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We are told this caused a stir, and not a few in the crowd must have shouted: “abomination!”, Even the President of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, Benue branch, Bishop Mike Angou considered Nyitse’s action sacrilegious.
He went to the seat, to anoint and rededicate it. Bishop Angou’s intervention obviously was meant to cast out whatever demons Nyitse must have inflicted on the already consecrated kingship throne.
G-ELITES.XTGEM |
It is possible also that the ordinary
people in attendance and the chiefs of
Tivland interpreted it as a bad omen.
Africans including the educated live in
a world of spirits, demons and magic.
Every act or gesture among them, is
considered spiritual or religious.
Women are expected to submit to men,
and that remains the case for all
women in many of our communities.
The poor are expected to worship the
rich. Employees are expected to be
loyal obedient servants.
This is the content of our socialization
in traditional communities, during the
colonial period and even long after
colonialism. When we were growing
up, there were many things that were
taken as normal that would today look
absolutely ridiculous to our children.
Children were not expected to talk
back to their parents: if you did that,
you could earn many strokes of the
cane. In many families, whenever the
father of the house was at home,
nobody would try to be assertive, and
any news that Daddy was returning
from work would send both the
children and their mother scampering
in all directions.
Thus, in every home, there were
boundaries. You were told never to
start a meal by eating meat. That had
to be the last routine. Children
nowadays eat the meat or fish and just
pick at the main dish. Parents even
take their children to eateries and buy
them roasted chickens. In those days,
there was Daddy’s cup: you would
never be caught drinking out of that
cup. Daddy’s chair: you were not
allowed to sit on it! Daddy’s Radio: Ha,
of course, you would not go near that
miserable transistor radio.
In those families where they had
television sets, a rarity in those days,
with the most popular being the black
and white Grundig, usually securely
locked, nobody was expected to touch
that screaming evidence of family
wealth!
It was black and white TV of course,
but it only came alive whenever the
father of the house, special custodian
of the key to that box, opened it for
viewing. If this was the custom in
ordinary homes, imagine what crisis
would have erupted in the larger
community if a commoner were to sit
on a king’s throne!
The times may be changing, but our
communities are still governed by
many codes and rules into which every
family is expected to socialize their
children and members. There is also
something called protocol. In formal
situations, it is considered rude to go
and occupy a seat that has been
reserved either for elders or special
guests not to talk of the king. This can
be seen even in the arrangement of
official protocol in government. This is
why the Vice President, for example
would refuse to sit on the President’s
seat, even when the President is on
leave and he, the Deputy is acting as
President.
In many states, nobody would dare sit
physically on any seat reserved for the
Governor. At the VIP lounge at our
various airports, I have seen ordinary
VIPs, occupying seats reserved for the
President or for a special official of
high rank. I have had to ask one or two
persons to vacate that seat.
How do you know a seat meant for the
President? Usually, there would be a
flag behind it, usually two flags: the
Nigerian flag and the flag of the
Commander-in-Chief.
Can you imagine a civil servant sitting
in front of those two flags? If he is
caught, he would be chased out of that
seat as if he had committed an
abomination.
So, on all fronts, Stephen Nyitse
behaved badly. His excuse that he
wanted to “anoint” the King’s seat is
stupid, because nobody gave him that
assignment. Who is he?: A pastor or a
demonic agent, driven by the spirits?
In these days of Boko Haram and
suicide bombing, the security agents
did well by arresting him and whisking
him away for interrogation.
But that is
where it should end, more so as the
police seem to have confirmed that he
is not mentally ill, even if he is, that
would be the more reason he should be
helped and not punished. Stephen
Nyitse has also not committed any
offence known to law. He sat on the
seat that would become a throne. He
did not kill anybody. He did not
disrupt the ceremony.
Nobody was injured as a result of his
action. He did not resist arrest. He
could probably have said he acted out
of love like that other man who named
his dog Buhari!
This is one case that we should all
probably have laughed off as a comic
relief from Benue State. But it is
nothing titillating, because of the final
decision taken by the Tiv Traditional
Council to banish Stephen Nyitse from
Tivland, with strict instructions that no
Tiv son or daughter must ever relate
with him or help him.
He is thus now, officially an outcast
among his people. There is no evidence
that Nyitse was invited and
interrogated by the Traditional
Council. For sitting on the King’s chair,
the traditional rulers of Tivland have
taken away in one fell swoop, Stephen
Nyitse’s right to fair hearing and
human dignity, and his freedoms of
movement, belief, choice, association
and assembly. If this was 1840,
perhaps the Traditional Council would
have ordered his execution.
But this is 2017, and under the
Nigerian Constitution, no man can be
punished except in accordance with
the laws of the country. The new Tor
Tiv who is a Professor should know
that.
