My time with Adebayo Faleti, the legendary author who did not want his story written

Like our fathers will say, ọjọ a ba ku la d’ere, eeyan o suwon laaye. This is roughly translated as the day we die, we become monuments, man is not respected in his life time.

On Sunday, July 23, 2017 the Yoruba race and Nigeria at large lost one of its finest minds, one of its brightest sons and perhaps the best of its philosophers. I was broken, touched to tears, but I consoled myself with beautiful memories of who Baba Faleti was.

His actual age is in dispute: while some say 86, many others say he was well into his 90s. Whatever the case is, Baba, as he is fondly called, died at a good old age. So why should anyone feel teary about such a death? Why should anyone be broken that a man who had been grey in hair and philosophies since the early 1990s was called to the abode of the gods? Here are my reasons.

While at the University of Ibadan, when I was still finding my feet — I’m still finding my feet — in the literary world, I looked up to a number of people I thought were solid structures for the kind of literary life I wanted. Men and women who were sound in languages and solid in character. My particular focus was however in Yoruba literature, which I found very fascinating as a child.

I followed Professor Akinwunmi Isola, another legendary writer, who blessed our life and times with the story “Efunsetan Aniwura” and the famous “Oleku”, which was recently adapted — not so recent anymore — into a film by Tunde Kelani’s Mainframe.

In my second year, the good sun  of fortune shined on me; a friend I respected so much was taking on a project to document the life and times of living legends within the Yoruba culture, and considering my love for the culture and language, I was shortlisted to work on that project.

So we were out to write the stories of a number of culutral Icons, and Adebayo Faleti, was to be our very first. We thought it was going to be extremely difficult to get in touch with Baba, but he was simpler than one could ever think. Getting him was easier than we thought. In a few weeks, we had set up our first meeting with him.

First, we were surprised to see his “very humble” house in the Ojoo axis of Ibadan. With the fame and hardwork of Baba Faleti, I was naively expecting to see him living in some palace in the heart of west Africa’s largest city, Ibadan. This was not the case; he believed his hardwork and fame was not to put bricks together but to build a people with a legacy.

After we told him our reasons for seeking audience with him, Baba took a deep sigh and said “so what do you get from this?” We explained that we were not particularly seeking to get something off it, but to leave his timeless lessons for generations to come. He smiled and suggested to us that all about his life and times has been written by Olatunde Olatunji, a prolific writer, who had in fact chronicled a lot about this literary giant.

I thought to myself: so this man who is my closest shot to D.O Fagunwa, Duro Ladipo, Hubert Ogunde and a host of character-instilling actors and playwrights who built my cultural childhood, was not going to let us have him documented in contemporary language and reality? Yes, he wanted to share himself with us, but not necesarily in the pages of any book.

He shared with us a number of select stories from his early childhood and lessons from his mother. However, one of his most profound lesson that day was that history in itself was taking note of all the things we do as humans. He said in the end, his story will be told, his legacy will be translated to other persons after him — not necessarily because it was written on paper but because stories endure based on the strength of our character.

For many who grew up in Ibadan and loved the sounds of O-Y-O on the transistor radio, Faleti’s recurring recitations were a part of our build-up after the news hour. He would say:

Ise eni n’ise eni,

Tepa mose ore mi,

Ikan kii tiju a n mole

Eera kii tiju a n yena

Alapandede ki tiju a n meba ogiri ni gbangba

Ise eni n’ise eni

Simply translated as

Your job is what you do

Be committed to what you do

Termites are never ashamed of building a termite hills

Ants are never ashamed of building a path

Street birds are never ashamed of flying in the public space

Your  job is your job.

In his home and at work, Faleti was consciously enshrining the values around the dignity of labour in the hearts of everyone who listened to him. I do not think he listened to Martin Luther King’s speech about the street sweeper, but he strongly believed that “if a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well”.

After a good afternoon with Baba, he sends us home with prayers, but even his prayers had deep stories and lessons to learn.

He says: “e o ni shilete, e o ni si ewe oko j’aje, be ti n fọ; yoo ma ho”. Translated as “you would not step the wrong path, you will not eat the wrong leaf; as you wash it, it will foam”.

Baba goes on to tell us of animals who are forbidden to eat any leaf with holes in them, he adds that the day they eat it, they will surely die. He relates it to the need to obey the life instructions given by God and set out by a moral society.

Adebayo, ọmọ Ifaleti; with you, every breath was a lesson learnt — your last breath will be one never to be forgotten. Long live your Legacy! Till we meet in dreams, across the path impossible for two to ply; Rest on.