Elechi Amadi Joins The Ancestors
Chidi Anthony Opara
Ace story teller, Elechi Amadi has just joined the ancestors. He will be greatly missed.
CAO.
Ibukunolu A Babajide
Ace story teller, Elechi Amadi has just joined the ancestors. He will be greatly missed.
CAO.
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Ibukunolu A Babajide
PRESS RELEASE:
ADIEU, ELECHI.
I called him Elechi, simply and without formality, as many did, because he was that kind of man. In spite of his age and achievements, he had no airs. In his company you laughed easily; and you learned, because he was full of yarns and wisdom. Certainly I was proud to be his friend, this man whose books were among the ones that taught us how to write. His prose was crisp, his narrative style brisk, compelling; he knew the art of total seduction through the manipulation of suggestion and suspense; he was thoroughly familiar with traditional lore and the world of mystery, magic and fabulation. You enter his fiction, and you are instantly gripped!. Even as you turn the last page, you find yourself king for more... And now he too is gone. No one of course was born to live forever, and the consolation is that Elechi at least stayed long enough with us to a full and ripe age. Still, his departure is painful, for it marks another sad loss from that fine generation of pioneers whose writing established and defined our contemporary literature, and gave our culture a refining ethical direction that, for better or for worse, the younger ones have since jettisoned. Adieu then, humble hero and superb story-teller! May you have a smooth ride back home to the ancestors!
FEMI OSOFISAN.
June 30 2016.
Ace story teller, Elechi Amadi has just joined the ancestors. He will be greatly missed.
CAO.
--
Cornelius Hamelberg
Dayan ha emet
Elechi Amadi , another illustrious and unassuming Ikwerre elder gone, but not his literary legacy.
May his soul rest in perfect peace.
Kenneth Harrow
Elechi Amadi. I would have loved to have met him. In some ways his novels were the most widely taught African novels of all. I know that is heresy with many who know little about the actual teaching of afr lit, and imagine it is all wrapt up in one novel, Things Fall Apart. But the novels that I think were steadily taught in all the African universities I’ve known were The Great Ponds, The Concubine, Sunset in Biafra, The Slave. His particularly readable texts were historical realism, no doubt inspired by the same impulse that guided Achebe, which was to present, and preserve, the world of an Igbo Africa prior to the coming of the Europeans, and that meant not only showing the conflict, to give interest to his accounts, but like achebe to glorify the culture and language, thought, of what he was reconstituting as “traditional Africa.” In short he, and the writers of that first generation, established a bedrock for our understanding of African literature, against which the subsequent generations could then react. My own belief is that it was that reading of his works, of his generation’s work, that created what we can call the tradition of African literature. It was not grounded in responding to European misguided views; the world returned to Africa itself as the center, with its glories and its problems. That’s why I resist all the time the need to continually read African thought as though it were still responding to colonialism. That was the past; we are past it ; and elechi amadi, along with achebe, Soyinka, ngugi, laye, kane—that whole generation of writers of the 50s and 60s—made it possible. The fathers, and along with aidoo, nwapa, etc—the mothers, of African literature. How appropriate that we salute his passing with the encomium coming from the 3d generation’s spokesperson, osofisan.
ken
Chidi Anthony Opara
“-----and gave our culture a refining ethical direction that, for better or for worse, the younger ones have since jettisoned” (Femi Osofisan)
I totally disagree. It is either Osofisan does not read the writings of the “younger ones” or reads very little of them. I also totally disagree with Professor Harrow’s “In some ways his novels were the most widely taught African novels of all”. Harrow’s “in some ways” phrase is undefined.
CAO.
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
My favorite scene from the Elechi Amadi's The Concubine is one of the best pieces of writing I have encountered on the numinous in reference to an African context. The concept of the 'numinous' was made famous by Rudolph Otto in his book Das Heilige, translated as the Idea of the Holy, in which he tried to identify the essence of religion, an essence he described as the 'numinous', supporting his arguments with rich quotes from both Christian and Asian religious texts. A quote from Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language sums up very well Otto's presentation of this concept as referring to ' an invisible but majestic presence that inspires both dread and fascination and constitutes the non-rational element of vital religion'. A fantastic ideational construction that may be better appreciated in comparison with Immanuel Kant's analysis of the Sublime in his Critique of Judgement and which has proven invaluable in helping me conceptualize my experience with the potencies of sacred trees in Benin, a centre of tree veneration, in relation to encounters with other natural and human made sacred spaces in Nigeria and England.
