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essays
Okot p’Bitek at Ife: Days of Dance, Dreams
and Drinks
By
Uzor Maxim Uzoatu
The urge to
go the university was not to earn a degree, but to hang out
with writers. And lionized writers do not come any greater
than Professor Wole Soyinka whose name I traced down to the
department he was heading at the then University of Ife (now
Obafemi Awolowo University), before I filled in the
university entrance examination forms. I got to Ife and
Soyinka was there with a supporting cast of engaging
characters, but it was Okot p’Bitek, the inimitable Ugandan
author of Song of Lawino who took over my life
completely for the period he spent at the university.
Soyinka, like his art, could be aloof, but Okot was readily
accessible and a charming man of disarming simplicity who
drank beer and whisky with all in fetching fellowship and
would not want to be referred to as “Prof” or whatever
title.
“Just call me Okot,” he always said in his soft, cooing
voice. Between 1978 and 1980 at Ife Okot was the issue. It
was while Soyinka’s lad Francis was taking me to the great
man’s refrigerator for yet another beer session on a certain
campus afternoon that I ran into Okot the Ugandan. He did
not wait to hear the personable Francis out before he turned
to me and said: “Let’s go and drink!” Okot could not
understand why I should be wandering to an absent Soyinka’s
beer when his was ready to hand!
The drinking with Okot lasted till late in the night, and
resumed very early the next morning. It was a process that
continued until Okot left Ife, and there was hardly any
space between the drinking bouts for hangover to get a
look-in!
The son of a prominent Protestant family from Gulu in the
northern region of Uganda, Okot was born in 1931. He
published a novel, Lak Tar, in his native Acholi
language in 1953. He revealed that he had earlier written a
poem entitled “The Long Spear” as well as composing an opera
in English modeled after Mozart’s “The Magic Flute”. Okot
could not really be brought into recounting the details of
his juvenilia, save to say that the novel Lak Tar
told the sad story of a young man who travelled to the city
of Kampala to earn the bride-price for his sweetheart, only
to end up coming back to the village broke after being
robbed of the pittance he had earned.
In addition to his interest in literature, Okot was at once
a choirmaster, schoolteacher, local politician and an ardent
footballer. It was in fact for his prowess in the football
field that he earned his early renown. He was in the squad
of the Ugandan national team that travelled to the United
Kingdom in 1958. He was an enchanting dribbler who left his
opponents kicking the grass in his wake. While other members
of the team went back to Uganda Okot stayed on in the UK to
further his studies. He earned a Diploma in Education at
Bristol University, England. He would later bag a Law degree
from the University of Aberystwyth in 1962 before ending up
at Oxford University to study Social Anthropology. A
polymath, Okot excelled in diverse fields.
According to Kojo Senanu and Theo Vincent in A Selection
of African Poetry, Okot’s study of Social Anthropology
“has become an abiding passion and in some sense has enabled
him to study in great depth the oral literature, culture and
traditions of his people. His poetry is not only the outcome
of his findings, but is also fortified by a rich blend of
native traditional literary forms and acquired English
forms. p’ Bitek’s poetry represents one of the best examples
of African poetry to successfully express African ideas in
European forms, retaining the lyric freshness and simplicity
of the songs of his own tribe, the Acholi, and using
personal imagery. The distinct result has no comparison in
the whole range of African poetry.”
A
student of traditional songs and divinities, Okot who had
lost his Christian faith while studying abroad returned to
Uganda to organize the Gulu festival of song and dance. The
original version of the classic Song of Lawino was
written in the Acholi language and was titled Wer pa
Lawino. In the words of Okot, the song was “translated
from the Acholi by the author who has thus clipped a bit of
the eagle’s wings and rendered the sharp edges of the
warrior’s sword rusty and blunt, and has also murdered
rhythm and rhyme.”
Song of
Lawino
became an
immediate phenomenon on publication in 1966. Bookshops could
not stock enough copies, and the East African Publishing
House was hard-pressed to meet with reprint demands. Okot
won more fans for poetry than all the other African poets
put together. While the general readers celebrated Okot, the
politicians felt threatened. Okot in fact lost his job as
the director of the Uganda Cultural Centre because of his
strident lampoon of politicians in Song of Lawino.
The best critic of the poem, according to Okot, was an
enraged woman who broke a bottle on Okot’s head while he was
drinking in a Gulu bar with his friends. The woman whose
name was Tina pointedly accused Okot that she was the
Clementine lampooned in the poem. Okot bore the scar of the
wound till his death! Who says poetry makes nothing happen?
