is one who worships Ifa.
Who was your father then?
He was a worshipper of Ifa, a babalawo; so, he was not an herbalist. A babalawo is also someone who tries to read the future for you. He is called a babalawo because he worships Ifa.
So, were you at any time an Ifa worshipper?
I am sorry I was never one. In fact, my father too was sorry for not apprenticing me to a babalawo because he felt something must be done, in addition to going to school; so, I was apprenticed to a tailor. I wasn’t a babalawo, but my father was one.
Were you ever told if your father attempted to look into your future?
How would I know? I am happy he died a Christian in the end. Although he was a babalawo, he often had disagreements with them. On dedicated days when he should not go to the farm, my father would go, but they warned him several times.
They made him have serious accidents on Ifa days in our village-that was what we thought. You see, there were so many babalawos and alfas around us. But he warned people like me not to depend on Muslim diviners who spread sand on trays because, according to him, the medicine they would give you would even make you go back to them almost every time and then you would eventually become their slaves.
How many children did your father have?
He had many children (laughs).
That means he was married to many wives?
Oh, yes!
Like how many?
He had three wives, if this could be called many. My mother was the most senior and she was from a royal family.
So, what lesson did you learn from your background, considering the way people see polygamy in our society?
It depends, really. Traditionally, Yoruba are not polygamists. If you see a Yoruba man who has more than one wife, it is either he inherited his father’s late wife (pauses)… There are two types of inheritance about women. If a man dies and the woman decides to stay with her children rather than remarry, she will be allowed to do so.
Also, if a woman is old enough at the time her husband dies, whoever is next to the husband automatically inherits her as of right till death, not necessarily for any sexual relationship. But if a man dies young and has a wife, there will be a contest regarding who will inherit his wife. And whether she likes it or not, she will have to accept it; and if she doesn’t like it, she divorces. One has to be very careful about polygamy. Now, in my own case, my father married my mother and then other women. But most of them are on their own. One of the wives became terrible, but my mother endured it and lived with him till he passed on.
How old was he when he died?
He was about 90 and my mother died five years after. My father was much other than my mother.
Are you the eldest?
I am the first living child. This is because my mother had some children before me, who all died. And that was why my father initially would not begin any good thing on a Saturday. I was born on aba meta day; but after my birth, no child of his died again.
Did you say other children born after you didn’t die because you were born on a Saturday?
The belief by some Yoruba is that if you want to do anything, don’t do it on a Saturday because three things will happen to you, especially if you are bad.
Could you expatiate?
If you are bad, three bad things will happen consecutively; and if you are good, three good things will happen.
With regard to your own birth on a Saturday, what explanation did your father give?
Before me, some children were born, but they all died. But my father said since I was born on a Saturday and I didn’t die and he still had some other children after me, then, he chose Saturday as is his own day; so, he would henceforth start any good thing on a Saturday.
Can you mention some of the things you started on a Saturday and you were able to accomplish, if you believe in what your dad taught you?
I am not my father.
But do you truly believe in all that your father told you?
Yes, I believe.
So, could you tell some of the things you started on a Saturday that pulled through?
In my own case, I tried to consider which day of the week is my lucky day and I discovered it was a Thursday.
How did you make the discovery?
You have to be your own observer. If I attended an interview on a Thursday, I would succeed. If anybody accused me of any bad thing in office and they gave me a query wrongly on a Thursday, I would be spared. Most of the good things that happened to me happened on Thursdays. Personally, I do my things on Thursdays; but then, I don’t discard Saturday too. So, Thursday, Saturday and Tuesday are the days I believe in, but most importantly Thursday. This happened to me several times.
For instance, when I was in detention during my days in broadcasting, there was something we called the Cuban episode. It happened that the Cuban rebels or the Cuban detractors of Fidel Castro went to America and recorded a lot of evil things that the man did and sent the tape to various radio stations. At that time, I was then the director of programmes at the WNTV, Ibadan, Oyo State. So, they sent a copy of the tape to me and when I saw it, I concluded that it was not good. Cuba was our friend during the Ojukwu war (Civil war), but the tape was an attack on Fidel Castro. The lady on duty that day just put the tape on air without listening to it. It was a weekend and by Monday, the National Security Organisation, NSO (now the SSS), came to my house and searched everywhere, believing the Cuban rebels must have given me money to play the tape.
But on receipt of the tape, I had written that it should not be broadcast-it was conspicuously written on the tape and I kept it in my drawer. But I didn’t know how it was played. So, they took me away to detention. I was there for about two weeks and when they saw that I was not guilty, they released me on 23 December. They took me away at night and brought me back at night. The interesting thing is that it was broadcast on a Thursday and I was released me on a Thursday.
You have a very sharp memory, did you also take Ogun isoye.
I must have taken that when I was young, but I don’t take it anymore.
Of course, you don’t need it now. But would you say it was efficacious?
Yes, it worked. There is nothing armful in using it if they give me, but I don’t need it now. But the Ekiti people like to administer it on their wives as soon as they are pregnant, so their children will be bright. Now, the white people do ‘ogun isoye’. I don’t know what they call it, but they know there is something that helps the brains to develop. Another ogun isoye is repetition. Besides, if you are from a family of brilliant parents, you will naturally be brilliant.
How did you gain your proficiency in Yoruba?
It was from my parents. But did you know the course I did in the university?
English and later French
Yes, English and French. At the University of Ibadan, I studied English and later I studied French at the University of Dakar in Senegal. But my knowledge of Yoruba language and tradition is got from my parents. I lived long in the farm with my parents and brothers. My father was a great speaker; he was in the palace of Alaafin of Oyo for several years on bond; so, he knew the palace history and he was also a musician.
He led an amateur group and had a lot of friends who were poets in Osogbo, Ife and Ilorin. He was one of the people who worked during the construction of the roads to Gbogan and Osogbo, so he knew some things about the Western world. He used to tell me stories about our culture and so on; and eventually, it came to be useful.
Which of your books will you describe as the most mentally challenging?
I would say Olokun esin( Freedom fight). It is the longest Yoruba novel so far. My greatest literary work is in my poems because I have written quite a lot of poems in Yoruba. Adebimpe Ojedokun is my longest poem. My brother and father are good Yoruba speakers. I gained quite a lot from them. It is an inheritance. And now, my children are like that too. There is hardly anyone of them that cannot speak Yoruba properly.
