Akin Ogungbe
Akin Ogungbe goes
home
Akin Ogungbe 80, popularly known as Baba Ibeji his stage name ,bowed
to penultimate week. Our Correspondent
,Taiwo Abiodun visited Abeokuta his
country home to report his life and times
Sympathizers from
all walks of life besieged his Iberekodo
residence in Abeokuta . While many wore long faces and in grief ,some buried their chins in their palms. Others too
shook their heads intermittently for ‘’Baba Ibeji’’.
This time around Akin
Ogungbe the man who acted ‘’Baba Ibeji ‘’ had died and
sympathisers thronged the house to pay condolence visit to the family. In the
70s , Akin Ogungbe had acted the role of ‘’Baba Ibeji’’in a Yoruba photo play
magazine Atoka .The huge crowd was
not there to witness the arrest of Baba
Ibeji who had used one of his twins for ritual to raise money for his
pilgrimage to Mecca!.This time around
the crowd had gathered to pay
homage to one of the last titans of Nigeria’s Alarinjo travelling theatre Ogungbe
had for long been a household name in the rank of the late Hubert Ogunde, Moses Adejumo [Baba
Sala], Duro Ladipo, Baba Ajimajasan, Baba Mero, Oyin Adejobi ,Ade Love, among
others. He belonged to the pioneers of Nigerian stage performance artistes who
branched to the celluloid film before the advent of home videos.
One of the popular stage plays he acted was when he acted
the notorious ‘’Baba Ibeji ‘’ who used one of his twins for money making ritual
and used the proceeds to go to Mecca to
perform the Lesser Hajj. After his
departure , the unexpected happened : He
forgot his key to the room where the
twin was on his kneels with calabash on
his head!. And the bubble burst ! .On his arrival from Mecca he was nabbed. This story was carried in the South West
and in series in the popular Yoruba magazine Atoka in the 70s . Since then Akin Ogungbe became more popular and was known as Baba
Ibeji , that later became his stage name .
During an interview with one of his children, Taiwo , denied that it was not a real life story that her father did it but ,
she responded ‘’ it is true that in real life Ogungbe had twins but he did not use any for juju or money making ritual. It was only acted as a play , said the living Taiwo, who does not have a twin
sister Kehinde again. Among the films he
produced are Asiri Baba Ibeji, Ologbo Jigolo,
Ireke Onibudo, Lisabi, Igba
Funfun among others.
Tributes
.
Among the earl callers
who went to his home to pay
tributes are Yoruba artistes such as Jimoh Aliu, Jide Kosko, ,Dele Odule, and the
Ogun state government of Arts and
Tourism who sent representatives.From the Lagos State University came
Dr.Akin Sofoluwe a senior lecturer at
the University .
In his tribute Aliu wrote :It
was very painful when I heard about the
great man’s death . I thank God for a good life spent. We came from Him and to
Him we shall go back. Rest in peace Baba.
Opasanya Kazeem Oluwole in
the condolence register has this to say , Baba Akin Ogungbe you are a gem during
your life. You came , saw and conquered , May your soul rest in perfect peace
,Farewell
The Association of Nigeria Theatre Practitioners’ Governor , Ogun state chapter ,Deinde Lateef
wrote: Akinkanju Alaranbara Ogbontarigi
ere ori Itage Akin Ogungbe ,
Igbehin yin a dara o, Orun re rere o ,ki Oluwa se iku ni isimi, ki iwaju
dara ki ehin ma baje o.
Prince Jide Kosoko another theatre artiste wrote in brief : Eeegun Agba
sunnre o.
On behalf of Ogun state Hon Commissioners and the governor Senator Ibikunkle Amosun, Mrs Yewande Amosan who came to represent them wrote : May
his soul rest in peace.
Ogungbe, according to family sources was over 80years
. According to Yemi , one of his children, the father was rallied round by in
his last days by his younger colleagues in the theatre some Yoruba great artistes carried the corpse to the mortuary .’’It was Jide Kosoko, Dele Odule and Ebun Oloyede [aka Ola Iya ] who took the
corpse to the mortuary , In fact , they all took care of the old man before he
died ‘’
One of the tenants that lives in the late Ogunde’s house , Rahman Yusuf Adesina
said he was by his bedside when the old man passed away. ’’I was
there when the old man peacefully passed
away. We called one of his children ,Taiwo who was present , and few minutes he passed on . He wanted to
talk but could not as he only opened his mouth but could not talk , until he
passed on. I was not afraid
of his corpse because he was a very nice man and was accommodating . He
did not disturbed anybody and never behaved like a landlord . May his soul rest in perfect peace.
