The Noble Warrior (Eni Ogun), the culpable gods and the complicit virgins

A Review by Femi Alabi Onikeku 

The Noble Warrior: Eni Ogun is a stage play that pays tribute to the life and work of Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka as part of his 90th birthday celebrations. 

Time: night. Mode: secret. Venue: river side. Actors: District Officer Major Scott Huddersfield and favourably-endowed Olasope Oluwabi. Sky: moonlight. “What are you doing, Scott? Unhand me. Stop this. I’ll scream…” says Olasope. Afterward, she cries: “Look what you’ve done. I am undone!” And Scott, with a smirk, replies: “There, there. I knew you would like it. I’ll take care of the rest later with your father; matters for men to handle.”

   I hate to think Cash Onadele forgot to scribble the reverberation. (Also, there’s a caveat: this is not intended to stir any debate about what constitutes rape.) Let’s just say, for now, that pretty Olasope never made good her promise to scream. Why? And how did the thrusts of an English phallus through the hymen of one of Ijebu Igbo’s most prized maiden become the catalyst that reversed an imperialist expedition?

   Aiye-ko-ooto’s historical play brings to remembrance the famous Shakespearean lines: “As flies to wanton boys are we to th’ gods/They kill us for their sport.” Presentation of the gods in The Noble Warrior, though, is not of standalone deities directly influencing the deeds of humankind. Rather, there are two characters, Eagle (a wizard) and Crow (a witch), who deploy as the fronts of potent deities.

   The druids watch the duo of Prince Oluwole and Olasope “returning from their usual lovers’ meeting place, by Atikori river” and bet on what may become of the affair. Olasope “is as a peach,” says Eagle. He turns to Crow and asks: “Don’t you think these criminally intentioned invaders would like a taste of her flavourful juice?” The 200-year-old witch replies: “But that is impossible. She must remain chaste according to the custom of her people.”

   Unanimously, and in anticipation that a clash would ensue, they affirm: “Whenever the natives seek assistance for our powers, we shall not deny them potions of their forebears.” Thereafter, Eagle and Crow unfold the stakes: while the former stands to lose the remaining strands of hair on his bald head, the other would have to give up the remainder of her ireful eyebrows.

   Upon the absurdity of these hairy tokens, Cash Onadele opens the stage for his characters to unfold a play packed with intrigues, hatred, humour, love, the power of forgiveness, a gory battle, and emancipation.

   In The Noble Warrior, the playwright ascribes to the wizard and witch powers akin to referees in a heated contest. They set the ball rolling, as it were, by the sounding of shrill prognostications. Then run alongside the players sanctioning their moves or announcing twists and turns that inch the plot towards resolution.

   “When I’m with my man, for the first time, my wish is that he’ll take me higher than this blue sky,” Olasope tells her bosom friend, Abike, as both narrate their love stories beside the river. “He’ll grab my hands like the axil of a leaf. Shake me loose like a dried midrib. Ravage my breasts like a skeleton of veins and break my hymen like the tip of a leaf, at the end of fall weather.” Abike replies: “Olasope, seriously? You are a dreamer but be careful what you wish for…”

   Perched upon trees, watching the virgins below, Eagle responds to Olasope’s dream with a spellbinding proclamation: “So, shall it be (Aase gun!)”

   And so, it was. Or so, it seemed.

   The British had begun pushing into the hinterland in an adventure that promised good revenue to His Majesty. The Portuguese, who earlier eyed the region, met armed resistance from brave Prince Oluwole and his late father, King Obafemi. This time, a new leader, King Akintola, holds sway. He is aided by a corrupt chiefs-in-council, which, in turn, is firmly under the villainous manipulation of Oluwole’s arch enemy, Chief Gbadamosi. While the British were willing to offer exploitation and oppression to the people, Akintola and his chiefs had no qualms with facilitating the deal as middlemen.

   “Kabiyesi, I’m sure the English too are looking forward to resuming slave trade,” Gbadamosi tells the king. “If you say so. Shall we convene the council?” Akintola asks. “That won’t be necessary. Let me work with Bashorun Ajebu (Controller of Prisons) in handling this. We shall carry the council along with money in their pockets,” Gbadamosi replies.

   There is no saviour found for the people. The Oshugbo cult, which in the past moderated the excesses of power, had been proscribed. Valiant Prince Oluwole, who once pushed his left fist into a lion’s mouth and slew the beast, was not keen on wading into state affairs. He was content teaching pupils at Ijebu Igbo’s schools. Much more, he was too busy tending the only thing that mattered: his blooming romance with Olasope. However, between the prince and his ultimate joy, stood Gbadamosi, who had sworn: “Oluwole, happy? Over my dead body!”

