Evening.
Evening.
The sun is setting.
The night is falling in Ile Ife.
For many years after I arrived in the United States, whenever I slept, I would dream of Ile Ife.
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Evening.
The sun is setting.
The night is falling in Ile Ife.
For many years after I arrived in the United States, whenever I slept, I would dream of Ile Ife.
The first report (summer 2018)
Yesterday, July 5, 2018.
ÀKÒDÌ ÒRÌṢÀ
I was arrested by the Nigerian Police yesterday.
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.
Less than 1000 people are holding the entire country of Nigeria to ransom.
And they are all blind and deaf.
They are practically no more than 1000 people destroying the lives of two hundred million people.
These blind and deaf people include governors, senators, national assembly members and other appointed officials who have turned the national treasury into their mothers’ pot of stew.
The community protested and shut down the noises of the Christian church that has been harassing us for the past one month, keeping us up all night long, making it impossible for us to catch a moment of sleep.
ÌMỌ́DÒYE
An Akodi Orisa Sculpture
Ile Ife, Nigeria
January 2019
Artist: Moyo Okediji
My phone rings and, recognizing the name of the caller, I pick up the call. It is the wife of a friend living in Nigeria. I say the usual, “Hello,” but there is no response. There is a faint conversation in the background. She is discussing with her friend.
“There’s nobody who will see this place and not be afraid,” the two men on the bike said this morning as they stopped and kept looking at our newest installation at the Àkòdì Òrìṣà.
Bí ìwọ́ bá ṣe rere, ara kì yíò ha yá ọ? I wonder where I got that quote from. Is it a Yoruba proverb?
I wouldn’t be surprised if it was from the Bible.