- An anniversary combo for compatriots
To the impressive Eko Convention Centre and its grand banquet hall this past Sunday evening for the annual Nigeria Comedy Awards hosted by Wap Television and its boss, a childhood crony and cherished acolyte of the columnist.
WAP is the acronym for Wale Adenuga Production an octopoidal empire which includes a regular television station, a film school, a drama group and franchised satirical revues. By matrimonial extension, it also boasts of a thriving educational complex which includes both primary and secondary schools.
Comedian, cartoonist, satirist, writer, critic, educationist, acute entrepreneur and aficionado of the arts and harvester of its glorious talents in Nigeria, Wale Adenuga is something of a human blockbuster. But he is averse to and intensely disdainful of publicity and all hints of self-commemoration.
Quiet, retreating and evasive to the point of self-erasure, Adenuga does not welcome social lunchers. He does not grant interviews. He does not talk to the press. Even this write up had to be literally coerced when yours sincerely fired off a warning salvo to the multi-talented merchant of humour that there was no further space for him to hide.
It elicited a grumpy grunt which cut no ice with yours sincerely. The prim and proper master comedian with the pious and reassuring manner of an elder laity from the Divisional Diocese is something of a massive contradiction. How a man with such a stern and forbidding public visage could dish out such masterpieces of outlandish humour, such comic caricature, such Rabelaisian ribaldry, remains a subject of mystery.
On this morning of our sixty third anniversary when it is important to wish the nation well and pray for a new beginning with the new administration, it is important to stress that if ever Nigeria is going to get out of its political misery and developmental trauma, we must face squarely the problem of how to harness and harvest the major resource that this country has going for it.
It is neither petroleum resources nor other minerals. It is human resources at its most incredible and outlandish. Nigeria’s capacity to produce talents in the most diverse fields of human endeavor is astonishing and even stunning to say the least. It is, as they say of the Dutch fiasco, an embarrassment of riches and a scandal of nature.
Nature played a spoiling mother to early Africans by providing them with everything they needed without much effort thus turning them into an idle, indolent lot. Our colonial masters capitalized upon this by creaming the riches off while turning us into superstitious over-religious eunuchs at the mercy of spiritual sadists. We will be lucky if the same scenario is not repeated at the level of human riches.
As it was in the beginning, so it is turning out to be at this late phase of industrial capitalism. When Pliny the Second noted that something new always came out of Africa, he was not just referring to the endless supply of oddities and oddballs from Africa that graced and entertained the Roman Imperial court but the retinue of artists, entertainers, writers, philosophers, artisans and military commanders of African extraction who provided crucial services to the Roman empire.
Almost two thousand years after the collapse of Rome, the cry of “I want out” pierces the African collective atmosphere just as body bags of drowned migrants litter the North African beaches. Nigerian authorities must summon their reserves of visionary strength and courage to make the home environment more conducive for their restive and restless youth before the blessings of human gifts turn into a national curse once again.
The explosion of talents was very much in evidence in that commodious hall last Sunday as Adenuga, resplendent in native apparel of a snow white hue, together with his beloved wife, welcomed guests and cultural workers of various shades. Only the calm, paternalistic mien of the ace producer prevented the more excitable of the lot from mobbing him. The reason would soon become apparent.
In keeping with his steely resolve to keep what personally concerns him out of public glare, it was only while reading through his address that Adenuga revealed that the day also coincided with three landmark events in his own life: First, it was his seventy fifth birthday anniversary.
Second, it was also the forty eighth anniversary of his wedding to his beloved beau, Ehiwenma, a no-nonsense matriarch of Edo provenance and course mate of Adenuga at the university, whom he described as his beautiful jewel of inestimable value. Finally, it was the 20th anniversary of his Film institute and the launching of his autobiography.
For a man who has chalked up so many spectacular achievements in a lifetime, Adewale Adenuga remains a model citizen: austere, humble and unassuming. He was born and initially raised in the famous junction town of Gbongan by parents of Ijebu extraction. Gbongan township was a wonderful replication of the early possibility of postcolonial Nigeria.
Almost every homestead could boast of at least one or two professors. Even the last two sovereigns were notable academics and professors in their own right. It remains an intensely competitive environment where the hunger for learning and western education burns in every household with an incandescent glare. Unless you are comfortable with excommunication at a certain social level, academic failure was not an option.
It was in this book-besotted milieu that our paths first crossed as young children learning the ropes of western education. We attended the same Primary School. The older Adenuga was arguably the richest business tycoon in the area with interest in real estate and tobacco franchise. That was until his ever expanding business empire as the main distributor of NTC products forced him to relocate to the bigger and more economically viable ambience of Ile-Ife.
But the Adenuga clan left a memorable landmark behind for posterity. Up till this moment, there is a vast enclave on the old outskirts of Gbongan township that goes by the name of the progenitor, a firm, unsmiling man of disobliging visage who could suddenly launch into terse aphorisms in his native Ijebu dialect which cut through tonnage of verbal waffles from the importuning natives.
Wale was as studious and brilliant as they came. His calm impassive exterior often gave way to hilarious jokes and comic sighs among close friends and acolytes. Not many people are aware of this or the fact that the man who would later gain national prominence as the owner of the Ikebe franchise boasts of an impeccable academic pedigree.
Adenuga caused quite a regional stir by recording the best result in the entire Ibadan district in the 1967 WASCE. From the unfancied Ibadan City Academy, he made Aggregate 8, four A1s and two A2s to trump students from the more famous secondary schools in Ibadan.
A local newspaper trumpeted it with the banner headlines: Adenuga On Top. Many decades later, yours sincerely would get into an argument about this remarkable feat with Adeoye Roluga, an old boy of Government College Ibadan of the same set and later General Manager of Newswatch magazine, who pooh-poohed the idea as a piece of fiction.
A few weeks after, Roluga , who was later to succumb to Covid-19 while on a brief visit to Nigeria from the US, accosted yours sincerely at a public gathering and apologized profusely. He was wrong. From Ibadan City Academy, Adenuga went on to Kings College for his A-Level from where he gained admission to the elite Business Administration Programme of the University of Lagos.
Upon graduation from the university, the conventional expectation was that the young Adenuga would team up with his aging father in the family business as the obvious heir. But he decided to strike out boldly on his own by launching the Ikebe franchise which became an instant national hit. From there on and forty seven years after, Wale Adenuga has never looked back. It was a visionary decision and a moment of divine epiphany.
As recipients of awards in various categories came on the stage last Sunday night to sing his praise and to shower him with encomiums for rescuing them from a life of unworthy and toiling obscurity, Wale Adenuga must have felt a tinge of happiness and inner satisfaction at his decision to become a humour merchant and a fisher of talents in a famished sea bristling with man-eating spiritual predators and other social piranhas.
Stars after stars and budding humour impresarios tumbled out of the shadows to collect their awards and cash gifts. In all, two particular recognitions struck an unforgettable chord in this writer. One was the boy-comedian, a future star to watch out for, who stormed the stage and seized the microphone to give a brilliant impromptu delivery of gratitude full of swank and spunk. He went home with a million naira.
The other was the posthumous recognition of our late kinsman, the unforgettable Gbenga Adeboye of blessed memory, a phenomenally talented humorist. The plaque and cash gift went to his estate through the courtesy of his winsome daughter who gave a moving speech. May Nigeria’s ever busily running tap of talents never run dry. And here is wishing Wale Adenuga many more years of productive services to his beloved fatherland.