'Emenike noticed that the old men averted their faces when the priest appeared to glance at any one of them; so he decided to stare back whenever the priest's glance at any one of them; so he decided to stare back whenever the priest's glance fell on him. His opportunity came before the thought was through his mind. He gazed at the priest and immediately regretted that he had done so, for in the priest's face he read mild reproach, pity, awe, power, wisdom, love, life and -- yes, he was sure -- death. In a fraction of a second he relived his past life. In turns he felt deep affection for the priest and a desire to embrace him, and nauseating repulsion, which made him want to scream with disgust. He felt the cold grip of despair, and the hollow sensation which precedes a great ca- lamity; he felt a sickening nostalgia for an indistinct place he was sure he had never been t'
This recalling an experience one could have in looking at the faces of people steeped in particular spiritual disciplines, an experience that recalls for me, but still very different from, that I had when meeting Soyinka for the first time, alone in his office at then University of Ife, a look, which according to Esiri Dafiewhare emerges when one has "immersed oneself in certain numinous streams'.
If Okigbo had lived Soyinka would have had a ready contender. Soyinka, Achebe and Okogbo were primarily cultural visualizers and they did it particularly well, in their distinctive ways.On the claim that Amadi is as great a writer as Soyinka and Achebe, I wonder how valid that assertion is, though I have read only one piece of writing my Amadi, The Concubine, while I have read more from Achebe and Soyinka.As for Achebe, whose career I know less about, I get the impression that the power of Things Fall Apart did not need any special group to help promote. The work will always speak for itself. Achebe, like Soyinka, was also very active outside writing, Achebe with the founding of the journal Okike and his role in the civil war and Soyinka with editing Transition and his role in Nigerian politics, from the radio station hijack episode to his civil war incarceration to so many other engagements, so people must notice him.I have not looked closely at the social and economic contexts that contributed to Soyinka and Achebe's visibility, but the invocation of ethnic identifications as being responsible for that visibility looks to me be historically inaccurate, since Soyinka's visibility began with his co- founding of Pyrates at the University of Ibadan, where Achebe also was, continued with the regard in which he was held by his teacher at Leeds, Wilson Knight, one of the more prominent Shakespearean scholars of the 20th century, who openly expressed what he had learnt from Soyinka when the latter was his student-from what I recall, and to whom Soyinka dedicated his iconic essay "The Fourth Stage", continued with his time at the Royal Court Theater and his coming to Nigeria to conduct research on classical Nigerian drama through a British Council fellowship, foreshadowing the international character of his career, from a later fellowship at Cambridge to directing the international theatre institute in Paris, to giving the BCC Reith lectures, among other developments. I have serious doubts about ethnic components as being central to Soyinka's visibility.May God bring the great artist to himself and take best care of those he left behind.Great thanks for this, Ken-
'It was not grounded in responding to European misguided views; the world returned to Africa itself as the center, with its glories and its problems. That’s why I resist all the time the need to continually read African thought as though it were still responding to colonialism'.Along similar lines, I do my best not to refer to any period in African cultural production as post-colonial., even though I recognize the historical value of the term. I prefer the terms 'classical' and 'post-classical' bcs I see creators inspired by Africa adapting ideas and strategies from a particular cultural architecture to create new developments in a later stage of growth. I dont see why Africa has to be continually framed in terms of its colonial experience.In the name of examining artistic legacies, though, I would like to look briefly at IBK's claim that 'He was a great writer in the league of Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe (his Government College Umuahia fellow alumnus) but as he did not have the huge backing of a resourced Yoruba or Igbo group behind him (and his role in the Nigerian civil war), he did not get as much acclaim as he deserved'.
Achebe and Soyinka are simply unusually great writers. That fact cant be denied them. As for Soyinka, equaling Soyinka's achievement would be quite significant, on account of his quality of achievement across various genres.I'll read the rest of Amadi, particularly in relation to my favorite scene from the Concubine, one of the best pieces of writing I have encountered on the numinous in reference to an African context.thankstoyin
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
'It was not grounded in responding to European misguided views; the world returned to Africa itself as the center, with its glories and its problems. That’s why I resist all the time the need to continually read African thought as though it were still responding to colonialism'.
Achebe and Soyinka are simply unusually great writers. That fact cant be denied them. As for Soyinka, equaling Soyinka's achievement would be quite significant, on account of his quality of achievement across various genres.
Ibukunolu A Babajide
acclaim
visibility
Okechukwu Ukaga
It is pertinent to note that Ikwere is Igbo too. And that is evident in their Igbo names like Ikwere (meaning you agree or if you agree), Elechi (looking to God), Amadi (thunder or short for nwaamadioha, which means the son of thunder. Other examples include Chibuike or Chibuikem (God is strength or God is my strength), Amaechi or onyemaechi (no one knows tomorrow or who knows tomorrow). I should also note that Ikwere dialect is even closer to central igbo language than some other igbo dialects such as Nsuka or Abakaliki or even Owerri dialects. So I don't understand why some see Ikwere as separate from Igbo even when some of these places have names like Obi-Igbo (meaning heart of Igbo-land or Igbo heartland) plus language and culture that clearly attest to their being Igbo.
