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Friday, December 13, 2024
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Obasanjo and Tinubu’s TaΕ„tΓ³lΓ³hun dogs

By Festus Adedayo

In π˜›π˜©π˜¦ 𝘏𝘢𝘯𝘡𝘦𝘳 π˜›π˜©π˜ͺ𝘯𝘬𝘴 π˜›π˜©π˜¦ π˜”π˜°π˜―π˜¬π˜¦π˜Ί 𝘐𝘴 π˜•π˜°π˜΅ 𝘞π˜ͺ𝘴𝘦 – π˜›π˜©π˜¦ π˜”π˜°π˜―π˜¬π˜¦π˜Ί 𝘐𝘴 𝘞π˜ͺ𝘴𝘦, π˜‰π˜Άπ˜΅ 𝘏𝘦 𝘏𝘒𝘴 𝘏π˜ͺ𝘴 π˜–π˜Έπ˜― π˜“π˜°π˜¨π˜ͺ𝘀: Essays by Ulli Beier, edited by Wole Ogundele, (2001) Horst Ulrich Beier, famously known as Ulli Beier, had an engaging narrative about the power and powerlessness of dogs. He entitled the narrative, Dog Magic of Yoruba Hunters. In it, Beier related how his dog, which he provocatively named TaΕ„tΓ³lΓ³hun, (who can compare with God?)’s weird tantrums, which occurred in Osogbo in the early 1960s, could mirror the insufferable power and limitations of dogs. The motive of telling the story, he said, was to β€œdemonstrate the extraordinary power of hunters over dogs.”

Otherwise very gentle dog, whenever TaΕ„tΓ³lΓ³hun saw a particular elderly priest of Oya goddess guest of the Beiers, she suddenly went abrasive. The priest, said the German-Jew literary octopus, had just lost his following and as such, little or no worship activity went on in his shrine. Whenever the priest branched at the Beiers’ home on a visit, TaΕ„tΓ³lΓ³hun suddenly went haywire, grew inexplicably aggressive towards the priest, growling and barking. The old priest, too couldn’t explain the oddity. He threatened not to visit the Beiers again unless the weird and wild TaΕ„tΓ³lΓ³hun was curtailed. The Beiers’ friends’ explanation for TaΕ„tΓ³lΓ³hun’s tantrums was that, β€œthe priest liked to eat dog meat, and because of this, often performed the annual sacrifice for a group of Ogun worshippers in Osogbo… the dog sensed his perverse attitude to dogs and her uncontrollable anger stemmed from that.”

TaΕ„tΓ³lΓ³hun’s hatred for the Oya priest intensified. β€œOne day, she even started to tug at his long flowing agbΓ‘dΓ‘ with her teeth. Infuriated, the priest shouted that if the dog did it again, he would have to β€˜put medicine’ on her. The very next day, the dog rushed out again and this time, the priest turned round, speaking incantations at her.” The second day, as the Oya priest was passing by, TaΕ„tΓ³lΓ³hun repeated the same weird bellicosity. β€œShe rushed out again barking and tried to grab the priest’s agbΓ‘dΓ‘. Angrily, the priest turned and spoke his incantations. The dog fled back into the house. But this time, she did not recover. Instead she behaved in the most frightening manner. She rolled her eyes, snarled at everybody and foam appeared in her mouth. We could not be sure that she had not developed rabies. Even if it weren’t so, it was obvious that in her present mood, she would sooner or later attack people. She did not appear to recognize any of us. We quickly evacuated all the people from the house. There were usually a dozen children playing on the ground floor. Then we locked her into the house,” lamented Beier.

Another friend of the Beiers’, the head of hunters in Osogbo, the OlΓΊΓ³de, upon being told of TaΕ„tΓ³lΓ³hun’s fate, offered to help. He was promptly ushered into the solitary prison where TaΕ„tΓ³lΓ³hun was locked, lest no human be the victim of her madness. Ten minutes after, the OlΓΊΓ³de came out laughing. β€œThe dog followed him, wagging her tail as if nothing had happened. TaΕ„tΓ³lΓ³hun had no recurrence of her strange behaviour (again)… The OlΓΊΓ³de said he did not give the dog anything to eat, that all he used was incantations.”

