In my piece of last week, I made a tangential reference to the place of African magic in modern matters. It was in the discussion of the calamity that befell Nigeria a few days to Christmas. Ibadan, the capital city of the Yoruba, had taken a sizeable chunk of the tragedy. Thirty five persons, the bulk of whom were kids, had been trampled to death in a stampede. The dead and a crowd estimated to be about ten thousand, had heeded invitation to attend a funfair where freebies, which included the sum of N5000, would be shared per attendee. Three persons were arrested and charged before an Ibadan Magistrate court on account of the deaths. They were Naomi Silekunola, an ex-Queen of the Ooni of Ife, Oba Enitan Ogunwusi, Ojaja I1; Oriyomi Hamzat, a popular radio owner and presenter and principal of the school that served as venue for the event.
Since the Queen’s somersault from the pinnacle of grace to the nadir of sharing smelly, dingy cell with ordinary criminals in the Agodi Correctional Centre, subtle, muffled and repressed thoughts have variously been expressed about what could have transpired. Questions asked range from, could there be a causal link between the fate of ex-Queen Naomi and her abandoned Queendom? Or, is it a reinforcement of the historical Yoruba wise-saying of fatalism, which says that, among the innumerable beheaded skulls quartered in Mògún, the ones belonging to unjustly beheaded ones were many (Orí yéye ní Mògún, ìpín àìsè l’ó pò)?
The truth is, as products of their past, many Africans still reason with the mindset of their genes. Over a century after the white man and Arabs brought Christianity and Islam to Africa, though they substantially succeeded in fumigating Africa’s mindset of magic and occult practices, they left a hugely syncretic Africa. Like Gabriel Okara painted in his poem, Piano and Drums, Africa carries its piano – a symbol of the Whiteman’s modernity – with his right hand, and holds fervently to his drum – symbolizing traditional Africa – with his left. In a world where science is king and defines every stratum of our existence, there is a great push towards voiding the power of metaphysics, the foundation upon which the drum, which Africa holds tightly by its left hand, rests.
In a December 2021 Instagram post, Queen Naomi unilaterally announced her divorce from the Ooni. After “bless(ing) the Lord almighty for His faithfulness in the last three years of my marriage,” Naomi revealed that she “endure(d).. to make (the marriage) work” as she, “many times… smiled through the struggle.” Finally, the Queen revealed that she was “moving on,” stating that, “today, I announce the beginning of a new dawn and the close of a chapter. Today, I am a mother to God’s unique gift. I am no longer a slave to my thoughts of perfection. I, at this moment, announce that I shall no longer be referred to as wife to the Ooni of Ife or as Queen of Ile-Ife but as the Queen of the people and mother of my adorable prince.” Were the gods of Ile-Ife happy at that gloat over their king? Since then, she had indeed moved on. Once in a while, she advertised her sultry beauty on the social media and her Christianity. It was akin to the conquest smile of a conquistador. It was believed that the decision of the Ooni to embark on a serial acquisition of wives thereafter was a response to the subtle disgrace he suffered in the hands of a wife who divorced him on the social media.
Today, Africa scarcely sees with the eye of Africa but with the eye of western science, data and computer. So, the question is, is there any science to African magic? Or put differently, is there magic? Is there sorcery? Can our forefathers, whose systems of beliefs were woven round this corpus of knowledge of incantations, magic, sorcery, and the synergy between spirit and man for many centuries, be said to be ignoramuses? These were the same people who were credited with the great arts and science of carvings and bronze. The Benin Bronze sculptures, brilliantly and elaborately chiseled from metal and woods, became ornaments that white colonialists stole and kept in antiquities. Cast in plaques, commemorative heads, animal and human figures, ornaments, pieces of royal regalia, they adorned western museums until rescued and returned to Africa. The Nok people, now known to inhabit the northern and central part of Nigeria, existed from roughly 900 BCE to 200 CE. In their science and arts, they worked on iron to make terracotta sculptures. In the Alaafin palace of Oyo, a drainage system built over a century, exists which till today, drains rainfall in a twinkle of an eye, no matter its volume.
As brilliant as our forefathers were, they also engaged in the barbaric practices of human sacrifices, cannibalism, witchcraft and money rituals. They believed in the centrality of spiritual beings and relationship with the spirit world. This spirit world was believed by them to be responsible for happiness, protection, material wealth and health. They also believed that any dislocation from the spirit world led to sickness, barrenness, death, among others. It was probably why they engaged in human rituals. A scholar once explained that, in human body parts rituals, the soul of the sacrificed victim is sent on an errand to the supra-physical realm. There, the soul engages in the laborious exercise of harvesting wealth for the usage of the victimiser. In 1970s Nigeria, parents sternly warned their wards to avoid being alone in desolate places. It was the period when that caustic-mouthed Yoruba Apala songster, Late Fatai Olowonyo, released the vinyl that bore that iconic track entitled L’áyée Gbómogbómo (In this world of kidnappers). Padding the song up with his rhythmic acoustic guitar sound that literally sent dancers into gymnastic fits, Olowonyo warned, especially the young ones, to avoid lone-walking as kidnappers luxuriated in lonely places. When they grabbed their victims, he warned, such victims honked like trapped mice. “L’áyé gbómo-gbómo, ìwo nìkàn má se dá rìn mó, bí wón bá kì ó mó’lè l’ábé àgbàdo, wàá sì má dún fín ín bí omo eku…” he sang.