Regards,
Okey Ukaga
Born in Elele (Ikwere Igbo)
Chidi Anthony Opara
Honestly, I am still wondering how some of IBK's posts make it pass moderation.
CAO
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Oluwatoyin Adepoju
no need for insults or quarrels. its supposed to be a serious discussion about literature.
people's competencies are not always identical. we need to recognize competence when we encounter it.
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
Oju Elegba by Victor Ekpuk
Victor Ekpuk's Oju Elegba as Intercultural Epistemic Unifier
Ojuelegba has two meanings. It is a busy suburb in Lagos that is a transportation hub which connects the Mainland to Victoria Island. It is also the area that Wizkid grew up.
Ojuelegba's literal meaning is The Eyes of Elegba. Elegba is the Yoruba diety of roads and doors in the world and stands at the crossroads of the human and the divine realm.
The song Ojuelegba by
Wizkid is in itself a long metaphor about his journey from living in
Mainland Lagos (the human realm) which is considered the poorer side of
Lagos as a
child and a struggling musician to his rise to stardom where
he now lives in Victoria Island (the divine realm) which is considered
the most affluent and developed region of Lagos
Bukky Oladeji
In this context, the concept of "visibility' is one such semantic matrix, realized in terms of an expanding circle of significations, from the literal to the metaphorical, as I describe in that post. The relationship between the literal and the metaphorical may thus be understood in terms of the mediation between forms of being and modes of knowledge represented by Esu and by Agwu, a mediatory process that may be seen as summed up in Oju Elegba, Victor Ekuk's superb evocation of Esu in terms of vision and its range of hermeneutic implications, in conjunction with his signature adaptation of Nsibidi motifs in relation to the expressive language he has created from immersing himself in the tension between exoteric and esoteric perception and expression of which Nsibidi is emblematic in its use by the Eke esoteric order of Nigeria's Cross River region and South West Cameroon.
This understanding of the significance of semantic strategies in language may be enriched by a discussion of ideas about denotation, connotation and metaphor or related ideas in various philosophies from various cultures, theory of metaphor being discussed in Western thought from Aristotle to more recent work represented by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, perspectives correlative with human symbolization processes in general, from verbal language to mathematics, as suggested by Timothy Gowers' description, in Mathematics : A Very Short Introduction, of the role of abstraction in mathematics as a method of representing ideas, an understanding that may be further adapted into enriching Ifa and Afa theory and practice as multidisciplinary symbol systems, integrating literature, sculpture and mathematics as primary organizational and performative strategies in exploring possibilities enabled by the intersection of being and becoming as expressed in both the details of human life and the network realized by these details, exploring the meaning of being in terms of the integration of this profusion of possibilities into a network of mutually signifying expressions.
Kenneth Harrow
Thank you for this, toyin. It is really nice, both the text and the image.
ken
Cornelius Hamelberg
Henry Louis Gates Jr : The Signifying Monkey
Ibukunolu A Babajide
Toyin,
All these to cover a simple error. You dribble yourself and confuse yourself to no end.
Denotation and connotation we learnt from primary school. J S Mills also professes the strict definition and etymological roots of words.
From the simple dictionary definitions I gave you Elechi Amadi was very visible. I saw him, you saw him, Chidi Anthony Opara and millions who read his works saw him. My friend he was visible.
My simple point is not even about his ethnicity influencing his creative production or intellection. The wrong end of the stick that you have turned into your chewing stick.
My point is that mainstream Yoruba being many and mainstream Igbo being many celebrated Soyinka and Achebe which snowballed into their global acclaim.
On Ikwerre being Igbo I recommend Ken Saro Wiwa's On a Darkened Plain. The whole Igbonization of the Ikwerre is about land grab. Especially the grabbing of Port Harcourt. Oluwatoyin Adepoju bears Yoruba names but he tells me he is not Yoruba he is a Bini.
I digress too far. Let the Ikwerres defend their Igboness or otherwise.
Toyin stop dancing kokoma. Visibility is not acclaim. You built your arguments on a faulty foundation and the skyscraper of error must fall. Manage it's demolition instead of attempting to hide under denotation and connotation.
Chidi Anthony Opara do not tell me that you promote gatekeeping and censorship? That is not you. So stop dancing to such music of shame. I love you because you dared to circumvent the gatekeepers and vend your poetry to all and sundry over the Internet. Now for you to advocate the suppression of my voice through moderation is vile and reprehensible. Stop it now!
Cheers.
IBK
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
'With the military coups and the civil war and the destabilizations that followed, Nigerian artistic and intellectual culture, as far as I know, has not again reached that level of international convergence of the 50s and 60s'
'From the simple dictionary definitions I gave you Elechi Amadi was very visible. I saw him, you saw him, Chidi Anthony Opara and millions who read his works saw him. My friend he was visible.
