It was most often, a herculean battle of grits and guts. Brawn and spunk or in more familiar terms,a battle of the titans,the triumph of the giant. Call it a battle royale;a marathon, and you are certainly not far from it,if not apt.
It was,as would often turn out,an event that had all the trappings of an elaborately organised sports .The enthusiasm was simply great.Unbelievable,generating the thrill,glee and frills often similarly excited by the elite hierarchy of the sensational European League; amongst teeming soccer devotees across the global space.
In those days,Oko Biriki,an open field,located in the Ebute-Metta area of Lagos State, was a multum im Pavo of a sort, a common-place hub,accommodating a spectacular session that kindled the romantic imagery of the Colosseum of ancient Rome, which in those days,were thriving hub of entertainment,where men against beasts,men against men and beasts against beasts,as the case may be;were pitted against each other, leaving them to slug it out in a battle royale that teleported and enthralled watching spectators to feverish pitch.
If you never knew about the legendary Oko Biriki,too bad, because it’s like missing out a priceless treasure, that money can never buy, if I may deliberately claim the license of a tautology, if only for emphatic effect.
Indeed, it was no less a personality than Brigadier-General Mobolaji Johnson,the first military governor of Lagos State,who referring to his growing up years in the Ebute-Metta area,did narrate in his autobiography,how he along with his friends which included the likes of Professor Gaby Williams,a professor of Medicine and WHO consultant,and of course his immediate senior sibling,Femi Johnson,a highly successful Insurance magnate,had often made this popular brick-making site,from which literally emanated the coinage “Oko Biriki” their popular rendezvous which in those epoch of treasured memory,enabled them a temporary escape valve,from parental purview to play to their hearts content.
In those days, at this historic open field of antiquity, the teeming mass of spectators are already gathered, in a heightened moment of great expectancy. Nerves tense, in a tormenting spell of suspense;ripples of betting overwhelm every space as anxiety balloons to feverish pitch.
One! Two! Go! The umpire hollers! The battle-line is immediately drawn as the combating Rams take a few steps back in veritably apt confirmation of the Yoruba proverb: “Agbo to tadi seyin, agbara lo lo o mu wa” (A Ram that takes a backward step has only gone to gather more power)
And just before you could say J.A.C.K! the gladiatorial combatants like fiery charging bulls,had rammed in a gruelling flurry of bare-knuckle head-butt,one against the other, setting the field ablaze with hoolahs of roaring excitement .
Such was the ever-recurring pattern, starring severally during the day, just as it does day-in-day-out, in a roller coaster glee of pleasant enchantment.Never a dull moment.Every day throws up a novelty,ushering a higher octave of cheers, and resounding ovations.
Such was the desperation for victory and hunger for heroism,that some Ram owners would tie a piece of talisman on the neck of their beastly ward.
Some even went the whole length to feed their Rams with water drenched with heavy dosage of marijuana,just as some similarly crazy lots would fortify theirs with a drowning pool of alcohol; while others would even traverse the unimaginably absurd admixture of alcohol and marijuana,as a regimented daily tedium that their Rams were often under the compulsion to drink to stupor, as a calculated alchemy to conjure a devastating dreadnought effect – “Digbolugi” as you may wish to reference it in the popular Yoruba lingo.
Quite on more than few occasions,many had gone home with their Rams-horn mortally crushed and broken; others frighteningly bloodied,if not both, while in extreme cases,Rams which couldn’t stand the heat of sports died right on the spot.
But these would in no way,vitiate the irresistible allure and ineffable zest for the game.If anything,
it would seem like the great show,should rather continue for aye, because,by this point in time,this festive beast,by virtue of its sporting thrill, had become something of a treasure,a dear pet and inseparable companion,so much that you would no longer wish it dead or killed.
But our juvenile fad and fancies or do you add “juvenile feferity?” would simply be lacking in the sufficiently authoritative clout to bend the prerogative age-old antique of the Eid-El-Kabir,as Divinely inspired by the hallowed injunction established from time immemorial,when Allah in the limitless fount of his abundant mercies, ordained the replacement of a Ram, in compensatory atonement for the sacrificial faithfulness of his servant, Abraham at the critical threshold,that would have witnessed a next-minute sacrifice of his dear son, Isiaka as authoritatively narrated in the Holy Koran.
