Oriki'badan

Oriki’badan

1 Emmanuel Fru Doh Oriki’badan After years and years, Up onto the hills with fright And down into the valleys with sighs, Then the plateau with relief My life spiraled, yet now I must acknowledge that a good Foundation will hold a lofty building; A carefully built house will for long Maintain its value, the storms notwithstanding. Of man’s encounter with the travails of life In the path to transition and of the dedication Of others to be of assistance I sing in general. In particular, I sing of my treacherous Encounter with a gorgon humongous in size, That amongst brave peers in the struggle, I had to overcome, the doors to success Open and my welfare guarantee. Of my quest for knowledge in particular, Of my journey into intellectual manhood, Across hills, valleys, rivers, and wastelands Across vast distances in time and effort And my encounter with some of Africa’s best Acada1 priests and priestesses, authorities In our unique rite of passage, I now tell. I sing of giants, masters and mistresses at What they did, gem-studded crowns yet So devoted one considered oneself blessed Their apprentice to be. So help me Shiliwa, Fire my cerebral lobes into motion And feed them with facts of years 2 Oriki’badan The totality of which I recall no more, Or else barely do in some cases, With ideas fresh, potent, and moving; For where now you reside little sister, The future is last night’s dinner and the past Today’s breakfast. Inject power then And rhythm into Oriki’badan, That Uites may be praised deservedly, The shrine itself, The University of Ibadan, The fiercest acadagorn of all, The most daunting since Timbuktu, The priests, chief priests and high priests extolled, For people earth-colored say: Tell him when his chest rises and falls, Or else lament when the rhythm ceases, Give praises when due before it is late And in regret wallow. Ah-ah "UHAI" Speed-appellation by bus conductor: U.I.! UHAI! UHAI! UHAI! UHAI! University of Ibadan. But first things first: no nursery school for me; My father had time. From work he returned By 3:30pm and following a deserved nap Homework time—my dreaded hour—when He would supplement what Mrs. Anoma, Mrs. Tigem And Mrs. Ekema had started during the day In the Roman Catholic school of Buea Town In the mid and late sixties. Football I preferred To calculations, to multiplication-tables And division—long and short. But I was condemned: first male and for Long the only, so best to be as pathfinder 3 Emmanuel Fru Doh And so I worked and worked; I had to work, And hard too. I did play, and well too, Study I was expected to do and well too, But only a rare child loves book over play, And I am not rare, but my best I gave Sometimes earning rewards: a trip to the cinema, At other times strokes of the cane, my performance Judge and jury. It burned in the will to succeed, The odds notwithstanding, day, night, Season after season I toiled at my books. Through elementary in six years into secondary; My choice by friendship fashioned: not Bishop Rogan’s College a Catholic priest to become And my father’s prayers answered, but St. Joseph’s By the Buea Mountain, high above the sea, Amidst lush vegetation and the sea of tea, With that monastic air away from civilization My great childhood friend and master storyteller to join, Mola Benson Nganda. But Sasse was school not home And so there were no sessions of movies narrated: Django! Hercules! Samson! Mark Forest! It was mainly book. This nursery with sprouting shoots, This camp with established senior initiates, Some dreaded and others admired differently; The most feared, Pa Tashi, the Master of Discipline Withhiscaneburiedintheridgeonhisbackunderhisshirt With which to align those who derailed, and his Official Warnings,threeinnumber,fromwhichtodeducttwiceonly And an initiate was on his way home escorted To the Gbea2 motor park, denied the rare chance to Be prepared for greater things in life—expelled! Alas, health was not to be mine, the reasons surreal: My maiden encounter with the beyond, Africa! 4 Oriki’badan If not the master, get his dog and the impact better yet. My fate sealed, Pa Nyanga’s prophetic decree from his Bonduma-Molyko groove! Away from Gbea, Else he perishes and here remains as...