Tradition: Medical student disowns father, commits suicide
“You are not my father”, that was the last statement from
Olounde, a medical student in England, who returned home to bury his
father, Elesin Oba, but found out that he was still alive.
Olounde, full of disappointment, committed suicide to fill
the void left by his father as a result of his reluctance to fulfil
age-long tradition.
The tradition demands that Elesin Oba must commit suicide
before the burial of the late Alaafin of Oyo in order for his (Elesin)
spirit to clear the way for the transition of the monarch and forestall
imminent danger on the community.
Upon direct confrontation with his imminent death, Elesin
displayed human frailty, demanding vain desires, resulting to his arrest
by Mr Pilking, the British Colonial Administrator.
The Elesin later took his own life in captivity after being
presented with the corpse of his first son (Olounde) by the reactive
natives.
All these played out on Sunday night in Lagos at the command
performance of one of Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka’s iconic plays
“Death and the King’s Horseman”.
The play, written 40 years ago, which won Africa its first
Nobel Prize in 1986, was performed by the National Troupe of Nigeria and
directed by Mr Mike Anyanwu.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed
and other prominent personalities in the creative industry attended the
event.
Speaking about the play, Anyanwu said the theme was relevant
to the present day of Nigeria where the youths were adrift with vanity
and selfish tendencies.
The Play director urged youths to “emulate Olounde’s choice
of honour, self-sacrifice and patriotism rather than his father and
Pilking’s dialectics of selfishness, arrogance and sacrilege.”
According to him, the play also demonstrates the tragic human frailty when in direct confrontation with the imminence of death.
Anyanwu likened the vain desire and indulgence of Elesin to
the wide spread embezzlement of national wealth by a minority at the
expense of the majority of Nigerians.
NAN
Comments