 |
| Opa Oranmiyan |
LÀGÈRÈ
ROAD is to Ile-Ife what Marina is to Lagos. It is the high street where you
find the banks and the major stores. It is the main thoroughfare that leads to
the ancient city. It is that road that begins immediately after you leave
Obafemi Awolowo University and takes you past the Seventh Day Adventist
Hospital to the Post Office. You know the road?
At
the Post Office, Lagere Road forks into three. To your left is (Adekunle)
Fajuyi Road. This is the road that leads to Ilesa and Akure. Straight ahead of
you, and passing in front of the Post Office is Iremo Road which takes you
directly to the imposing Palace of the Ooni at Enuwa Square. But that is not
where we are going.
 |
| Oba Adesoji Tadenikawo Aderemi |
Our
route is the third fork, the one to your right. That is New Road. Yes,
Onigegewura is not mistaken. You probably know it as Oba Adesoji Aderemi Road,
right? Its original name when it was newly constructed was New Road. The road
was constructed by the late Ooni of Ife as his personal contribution to the
development of the town. Until Iya Agba’s death in 2000, she called it Nii Rodu. Our old uncle who lived there
was, of course, Baba New Road.
If
Lagere is Marina, Oba Adesoji Aderemi Road is Broad Street. And indeed it is
actually a very broad street. The defunct African Continental Bank used to have
its very beautiful branch there. It is Oba Adesoji Aderemi Road that leads to Òrótó.
And that’s where we are going.
We
are following Onigegewura to see the majestic Opa Oranmiyan (staff of Oranmiyan).
Opa
Oranmiyan is one of the wonders of the African race.
You
have to visit the Opa yourself to feel its mystery.
The Opa
is tall. It is very tall. In height, it is taller than eighteen feet. And it
has 1 foot underground. If we take the height of an average storey building to
be twenty feet, Opa Oranmiyan is of a comparable height. However, it used to be
taller than its present height. From historical records Onigegewura came across, about four feet was
broken off from the top during a storm in 1884.
The
Opa has upon its front side [I am assuming you are looking at it from the road]
a number of metallic nails hammered into it with two mysterious figures carved in
the midsection. From a distance, the design of the iron nails look like a
‘three-pronged forklike configuration”. The iron nails have a bullet-like
appearance.
This
is how Ayinla Ogun whom you probably know as the Reverend Samuel Johnson, the
author of the seminal The History of the
Yorubas, described the curious arrangement:
 |
| Mystery of Ancient Monument |
“The nails are arranged in such an ordered
manner as to render them significant. First, there are 61 in a straight line
from the bottom upwards at interval of about 2 inches on either side in
midline; and next, at about a distance of 4 inches on either side of this, and
from the same level on top, two parallel lines of 31 of the midline. Then in
the space between these three rows of parallel lines, and about the level where
they converge, is found the most conspicuous of the carvings...”
The
Opa was carved of granite gneiss. That’s the first mystery. How did my great
grandfathers who were presumed not to have any technological knowledge carve
the structure out of granite? The European explorers who examined the Opa were
of the opinion that it could have been made in the first millennium C. E.
This
takes me to the second mystery. How were the iron nails hammered into the
granite? What instruments did they use? In a British Museum document which I
came across, it was recognized that: “Each
nail would have been labouriously inserted into the granite before the stela
was raised.” How were these nails inserted, and in such an orderly fashion?
How long did it take them to insert the nails?
Then,
how were the unlettered Yoruba people of Ile-Ife able to master the technique
of hoisting up such gigantic stonework in those days? What tools did they use?
What happened to those tools?
To
me, the greatest mystery is the meaning behind the arrangements of the iron nails
on the Opa Oranmiyan. Could they have been merely decorative? Or were they of
peculiar significance? What could have been the reason behind the nail
configuration? What do they represent? According to the British Museum document
I mentioned earlier, it was observed that: “This
arrangement of nails is probably not merely decorative, but has a symbolic
significance that has been lost over the centuries.”
This
is suggestive that the configuration must be representative of a deeper
meaning.
A
probable explanation as to the meaning of the nails was proffered by Ayinla
Ogun. According to the famous
historian who was also Pastor of Oyo, “what
is conjectured as most probable in these arrangements is that the 61 nails in
midline represent the number of years Oranyan [the alternate spelling of
Oranmiyan by people of Oyo Province] lived,
and that the 31 each on either side indicates that he was 31 when he began to
reign, and that he reigned for 31 years, the year he began to reign being
counted twice as is the manner of the Yorubas, and that the carvings are the
ancient characters Resh and Yod which stand for Oranyan.”
Could
the Reverend Johnson be right? Or is
there another explanation? Onigegewura spoke with some elders in Ile-Ife and Oyo. What
they told him was as intriguing as it was mind-blowing.
How
many of our scholars have attempted to study and analyse this mysterious
monument of ages gone past? How many of our students have made Oranmiyan the
subject of their thesis? Has the government done anything to make Opa Oranmiyan
a centre of culture and tourism? How many people visit Ile-Ife annually for the
purpose of cultural tourism?
 |
| Tourists in Turkey |
Let
me share these figures with you. About four million tourists visit Taj Mahal
every year. More than seven million people visit the Eiffel Tower every year.
Leaning Tower of Pisa attracts an average of one million people every year.
Nearer home, more than a million tourists visit Victoria Fall in Zimbabwe on
annual basis. I know you are already
calculating the number of jobs that would be created if we have a million
tourists trooping to Ile-Ife annually.
Tourists
visiting Osun State alone will be delighted to visit Osun Grove in Osogbo, the Olumirin
Waterfall at Erin Ijesha, Opa Oranmiyan in Ife, Ife Museum, and of course, the
panoramic mountains on the border with Ekiti State which have been colonized by
prayer warriors, and a host of other breathtaking historical sites.
These
tourists will need to be accommodated: hotels. They will need to eat:
restaurants. They will need to go home with souvenirs: artists, manufacturers,
and retailers. The opportunities along the value chain are simply endless.
All
of us love to bring back to Nigeria miniature Eiffel Tower, Burj Khalifa, Taj
Mahal, Leaning Pisa, and other beautiful mementoes from the places we have visited.
What will you give someone who visits Nigeria to take back to his country?
Comments
Post a Comment