To be sure, Nigeria boasts of quite more than a few markets which have played an immensely remarkable role in the commercial development of the nation.
The popular Onitsha market of the good old days, ostensibly belonged to this category.The famous Gbagi Market Ibadan,is quite another.
That Mrs.H.I.D.Awolowo,the revered wife of Chief Obafemi Awolowo,traded in this market for quite some decades,stood as ample attestation to its immense fame and popularity.
In Lagos State,renowned as the industrial,economic and commercial capital of Nigeria and West Africa,the Ereko and Jankara markets demand no elaborate explanations in terms of their remarkable place and roles in the commercial life of the state.
Quite a number of big markets also abound in notable places like Kano,Kaduna,Nnewi,Aba,among others.Yet Oyingbo market stands eminently unique and special among the lists.
Take for instance,Iyaloja Alimotu Pelewura,an Awori woman, who was leader of Ereko Market during the 1930s and 40s if not beyond – she wielded such enormous power and influence in the social and political scene in those momentous epoch, that the legendary Herbert Heelas Macaulay,never joked with her,as his most dependable Ally.
Indeed,amidst the entire membership of the NCNC in those days,this remarkably charismatic market leader and illustrious Awori woman,and the equally illustrious Madam Funmilayo Ransome Kuti,mother of Fela Anikulapo Kuti,the Afro Beat Wizard of blessed memory,stood out as the two most powerful women in the NCNC.
Coming next to her,in almost equal stature,was Abibatu Mogaji,the immediate past Iyaloja of Lagos,imbued with such charismatic influence and popular acclaim,encapsulating the national frame.
Though,both women,namely, Abibatu Mogaji and Pelewura,were never associated with Oyingbo market as an active spot of their trading career, yet in exasperating point of irony,Oyingbo Market,like a fabled myth,hitherto defying every ability to unravel,continues to bask in past glory,radiating a special allure,spell and aura, defying words to describe.
I remember as if it were just yesterday,how this unique market,served as an ever recurring spot of action for magicians of those days,like Rondorondo,Seven Seven,Alimi Yopa Yopa,who dazzled the mammoth crowd on the gallery with their abracadabra feat of make-believe.
In one instance,the crowds are helplessly agape in bewildering wonderment,as Alimi Yopa Yopa literally severes his arm from its embedded shoulder joint.He shows the severed arm to the yelling gathering crowd, already frozen in jelly fear,and before you could say J-A-C-K,he has restored it back, amidst rapturous claptrap of frenzied onlookers.
Rondorondo and Seven-Seven,were of course not left out,as in a typical scenario,often witnessed by this writer,at which he (Rondorondo) would hold a piece of paper;and suddenly before you knew it, he has already conjured a beautiful wrist watch from the blues.
At this stage,the excited crowd beholding the spectacle are already benumbed in hypnotic spell.In frenzied hysteria,these beffudled onlookers struggle to out-pace one another,in the frantic bid to ensure they were not left out,as they rushed to stake their money,in expectation of pretty items of luxury from the distant fairy land.
After this first miracle,(or is it the first deception?)the miracle shop is closed,and it is already too late in the day for the greedy lots of fairyland wonder seekers, who had staked their hard earned money,that they were already in for a sucker punch, apology to James Hardly Chase,the legendary literary rave and serial novelist of those nostalgic era of the 60s, stretching even to the 80s.
Ooh 419? Sorry it skipped me!But 419 wasn’t yet in the lexicon in those days, otherwise no words would have been more apt, in vivifying the abominable constant of phoney mumbo jumbo cleverly contrived by these popular charlartans of weirdly abracadabra world of make-believe.
At this point,the once esctatic bunch of overzealous crowd instantaneously fizzles in a jiffy,in the face of the menacing hordes of street thugs,who take over the centre-stage, mobbing the performing musician for their own share,in return for their protective cover.
Rondorondo,Seven-Seven,Alimi Yopa Yopa,as the case may be,would not need to be told,as they oblige the stern looking boys, now temulent with hemp and liquor,with the usual much deserved needful.
