Ode-Irele; A threshold by Foot -By Kareem Itunu Azeez

When I returned to my roots, down to the place I had left unannounced, it seems I had gone through the second phase of processes, another refining period of filtering through what’s good and what’s not, I thought it was just my passion to write down what I would see down there in villages of Kajola, but much more than just money I had witnessed.

People listen to my narrations of the few hours spent covering the EJE festival, but I took pleasures in the huge rocks that cover this state, the many beautiful faces I won’t see anymore, the faces of the hungry children whom the streets have left unfed, and particularly the unfulfilled promises of a government that continuously come and go. Ode Irele by foot wasn’t because I had preferred to walk through this streets by legs, but this was borne out of necessity, the roads are in bandages and it needs total surgery. Thus till current times that day and that journey is usually an easy pick should you ask me which is my preferred voyage.

Ode irele, flashing back the journey lane, it begins not while leaving the shores of Lagos, it actually began when I pass through the lone routes of franzaky park, on a bike, as we sashayed through the sands of that streets. We were rolling to irele, it was going to be memorable, it should just be like igbesa Day, where a day before it was my most important period. When I finally picked my luggage, and as well-wishers bid me goodbye… Well-wishers, just one person although, it was my long time friend, the Igbo boy Reuben Victor, he had waked up early to take a walk with me to the parks of oshodi, and sooner rather than later when the bus started to Ondo, I knew I was in for something, especially considering how I had fallen of a bike en-route to oshodi, which is why I had started my travails from Franzakin park, and so a journey begins.

Before the bus got to Akure it was almost dark, such was my experience when I went to FUTA, for some official mission with my cardinal friends, then we had met Vifredo Pareto, so this time around I guess I needed no Pareto, I can compass my self through the road, then to the town of a smaller group of people, the irelians as I would tag them, with over 350 towns and smaller villages in irele, the red mud houses reminded me of how far we had washed away from tradition, but some of this red mud homes I found as I pass through streets of Ajagba, then to Lonlai beautiful sites they were, I had always succumbed to, and lastly I halted for the time being at Ojurin, but I haven’t come thus far to count streets, but they were a magnificent thing to avoid, I had come to cover an event, the EJE festival, one of the most celebrated and its yearly by the people of Irele. But much more than EJE lies in stock for solace.

The streets were filled with poverty, the roads whereas tattered as the dung across the dirty lands of an outskirt Lagos lands, the only thing still keeping the people intact is the necessity that comes with nature, love and the environment that tells them,”There’s no place like home”. And when finally comes the night I was taken to the place of my sojourn for the next 24hours or so, since EJE would last perhaps 12hours or better part of the coming day…

The chirping of Pisces open my wide eyes, there. Was no one to talk to except my phone, and as usual stand still to encounter the strange nature as emphasized in the topics of this clans people. So I set out immediately after leaving the abode of the one through which I got the job, to the streets and settings of those in festive mode, the sights to behold, beautiful young girls, many catch my eyes few caught my heart, but none lives right there for far too long. Only those from Akure would have better narrations of EJE, bunk of it has been submitted already for publication in one of our dailies, of which ownership right had left my hands, but the streets showed me love, the strange spirits knew I wasn’t a bad blood, so I came in peace and left in peace with much more to the roads.

While on my way back to Lagos, I compared so many things untrue, I reminisce about the morsels of swallow I had gulped, with chunks of meat as I claim an important guest, seriously Lagos won’t treat me this way for a time to come, the tall mahoganies, the strange hills and high balm rocks, depicting the people of irele where people of tradition, but it’s usually a surprise to see more of western creeds than where our cradle had actually begun, the various shrines which has now been modernized, the sacrifices which I saw of which I can say maybe the gods have refuse to eat them, the photographs I took and the restricted images of the traditional rulers which was bounded by copyrights.

For me, I had gone for an official duty, but deep down I went for show town and I saw many things and enjoy some few hours that may take years to come again, these times were spent on foot, around Irele, I had already pictured what a title of my narrations would be, should the time comes, I shall name the title “Into the deeper skin of Ode-Irele”