From Ibadan, a note to that Yoruba movie producer
Dear Movie maker,
The fact remains indisputable that you are obsessed with our brown rusted roofs in Ibadan. Of course, they appear the ONLY symbolic things with which you re-present our city in your movies always. I have done a sample of a few among your works, all of them contemporary, and I noticed that an average of 3 out of 5 movies re-present Ibadan ONLY through the realities of Beere and Oje-Igosun.
Nothing, at least on the surface, is quite bad about that.
But I have equally noticed, perhaps out of unbridled love for that city, that at the heart of this obsession of yours is a dangerous narrative, a poorly veiled single story. I need not engage in academic gymnastics by doing a semiotic analysis of those images of yours to prove this assertion because even someone with no modicum of intelligence could see through the mischief in your portrayal of our city in your art, almost ALL the time: an ancient city where poverty and squalor and dirt and feaces swagger around in competition for space with humans whose dialect, apart from being unusually funny, stinks.
If you had a democratic lens, you’d have noticed that Ibadan is bigger (and much more cosmopolitan!) than the areas captured in your videospace; those areas with which you symbolize the city almost ALL of the time. Oje-Igosun. Beere. Mapo. Gege. Idi-arere. Beyerunka.
The essence of art is to mirror life and even though it may be near-impossible, artistically, to REPRESENT life in its exact state (hence the need to RE-PRESENT), it is expected that artists should strive to create verisimilitude in their re-presentation of reality. And, ipso facto, while mirroring a society’s imperfections through their arts, artists should look towards mirroring its beauty too.
Indeed, I need not say that every city – well in Nigeria, at least – has its fair share of the beautiful and the…well, not-so-beautiful.
First, a few minutes’ drive away from the sky-scrappers of Marina in Lagos, for instance, there is an Ajegunle settled somewhere amidst dirt and feaces. In Ilorin, the overhead bridge at Post office is what separates the serenity of Fate-Basin from the dirt and filth of Opo-maalu. In Akure, a makeshift bridge is what separates the din of Oke’jebu from the quietness of Ijapo Estate.
But to consider a place ONLY from the perspective of a permanent traditional past, to edit out those diversified components that reflect its leap into modernity, is not only to indulge in mischief, create a single story and stereotype a people –it is to jeopardize the essence of art.
Like I think you should know, few things influence and shape perception like artistic representation; and perception, I want to presume you know too, is very important. Infact, perception is everything in life. Perception is what makes folks who have no knowledge of anything about that city beyond what they see on the internet and, of course, in your movies, to conclude that “…Ibadan is dead nah”. Do you now see why your incurable, if not mischievous, fixation on those areas with brown rusted roofs ALL of the time is becoming nauseating? See?
To be sure, those places are part of our socio-cultural realities, our historical heritage, which we aren’t ashamed of and cannot erase. But then, every society evolves and, of course, since there is nothing permanent about ‘culture/heritage’, Ibadan won’t be an exception. Do I even need to tell you that Ibadan is evolving, already?
And so, in case you don’t know, now listen: there are other places outside of Gege and Beere with which you can re-present Ibadan in your movies, areas the average Nigerian may not consider “posh” but would still offer insights into “the other side” of ibadan –Bodija Housing Estate, Awolowo Road, Felele extension, Flavours, Challenge, Agbowo-UI, Oluyole estate.
And, yes, even though decades of bad governance, occasioned by the occupancy of our Agodi government house by those whose philosophy about leadership is rooted in the politics of Amala and Gbegiri, has stunted developments in this city, Ibadan isn’t just all about the feaces and dirt of Oje-Igosun, nor the filth and brown rusted roofs of Beere-Oranyan. Do I even need to tell you that apart from the numerous nite clubs and radio stations that litter our relatively cleaner streets today, there is a Shoprite mall in Ibadan, too?!
And on a lighter note, there is a (not-too-) new fly-over bridge too in Mokola-Roundabout, the one built by our uncommon transformer.
Go check it out and project it in your movies. What makes Ibadan tick is its diversity. Embrace this reality and stop pigeonholing our city.
Yours faithfully,
Olawoyin Oladeinde
SW2/57A,
Agboole Olowo-ake/Abere,
Oja’ba Ibadan.
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