A neighbour in the
vicinity, Oladele Omooyebande described
the deceased as a man too young to die, ‘’ it is too early for the man to die. We are going to miss him,
here was a man who would not despise anybody .If he wanted to eat he would call
everybody to his table .He was close to everybody , and he explained things to all not minding whether you are his
son or not ‘’,
Omooyebande said the
deceased’s name Akintola Christopher
Ogungbe connotes many things , ‘’he was
a Christian , a Moslem and a traditionalist
as he bears the three names .He went to Mecca and came back and we all believed he was also a Muslim.
Genesis of his acting
career
According to his younger brother , Claudius Olaseinde
Ogungbe,77, ‘’ When we stopped our education at Standard six , my mother left
him with our grandmother and he went to
learn carpentry skill but I veered into tailoring .At a time he used to go and watch Baba GT Onimole as an apprentice , he
left in the year 1953, but Ayinla Olumegbon left in 1950.In 1953 he started his
own group. We cannot remember his peers
now . The late Hubert Ogunde was his senior then but Ogunde started from here , he was a teacher from this
Abeokuta . His contemporaries are Ayinla Olumegbon, He was ranked among the
Aderupoko, Papalolo, Oyin Adejobi, Ade
Love and many
others. They were many then but nobody was doing it for money ., the
profession was out of interest.
According to him , Ogungbe’s first play was titled A
terrible Life , then his Group was called Oluwa lo
see musical Party later he changed it to Oguns
Concert Party and eventually changed the name to Ogungbe
Travelling Theatre .
His brother corroborated Ogungbe’s daughter assertion that his role
as ‘’Baba Ibeji’’ was also a role
play and was far from reality made him popular ,in the play he used his
twin son for money making , he said ‘’ the man that acted as a twin used for money ritual later became a popular musician in
lkeja , and the other that acted as his
twin brother is Oso Fadeyi[ the first Fadeyi
Oloro] he was Taiye and in Ado Ekiti today. In real life the late
Ogungbe had about three set of twins , one of his wives had twins twice’’. .
Talking about their upbringing , he continued ‘’While I bear Claudius my
deceased brother was Christopher
Akintola Ogungbe, our family name is
Ogungbe but we were born into a Christian home we went to United African
Methodist Church at No 40,Eleja, John street, Ereko Lagos , in Abeokuta here we go to Anglican church., later one Alfa Shehu
Jabaru, who was his in law sent a lot of
artistes to Mecca ,so my late brother also seized the opportunity and went to
Mecca too.
Despite his age , Ogungbe
was still acting and directing till he died .’’ He acted as Agba Awo ‘’,
Had 50 Children and
20 wives
Yemi , one
of the children of the late Ogungbe said ‘’my father had over 50 children , with about 20
wives . I am in number eighth position in the family and we know one another .Today many of us are also into acting , I also act and produce Yoruba films like my dad.
The reason why he had so many wives and children is that in those days no parents would allow
their wards or children to go on stage and be acting and my father needed them
so he went out having them as wives and having children in order to assist them on stage. Corroborating
Yemi’s point, Taiwo Ogungbe one of the children said he was not born when her father
started acting .She said ‘’ I am over
50years , I had not been born when my father started acting. I used performed
with him on stage too while I acted as
‘’Baba Ibeji’s wife in the play where he
used one of his twins for juju and
was caught but it is not in real life as
many people thought . It was just a play
to teach morals .’’
According to Taiwo , she was not on the
payroll of the old man ‘’but he used to
give me feeding allowance but not salary , for I am one of his children , so he
needed not to be giving me money at all..Some of his wives I know are Erelu, Iya Ibadan, Mummy Temmy, Iya Oshogbo, Funke , Afusat, Iya Aduke and many others .
Asked whether they know one another Taiwo replied to the affirmative ,’’Yes of course . But while some are married and now in their respective matrimonial homes ,
some are outside the country , aside
from the ones at home now the rest are scattered all over the country .But
because I am living in the town that made
me to be the first to be called
when my father died .
