ÀKÒDÌ ÒRÌṢÀ

The house, because it is so arresting, led to my arrest as its owner and builder.

By Moyo Okediji.

                              I.

I was arrested by the Nigerian Police on July 5, 2018.
To be fair to them, they were angry with my new building, the ÀKÒDÌ ÒRÌṢÀ, in Ile Ife. The police landed in trucks, arms, uniforms, and plain clothes to storm the construction site. There were about ten workers at the site when the police came. The previous day when the police arrived the workers fled into the surrounding bushes, abandoning their tools, unused building materials, and the entire construction area.

“Who is the owner of the house,” one of the plain-clothed officers barked at the cowering plumbing workers, the master bricklayers, carpenters and laborers at various positions around the building.

But this time the workers did not flee. Sticking to their plan, they carried their union identity cards with which they could identify themselves if required.  Yet they were all scared of the police presence.

The chief builder, Baba Ila, stepped forward. A short, thin man in his late 60s, he said, “I am in charge of the project. Everybody here works under me.”

The police officer scowled hard and down at Baba Ila. “Is this your house?” he asked Baba Ila.
“No, I work as the head of the bricklayers here. I am a mason.”
“Who hired you for this work?”
“A doctor from the university and a professor from the United States.”
“What are you building here?”
“We are constructing a unique building, but I do not know its purpose. I have to build whatever the draughtsman drew.”
“Do you have the numbers of those who hired you?”
“I have the number of one of them, the doctor. But not the number of the prof from the United States.”
“What is the name of the doctor?”
“Dr. Seyi.”
“And the name of the prof from America? You don’t have his number?”
“Professor Moyo. No, I don’t have his number.”
“Fine. We will take you away to the police station,” said the officer to Baba Ila, “and you can call the doctor to come and bail you out.”


                               II.

The doctor is Seyi Ogunjobi, an artist in residence at the Obafemi Awolowo University’s Center for Cultural Studies. He has been assisting me to build the ÀKÒDÌ ÒRÌṢÀ. At the exact time, the police were storming the construction site of the ÀKÒDÌ ÒRÌṢÀ, Ogunjobi, a Leeds doctorate in creative arts, was moderating a discussion in the lecture theater of the Center for Cultural Studies, at the Obafemi Awolowo University campus. Part of the seminar series at the center where Ogunjobi works, his duties include hosting the seminar series, at which invited guests presents on a regular basis. Yesterday, Ogunjobi was moderating a seminar that I gave, titled, “Invisible Canvas: Painting as Performance in Ile Ife.” The small seminar room was packed to capacity, and I was enjoying the talk that I was giving when Ogunjobi’s phone rang. I was distracted and irritated, but Ogunjobi ran out of the room to take the call. I continued to give the talk.

Moments later, Ogunjobi returned to the auditorium, still clasping the phone to his ears, and made straight to the podium where I was speaking. He looked worried. I stopped talking as he spoke into my ears: “The police have arrested Baba Ila. He is calling at the police station. He asks to speak with you.”

I carefully placed the loudspeaker on the podium and whispered to Ogujobi’s ears, “end the call. Tell him we will come to get him after this event,”

He did. He returned to his seat. I continued with the talk. I was discussing the stories behind the building whose mason was being arrested (as I spoke) with the crime of helping to construct the building, a conspiracy, perhaps? The scope of the lecture grew substantially as I introduced the breaking news concerning the police raid and arrest at the building site and the detention of the head worker at the police station. The only condition for his bail is my presence at the police station.

At the conclusion of the lecture, an entire roomful of listeners stood ready to go with me to the police station to answer the invitation from the state authorities.


                              III.

Arresting house. The house, because it is so arresting, led to my arrest as its owner and builder. They came to arrest the house—not just the architect.
The house is the culprit. They came to place it behind bars. They had no problems with setting the designers and builders free as long as they are able to lock away the arresting building.

“People have come to lodge a complaint that you are building an occult house,” the police officer informed me. “What to do you have to say about this?”
I looked around the room. The police released the head mason immediately I arrived with a crew, including a lawyer, at the police station. The place was packed with people against me and those in my support.