   All fingers itching for redemption pointed in the direction of Oluwole, who ironically couldn’t care less until Gbadamosi, the Evil Puppeteer, pulled the last string of his hateful machinations: the District Officer gets a twisted prompting and Olasope’s “juice” is sucked.

   But another virgin, pricked by conscience, believed she needed to apologise for some of the events that led to the sexual assault. “I’m guilty. For I contributed to your unhappiness,” Abike tells Olasope as the latter mouthed indications she might draw the curtain on life. The damsel, who, herself, “almost got caught in Aremu’s hut the other evening,” confessed how “for personal gains”, she had facilitated the admission of Akeredolu, a rival suitor to Oluwole. “What did Akeredolu promise you for whoring your best friend?” Olasope asks. “Textile distribution,” Abike replies. “Textile distribution? Is that all our friendship was worth to you? Shame on you!” Olasope retorts.

   “Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed,” says the Holy Book. Once, Olasope had only Oluwole pouring affection into her ears. (Akeredolu never got far enough to the doors of her earlobes before he was pushed back in a contest by Oluwole.) But Major Scott, regardless of what the Eagle and Crow may have said, exposed the sinful vanity in the young lady’s heart.

   Olasope must choose. On one hand is a famed and brave warrior, loved by his people, and who someday could be king. On the other is Scott, an alien, flaunting a promise of travel across the seas to distant Wales, Edinburgh, and Scotland. While the District Officer remained a cultural outcast in his bid for Olasope’s hand, he nevertheless had an abundance of gifts; enough to jolt the maiden’s sensibilities.

   “Chief, I’m desperate and madly in love. I meet her again tonight. Secretly, she arranged it, under the cover of darkness by the river,” the British officer tells Gbadamosi in a conversation that preceded Olasope’s half-hearted bid to return the red dress, gold necklace, and anklet she received from Scott. Had the Briton never indicated he wanted more than the tasty mushrooms and snails Olasope sold, she might have been excused for scheduling a secret nighttime appointment with an officer from an invading army. What did the daughter of Oluwabi think as she stood alone with a stranger from another culture?

   Aiye-ko-ooto’s thematic experimentation with The Noble Warrior appears to suggest socio-political redemption may not be achieved through conventional means. Otherwise, it comes as a surprise that after copious portrayal of Oluwole as a valiant hero, a lion killer, an arms-wielding warrior, an intellectual – liberation of the ordinary folks of Ijebu Igbo should come through the revived Ushogbo cult, led by the erstwhile unwilling prince.

   “With bitterness of soul, I weep sore, and to forefathers, pray. I vow that I will indeed afflict the invaders for this singular act,” Oluwole says shortly before he answers Oshugbo’s call to service. Later, the cult ensures King Akintola dies ‘mysteriously’. His chiefs are sacked, Gbadamosi flees, and Oluwole is proclaimed king-elect. He is reconciled with Olasope, and all ends happily.

   One may be tempted to prosecute Onadele for seeking a lazy-plot escape by a resort to the supernatural: haunted British soldiers jumping, zombie-like, into a pool of hot oil and getting fried to death or Major Scott running from his barracks, stripping, and hanging himself on a Sycamore tree.

   But on second thought, it appears to be an attempt at metaphorising triumph of the indigenous over Western culture, and corrupt Westernised accomplices. It is also fair to say that culpable Eagle and Crow had, in their script, already declared that when the chips are down, they would not deny the natives the secret powers of their ancestors.

   Luther Burrell, the Anglican curate and headmaster, also explains to Scott’s deputy, Lt. Col. Fredrick: “I’ve lived among this tribe you call savage for more than two decades. They’re generally peaceable until you infringe their customs. Only then would they unleash juju powers which our science cannot explain.”

   Onadele is a prolific writer. But he may have to moderate between passion to tell a Yoruba story in English or tell a Yoruba story in Yoruba. The play boasts a rich use of both languages. But if the chosen medium is English, it need not be found striving to simultaneously be Yoruba.

   Literary analysts seeking metaphors to decipher nations’ intractable dalliance with corrupt and inept leadership should find a fruitful bough in The Noble Warrior. Lovebirds hurt by errors of human frailty may learn a lesson on forgiveness. And above all, ‘complicit virgins’ may come to terms with the fact that while gods do whatever they wish, they could still move on and reconcile with their ‘noble warriors’.

   But who, like Olasope, is willing to admit complicity?