The pronouncement that no Tiv
indigene should ever relate with Nyitse
obviously includes his wife, if he is
married to a Tiv, and of course his
children, if he has. So, he loses his
family, and his property if he has any
in Tivland, his identity is taken away
from him, he is declared a non-person,
just because he sat on someone else’s
chair? If at the coronation ceremony
in question, one of the Tor Tiv’s
grandchildren had been the person
who walked across to that chair and
sat on it, the crowd would have
cheered.
They would have proclaimed that
kingship runs in the veins of the new
Tor Tiv’s sons. This same Tiv
Traditional Council would have said
with delight that while coronating one
Tor Tiv, the gods showed them a future
one! What is called African tradition
can oftentimes be that hypocritical.
The poor are the victims of the world;
oppressed by the rich, the privileged
and the local gods of our various
villages, and the other gods that sit on
thrones.
If that seat was so important, there
should have been someone guarding it.
In some traditional communities in
this country, such a special seat would
have some local chiefs and cult
members protecting it, long before the
new king is brought to sit on it. If that
is not so, a policeman standing behind
that seat would have been enough.
For the Tiv Traditional Council to react
so harshly, they must have concluded
that Stephen Nyitse offended the gods
of their land. That was the context in
which persons were banished from
communities in the past. But I refer
the new Tor Tiv, who is a Christian, to
Judges 6: 28-31. “If Baal really is a god,
he can defend himself when someone
breaks down his altar.”
The Tor Tiv, who is obviously the chair
of the Tiv Traditional Council should
free Stephen Nyitse. If the traditional
gods are angry, let them collect goats,
kolanuts, and bottles of palm oil. On
his coronation day, the Tor Tiv
promised to fight injustice, and defend
the interest of all sons and daughters
of Tivland. He should not begin his
reign on a note of harshness and
highhanded-ness. He should begin his
reign as a king who forgives…
Onukaba Adinoyi-Ojo (1960-2017)
Onukaba Adinoyi-Ojo, thespian,
journalist, playwright, administrator,
politician and our friend and colleague
died on Sunday on one of Nigeria’s
impossibly treacherous roads, fleeing
from armed robbers. If armed robbers
knew who he was, may be they would
have spared him.
He was a true man of talent, a gifted
professional and a man who will
always be remembered for the quality
of his art and person.
He was not your ordinary journalist.
He was an intellectual. He had gravitas
and he deployed his polyvalent
understanding with ease without going
out of his way to intimidate less gifted
persons.
There is so much cant in this country
and so much emptiness. But I never
caught Onukaba flogging people with
his brilliance. He was a very friendly,
accommodating and understanding
fellow who made many friends because
he easily masked his superiority.
This was the secret of his success as
Managing Director of the Daily Times.
In better-organized countries, a man
like him will still be alive and not be
chased to death by armed robbers.
But here we are: another sad story.
Nigeria easily kills off its best.
Onukaba is probably the best airport
correspondent Nigeria ever produced.
He made his mark at the airport,
hunting for stories, interviewing the
prominent and the influential, and it
was at the airport that he met General
Olusegun Obasanjo who changed his
life for good.
When I arrived at the University of
Ibadan for graduate studies in Theatre
Arts, I found myself in a class that had
been carefully selected including smart
persons from virtually every part of
the country: UNN, ABU, Jos, Calabar,
Ibadan, Ilorin, Benin, Port Harcourt.
Shuaibu Ojo, as he then was, was one
of the three persons from the home
department, Ibadan. We all knew each
other more or less, because theatre
students in Nigeria usually meet at an
annual festival called NUTAF.
The Ibadan students wouldn’t allow me
rest: they told me they had Shuaibu in
my class and he would show me that
Ibadan’s Second Class Upper was
superior to my Calabar First Class. I
had my head in the clouds in those
days. I told them I was waiting for
their Shuaibu and that I would not
only beat him, but I would also make
history in the entire university.
Shuaibu didn’t take up the Ibadan
offer. He later went to the United
States, where he did a Masters in
Journalism and a Ph.D in Performance
Studies.
I admired him. He is the only Nigerian
I knew for a long time with a Ph.D in
Performance Studies, the conjunction
point of theatre studies, and under
Richard Schechner, the scholar who
developed that field into a defining
medley of theatre, art and politics.
Onukaba and I shared many paths
over the years- through UI, The
Guardian, Africa Leadership Forum,
OBJ, Baba or Obas as we call him,
journalism, spokesmanship, writing…
His death diminishes us. The flag
should fly at half-mast at all
Departments of Theatre, Dramatic,
Media and Creative Arts in Nigeria
because he was one of the best
advertisements of the multi-
disciplinary quality of their
curriculum. Choo-bo-i, my brother!
By Reuben Abati
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