ADEBAYO FALETI (1930 - 2017)

By O Bolaji

Pa Adebayo Faleti, the renowned Yoruba writer (from Nigeria) died at the weekend. He was also a veteran actor, poet, translator, and tv facilitator - from inception.

As a creative writer, Faleti was among the best in respect of the Yoruba language, one of the all-time greats. Works associated with him over the decades include Bashorun Gaa, Ogun Awitele, Okun Ife yi, Sawo-Segberi, Saworoide,  ewi Adebayo Faleti, Won Ro pe were ni, among many others.

Yet the late Faleti triumphed despite daunting odds. As a youngster, his family was so poor that the boy had to essentially pull out all the stops to educate himself. This he did earnestly and painstakingly, even attending University in Senegal along the line.

Faleti would work at the first television station in Africa at Ibadan (now NTA Ibadan) where he made his name and began to do great things for the Yoruba language. His early works even entered the school system, like Ogun Awitele, a typical ingenious work which had facetious undertones.

Pa Faleti cared very much about his mother tongue, Yoruba, and deprecated any attempt to undermine this language, which after all is spoken by well over 30 million people around the world. Yet the great man was also proficient in other international (western) languages like English and French.                

Faleti became ensconced as belonging to the corps of all time greats of the Yoruba language; he even collaborated with other icons of the pristine language like Akinwunmi Isola, and of course as an actor too, Faleti got to mix with virtually all the finest Yoruba actors around, like the powerful Lere Paimo.

Faleti's books and general work straddled many genres - drama, poetry, fiction, general essays plus biography - and his work was illustrated in Yoruba comics, or general illustrations. In life and death he remains larger-than-life.

As a Thespian, Pa Faleti had the ambience of a solemn actor, epitomising a distinct gravitas, allied to the flamboyant brio and eloquence one would often associate with outstanding Yoruba actors and actresses. In every particular, he has certainly gone down in history!

A BEAUTIFUL LIFE (Poem)

By KESA MAKAOTA

When darkness engulfs my days,


When dust chokes my breath,


When fog enslaves my eyes and the rain shatters my skin.

When laughter is but a beautiful enigma and joy fades into a distant nostalgia.

When my face becomes a worn out canvas of old tales, foreign routes and dried up channels that once nourished the nearby grasslands,

When thick beds of solidified ash and debris are the only witness to my existence,

When I am stiffened and stationary in my resting place,

I shall have a hymn in my heart,

 I shall sing sweet melody,

I shall ululate with gratitude in my slumber,

For I have lived a beautiful life!

THE SECRET LIVES OF BABA SEGI'S WIVES. By Lola Shoneyin

Lola Shoneyin's book is one of the most successful and most widely read, received in African literary history (never mind African women's literature). This of course indicates that this work is also widely read in the western world. Indeed some observers sneer at facts like this, claiming that such an author is only largely read by "detached whites' overseas", but this is absurd, as tens of thousands of perceptive African readers abound all over the western world anyway.

Shoneyin is a superb writer, often even giving the impression of a tongue in cheek, non-conformist. This book is about polygamy, African polygamy, which might remind one of the late Isidore Okpewho's early classic, The Victims. Here, we have an irresistible mixture of societal intrigue, chicanery, blackmail, gossip and sparkling conversations, as we latch onto the inner workings/travails of a medley of women in particular.

Many a modern African man will express their reservations, and even the "impossibility" of coping with just one woman at home (monogamy), as they claim that many modern women delight in turning their man into a "docile imbecile" - hence younger ones can only grasp at the effrontery of Baba Segi (the polygamist here) who marries 3, 4 women and somehow keeps them in tow, including whenever he deigns to invite any of the wives to share his bed!

Here we vividly experience the gamut of what such women (wives) go through - their daily foibles and experience, the horrors of (child) barrenness, intense, sly competition among women and siblings... The author pulls it all off magnificently.
- Henry Ozogula