A resting place

Book Title: A resting place

Adinoyi Ojo Onukaba.

Reviewed by: Adebayo Thomas

A Resting Place is a play set in post-colonial Africa. It raises fundamental questions about power and responsibility, crime and punishment, tradition and modernity. The play projects the tradition of passage, the death of a paramount ruler. The prologue describes the grief intermitted with the farewell flourish of pomp and pageantry and the presence of all family members-“scattered linages-that accompanies the celebration of life after death and the ensuing conflicts characterized in a polygamous setting of a usual Nigerian setting.

It presents a hilarious and colorful drama of a Nigerian family with sibling rivalry over where to bury their dead- a late father. The play celebrates the passage (death) of life with all the social color and customs and at the same time critically assess these societal practices, especially the excess expenditure and elaborate fanfare observance that precedes burials in that society.

Quoting the Author, the BBC in a production of the play in 1992 called it “a perceptive tale of family relationships and conflicts.”

About the Author

Adinoyi Onukaba Ojo (of blessed memory) is an exceptional human being. Very Humble and unassuming.  I met late Dr. Onukaba  in 2004 as an Assistant  Chief Information Officer, when  I was posted to the State House to work with the then Vice President; Atiku Abubakar. Dr. Onukaba, then, was former Vice President Abubakar’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Public Communication. I was awed coming into contact with him, then a distinguished journalist, intellectual, author and playwright.  But he was very humble and in his usual character said “Bayo don’t look at the medals but see how you can add more knowledge to what we are doing here. Everyone has a special gift.” He was, in fact, an encyclopedic repository of knowledge, whose vast understanding of local and international politics added immeasurable value to the quality of work of in the Office.

In no time we got along together. He was not only a great teacher but a friend and best ever colleague.

We had our good times and often referred to in the Villa as his junior brother. Two saddest moment ever was my mother’s death (of blessed memory) and Onukaba’s death.   Onukaba died in tragic circumstances on Sunday March 5, 2017, while trying to avoid armed robbery attack on the Ilesha – Akure road (on his way back from Abeokuta to Abuja) after attending the 80th birthday celebration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo.