Ilese: Return of the natives

No prize for guessing right: the credit for this headline goes to Thomas Hardy and his novel, Return of the Native.

But unlike the grim story of Clym Yeobright, the Paris, France-returnee to his native Edgon Heath in England, this is a gaily “annual convocation of Ilese-Ijebu people”, in the very words of the commemorative brochure, to mark the 12th Ilese Day celebration, which started on August 7 and climaxed on August 13.

Ilese is a community contiguous to Ijebu Ode, in Ogun State.  According to unofficial figures, the town boasts a population of some half-a-million people, a good chunk of which are youths, many of them students of the Ogun State College of Health Technology, sited in the town.

But that population excludes Ilese-Ijebu natives, living and driving their businesses outside the town.  As a tool of indigene mobilization, township development and sheer civic pride, the “Ilese-in-exile” would appear the ultimate target of Ilese Day.

It is, so to say, the communal end-and-of-year bash, and start of another; when indigines, many of them having made good outside, come back home to felicitate and party, crowing Kennedy-speak: ask not what your town can do for you; ask rather what you can do for your town!

That appears the message from the KK (formally, Otunba Kunle Kalejaye, SAN)-chaired Ilese Day Planning Committee; and Mr. Popoola Ojikutu, secretary, under the umbrella of the Ilese Development Council (IDC), chaired by Otunba Segun Demuren and Omo’oba Segun Adebanjo, secretary.

With the massive turnout by indigenes, and the festive and carnival-like atmosphere the town wore throughout proceedings, particularly in the last two days, that message appeared to have resonated well

Still, the Planning Committee put together a carefully calibrated programme of events, part-service (what your town can do for you); part-duty (what you can do for your town); and general business/financial education for personal use, viz: free medical check-up, free eye test, an Annual Enterprise Development Seminar for 2016, a grand finale quiz competition, football competition among youths, Woro traditional dance, a cooking competition for Ikokore, the Ijebu special cuisine, beauty pageant and music performance extravaganza, the Ilese Day Grand Finale carnival, which featured five groups and a band of stunt-pulling Okada riders, and a gala nite to round off the celebrations.

Among performers at the music and showbiz extravaganza, Terry G Plkin (real name, Michael Ogunyomi), a student of Tai Solarin University of Education, Ijebu Ode, stood out, with his unique stripping and teasing act.  He stripped off no less than 30 clothes, starting with an Aladura (white-farment church) soutane!

But the grand finale carnival garnished the celebrations with a pan-Nigeria mix.  Sappers Barracks, a military formation, is located in Ilese.  Though based in Ilese, members are from different parts of the country.  The Sappers performance, therefore, pushed a subtle lesson: every Nigerian domiciled in Ileseland was an integral part of that community.  To boot, the Sappers came with three Eyo masquerades!

Otunba Kalejaye made that telling point, when the Sappers, in their glorious maroon colours, made their grand entry: with the barracks community part and parcel of Ilese, there is little chance of any communal violence.  Other communities nationwide ought to take a huge lesson from that spirit of community amity and integration.

Ilese Day is necessarily youth-driven.  For one, the town is host to a tertiary school.  For another, the college has conferred on the town some élan, associated with youths flouting their educational status.

Yet, the Beauty pageant — and indeed, the youth funfair nite, where perhaps too many strutted, sang and danced to thrill the appreciative audience, in a town hall packed full with hollering youths — was a thoughtful mix of business and fun, laced with Ilese history and civics.  Miss Oluwafunmi Imoleayo Ayeni, a graduate of the local College of Health Technology, Ilese, emerged winner from a packed field of 14.

What most would see in that funfair nite was fun.  But behind that fun was business, hard core business.

For starters, to enter for the pageant you buy a N5, 000 form.  But the winner’s prize is a car.  That is no unattractive prospect!  But standing between application and winning is the rather hard part of mastering Ilese tradition, history and contemporary civics, to answer rather tricky questions at the quiz segment.

So, to triumph, the winner must invest in and study a book on Ilese, specifically rolled out to prepare the contestants.  But the beauty of that is the youth are motivated to learn about the local history and culture, with a glittering prize in view.

Then the carnival proper!  Imagine the costumes of some 600-strong youth: the design and tailoring, all offering boom times for the local guild of tailors and fashion designers!  That would appear a pocket-friendly — and fun-filled way — to re-flate and energise the local economy, get local enterprises productively busy and empower local entrepreneurs.

Then, the local food vendors!  The parade grounds, for the grand finale carnival, offered an excellent mart for all sort of players, small and medium, to sell their wares and offer their services.  Of course, alongside is the souvenir business: commemorative hats and other branded gifts.  All help to boost the local economy; and put money in the pocket of the enterprising.

So, when the guild of Ilese tailors was publicly toasted for sewing, free-of-charge, the giant banners dotting strategic parts of town, before announcing; and after thanking those who attended and calling for an encore in 2017, the gesture was an excellent show of community recognition.

Even then, the business part of it would appear not so hidden: the guild perhaps was so charitable because of the business boom the festival yearly offers it!  Talk of win-win!

But still talking of charity qua charity, the 2016 Ilese Day also offered excellent opportunity for local philanthropists to show compassion for the less privileged, with the launch of the Rufus Olukayode Odusanya Foundation, with a rather striking acronym of ROOF, with its self-set mandate of providing “bursary awards to students attending secondary schools established in Ilese” from 2016; and, by 2017, “provide bursary awards to students of underprivileged parents that gain admission into university”, harnessing funds from “interested community supporters and interested donors”.

Still, again, the business cum empowerment part of this charity is not far away.  The livewire for the charity is the Catland Microfinance Bank Limited, the community-owned microfinance bank.  “Catland”, by the way, is the English translation of Ilese, “Ile Ese” (Ijebu for “home of cats”).

Now, if the Ogun government is watching, it may not be a bad idea to structure the yearly  Ilese Day into a state-wide calendar of tourist destinations to be vigorously marketed, after the famous Ojude-Oba festival, which the neighbouring Ijebu Ode hosts every year, after the Muslim Ileya (literally in English: time to go home) festival.

Ojude Oba, Ilese Day and such festivals may well gift Ogun a belt of cultural tourism, from which the state can reap quite some cash, in these times of dwindling revenue.