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By Samuel Adegoke
The Alake and Paramount Ruler of Egbaland, Oba Adedotun Aremu Gbadebo, has commended Dr. Festus Adedayo, biographer of the late Apala music legend, Ayinla Omowura, for writing a book on the late Apala icon.
Oba Gbadebo gave the commendation on Friday in his remarks during the official presentation of the book to the monarch in his palace, Aafin Ake, Abeokuta, Ogun State.
Adedayo had written a 537-page book entitled Ayinla Omowura: Life and Times of an Apala Legend which was made available to the public on May 6, 2020, the 40th anniversary of the death of Omowura.
Alake, who described the efforts of the author as laudable said: “We have a good number of people who loved Ayinla Omowura because of the philosophy of his music but that you have taken it upon yourself to write the book is very commendable; it shows you as a good scholar who actually should have been in the comfort of the university churning out professorial materials, but you are even doing better than that where you are.”
The monarch, while congratulating the author, stated that he had done the memory of the late musician good by writing the book and making him a subject of intellectual engagement.
“I have read part of the book and soon, I will read the remaining part. Ayinla hailed from Ikopa, where my own mother’s father hailed from in Itoko. He has been a subject after my heart for a very long time, though we were very sad that his life ended all of a sudden,” the monarch said.
Oba Gbadebo, while going down memory lane, said he shared the alumnus of the University of Ibadan with the author and commended him for writing a total book that was not sycophantic about the strides of Omowura.
“What you have done on Ayinla is worthwhile. A mark of good scholarship is self-critiquing one’s work, which you have done in this book. When you do this, people will see it positively because when you criticize yourself, others that will criticize you will look at the positive side of what you have said,” the monarch added.
Reacting to the author’s statement that everything in the book was not all positive about Omowura, Oba Gbadebo said that when he was in the military, whenever a report about a person was demanded, after writing the positive aspects, the negative aspect, which he called the but-paragraph, always came after the paragraphs of commendation, so that the report could be seen as above board.
Earlier, the author, while commending the monarch for receiving him, had said his love for Ayinla Omowura’s music made him to write the book, so as to immortalize the late Apala icon who he called “one of the most profound and apparently the most original musician in post-colonial Nigerian society.”
“Many people have asked me why I chose Ayinla for immortalization and not Yusuff Olatunji or Haruna Ishola. I feel that, first, it was my prerogative. Second, I saw Ayinla as different from the pack and I thus conducted this research into his life and times. I looked at the totality of his art which could not be impeached by his drawbacks. His songs were laced with philosophy, culture and language of the Yoruba people and I thought he deserved to be immortalized, if not by Nigeria as a whole but by Yoruba people in general. Though the book is not wholly all-positives about Ayinla, I wanted to use it to warn oncoming musical stars and anybody climbing the ladder of achievement in society not to fall into the same pitfalls that led to the death of Ayinla Omowura,” he said.
In an interview with joutnalists at the palace, Adedayo also said he was committed to gathering like-minds together with the aim of putting up a foundation in the memory of Omowura, turn his Abeokuta home into a museum and get South West governments to buy into the idea.
The Alake thereafter purchased 100 copies of the book.