I first came in contact with the epistemological body of knowledge of African magic in my pre-teen years. I lived with my parents in a town called Ikirun, in today’s Osun State. There was this highly dreaded spiritualist called Baba Iyanda Aladokun. It was not possible to live in Ikirun without a sniff of the whiff of Aladokun’s spiritual prowess. His magical powers were legendary. For seven years, boy Aladokun was said to have been declared missing, allegedly carried away by whirlwind called Àjà, only to surface thereafter. His known specialty was in the spiritual healing of mentally-challenged patients. He was my late father’s older friend. My father and I frequented his house almost every Saturday. Aladokun’s house was usually filled to the brim with all manner of patients. Dark, pot-bellied and most times wearing agbádá, Baba Aladokun sat cupped up in a corner of his herbal hospice, welcoming oncoming people afar off with his cryptic, “e wèé” – greetings which a pre-teen boy like me smothered the urge to laugh at. Many of the patients were brought to his herbal sanatorium from several lands away. Some were Igbo as well. When his patients were in the twilight of recuperating, Aladokun loaned them to farmers like my father to work on their farms for fees. The farmers in turn gave him reports of the perceived level of the patients’ sanity. On the farm, armed with cutlasses and hoes, my father would ask that we gave the recuperating patients some distance, lest they return to status quo ante and feasted their weapons on us. My father however engaged them in dialogues which were most times intelligible.
My father told me the story of how one of Aladokun’s daughters’ pregnancy was once disowned by the man who impregnated her. The case was taken to the Ikirun police station. Aladokun appeared where his daughter and the man were, with the police. He promptly, with the sign of his hand, inter-placed the baby from his daughter’s stomach into the man’s. The man immediately appeared with an advanced pregnancy. There and then, he held his daughter’s hand, headed home with her and told the police he had no case against the man any longer. On another occasion, he had asked his daughter to go buy soft drinks for waiting guests. Uncomfortable with her long stay getting the drinks purchased, Aladokun merely fiddled with the wind and on his palms were the soft drinks which he placed before the guests. The daughter merely came back and handed him the remainder of the money.
A few years after, Baba Aladokun was embroiled in allegation of human body parts rituals. The police criminal investigation department (CID) had received reports that the herbalist had veered into human body parts rituals. A female police detective who pretended to be mentally deranged was seconded to his sanatorium. In the course of simulating mental derangement, she reportedly witnessed the herbalist pounding the body of a newly born baby in a mortar which was then garnished with black soap and other accoutrements. Baba Aladokun was subsequently arrested, remanded in the Ilesa prisons and later released for want of evidence. I remember my father used to go pay him visits in the prison. Not long after, specifically in 1984, one of the old herbalist’s mentally ill patients suddenly ran amok and beheaded him right inside his sanatorium.
African kings, no matter their erstwhile religious backgrounds, are believed to be beneficiaries and inheritors of a system of African medicine, sorcery, magic and witchcraftcy which dates centuries. The late Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi, once let me into some of the details. For instance, a traditional DNA system exists in the Oyo palace which ensured that bastards cannot be brought into the palace as princes and princesses. In the palaces of many Yoruba towns are believed to be headquartered witches whose powers help the monarchy to fight its battles. This is most times unsolicited. Ile-Ife is said to parade several deities whose priests, at cock-crow, as custom, are expected to rain curses on the Ooni’s enemies and bless those who wish him well. Many people, however, believe that all these are a mythic system that has kept palaces fortified from invaders and evildoers.
So, when a 31-year old woman, who set out to favour the less-privileged in a fun-fair, suddenly landed in one of the most notoriously famous prisons around, a few days after this noble effort, to what do we put that: happenstance, fate; normal encounter of man or spiritual recompense for openly disgracing a foremost king in Yorubaland on the social media? At the wake of the calamity, the Ooni palace masterfully disconnected the monarchy from her travails, de-linked her and her action from the palace, while subtly empathizing with her. It was the last laugh of a scorned husband.
Some people have also argued that the fates of Naomi and Oriyomi Hamzat can be compared to the historical Yoruba wise-saying that depicts fatalism. It is a philosophical school which subjugates all actions, events and occurrences to fate or destiny. The history behind the wise-saying is that, in ancient days, Mògún was where persons accused of committing heinous crimes were incarcerated. Once the King was persuaded of their guilt, he ordered their beheading right inside Mògún, which makes the prison a place where hordes of skulls were kept. However, many of them were victims of petty conspiracies who never committed the crime they were accused of.
So, the saying goes that, of the innumerable heads quartered in Mògún, the ones belonging to unjustly beheaded ones were many (Orí yéye ní Mògún, ìpín àìsè l’ó pò). Today, prisons across the world are Mògún which house just persons unjustly incarcerated. Many have also died unjustifiably, either from the supple hands of the law or the coarse brunt of lawlessness. On June 16, 1944, for instance, 14-year old George Stinney, was executed in the electric chair of Columbia, America. He was accused of having killed two white girls who earlier approached him and his sister while playing in their yard to ask where they could find flowers. The bodies of the girls were later found the following morning. Seventy years after, a South Carlina judge held that Stinney could not have murdered the two girls. He vacated the conviction. So, are Queen Naomi and Hamzat victims of this ancient fatalism?
As we approach the New Year, I pray we will not be victims of an unjust world; now, in the new year and all through our sojourn on this divide.
