Sun up on Thursday, November 26, 2015: Ikenne, provincial homestead
of one of Africa’s foremost political thinkers, statesmen, nationalists
and former Premier of the defunct Western Region of Nigeria, the late
Chief Obafemi Awolowo, gradually rouses from the fatigue and hangover of
the orgy of celebration of the funeral of the widow of the late sage,
Chief (Mrs.) Hannah Idowu Dideolu Awolowo, buried the previous day.
The streets, the markets and the motor parks still bear vestiges of
the revelry of the night before as they were littered with discarded
plastic food packs, disused water bottles and sachets, yoghurt and
chocolate packs and cellophane bags. This is in spite of huge piles of
the stuffs already gathered and arranged by the roadside for sale by
enterprising scavengers, mostly women.
At the Obafemi Awolowo Square, Dideolu Stores along Tai Solarin Way,
the town’s major road, Our Saviour’s Anglican Church along Kehinde
Sofola Street (where the funeral service was held), Yeye Odua (former
Ajina) Street and several other reception venues used by the government
of Ogun State, Awolowo’s kinsmen, the towns folk and various groups in
hosting guests; workmen and officials of the state’s Traffic Compliance
and Enforcement (TRACE) agency are seen busy dismantling canopies and
security barricades.
Although offices and schools have resumed after the one-day
unofficial holiday declared in honour of the Awolowo matriarch, only few
shops are opened for business even as at 9:00am. Traffic was light.
Save for some commercial bike operators on the prowl for passengers,
only few cars and township taxi cabs ply the roads. Indeed as the day
wears on, the major motor park in the heart of the town has become
virtually deserted. Only a handful of officials of the National Union of
Road Transport Workers (NURTW) and touts are seen either seated on
benches or playing with young female hawkers. There is no vehicle on
turn. A few only drives in and out of the park without stopping, after
finding no passengers to pick.
Ironically, the light human activity sharply contrasts with the
profuse presence of roaming pets and other domestic animals- dogs,
goats, hens, which, as if with an understanding with their owners, came
out of a two-month forced hibernation with their brood to sun their
furs and feathers.
Saturday Sun almost twice ran over two
flocks of hens and their chicks on different lanes and saw local dogs
stray across the roads at will, while riding round the town.
At last, the “townlet’, (as that is what it can be called with its
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