Thus would the thrilling games of the sporting Rams, which by now,we are familiarly so accustomed to, ineluctably rattle to a halt,just a day to the D-day.
This particular day, marking the grand finale of the gruelling battle of the Rams, the undefeated Ram which hitherto had emerged as champion was honored with a trophy at a ceremony in which the owner of the Ram and the latter, were showered with gifts as people competed for access to pat the sporting beast at the back, adoring it with complimentary names, like “Hercules” “Darassin” “Killiwee” e.t.c.eulogising its heroic feat as the undefeated champion.Bands were also rolled out, with songs and dances.
On the contrary,Rams which suffered defeat, especially of disgustingly humiliating proportion,were scornfully jeered and adorned with derisive appellation like “Sugomu” “Suegbe” “Gongosu” and the likes.Their owners were of course not spared.They shared quite a good dosage of the travails of their “wards”
In those days, when the festival season began to stare; some few weeks or a month before the mark, prayers of children in the Islamic family, often pertaining to spirited obsession, was that their parents would purchase such specie that would put even the proverbial Hercules to shame.
It was therefore a predictable matter of course, that the moment the Ram was brought home,its arrival was often ushered with great relish and excitement.
However, beyond the immediate thrill of the newly arrived “guest”a keen inquest immediately ensues as we began to assess the fighting strength of the Ram, kicking the ass, pulling its legs, knocking the bare-head and things of that sort.
As young children in those days,that was our consuming pastime,pursued with religious fervor.Indeed,the moment the Rams began to show up in the streets,the Rams immediately became our obsession, creeping to the center-stage,relegating our studies to the back-waters.
All that mattered at this notable regime of the Rams,were Rams and nothing but the Rams.Beyond the daily ritual of compulsive school attendance, our studies became merely secondary.
Indeed,for those of us in the afternoon session in those days, when there were differently classified morning and afternoon attendees in government-owned primary schools in Lagos State,the very moment the bell tolled signifying the end of business for the day, it was with spirited marathon that we would all race down to Oko-Biriki, to behold the epic battle of the Ram.
Our consolation was always in the fact that whatever we might have missed out on the field,by virtue of our late sessional fixture as afternoon attendees, would often be compensated full blast on school-free weekend days of Sundays and Saturdays.
If I may indulgently crave the diversion of a circumlocutory rigmarole, still on the competitive razzle-dazzle of the duelling Rams, I remember how we used to poke-nose into private homes of the rich, usually on our way back home.Those who owned a television set were very few and far between.In the vast space of Ebute-Metta where I grew up, including the Apapa Road axis,you could hardly count ten,quite unlike at present that they had become a common spectacle.
Therefore,as soon as we embarked on our journey back home from school, especially in those days that notably featured our particularly favorite programs like Bonanza,Rohiid,Rightintin and his dog,Baba Sala, Village Headmaster,Hubert Ogunde,Duro Ladipo and one particularly sensational war film often featured on Thursdays – in hurried zeal and hysteria and of course as uninvited impostors,in our massive numbers,we would throng our various”viewing centres” struggling amongst ourselves to have a vantage view,as we peeped through the windows,with hysteric zeal that put the proverbial “Peeping Tom” to shame.
However,as soon as the Ileya Rams began to make a foray on the streets,the buck immediately shifts from the TV as all eyes were immediately glued on Oko-Biriki,the venue of the moment where things are really happening.
One peculiar thing about this hallowed festival of antiquity,in those memorable good old days,was that you didn’t need anyone to announce its imminence.Rather,it was often explicitly self-announcing
Indeed,a month away,if not more,before the D-day,the streets were already always abuzz with herds of Rams,almost competing with humans for passage.Today, it’s easier for a Carmel to pass through the eye of a needle than to behold one single jot of Ram on the streets,these crucial pre-festive season – having been commandeered out of existence via the whimsical fiat of the severe macro-economic head-wind .How time changes!
Kola Johnson Is A Writer And Journalist.
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