Beier, the man who told that story, was born July 30, 1922, and exited this plane on April 3, 2011. Beier gave Nigerian literature teeth to bite in the twilight of and immediate post-colony (1950 to 1967). His interest in traditional Yoruba culture and arts was almost an obsession. While teaching at the University of Ibadan, tthe German-Jew veered off to live in Western Region cities of Osogbo and Ede in his quest to conduct anthropological researches on the Yoruba. Inspired by philosopher and French intellectual, Jean Paul Sartre’s essay Orphee Noir, in 1957, Beier founded the magazine, Black Orpheus which became the first African literary journal in English and a leading market for the publication of contemporary Nigerian authors. He also, in 1961, co-founded the Mbari Artists and Writers Club in Ibadan as an ensemble for new writers, dramatists and artists, where they could gather and weave the tapestry of their arts. It is on record that Beier fired the writing zeal of writers like Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, among many others. In 1962, he co-founded the Mbari Mbayo, Osogbo Club with Duro Ladipo and translated his drama, published as Modern Poetry (1963). In 1966, Beier published his own play, The Imprisonment of Obatala, using the pseudonym, Obotunde Ijimere. He was husband to Susanne Wenger, the famous Austrian-turned-Nigerian Osun sacred grove priestess, who, upon dissolution of her marriage to Beier, married the local drummer, Lasisi Ayansola Onilu.

Sorry, I digressed. Last week, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, at the Chinua Achebe Leadership Forum, which held at the Yale University in the United States, threw a mound of earthly pigment Yoruba called Γ²gΓΊlΓΉtu. When you throw Γ²gΓΊlΓΉtu, it scatters in conceived and incidental directions. He threw the Γ²gΓΊlΓΉtu in the direction of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, president of Nigeria. But again, as the Yoruba say, it is a ripe baby orange which invites slingshots of rods and pebbles on its mother (omo osΓ n nΓ­Γ­ kΓ³ pΓ³Ε„pΓ³ bΓ‘ Γ¬yΓ‘ Γ¨). In Yale, Obasanjo took a swipe at not only Tinubu but unnamed Nigerian leaders he called β€œBaba-go-slow” and β€œΓˆmilΓ³kΓ n,” under whom he said Nigeria had become a failed state.

Immediately I read it, I knew Tinubu’s TaΕ„tΓ³lΓ³hun dogs like Ulli Beiers’, would relapse into their weirdest bellicosity. Tinubu keeps a kennel of Rottweilers he unleashes on perceived haters. Atiku Abubakar is one of them. While delivering his keynote address entitled β€œLeadership Failure and State Capture in Nigeria”, Obasanjo outlined Nigeria’s worsening challenges, which included pervasive corruption, mediocrity, immorality, misconduct, mismanagement, perversion, injustice, leading to a state capture. He also alleged that the Nigerian judiciary had been reduced to wriggling maggots which feast on rotten flesh of politicians. He also took a swipe at Tinubu’s wobbly leadership, the concerning state of the economy and the sagging credibility of Nigeria under a government that advertises so much motion but no movement. β€œMore than N700 billion in cash bribes were paid by citizens to public officials in 2023,” he further alleged.

Immediately after this, the Oya priest received one of the vilest attacks from TaΕ„tΓ³lΓ³hun. In the narrative of the Beiers’ dog above, it will be recalled that the German-Jew literary octopus’ friends’ explanation for the dog’s weirdness was that the Oya priest might have been suffering for his perverse attitude to dogs, especially his penchant for turning the dog’s kindred into buffet during annual Ogun worshippers’ sacrifices. Ogun worshippers are notorious for not only wickedly beheading dogs during such sacrifices but turning the hapless animal’s meat into delicious barbecue.

