Wole Soyinka
author’s father, of the daunting task that he and his generation face in
their success in installing one of their number, “Saaki,” the fiery trade
unionist and nationalist on the throne of Isara. In the Agunrin Odubona
episode, Soyinka, as author-narrator, goes out of his way to dwell on the
intervention of the occult forces of “osugbo” in securing the victory of
“Saaki.” By contrast, the following passage recording Yode’s thoughts on
the herculean task they face in transforming Isara while retaining its best
values and traditions, constitutes a dialogical and tonic commentary on
the occultation of the social contract purveyed in Soyinka’s idealization
of his narration of the Agunrin-Jagun metaphysical conflict:
Akinyode Soditan turned his attention to Saaki’s ramrod figure on the horse,
yes, this was indeed homecoming. But would he truly “return to sender”? The
tasks were daunting. Beneath the finery that surrounded them, the teacher was
only too aware of bodies eaten by yaws, a fate that seemed to overtake an unfair
proportion of Isara inhabitants. The children’s close-cropped heads did not
all glisten in the sun; tracks of ringworm ran circles throughout stubs of hair.
The mobile clinic which serviced Isara and other towns in Remo district was
infrequent. Sometimes, an expectant mother would deliver her baby on the
roadside, having set off too late to reach the maternity clinic at Ode. Within
that crowd, Akinyode’s eyes caught sight of a goitre round a woman’s neck, the
size of a pawpaw; he knew the woman. The Ex-Il ́es had once gathered funds to
send her for an operation in Sagamu but she would have none of it. If anyone
was going to cut her up, let it be done, she said, within Isara. Dysentery took the
lives of far too many infants, even before they were weaned. It was a symbolic
reminder, the clinic that had closed down for lack of staff. It was a good thing
that Sipe had turned it into the headquarters from which Saaki would make his
bid for the crown. There was no running water; not one faucet had ever been
installed in Isara. The streets, swept abnormally clean for this day, were often like
the interiors of far too many homes which remembered the feel of brooms only
at the approach of Goriola.... Ah, yes, Saaki’s shoulders might look straight
enough; Akinyode saw them already bowed under the load of expectations. “Am
I that heavy in your hands?” he had exclaimed with touching gratitude. It is
Isara, Saaki, which alas, will weigh heavy in your hands. Must. And you dare
expect no gratitude, only more demands, more expectations, and miracles, yes,
nothing short of miracles. But no gratitude. That emotion, Akinyode felt often,
did not exist in Isara dialect. (Isara,–)
From one particular perspective – the perspective of a rigorous critique of
the mystification of the forces, knowledges and energies which conserve
or transform history and tradition – this long, sober and compassionate
analysis of the enormously debilitating social malaise of village or small
town communal life in colonial Africa should have no place in the nar-
rative ofIsara. If this is shifted around, the question arises: with this kind