Fulfilling A Pact   

The 2010 edition of the Osun-Osogbo festival holds with the usual pomp, despite the recent  death of the Ataoja of Osogbo

• Arugba on her way to the Osun groove to mark this year’s Osun-Osogbo festival.

As usual, visitors to the Osun-Osogbo festival in Osun State were gripped by the sheer  excitement of its cultural distinction. For two weeks, from 16 August, the tourists savoured  the panoply of traditional drama that Osun-Osogbo celebrates, in honour of the Osun goddess,  the Yoruba deity of fertility.

Some of the large number of African and white tourists, from the continent and the diaspora,  had been in Osogbo weeks before the festival; they had been attending the Conference of  Black Nationalities and a colloquium on Slavery, Slave Trade and Their Consequences, hosted  by the state government. Participants came from South America, Central America, the United  States of America and, of course, Africa. For many, the conference and the Osun-Osogbo  festival provided  an opportunity to connect with their places of origin.

The celebration of the festival by the people of Osogboland fulfils the pact of benevolent  association with the River Osun deity, which they believe has made the town remain peaceful  and progressive without any ravage of war or pestilence. This pact is celebrated with zeal  and merriment every August by thousands of the Osun-Osogbo faithful from all over the world,  so much so that the Osun Grove, a reverred tourist attraction at the festival, has been  listed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation as a World  Heritage site since July 2005.

This year’s edition of the Osun-Osogbo festival is the 641st edition; the first was held in  1370. No edition has been celebrated without the Ataoja, the Osogbo monarch, in attendance.  Until this year. Incidentally, the Ataoja, Oba Iyiola Oyewale Matanmi joined his ancestors  on 4 August, nearly two weeks before the festival was billed to begin. The king is  traditionally the custodian of the festival and performs the sacred rites for the Osun  goddess. Plans for this year’s festival had been concluded and some of the visitors were, in  fact, already in town before the king died. The organisers would not be deterred by the  tragedy. Rather, the king’s second-in-command, Chief Gabriel Oparanti, filled in the  custodian’s role. The festival was also used to bid a final farewell to the late Ataoja.

The festival kicked off with the iwopopo, which is the traditional cleaning of the town. It  was followed by the Olojuerindinlogun, the lighting of the 16-point lamp and later, the  Iboriade, which is the assemblage of all the crowns of past rulers. All these activities  attracted a large number of people, including the state governor, Prince Olagunsoye  Oyinlola; and the Minister of Culture, Tourism and National Orientation, who was represented  by an official of the ministry, Bamidele Sobajo.

The climax on 27 August was colourful. As early as 8 a.m. on 27 August, the Ataoja’s palace  was filled with hordes of people eager to witness the displays of the votary maid (arugba),  a virgin, the precedent to the various activities and rituals to her bearing of the calabash  (igba) from the palace to the temple of the grove. Frenzied drumming whipped people into  frantic dance steps as they awaited the arugba. As she emerged  from the palace, her  appearance sparked a rush of people who wanted to catch a glimpse of her. Worshippers of the  Osun deity and chiefs queued behind her as they all headed for the grove about two  kilometres from the palace where she was propitiated.

The arugba walked elegantly as her people followed her with their drums and gongs, singing  her praises. “The elegant steps of the arugba to the grove is in keeping with tradition.  Those steps maintain an originality all of their own,” Ifagbenusola Atanda, the Aare Alasa  of Osogbo told TheNEWS. At the grove, many traditional chiefs, age groups and other  socio-cultural organisations, amid pomp, paid homage to the late Ataoja, who was  symbolically represented by his crown and staff of office, which were put on the throne  where the Oba ought to have sat at the grove. The 36 palace chiefs of Osogbo displayed  respect and love to the late monarch as each family donned its distinct regalia at the grand  finale.

The presence of the GSM market leader in Nigeria, MTN, is ubiquitous. The telecoms company  has been identifying with cultural festivals across the country with financial backing. In  Osogbo, the MTN has been collaborating with the Ataoja and the state government to finance  the Osun-Osogbo festival. Bamidele Adediwura, an Osogbo indigene, was not impressed by the  sponsorship. To him, “monetising the organisation of the programme has robbed it of absolute  as some state and palace officials would always be scheming on how to cream off part of the  sponsorship money rather than concentrate on sincere stewardship.”

Aare Atanda, secretary of the festival’s organising committee countered that the involvement  of corporate bodies endows Osun State with a rare opportunity to advance commerce in  Oshogbo. Gov. Oyinlola  expressed delight that the festival had increased Osogbo’s  popularity considerably, even beyond Yorubaland, Nigeria and Africa.

The popularity was, however, not matched with a hitch-free organisation. Crowd control was  poor and there was inadequacy of hotel rooms for visitors. Even those available were hardly  top-of-the-range. For a town that flaunts itself as an international tourist attraction,  these are major deficits.

—Alex Akinyele/Osogbo