I told the entire room full of people about the story behind the emergence of AKODI ORISA, the divine abode we are constructing at the Oke Akintade, in Ile Ife. It is the center of the GownTown Project we began at Ile Ife as a project of the University of African Art. The project has conceptualized the entire city as an intellectual, research and educational metropolis, with the support of the His Imperial Majesty, the Ooni Ogunwusi Ojaja II, the king of Ile Ife, also the Grand Patron of the university. Called the Akodi Orisa, the building holds and embodies the sacred, secular, spiritual, aesthetic, philosophical and ecumenical aspects of the GownTown experience. The building will serve as a studio for the artists in the residency program of the University of African Art.  It will function as a meditation space to release toxic physical and emotional tension, as part of the healing of the individual within the community.

The spokesperson for those who brought accusations against me stood up and began his long and winding speech with an apology that he and his people were concerned about security when they heard that an Orisa house was being constructed in their neighborhood. He was relieved, he said, to learn that his fears were unfounded. Second, he blamed me for causing the whole misunderstanding by not coming straight to the community to explain what I was about to do, even before I started doing it. Had I done this, he said, we would not be in such a difficult situation. The members of his community had run to him as the chairman of the community to complain about the building, and given the Yahoo-Yahoo situation in the country, he saw no reason to wait before running to the police.

I reminded the chairman that there is no community present at the spot where the Akodi Orisa stands. The nearest household is more than half a mile down the hill on top of which Akodi Orisa peaks. Under construction are a couple of buildings near Akodi Orisa, and the owners of those buildings are in excellent relations with me. Their builders come to my well to draw water for their construction.

My lawyer cautioned that two matters were being confused. The first is legal and the second moral. The first matter of litigation concern, he argued, was whether I, his client, had a right to erect this building. Though my building appears to be about orisa indigenous traditions, it was my right, he claimed, to construct a place of worship dedicated to my beliefs. He noted that the chairman of the community and his people were wrong to try and deny me the right to erect the building because it does not seem to serve Christian or Islamic values. The complaints arose, the lawyer claimed, because they tried to stop a project that appears to support indigenous African spiritual values and entities.

The second matter of moral is a distortion of the first matter of legality. That his client did not choose to publicize the project in the community before starting to build was merely a matter of social morality and choices. The complainants clearly would have preferred otherwise. But his client was not morally bound to respect the complainants’ desire for notification before commencements of construction.


                               IV.

“The police Area Commander (AC) is interested in the case,” a police officer with a cell phone said. “He just called to say that he is now at his seat, and wants to see all of you in his office.” The AC’s office was about one hundred meters across the yard, from where we were seated. We all filed into the AC’s office. He was seated, and his large desk carried decorations with pictures, flags and small objects with personal sentimental values. He was a handsome middle-aged man who seemed rather too pleasant looking to be a police officer. Not until he stood up did I realize that his gait was forward-leaning, with the robust physique of a football tackler. You wouldn’t want to be in his way despite his handsome mien.   

He asked us to be seated. He wanted me to introduce myself, and after I did, he said he did not want a lengthy statement. He had seen the pictures and videos, he said, and in his own opinion, the building reminded him of the time when he was a child growing up in the village, and adobe houses were everywhere. He did not see anything diabolic in the architecture, but he also understood that some people complained and wanted a clear explanation about the functions of the building. He would not be surprised to see the press flocking to the police station for information, before long. He needed to be able to assure them that the public was in no danger. He just wanted me to leave a statement of about a page to explain that the architecture was nothing for people to be afraid of, and I was free to go.

We all went back to the room where we were all gathered at first. A police officer tore a page off the official booklet, and asked me to fill the page with personal information as required, and then provide a statement describing me, and why I was constructing the building. I did. The chairman of the complainants also left a sheet with some information on police documents, but not before vigorously shaking my hands and assuring me that I was welcome to the community and all the misunderstanding was now over. With my supporters, I left the police station, still trying to analyze the rhythm and rhyme of the entire drama of this plot to arrest the building.



Moyo Okediji is Professor of Art and History at the University of Texas, Austin.