Song of Ocol, the husband’s reply to Lawino, was
published in 1967. Writing in Books Abroad, Richard
F. Bauerle states: “Together Song of Lawino and
Song of Ocol constitute a heated debate over the future
of Africa. In graphic metaphor and with dramatic intensity,
p’Bitek presents the conflict between the new and old, and
in the process reveals a remarkable sensitivity to the
values of both.”
Okot also published Two Songs, made up of “Song of
Prisoner” and “Song of Malaya”. The interesting story behind
the writing of “Song of Prisoner” is Okot’s imprisonment
after getting drunk in Uganda. He had visited some friends
and took to many bottles until his friends put him on a
train to send him away. The train passengers accused him of
disturbing them with his noise and had him locked up
overnight. In the morning he asked to talk to the district
commissioner so as to contact his wife. His jailers were
shocked to discover that the “vagrant” knew the big man who
instantly kowtowed to Okot by ordering his immediate release
from captivity. Okot wrote the poem in the weekend following
the murder of the prominent politician Tom Mboya who was
equally his drinking companion.
“Song of Malaya” was inspired by the hypocritical arrest of
prostitutes by Ugandan potentates who use the women.
Actually some of the men were actually pulled off the women
in order to make the arrests!
In 1978, just before coming to Nigeria, Okot published his
translation of Acholi stories in the volume Hare and
Hornbill. His translation of Acholi songs and poetry is
entitled The Horn of my Love.
As a scholar Okot published African Religions in Western
Scholarship in 1971 and Africa’s Cultural Revolution
in 1975. His disagreement with John Mbiti, the
distinguished authority on religious studies, is total.
The stories Okot told me of his life can fill a very large
book, but only a fraction will suffice here. After his
dismissal from the directorship of the Uganda Cultural
Centre, Okot was employed by Kenya’s University of Nairobi
where he enjoyed a healthy rivalry with emerging East
African writers such as Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Taban lo
Liyong.
During the years of Idi Amin’s reign of terror, Okot’s
visits to Uganda became fraught with danger. For instance,
when Okot travelled to his hometown Gulu for the burial of
his father, he was at a ceremony where Idi Amin caught sight
of him and exploded in rage: “Get him! He is one of our
enemies!”
One of Idi Amin’s cabinet ministers who happened to be a
friend of Okot ensured that the arrest was not brutal. The
minister actually helped Okot to escape by literally forcing
the adamant poet to put on a coat before pushing him into
the ministerial convoy for a death-defying drive across the
Ugandan border! It was the narrowest of escapes, but Okot
concerned himself more with complaining that he was against
his will made to put on a suite and wave to the roadside
crowds like a minister!
Okot’s arrival in Nigeria and at Ife foreshadowed a time of
great drama and high jinks. The delegation sent from Ife to
meet Okot at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport,
Lagos, missed the man. Okot on his own hired a cab for the
journey to Ife. He was hoping to put up with his friend
David Rubadiri, the Malawian poet who had also taken up an
appointment with the University of Ife.
“I suddenly barged into David’s room and I was disappointed
that I did not catch him making out with a Yoruba woman!”
Okot said, laughing.
Okot was yet to get a breather when Soyinka came in. Then
there was a knock on the door, according to Okot’s account,
and in stepped JP Clark who was not then on speaking terms
with Soyinka. A heavy silence descended on the room. Okot
tried to make the most of the embarrassing moment but his
two visitors would not play ball. JP had driven all the way
from his post as a professor in the University of Lagos when
he heard of Okot’s arrival at Ife. In the end, one of the
poets stormed out for sanity to prevail.
Getting Africa’s three leading poets into such a charged
room is the stuff of which legends are made, and Okot
happens to be a legend and legend-maker. He told me of a
reading he had overseas, and how a particular girl appeared
to be enjoying his delivery more than the others. He later
invited the girl over to his hotel suite, and he was about
to start “touching” when the girl told Okot that “Mum wants
you at home for dinner.” It was then it dawned on Okot that
the girl was actually his daughter!
“I nearly made love to my daughter!” Okot lamented.
Laughing, I quoted his words from his poem “Song of
Prisoner”: I want to suck the stiff breasts/ Of my wife’s
younger sister.” He leered at me, and ordered yet
another round of beer and whisky.
Okot always held court at the bar in the foyer of Oduduwa
Hall, the big theatre of the university. Anything could
happen during those drinking sessions. The Deputy
Vice-Chancellor accosted Okot one day and said: “This is
wrong, Professor p’Bitek. How can you take your students out
to drink?”