So, in the bid to stave off accusation of bad governance that is almost a refrain on the streets of Nigeria, simply re-echoed by Obasanjo, like Beiers’, Tinubu’s TaΕ„tΓ³lΓ³hun dogs went berserk, growling and barking for the whole of last week. In a statement titled, β€˜Former President Obasanjo was not an ideal leader to emulate,’ Tinubu’s Chief TaΕ„tΓ³lΓ³hun leading the pack, accused Obasanjo of hypocrisy. β€œHe presided over the worst election in Nigeria (and now) demands the sack of the leadership of the Independent National Electoral Commission.” He barked ad-nauseam on the Obasanjo third term agenda, how Chinua Achebe, β€œa universally acclaimed moral, cultural and literary icon” had β€œscant regard for Obasanjo,” and rejected β€œthe third highest national honour bestowed on him… in 2004,” the unconstitutional impeachment of four PDP governors, the Halliburton bribe scandal, dud investment of $16bn in electricity, β€œwhich left the country in utter darkness,” the aluminium smelter company, ALSCON sale, among others. Onanuga growled however that his boss was β€œdiligently (working) to overcome the country’s economic challenges” and advised Obasanjo β€œto temper his self-righteousness in his public discussions regarding our nation’s temporary difficulties” and spend β€œhis remaining years…reflecting on the missed opportunities during his own time in leadership, both as military head of state and civilian president,” he said.

The Beiers’ TaΕ„tΓ³lΓ³hun had every reason to growl at the dog-eating Oya priest. It however didn’t reckon with an eternal Yoruba aphorism which preached caution. In traditional African Yoruba society, cloth dry-cleaning was a craft natives embarked upon. Early in the morning, these alΓ‘gbΓ fΓ² stormed homes of their clients to collect stacks of used clothes which they took to streams to wash. After washing them, for the clothes to last longer and give them fascinating smells, alΓ‘gbΓ fΓ² garnished them with a blue dye called arΓ³. The aró’s cost is then added to their fees. So, when a bedwetting client haggled the price of the arΓ³, the Yoruba say while the whole world was entitled to so haggle, it ill behoves a bedwetter to do same.This, Yoruba express as, β€œΓ³ ye gbogbo eni k’ó yo’wΓ³ arΓ³, sΓΉgbΓ³n kΓ² ye atΓ²Γ³lΓ©.” Did the bedwetter take into consideration the unpleasant task of divorcing their clothes from oozing smell of urine and the indignity behind their affliction?

So, even if the whole world could cast off the beam in Obasanjo’s eyes, it is not the governance bedwetters of Aso Rock of today. While TaΕ„tΓ³lΓ³hun was entitled to be miffed at the Oya priest for peremptorily turning its kin into gourmet meal, does she think the world, too was blind to how she pounced on reptiles and rodents, devouring them? Moreover, TaΕ„tΓ³lΓ³hun should have known, again as Yoruba say, that it is not all leaves that the BabalΓ‘wo plucks nor is it every palm tree that the palm wine-tapper climbs. While some leaves are sacred, with all of them taboo to be plucked after the morning dew had ceased its water blessing, if a palm-wine tapper does not carefully select the tree to climb, he could be stung by a deadly puffadder which has made the palm-tree top its place of hibernation. Ayinla Omowura, Yoruba Apala music colossus, expressed this as β€œgbogbo ewΓ© kΓ³ l’òjΓ‘wΓ© Ε„jΓ‘, gbogbo Γ²pe kΓ³ l’onΓ­gbΓ  Ε„gΓΉn” and warned the climber and leave-plucker to beware.

To start with, I am not aware of any of the allegations made by the TaΕ„tΓ³lΓ³hun dogs against the Oya priest that is a lie. In human relations, Obasanjo has been described as the proverbial African witch who seeks the destruction of her benefactors. He makes mincemeat of his benefactors. An example touted in this regard is Chief S. B. Bakare, the Ijesa multi-millionaire of the 1970s/80s who rescued him from the bullets of Colonel Bukar Suka Dimka. Obasanjo is also one of the most hated Nigerian leaders alive, mostly due to his kΓ©nimΓ‘nìí (lest others have) and kΓ©nimΓ‘tΓ³ni (lest others attain my status) traits. Both are epistemic analytical standpoints of human relationship used in understanding and interpreting people’s actions and inactions. Obasanjo has always fought his kin to the hilt, beginning with Obafemi Awolowo and MKO Abiola, his secondary school senior. The ostensible reason is for him to be the only Yoruba to attain his national height. He once riled the world when he said that the presidency Awolowo sought unsuccessfully was delivered to him on a platter. Rather than his kin, Obasanjo preferred lifting people of other ethnicities. The few kin of his who were struggling to be at the top, like Mike Adenuga Jr., Obasanjo attempted to destroy them.

