Opera in Nigeria: The Case of Duro Ladipo's "Oba Koso"

Abstract

There are conflicting accounts of Ladipo's year and place of birth, which may be the result of inaccurate documentation. A number of sources point to December 18, 1932, but two other sources, which can be considered more authentic, state that Nigeria's famous dramatist Ladipo was born on that date in 1931. The first of the latter sources is the University of Ibadan Official Bulletin no. 452 (March 1978), the second is Ladipo himself. As to his place of birth, most sources suggest Osogbo; a negligible few others say that he was born at Ilobuu, a couple of kilometers from Osogbo. Although the dramatist never corroborated either claim, records show clearly that his childhood was spent at Osogbo, the present capital city of Osun State in Nigeria. This evidence, moreover, tends to refute a third suggestion, that he was born at Ogbomoso, a town about seventy kilometers west of Osogbo. The dramatist's forename is suggestive of the circumstances surrounding his birth, growth, and death. To understand its derivation, one must turn to Yoruba traditional philosophy. Duro is a partitive name, fully realized as Durodola, which literally means stay and enjoy honor. Ola is an attribute of the larger family and recurs in the surname Oladipo. In connotation, Duro refers to a child who has been born several times and has died several times. In the cycle of birth and rebirth, according to Yoruba belief, children in this category die not long after their birth but are reborn, only to die and be born again. Rituals surrounding the death of an infant are meant to ensure that after the next birth the child can remain in the world of humans. One of the rituals is the inflicting of cuts on the corpse of the child before burial in order to prevent a rebirth, thus paving the way for a different child. If the rituals fail, the child is born again, with the scar of the earlier ceremony. The rituals of survival are then invoked, including the magical padlocking of the child's gateway back to the ethereal world. If this effort is successful, the child survives and grows to adulthood. A child with this peculiarity is usually referred to as (born to die). Ladipo must have gone through the cycle of birth, death, and regeneration a number of times. That he finally survived for over forty-six years qualified him for the title Abiku Agba (the elder Abiku), referring to the fact that he died at a comparatively early age. The account of Ladipo's childhood tells of his contact with an Ifa priest (a Yoruba divination priest and medicine man) who was nicknamed Baba Agadagodo (the padlock father). is said to have dreaded this man because he was believed to have shut the gate to Duro's wandering in the spiritual world. As if time were out to prove the potency of the medicine man's padlock, no sooner had the medicine man died, in 1977 -- an event that Ladipo considered good riddance -- than Ladipo himself died, on March 10, 1978 (Ogundeji 1988, 96-99). By the standard of the time, Ladipo was highly literate. As the son of a clergyman, he had the opportunity of acquiring primary and middle school education in a mission school. Through in-service training he obtained Grade Three and Grade Two teacher's certificates, in 1955 and 1958, respectively.(1) In spite of his Christian background, Ladipo secretly embraced the Egungun (ancestral/masquerade) cult and participated in its festivals. He was known to have worn the Egungun mask on several occasions. Ladipo authenticated this assertion himself: From my childhood, I showed a keen interest in traditional Yoruba culture and customs.... I followed closely the activities of different masquerades and cultists, often to the dismay of my father. The Egungun and Ose festivals ... the Obatala, Sango and Otin festivals ... were some of the important festivals in which I showed my interests as a very young man. …