Okot stared at the man for a good minute before saying: “You
must have gone to a bush university or you would have known
that professors share drinks with their students. By the
way, why do you part your hair?” The man fled!
The proprietress of the bar once remonstrated with Okot on
not clearing the huge bill he had accumulated and the poet
promptly told the woman: “I am sure your husband didn’t do
you well last night. When you go home, tell him to f—k you
thoroughly!” And the woman, too, fled!
Even with the talk of unpaid bills, Okot would order a big
bottle of White Horse whisky for the great actress Florence
Toun Oni who had joined the table. Presenting the whisky
with a flourish Okot blew a kiss to the smiling lady.
Watching in a safe distance the proprietress simply shook
her head. A friend of mine, Patrick Izobo-Agbebeaku who
would later make history as the first university graduate
bus conductor in Nigeria, demanded to see Okot’s debts.
Patrick wondered aloud why the madam should be insulting
“Prof Okot for a small amount of money”. Okot quickly shut
up my friend with these words: “If you think it’s a small
amount, then pay!”
Okot would not use the urinary of the bar, stressing that
the place was dirty. Motioning to me, Okot started out of
the bar. I got the message. He only made use of the
Vice-Chancellor’s toilet which he said was the only clean
toilet in the entire campus. It was drizzling, and I pointed
at the falling rain.
“Come on, the rain makes you grow,” Okot said to me, walking
in the rain.
Walking with him up the staircase, we came into the office
of the VC’s half-caste secretary. “Watch me do some
beautiful things to this beautiful woman,” Okot said,
grabbing at the lady who ducked and ran.
Okot felt then that I was a fully-formed poet who had no
business being a student. It was under his influence that I
wrote the long poem “When I Shall Marry (Eater of my
Wealth)” which was published in the university’s arts
magazine Sokoti.
“Sharpen your pen!” This was the unique piece of advice I
got from Okot on the art of writing. He discussed everything
but the nitty-gritty of creative writing. I once tried to
discuss Wole Soyinka’s novel The Interpreters with
him. Picking up the book, he said: “Fine book by my friend
Soyinka.” Then he tossed the book aside and said, “Let’s go
and drink.”
He told me he was working on a book on his experiences in
Nigeria to be dedicated to me. To him, everybody in Nigeria
was a lizard, starting from the country’s leader who was the
big lizard then based in Lagos. He had actually written the
first line of the book which goes thus: “The lizard says he
is coming, but the lizard never comes.” Whatever became of
the book is in the lap of the gods. There was also mention
of a long poem entitled “Song of Soldier.”
He would not discuss his fellow writers except to say, for
instance, that Chinua Achebe is “a beautiful man.” He told
the story of how Ugandans broke down and cried when Achebe
was flying back to Biafra during the Nigerian Civil War
after a visit to Kampala. The East Africans could not bear
the thought of not seeing the author of Things Fall Apart
ever again as had happened to Christopher Okigbo.
Okot took ill towards the end of his stay at Ife. He
discharged himself from the hospital on regaining
consciousness. He got back to his house to discover that all
the drinks and alcohol had been removed. He was dying to
have a quick drink. Then he saw David Rubadiri’s houseboy
learning to ride a motorcycle. Okot promptly ordered the
learner to ferry him to the nearest watering-hole. Both fell
down from the bike, and Okot had a big gash for his efforts.
When Idi Amin was chased away from power Okot celebrated. He
pointedly told me that I would follow him to Makerere
University as he would not want me to continue my studies at
Ife which he dismissed as a “University of Lizards”. He
spoke glowingly of Yusuf Lule who was poised to take over
from Idi Amin. He was so determined to take me to Makerere
University that he chased me out of the examination hall of
the GNS 1 “Use of English” course. I left the exam hall to
help him buy meat at the Leventis Stores near the staff
quarters. Then we retired to drinking beer and whisky while
my mates were writing the exams!
Okot was open to a fault. He showed me letters from
universities like Iowa, Harvard, Texas, Makerere etc
offering him professorships in diverse disciplines such as
Creative Writing, African Studies, English and Divinity. In
the end I could not summon up enough courage to abandon my
studies at Ife for the journey with Okot to Uganda’s
Makerere University. Schoolwork and passing exams may not
have mattered to me, but damaging my parents and sundry
loved ones through transnational rascality did. It was while
writing my degree exams in 1982 that the news was broken to
me that my great friend Okot was dead. I dedicated my final
year thesis to him. He deserved no less.
SLQ
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