Not minding the above, a saying that will readily dissolve Tinubu’s TaΕ„tΓ³lΓ³hun dogs’ tantrums against Obasanjo is that even if a hyena develops boil – a painful, pus-filled bump – on its face, it is beyond the remit of the chicken to point it out. A chicken is too miniature in people’s estimation compared to a hyena, just as no one dare peer light into the dilating eyes of the lion. Obasanjo is too elephantine in stature for anybody to demean.

In Nigeria’s 25 years continuous governance, one tree that makes its democratic forest is Obasanjo. It may sound intangible, but we know that Obasanjo has an ancestry that he can point to. I doubt if there is any other leader who is emblematic of this country and who the rest of the world connects than him. I once traveled with Obasanjo to Congo Kinshasa and saw how Felix Tshisekedi and the whole DRC laid red carpet for him. From Nigeria’s first loan of US$13.1 million from the Paris Club of Creditor Nations, taken from the Italian government in 1964 for the building of the Niger Dam, her debt rose to US$36 billion in December 2004. Obasanjo, on June 29, 2005, used his international leverage to have the Paris Club give a US$18 billion debt relief package to the country. No other leader, before and after him, has succeeded in doing this. Many institutions of government which Nigeria enjoys today, the EFCC, ICPC etc – though they are almost comatose now – were all built by him. He brought dignity to Nigeria and his years in government lifted this country’s pride tremendously. More importantly, he didn’t disgrace the Yoruba race.

Yes, Obasanjo’s lust for power, that me-and-only-me (Γ f’èmi, Γ f’èmi) spirit, sowed the seed of his third term ambition which he now shamelessly denies. However, none of his several limitations could be as destructive as to have some insolent and abrasive TaΕ„tΓ³lΓ³hun dogs compare him with Tinubu. Yes, they are both lucky to have risen this high; Obasanjo, in spite of his perceived wickedness, selfishness and Tinubu, for the mucks that glue to his past and present. The lofty pride that oozed off Obasanjo while in office cannot be said of the government that the TaΕ„tΓ³lΓ³hun dogs were last week unleashed to bay blood for and defend. Barking and growling, their teeth tugged at the agbΓ‘dΓ‘ of the Oya priest, they were a pitiable sight as they attempted to stave off Obasanjo’s deadly punches. What did Obasanjo say that is untrue about the pestilence that the Tinubu government has brought on Nigerians in the last 18 months? Nigeria today mirrors every definition of a failed state. Is it the excruciating hunger, go-slow, corruption, a felonious judiciary, an INEC that has gone to the dogs and whose chairman needed to be sacked to allow sanity into Nigeria’s electoral system? What?

Let me close this homily by asking the OlΓΊΓ³de, who has the powers to put a leash on his TaΕ„tΓ³lΓ³hun dogs, to do so immediately. In doing so, I will borrow two advisory sayings of the Yoruba. In one, they caution that, even if a TaΕ„tΓ³lΓ³hun dog is suddenly seized by insanity, it should mind the billowing red-eye of the fire – β€œt’ÑjΓ‘ bΓ‘ Ε„sΓ­nwΓ­n, k’ó mΓ‘ wo’nΓΊ inΓ‘ Γ²yΓ¨lΓ .” In another, Yoruba warn that anyone who assumes that the way an edible vegetable called tΓ¨tΓ¨ is grated and made into soup is same way another variant of the vegetable, the wild dΓ‘guΕ„rΓ³, is eaten will be eating poison!

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