“The gods are not to blame, but did they orchestrate the happenings…”

I have always been a slow starter, and it takes me years to get the true gist of any matter, because i have to think and think. On the one hand, that is good on the other; i am just behind in many matters.

So here, i am twelve years after i read “the gods are not to blame” and 6 years after i saw it on stage-“pit theatre OAU ile-ife”, i am re reading it, and new questions are arising….

Here is a background to the story, “Odewale was born to king Adetusa and Queen Ojuola. The oracle is called to get a view into his life and future and Baba Fakunle says ‘this boy, he will kill his own father and then marry his own mother’. After the ‘bad word’, Gbonka a “trusted” servant was asked to go kill the baby in the sacred forest, he doesn’t as we find out at the end of the play. Odewale by the stroke of the “gods” was the only one who could save the people of Kutuje. The people make him king, and ‘by custom’ marries the queen. They have four kids. Let us not forget that Prince Aderopo- whose name is apt because it means “The replacement”- is in around the palace when Odewale is made King. Moving on. The people of Kutuje are hit by a plague and its killing the people, the oracle is called upon again and the verdict is given ‘there is a curse in the land and until the curse is purged, our suffering will go on’

Then Odewale begins to look for all ways to make sure this plague is removed from “his” people; he sends “the replacement” to Ife to find the great oracle, he comes back and becomes cryptic. Odewale begins to suspect people around him and so the story goes, until he finds out he has indeed killed his father and the woman he calls wife and sings her praise is in fact his mother.

Yet, the gods are not to blame? Several questions rise for me re reading this story. 1). If that ritual of finding out the destiny of the child not been performed would it have entered anyone’s mind that a child was capable of such evil, 2) did the oracle bringing such message lodge it in the hearts of his people that such a thing was possible in the realms of humanity? 3) In recent times of political correctness, was it really wrong what Gbonka did? Was he not saving a person-and a baby at that-from execution?

4) What kind of relationship did Alaka and Odewale really have that Alaka couldn’t tell Odewale was truly the reward of a hunt- as his name depicts- and maybe just maybe all of these would have been avoided?

So the crux of my gist? Odewale. I feel a lot of compassion for him and when i re read this book, this statement i heard from someone kept ringing…. “Robbed of the past, you will settle for any future”

My personal opinion though. But i sincerely think Odewale was cheated out of life. I would sincerely have preferred Gbonka left him to die, than allow him live out a future “he brought from the gods” better still he (Gbonka) could have told Alaka the story behind the boys unfortunate destiny and left the decision to him. In all i think we all have been unfair to Odewale in the past years, focussing only on his tragic hero flaw, his anger.

Tell me who will not be angry when his people are maligned like The King his father did, calling Odewale’s “people” bush. What good and proper leader will not be infuriated, when an unexplained plague is taking his “people”? Who would not feel insecure in the midst of people who are changing stories of how their “beloved” king was killed?

In some part of my mind, i think Gbonka if not the gods should be blamed for the happenings and tragic end of my beloved Odewale.

You will definitely have a different view, so you can pick up the book it’s just a 72 page book and share your thoughts with me.

Knowledge puffs up; love covers all; love yourself; love your neighbour; love this country; above all this love God He is the essence of your being.

Tdk- black by divine design