3 - Oriki in Okuku

Summary

OKUKU TODAY

Okuku is a small northern Yoruba town. It straggles briefly along the main road from Oṣogbo to Ọfa, just before the point where the rich soil of the forest belt gives way to the sandy soil of the semi-savanna. To a traveller on this road, Okuku will appear as the usual blur of brown earth houses with their rusty iron roofs, mixed with imposing two-storey plastered housefronts with ‘Brazilian’ verandahs, balconies and window-shutters. On the right as you travel northwards (see Map 2) is the market, with its modem concrete stalls laid out in rows under ancient shady trees. Then you pass the great square concrete tower of the Roman Catholic church and the more ornate twin towers of the mosque. On the left the housefronts open out into a wide sandy bumpy irregularly-shaped arena; at the back of it is the Anglican church, and its left margin is the palace wall. The houses continue for another half mile or so up the road, petering out before they reach the Grammar School. The population was put at over 26,000 in the much-derided 1963 census. My rough and ready calculations based on the 1977 electoral register got a figure nearer 18,000. Neither of these numbers is really very informative.

The main road bisects the town. When I first arrived in 1974, it was the only tarred road in Okuku, and in a very bad state of repair. The other big road, Oke Agadangbo, ran at right angles from it through the upper half of the town. It was long, straight, broad and golden from the sandy soil, punctuated by occasional massive leafy trees. Away from these two roads, Okuku was a maze of paths and alleyways opening unpredictably into patches of open ground between buildings. The appearance of the street was deceptive. Housefronts stood shoulder to shoulder in a row, plain concrete blocks or pink and yellow plaster (often it was the plaster that held the mud walls up), with shuttered or louvred windows, and ornate stone railings around their front verandahs, looking very square, self-contained and European.