Ogungbe’s Struggling
days
Latoni Ogungbe, the deceased’s younger brother [half brother] who also
doubled as his driver for over 20 years said the road to
stardom was not easy as many thought .He recounted series of
difficulties they encountered while working with him. His words ’’I am now in my 60s.We are from the
same father , our father had over 30
children , but Ogungbe my late brother had over
40 children . I worked with him
and was driving Bedford lorry in the 60s,
we also used
Austin lorry , after that I can not recollect other types
of vehicles we used . Whenever we reached a town we would drive round the town and be shouting ,announcing
on top of our voices ‘’ This is
Ogungbe’s night [La le oni Ogungbe] , come and watch
Ogungbe’s play,’’ some would sit on top of the vehicle driving about and announcing the programme
for the night in the town halls , schools and other places, we would be announcing with our megaphones’’
‘’We have visited many towns and had bad and good experiences.
From Abeokuta we would go to Owo, Akure,
Ilesha, Oyo, Ibadan, Ede. One day I
decided to leave them at Igbara Oke in
Ondo state when the suffering then was
so much. At times we would spend days without food , for there was no money to
buy food and no money to spend .No water to drink
. Many times we would be begging for food , begging for knickers , shirts to wear .
in fact I did not inform anybody
when I ran back from Igbara Oke , and came back to Abeokuta . Not
that we were not making some money but it was not enough to pay the bills
Close shave with
death
They had cheated death many times , according to the Driver
, ‘’One day we were coming from Ilesha but on getting to the round about our vehicle somersaulted and it faced where we were coming from again! We
had an accident and landed in a ditch, for days we were eating from the food our brothers
took along.
Another episode was when I went to paste our posters in Sokoto, in the Northern area announcing our play . I was mixing the starch
, and pasting these posters on the walls
when suddenly some Hausa men came to me and asked in their language whether it was cholera that I brought for them , but I did not understand
what they were saying yet I kept on nodding my head and saying yes , yes, yes. They beat me up to the extent that I fell into a coma and was rescued by the Yoruba living there. They took me to
one of the mosques there and hide
me for they were ready to kill me .Later
I spent three months in the hospital. The Yoruba people in Sokoto came out to protest and threatened to return to their towns .It was a serious issue. When Ogungbe camsse the play was cancelled .’’
According to his younger brother, Claudius , his brother once escaped assassination ‘’One evening we
were in a town I would not like to mention when some armed men with guns came
to invite him that the monarch of the
town wanted to see him , but we told them that it is a taboo for us to go out at night in
our town .We insisted that we would not go with them. The following day we went to see the monarch who denied sending for us, I will not mention the town to avoid embarrassment ,but it was close
to death ‘’
Lost prominent children
and wife
Yemi said the late Ogungbe was not a happy man before his
demise as some of his children died
before his own demise .He said ‘’
I remember that my older brother Layi Ogungbe, Idowu Ogungbe , Mowumi Ogungbe, and one of his wives Erelu , died before his eyes , these are some of the problems he had .He was not also happy with the pirates who did not let him enjoy the
fruit of his labour, he however added that ‘’ in the end the state government
honoured him by giving him a house , this showed that he was appreciated by the
state government for his good works’’.
Costumes
The late Ogungbe had over 30
beaded crowns , many beaded walking sticks and other art works used for
his work. According to Claudius Ogungbe ,the late Ogungbe loved art
works that he did not joke with them, he spent fortune on these art works
Bayo Sodunke , one of those trained by the late artiste said ‘’ I am from
Abeokuta , I was with Baba Ogungbe since
my primary school days , that was when there
was no video film then. It was only
television stage plays then. We
would travel to Ede, Ibadan, Oshogbo , Iwo,
doing shows .I remembered one day while
on our way the brake of the vehicle failed while the driver wanted to jump down the late
Ogungbe advised him not to , until the Bedford lorry eventually stop on its own’’
Comrade Victor Asaolu who is the National president of ANTP said they wanted a team to form a committee for the burial ,’’
the burial is for everybody to
participate , the family cannot handle it alone without the support of the state government while the ANTP too has a role to play, so I implored
all to cooperate and join hands to give the fallen hero a befitting burial’’.
Dr Akinsola Sofoluwe , described Ogungbe as a genius, he said ‘’ I joined
the NTA on Jan
2, 1976,as a producer with WNBS ,his group
was one of those I firstly handled, with
Baba Sala, Oyin Adejobi, Ajimajasan
, Aderupoko and Papalolo were members , it is a pity that he is dead ,What one
needs is discipline , and he had it , and
was focussed .He was not after money. You don’t need to aim at money ,money, money ,
money always .Ogungbe was among the first to start the stage theatre.
The burial rites ,according
to the family will take place from February 6,7 and 8, 2013.