That was the ever-recurring scenario in the popular destination that this unique market offered in those hey days of its glory.Yet,each time they came again,these wonder magicians, were never in short supply of gullible nincompoops,as clienteles who daily fell victims of their phoney fairy world abracadabra.
Like Rondorondo, Seven-Seven and Alimi Yopa Yopa,who for the most part,chose Oyingbo market as their compulsive favorite spot,a self-acclaimed prophet, Emmanuel Odumosu, popularly known as Jesu Oyingbo,also became a constant fixture at this same market of fabled enigma,because of the obviously familiar allure and attraction which Oyingbo market and none but only Oyingbo market offered in those days.
His operational habitat of Oyingbo,of course was to prove of immense asset,in the popular alias of Jesu Oyingbo,a name which stuck and made him a household property.
As a gravitational hub of the masquerades,woe betide anyone who dare ignored the mention of this enigmatic market.
The high point in this theatre of the masquerades was Rabiatu Onigba Egbere,the awesomely dreaded masquerade,which inspired fear because of his fabled mystical power as indicated in the paraphernalia of weirdly charms and fetish items adorning his regalia
Woe indeed betides anyone who forgets to mention the likes of the celebrated blind minstrel,Pa Benjamin Aderohunmu of blessed memory,then popularly referenced as “Kokoro”.
As he roved the streets of Lagos, strutting his trademark tambourine,while clad in his equally familiar khaki shorts and faded light blue shirt, often tucked out,his day was never complete without crossing path with this unique market of glorious memory.
It was as always,the climax of his daily performance, which indeed made his days as he thrilled the frenzied convergence of crowded spectators,at Oyingbo market,with his sonorous velvet voice,and his trademark native Ijesha folkloral lyrical melody teleporting the soul beyond the high heavens.
Not to be left out as among the regular fixtures in this fabled market of antiquity, according to popular account,was Alfa Apalara,the celebrated Islamic cleric,who in the early 50s,was ruthlessly butchered,his dead body,as if a munch meat,savagely cut to pieces,and dumped into the lagoon,in a fierce supremacy battle,with a heathenistic group of idol worshippers at the Okobaba area of Ebute Metta,in a development which triggered a protracted legal litigation that stretched the judiciary to the limit of its forensic skill and competence.
Those were the good old days,when this celebrated market of great fame,was at the height of its glory.
To those of us who grew up,within the contiguous neighbourhood of Oyingbo market,in those glorious era of the 1960s,we remember the Oyingbo market of old with fond memory.
Looking back today,one could not help but ponder over the melodious lyrics of the Juju maestro,of course,the one and only Ebenezer Obey in:”Oja Oyingbo,ko mo p’enikan o wa o”
Yet another in corroborative referencing to the Oyingbo market prodigy as indicated in a piece waxed by the legendary Miliki exponent,was “Akorikoda odale oun e ri e da o,te baa d’omolanke a o fii yin lo keru l’Oyingbo o”
The master composer himself,Adeolu Akinsanya of blessed memory, popularly referenced at the zenith of his glory as” Baba Eto”, for his legendary acclaim in the pantheon of the Greats dramatically comes alife,just at this moment,over 45 years after his demise in his affectionate romanticization of Oyingbo market in that epic piece of the 1960s:”Awon obirin to Jo oju ngbese awon yen nbe loja Oyingbo…”
These to be sure explicitly say it all….a summation of the mythical prodigy….the enigmatic puzzle of the one and only Oyingbo market.
Otherwise,why didn’t they sing or romanticise other markets?For instance,the Jankara and Ereko markets are both situated within the cynosural precinct of Lagos Island,once exalted as capital of the British colonial administration,and subsequently the seat of successive governments,long after the era of the British colonial suzerains,but why the Oyingbo market in particular? The answer of course is simple.There is something special and unique about this towering market of legendary fame and glory.
KOLA JOHNSON IS A WRITER AND JOURNALIST