My simple point is not even about his ethnicity influencing his creative production or intellection. The wrong end of the stick that you have turned into your chewing stick'.Bros, with all due respect, I dont think this point is sustainable-Lets see what you are concocting now.IBK, you are still on this work!I thought you had retired gracefully.' mainstream Yoruba being many and mainstream Igbo being many celebrated Soyinka and Achebe which snowballed into their global acclaim'.
At the time when these people made their names, African literature was just beginning to gain an identity and scholarship about Nigerian arts was was not ethnically motivated
Its not difficult to trace the rise to visibility of Soyinka and Achebe. To the best of my knowledge, ethnic championing had little or nothing to do with it.
I gave a broad overview of the Soyinka example.
One may say ethnic champions helped to get their books into school syllabi, but these were people of acclaim beyond Nigeria, and being the second generation, after writers like Dennis Osadebey of Nigerian writers in English, they were thoroughly trained in the strategies of writing and in world literature, along with their solid grounding in their traditional cultures. There were not many writers then and these people were the best, and they will always be among the best globally.
Nigeria of their time was very different from Nigeria of today. The centres of African artistic emergence- Ibadan and the journal Black Orpheus, Uganda, Makjere and the journal Transition, Osogbo and the various artist collectives, among others, were not ethnic but international centres of culture, where Western, and with Neogy, Asian and African catalyzers gathered to create a ferment that recalls what may be described as the birth of modern Western art in the international environment of 19th century Paris that saw the likes of van Gogh, Gauguin, the Impressionists and others who laid the foundations for the cerebral, experimental, abstract and continually transformative character of modern Western art, a foundation that later made possible a person like Picasso, perhaps the most famous Western artist of the 20th century, who was Spanish, as van Gogh was Dutch, but whose careers are inseparable from Paris, like that of Susanne Wenger and Ulli Beier are inseparable from Ibadan and Osogbo, though they are Austrian and German.
The birth of post-classical Nigerian art, I believe, with the Zaria Rebels, was represented by artists of different ethnicities, who, nevertheless, starting from their schooling in Zaria, adapted the founding philosophy of the school, Natural Synthesis, I understand, to adapting creativity from their indigenous cultures, Uche Okeke and his championing of the Igbo Uli aesthetic, Bruce Onabrakpeya's transmutation of Urhobo shrine aesthetics, among other examples.
Demonstrative of the persistence of this international culture is that perhaps the most globally acclaimed Nigerian artist, El Anatsui, is based at Nsukka, but he is not Igbo but Ghanaian, and has been able to adapt not only the culture of using the local environment as inspiration, as championed by the Zaria Rebels but has developed a quality which can be seen as central to the aesthetic of a significant number of Nsukka trained artists, the use of discarded material. natural or human made, in creating art, a culture that might have emerged from post-civil war exigencies, a situation that the critic and poet Romanus Egudu described as motivating his work in Igbo oral literature, since the libraries had been destroyed by the war, but Egudu's academic foundations were in the US, where he says he insisted on doing African literature for his PhD dissertation, even though the discipline did not exist then, an account that recalls Soyinka's story of his coming to write one of his books, perhaps Myth, Literature and the African World in response to the declaration he encountered while on a fellowship at Cambridge that 'there is no such mythical beast as African literature'.
At the times these creative people emerged, as far as I know, indigenous institution that could support their work hardly existed. They created the institutions.
Once Achebe had published Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God, anybody writing in that form had to do something significantly different from Achebe if that person was to receive his level of acclaim and I wonder the degree that other writers drawing from Igbo culture, particularly in his generation and shortly after, except Okigbo, have achieved that.
Great African writers who dont have a level of visibility commensurate with their achievement include the South African African writer Bessie Head, in connection with her novel A Question of Power, which does something with mythology i am yet to see another African writer do, though I don't have broad knowledge of African literature, but, in my exposure to various literature, she is one of the greatest i know in her interweaving of myth and personal experience.
thanks
toyin
With the military coups and the civil war and the destabilizations that followed, Nigerian artistic and intellectual culture, as far as I know, has not again reached that level of international convergence of the 50s and 60s
Cornelius Hamelberg
Chirping : It is not my intention to subsidize the fire by adding more free fuel to it, but here goes:
Some imaginings about the domestic market in Nigeria: if Nobel Laureate Soyinka, and Messrs Achebe and Amadi's claim to fame had been exclusively based on their literary output in Yoruba, Igbo and Ikwerre respectively, then IBK's thesis would have been even more incontestable, given the relative numerical strength of Yoruba in terms of numbers of speakers, the Yoruba people's creativity in ART, literature, music, dance, drama, in short of the performing arts, not to mention Yoruba's proven strength as a literary language, the size of the Yoruba reading public considering Nigeria's non-reading generations the numerical strength of Igbo speakers vis-a-vis Ikwerre cheerleaders for Elechi Amadi in Ikwerre (a kind of colonial pidgin Igbo) - the Ikwerre people in whose midst I lived at Ahoada for a good one and half years of acculturation (as I will be making clear on some other pages, who, why, when,where, but not here)
And then Soyinka, Achebe and Amadi would have only been accessible to the rest of Nigeria through translations into the various indigenous mother tongues and into English, Scandinavian languages which are mutually understandable ( Swedish, Norwegian and Danish) French, Dutch, German, Russian and Chinese.
