Explaining Odo-Irele’s ‘Mysterious’ Deaths

Your world was so
different From mine
don’t you see We just couldn’t be close Though we tried.
We both reached for heavens But ours weren’t the same
That’s what happens
When two worlds collide.
—Jim Reeves

IT is unlikely health commissioners in Nigeria would pray to experience what their Ondo State counterpart passed through in the past two weeks. A strange disease was reported to have broken out in one of the state’s communities.

With globalisation and the reality that the shockwaves of a viral outbreak in Australia could, within hours, be felt in Alaska, and also the recent Ebola upheaval, Dr. Dayo Adeyanju knew he had an onerous task on his hands. The entire world was anxiously watching Odo-Irele village and the physician had to explain what really was happening.

Adeyanju’s burden might have been made less weighty, had he not run into a brick wall of tradition. Armed to the teeth with all the knowledge he had learnt at medical school, he would have a hard time selling scientific explanations to a village that knew that it knew what truly transpired – why 12, 17, 18, 27, 30, 50 (the figures are shifty) men passed away in their prime.

Hale and hearty, the minute before, the victims suddenly complain of a headache. And before you could say Bartimaeus, they become charcoal blind – even with their eyes wide open! They, thereafter, lose consciousness, their skins turn darker…and a mother’s wailings rent the air. Certainly, some angry gods must be behind such mysterious, quick dispatch of a, hitherto, healthy soul. Absolutely!

Some 200 years ago, a patriarch, Ajana, left Ugbo Kingdom in what is today Ilaje Local Government Area. Mindful of the need to forever wait on the wisdom of his deity, Malokun, Ajana took along the sacred object and settled at Odo-Irele. The deity became the spiritual force and guide of the people.

But less than four weeks ago, some sons of the soil, possibly out of sync with the traditions of their forebears, allegedly went to Malokun’s shrine, and stole the sacred object, eyes on profiteering. Perhaps, they thought the deity would fare better seating in some oyinbo museum or among some tourist’s collections.

“Sacrilege!” cried the High Priest, as he stood trembling before the Oba. “O king! May you live forever!” he saluted. “An abomination has engulfed the land! The peace of the land is shredded; and the people shall sleep no more! The Mother has been defiled! And her children are become desolate!”

“Come clear, High Priest,” said the king. “Unveil the mystery that makes you tremble like a leaf in a storm. Have our neighbours invaded the land?”

“That would have been better, my lord,” answered the priest. “The Strength of the Land, Malokun, is not in her place! The hands of strangers have taken her away! The land is stripped naked!”

“Abomination!” cried the king. “And what are you waiting for? Why have you not invoked the dreaded curse on the perpetrators? Why have you not sent them to the netherworld?”

That night, the town crier passed through Odo-Irele: “The deity has been stolen and there shall be dire consequences! Kon-kon-kon-kon! The deity has been stolen and there shall be dire consequences! Kon-kon-kon-kon!”

And suddenly, men passed away in their prime.

DAYS later, people of the land sought propitiation for the grave offence. The priest performed several rites. And as instructed, the community’s women trooped to the shrine of the deity, buckets of water in their hands, and emptied the content on the earth, if by any means the spate of deaths would cease.

But addressing a press conference, last week, Adeyanju said he would not join issues with traditionalists who hold that the deaths were the handiwork of an angry god. According to him, expectations were that he would back up his claims with scientific evidence, rather than sell to an Internet age audience stories of vengeful deities. And the laboratory tests continued, the latest reports indicating the deceased persons may have helped themselves to deadly brews of ogogoro (local gin) laced with methanol.

A bottle of methanol

“This is to inform the general public that the current disease outbreak in Irele Local Governemnt Area has been traced to the consumption of local gin (Ogogoro) that is contaminated with methanol. The affected people had symptoms like headache, blurring of vision, sudden blindness and loss of consciousness,” said Adeyanju in a statement on Wednesday.

Do the inhabitants of Odo-Irele, however, believe this?

History, meanwhile, is replete with many cases of deaths and blindness, following the consumption of local alcoholic brews.

‘Death toll climbs to 80 from illegal alcohol in Kenya’ writes news agency, Reuters, in its May 7, 2014 report.

“Eighty people have died after drinking from a batch of illegal liquor in Kenya and police have detained several people for questioning, officials and police said on Wednesday.

Consumption of illicit alcohol is common in Kenya where many cannot afford factory-made beers and spirits. Deaths often occur but this is the largest number of people killed in a single incident for several years.

“Investigations into the source of the drinks (are) ongoing,” the National Disaster Operation Centre said on its Twitter feed, putting the toll this week at 80 in the central and eastern regions of Embu, Kiambu, Makueni and Kitui.

More than 60 had been reported dead on Tuesday. Dozens of people were also hospitalized, some of them after going blind.

Kiambu County Police Commander James Mugera told Reuters his force had detained about 10 people for questioning.
“We have launched a crackdown operation on drinking dens and those selling illicit brew,” he said.

In 2005, 45 people were killed from illegal alcohol laced with methanol to boost its strength, while in 2000, about 130 people died from a toxic batch.

In a move akin to their Kenyan counterpart, the Ondo State government, last week, imposed restriction on consumption of ogogoro in the area. “The State Ministry of Health strongly advises the general public to avoid drinking of local gin for now until the present contaminated gin is taken out of circulation. Producers and sellers of the local gin are also advised to stop the production and sales from now till further notice,” said Adeyanju.

READING from the vengeance script, High Chief Ajisafe Adejute, the Ajana of Odo-Irele and ‘direct descendant of founding father, Ajana’, said the state government’s inquest was a mere waste of money; a display of unnecessary anxiety and probe into a people’s way of life. He added that there was no cause for alarm, as the gods only wreaked havoc on the culprits that violated their sanctity.

Toeing Adejute’s thought, Ilelaboye Adekanmi, a resident of the community, also blamed the deaths on the sacrilegious act and described the ban on sale of local gin as insensitive, praising ogogoro as a mainstay of the local economy.

Adekanmi merely reechoed the unwavering view of his fellow Odo-Ireleians. The gods sneezed their displeasure and some people, guiltily susceptible, caught ‘cold’ and died. Final!

But how should Adeyanju, a Yoruba man, sell such stuff to his white-robed colleagues in Lagos, busy poring over blood samples? How should he mull that to the World Health Organisation and all those oyinbo people who called him to know facts about a ‘strange’ disease? How should he tell the world what Oba Olarewaju Lebi, the Olofun of Irele, Chief Custodian of the people’s culture and traditions, thought of the mysterious deaths?

It is unlikely health commissioners in the country would pray to experience Adeyanju’s dilemma.

For ‘peace’, therefore, to reign in the clash of causative factors, a reconstruction of the unfortunate incident at Odo-Irele may be helpful.

Some men, eyes on profiteering, break into the shrine of the land’s deities and make away with some artifacts. The deed is discovered. The wrath of the gods is invoked, and a curse – to the death – haunts the culprits. Looter-merry, they troop to a joint for a drink, like they had always done. But since the gods are already displeased, some brewer’s hands mistakes methanol for ethanol and…

May the souls of the departed rest. And may such deaths never happen again.

Ase Edumare! Amen and amen!