Acclaim, “Visibility”(exposure by media and as seen in living colour and on TV) the uses and misuses of invisibility - it reminds me of these lines from Derek Walcott's Another Life :
“Submarine,
the
seven-foot-high bum boatman
loose, lank and gangling as a frayed
cheroot,
once asked to see a ship’s captain, and refused,
with
infinite courtesy bending, inquired
“ So what the hell is your
captain?
A fucking microbe? “
China ! One point three billion Chinese literati jumping up and down like Beatles girl fans pulling their hair and screaming Ma Long ! Ma Long !! or Mo Yan! Mo Yan!!! - Shakespeare and Soyinka can take a back seat, Shakespeare and Soyinka 's Nigerian fans fans outnumbered one tone thousand to one this living century...
There’s all that classical Chinese Literature available in translation. Take Mo Yan for example ( I've only read his phantasmagoria critique of existential life in China Life and Death are Wearing Me Out , was terribly impressed and concluded that only Amos Tutuola comes close, except that Tutuola needs no translation into Yoruba – if you know what I mean)
So what next ? We vote for the next Nobel Prize winner in Literature?
What would happen then ? The French Language freaks want it and so does Philip Roth!
On Thursday, 30 June 2016 16:14:28 UTC+2, ibk wrote:
Chidi Anthony Opara
I cannot advocate the suppression of anybody's voice, that would not be me. In my opinion, there is a difference between "gate-keeping" and moderation. The former seeks to exclude, while the latter sifts. I believe that atleast, the basic rules of decency should be observed in public discourses.
Toyin disagreed with your viewpoints without throwing dirts on your person but your reply heaped doubts on his academic endervours, which was unnecesary in the circumstance.
I also love you for what you have achieved in your chosen profession and this the main reason why I feel bad any time you "miss yan" (as we say at Arugo Motor Park Owerri).
Be well always,
CAO.
O O
Ibukunolu A Babajide
CAO.
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Ibukunolu A Babajide
Chidi Anthony Opara
IBK,
Who will constitute the arbiters of decency is no longer the issue, since the basic rules have already been established.
CAO
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Chidi Anthony Opara
CAO.
On Sunday, 3 July 2016 22:57:52 UTC+1, Chidi Anthony Opara wrote:
IBK,
Who will constitute the arbiters of decency is no longer the issue, since the basic rules have already been established.CAO
On Jul 3, 2016 10:01 PM, "Ibukunolu A Babajide" <ibk...@gmail.com> wrote:
CAO,You or who will constitute the arbiters of decency, and after their subjective determination sift voices they do not want? Leave my profession. It is of no moment here. Look deep inside and remove any demons of censorship you harbour deep inside of you.That my dear Owerri motor park friend is my Sunday preachment to you.God bless you too.Cheers.
On 3 July 2016 at 17:32, Chidi Anthony Opara <chidi...@gmail.com> wrote:
IBK,
I cannot advocate the suppression of anybody's voice, that would not be me. In my opinion, there is a difference between "gate-keeping" and moderation. The former seeks to exclude, while the latter sifts. I believe that atleast, the basic rules of decency should be observed in public discourses.
Toyin disagreed with your viewpoints without throwing dirts on your person but your reply heaped doubts on his academic endervours, which was unnecesary in the circumstance.
I also love you for what you have achieved in your chosen profession and this the main reason why I feel bad any time you "miss yan" (as we say at Arugo Motor Park Owerri).
Be well always,
CAO.
--
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Salimonu Kadiri
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Elechi Amadi Joins The Ancestors
Ademola Dasylva
Professor of African & Oral Literature.
Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone.
| From: Salimonu Kadiri Sent: Monday, 4 July 2016 23:18 Reply To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Elechi Amadi Joins The Ancestors |
Gbolahan Gbadamosi
Sent from my old reliable Olivetti Typewriter
I had intended taking vacation a while from the forum but I cannot resist reacting to this Ojuelegba story. According to Bukky Oladeji, "Ojuelegba has two meanings. It is a busy suburb in Lagos that is a transportation hub which connects the Mainland to Victoria Island.... Ojuelegba's literal meaning is the Eyes of Elegba. Elegba is the Yoruba deity of roads and doors in the world and stands at the cross-roads of the human and the divine realm."Reading the above meanings of the word "OJÚELÉGBA" as insinuated by Bukky Oladeji reminds me of a father in Nigeria who once followed his truant son to the school to report him to the teacher. Assuming himself to be speaking English to the teacher, the father pointed finger at his son and said, "This boy won go school; A don know waiting i de head; you de look in mouth." The perplexed teacher politely asked the father to repeat his complaint in Yoruba whereby he said, "E séun jàré, omódé yì kò fé lo sí iléìwé, miò mó nkan tí onsé orí rè, àbí erí enu rè gbòtìà-gbòtìa." It became obvious that what he assumed to be telling the teacher in English was, "This boy does not want to go to school; I don't know what is wrong with his head; Look at his big mouth." It is dangerous to pretend to know what one does not know.Bearing a Yoruba name is not enough to lay claim to the understanding of Yoruba language, tradition and culture. That became obvious when Western Nigeria Broadcasting Corporation wanted to recruit persons to its Yoruba Division in 1956. One of the candidates was asked to translate the Yoruba words ÒGÚFE and ÕGÙN ÌFE into English. His translations were "twenty cups and Ife medicine respectively," whereas ÒGÚFE is a bearded goat with the characteristics of antelope and ÕGÙN ÌFE is love charm or medicine for love. A thorough Yoruba person should know the differences between Ògúfe, a goat and ogún Ife, twenty cups; as well as the differences between õgùn Ìfe, love charm and Ifè medicine.Ojúelegba is a compound word which nowadays is wrongly pronounced and assigned a different meaning from what it was originally. The word OJÚ in Yoruba can mean eye, aperture, face or look. But when it is used together with another word in a compound word the meaning varies significantly. Examples are: Ojú-aiyé (eye-service), Ojú-ibodè (border or boundary gate), Ojúbo (a spot used for the worship of ancestors or household gods), Ojúbo-Bàbá or Ìyá (a cenotaph for ancestral worship), Ojú-efin (chimney), Ojú-fèrèsé (window), Ojúgbàeni (an age mate, of the same age), Ojúkòkòrò (avarice or covetousness), Ojúìkù (touch hole of the gun), Ojúlaféni (insincere friend), Ojú-àgbàrá (gutter path), Ojúta-Oba (King's main entrance) etc. Oju-ele-egba is a compound word consisting of three words with each word having its own meaning. As it is spelled and pronounced nowadays, Ojúelegba is translatably to 'Whip procurement place,' and not the 'eyes of Elegba' as claimed by Bukky Oladeji. Elegba ordinarily will translate to 'whip seller or creator' as in Eléfo - vegetable seller, Eléran - butcher or cattle dealer, Eléda - creator, Elégàn - despiser or slanderer. Since whips were never created or sold at OJUELEGBA, the name of that particular area in Lagos mainland could not have evolved from such business. There is no such Yoruba deity of roads and doors known as 'Elegba' as it is being touted by Bukky Oladeji. Paralytic disease in Yoruba language is called ÀRÙN ÈGBÀ and the person afflicted is called ELÉGBÀ. In the late 50s when Surùlérè part of Lagos mainland was developing, there were large concentration of paralysed people, crawling and creeping around the evolving motor park to beg for alms. Due to the fact that the main habitats of this particular area of Surùlérè were paralytics, the place was named in Yoruba after them as OJÚELÉGBÀ, but with time the pronunciation has changed to convey a different meaning entirely. I repeat, Yoruba has no deity of roads and doors known as ELEGBA but people who are afflicted with PARALYTIC are known as or called ELÉGBÁ in Yoruba language.
S. Kadiri
From: oluwak...@gmail.com
Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2016 22:11:25 +0100
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Elechi Amadi Joins The Ancestors
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
<Oju Elegba.jpg>
Ibukunolu A Babajide
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Gbolahan Gbadamosi
profoy...@yahoo.com
From: "Ademola Dasylva" <dasy...@gmail.com>
To: "Salimonu Kadiri" <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>, <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Cc: "Toyin Falola" <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu>, "Yoruba Affairs" <yoruba...@googlegroups.com>, "Adeshina Afolayan" <shina7...@yahoo.com>, <ebomo...@yahoo.com>, "Victor Adetimirin Prof" <voti...@yahoo.com>, "Mark Ighile Broda" <mig...@gmail.com>, <muyiw...@yahoo.com>, "Toyin Jegede" <toyinje...@gmail.com>, "Ofure Aito" <ofur...@gmail.com>, <bolau...@yahoo.com>, "DOYIN AGUORU" <doyina...@gmail.com>, "Dele Olayiwola" <delela...@yahoo.com>, "Olutayo Adesina" <olut...@gmail.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Elechi Amadi Joins The Ancestors
Date: Tue, Jul 5, 2016 01:57
Professor of African & Oral Literature.
Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone.
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Elechi Amadi Joins The Ancestors |
From: oluwak...@gmail.com
Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2016 22:11:25 +0100
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Elechi Amadi Joins The Ancestors
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Oju Elegba by Victor Ekpuk
Victor Ekpuk's Oju Elegba as Intercultural Epistemic Unifier
Ojuelegba has two meanings. It is a busy suburb in Lagos that is a transportation hub which connects the Mainland to Victoria Island. It is also the area that Wizkid grew up.
Ojuelegba's literal meaning is The Eyes of Elegba. Elegba is the Yoruba diety of roads and doors in the world and stands at the crossroads of the human and the divine realm.
The song Ojuelegba by Wizkid is in itself a long metaphor about his journey from living in Mainland Lagos (the human realm) which is considered the poorer side of Lagos as a
child and a struggling musician to his rise to stardom where he now lives in Victoria Island (the divine realm) which is considered the most affluent and developed region of Lagos
and Nigeria as a whole.
Bukky Oladeji
<s
Kenneth Harrow
Dear ibk
If you want to post a message that is not gagged, you can use facebook. If you want to share a public space with others, where the collective is brought together thanks to the effort of a moderator, and where participation is optional, then you should not complain that the one who put the list together has the right to determine what are the limits of the speech. Some time ago I was attacked on this list no matter what I said. I would not have continued to participate had that continued. What you call gagging might be called something else under these circumstances.
ken
From: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Ibukunolu A Babajide <ibk...@gmail.com>
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Monday, July 4, 2016 at 3:48 PM
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Elechi Amadi Joins The Ancestors
CAO,
Ibukunolu A Babajide
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Ibukunolu A Babajide
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
Ibukunolu A Babajide
Kenneth Harrow
Hi ibk
You are arguing with someone whose sentiments towards freedom of speech are very much in your direction; I’ve protested and been an activist all my life, and at times have paid the price. But please do not argue for freedom of speech as meaning unlimited freedom. Your freedom of speech impacts my own freedoms, and neither is absolute. If you malign me, I can imagine in two ways I am hurt. First, my feelings. Ok, a public forum dictates some measure of permitting strong disagreement, but if it is a community of speakers, and one person drives another away by continually insulting that person, I, as a community member, might suggest to the other members of the community we shouldn’t allow that. I stress a community of speakers, a group which we all joined, not the open public domain of democracy and the state.
Secondly, if y ou malign me, saying I sell faulty products, and it isn’t true and I go out of business, then you have libeled me and that is against the law…. For obvious reasons.
Third, if you malign my people, saying we are here to exploit and kill you, and say, let’s go after them, and if the others rise us and kill us because of that, then you have incited violence. I am against that.
American law is more tolerant of that. But I can tell you that since Rwanda, since radio mille collines, when 800,000 mostly tutsi people were slaughtered, I will never never accept that you have the right to incite violence against another.
I try to propose extreme cases because I want to understand how the notion of freedom might be limited, with this entailing an abuse of our freedom. I think, as I reflect on it, that we might consider the difference between our freedom as individuals—free to express ourselves as we see fit—and our freedom as a community, free to act collectively, and to consider the collective as the agent, not just myself as an individual as the agent.
Does that make sense to you?
Sort of like, does the collective gag itself when it says its own members can criticize each other, but not damage each other?
Lastly, who determines if damage is being done. Well, in this case that person is the moderator, self-appointed because of having founded and continuing to facilitate the list. That might not work for a nation, but it does work for lots of smaller collectivities that have a sense of sharing, of brotherhood and sisterhood.
Ken
(I know I am opening a huge philosophical can of worms with these notions: I taught, many years ago, rousseau and I understand his arguments, used in the French revolution, about the will of the people. I understand, too, how the reign of terror justified itself using the argument about the will of the people. I understand how the brits imagine other notions of the state versus citizens…. I just tried to give examples that made sense to me for us on this list—what might be legitimate in stating there are acceptable limits to what we can say)
Jimoh Oriyomi
Ademola Dasylva
Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone.
| From: Jimoh Oriyomi Sent: Tuesday, 5 July 2016 21:37 |
Reply To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com |
Subject: Re: Yoruba Affairs - Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Elechi Amadi Joins The Ancestors |
Salimonu Kadiri
GG asserted that there were masquerades and families of *Ojes* around the centre of Ojúelégba where masquerades (Êgún) used to engage in 'cane fights' using 'àtòrì or egba' during their festivals. Whether Êgún or Orò or Ìgunu, each of them has a cult commonly known as Òjè where members are very verse in mystery called Awo. That is why the Yoruba say that if one was born in Òjè, one must be verse in mystery. When it comes to whipping four objects with different qualities are used in Yoruba land. These are : Oré (pronounced (aureh) which is mostly applied in punishing small children; Pàsán and Egba are wooden rods used mostly by street urchins or hooligans and even in schools; and Àtòrì, a bendable wooden stick that is very difficult to break. I am not aware of any Êgún in Yorubaland that carries any other whipping garget other than 'ÀTÒRÌ.' Logically, if masquerades ever fought in that part of Surùlérè, they would not have done it with wooden rod, 'Egba,' but Àtòrì because of the myth attached to the latter. Therefore, the place would reasonably have been named OJÚ-ÌTA-ÀTÒRÌ and not even OJÚ-ALÁTÒRÌ not to talk of OJÚ-ELEGBA. Elegba would translate to producer or seller of Egba (whip) and Ojú would translate to place or centre, therefore, the combination of the two words would mean place or centre for whip producer or seller. Since there is no place in Surùlérè where whips were produced and sold at anytime in history the name Ojúelegba must be a counterfeit.
S.Kadiri
Gbolahan Gbadamosi
From: Salimonu Kadiri <ogunl...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, July 5, 2016 23:06
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Elechi Amadi Joins The Ancestors
Ibukunolu A Babajide
Ibukunolu A Babajide
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
Chidi Anthony Opara
I am out of this argument for good. But before I quit, take it that there must be rules and the rules are to be adhered to. Even on facebook which Professor Harrow mentioned, there are rules. These rules will have to be enforced by a person or group of persons, be he/she/they moderator(s), editor(s), etc. Interpreting the concept of free speech in absolute terms is unfortunate.
CAO.
Ibukunolu A Babajide
Ibukunolu A Babajide
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
'Interpreting the concept of free speech in absolute terms is unfortunate'
Kenneth Harrow
Dear ibk
Your questions are important for me not because of the particular instance of your disputes here on the list, but the broader question of freedom of speech. Libel is proven in a court, and damage must be proven for it to be libel. That’s my non-lawyer answer, what I’d call an educated guess. You know quite well that many countries now have laws against hate speech; and even if the u.s. doesn’t subscribe to such laws, or accept them because of the first amendment, we still accept the notion of a hate crime, which is adduced on the basis of speech spoken in relation to the crime.
The question of free speech on this list is not so simple to dismiss as you would make it seem. I am answering because your arguments are good, and I agree that if you dare to speak out publicly then you should expect pot shots. But you can’t say because of that that any speech is ok and that there are no limits. Of course someone has to adjudicate, and more than once toyin falola has intervened not only to urge a measure of decorum, but to remind us of his authority to make that appeal. I thought everyone on this list recognized that authority when he spoke, that is, as moderator, not just as highly regarded scholar.
You might not agree, but I would hope that we could all try to agree on debating the points with all the heat we want, but leaving insults out of this. What do we really gain in insulting each other? We alienate subscribers to the list, and in the end kill the spirit of community that binds us together in dialogue.
Lastly, just because it is difficult to make distinctions, just because it is hard to implement such rules, that doesn’t mean we don’t try. Actually, without being hyperbolic, it is actually that effort to deal with the difficult borderline that makes us human in the best sense. It is easy to give a brilliant student a 4.0; anyone can do it. But when do you decide if a student is on the edge, especially because a failure or not, and add to that cases when the failure might have dire consequences. You can’t dodge it; you have to decide.
Decide not to insult, while still criticizing profoundly. Why not?
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
'Actually, without being hyperbolic, it is actually that effort to deal with the difficult borderline that makes us human in the best sense.
...
Decide not to insult, while still criticizing profoundly. Why not?'
kenSalimonu Kadiri
You gave the impression that the original name, OJÚ-ELÉGBÁRA, might have been corrupted to OJÚ-ELÉGBA in the course of time. Thus, you gave the examples of 'AMÙKÒKÒ,' a pipe smoker, and 'AMÚKOKÒ,' a hyena captor. In written Yoruba, a pipe smoker should be spelled, AMU-ÌKÒKÒ or AMU'KÒKÒ while a captor of hyena should be spelled AMU-ÌKOKÒ or AMU'KOKÒ. The Yoruba word for pipe is ÌKÒKÒ, while the Yoruba word for hyena is IKOKÒ. Although the spellings are the same, the intonation marks on the vowels decide the pronunciations. Therefore, if AMUKOKÒ can be misconstrued for AMUKÒKÒ, OJÚELÉGBÁRA cannot conveniently be misconstrued for OJÚELÉGBA. Consequently, OJÚELÉGBÁRA and OJÚELÉGBA are two parallel lines that have no point of intersection and can never meet. On the contrary ELÉGBÀ, the paralytic, can be misconstrued for ELÉGBA, Whip center, because they have the same spelling as a point of intersection although pronounced differently.
Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2016 22:41:36 +0100
Subject: Re: Yoruba Affairs - Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Elechi Amadi Joins The Ancestors
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
On Ojuelegba: Behind Wizkid and Fela Kuti’s contemplation of an iconic Lagos landmark