The Rhetoric of Return in Kunle Afolayan's Film October1

Matatu 49 (2017) 416–438

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The Rhetoric of Return in Kunle Afolayan’s Film October 1

Azeez Akinwumi Sesan Osun State University [email protected]

Abstract

The popularity of Nollywood movies has established their relevance in cultural studies to interrogating afresh the presumed norms among people of ethno-cultural and racial difference. To this end, film critics have focused their attention on the theme and genre studies of Nollywood movies with a view to relating the issues in the film texts to the often heated sociological debates on coloniality in African socio-cultural and political experiences. Kunle Afolayan’s October 1 contributes to these raging debates through the motif of return (return to self, return of nation, and return to nation) that runs through the film text. This motif of return contributes to the overall film gestalt through characterization and plot. Postcolonial theory is adopted to describe the return motif through the investigation of consciousness, nostalgia, and trauma, as experienced individually or collectively. The theory explains the nature, pattern, and dimensions of adjustment and adaptation of individuals, communities, and the nation to complexity and dynamism of change during colonial encounters and the journey towards political independence on October 1. The kernel of the movie’s argument is that the country’s independence was heralded by hypocrisy, dishonesty, and violence. The movie thus questions the misconceived notion of racial purity by the white racists through their ignoble role in the return process of the country at the attainment of political independence on 1 October 1960.

Keywords

Nollywood studies – Kunle Afolayan’s October 1 – postcolonial criticism – Nigerian film industry

Introduction

The redirection of interest from traditional criticism of movies to recent discourses on film aesthetics has also informed the shift of attention from Nolly- wood to neo-Nollywood discourses. This redirection has motivated filmmakers to improve on their film techniques in terms of montage and pre- and post- filmic activities. Current practice, therefore, requires and expects filmmakers to explore all possibilities in their budgetary allocation to ensure that their movies meet best-practice requirements in the global film industry. Some film critics and scholars have hurriedly concluded that Hollywood sets the standard in the global film industry. In their conclusion, they argue that Hollywood belongs to the first category of cinema while Bollywood and other Asian movie industries such as the Japanese, Korean, and Chinese are to be grouped in the second category of cinema. Nollywood and other African film industries are grouped in the third category of cinema (this third category of cinema is not used in the same manner of ‘third cinema’, which was a term used to describe film from South America). This classification is inadequate because critics use the same parameters to evaluate film industries across all countries and continents.They are, however, expected to consider specificity of cultural ethos and episteme, availability of resources, and prevailing film policy in the determination of the efficiency and effectiveness of the movie industry. There is, however, a common front in the categorization of the global film cultures—this paper employs the idea of film cultures, in this instance, to refer to different film traditions and norms that exist across the continents of the world: American Hollywood, Indian Bollywood, and Nigerian Nollywood, etc. This common front is reflected in the regular film awards at sites where filmmakers across the countries and continents exhibit and screen their movies for award of excellence. These films are judged by the same parameters of film ethics in terms of quality of sound and image, costuming, props, decor, locale, and setting. It is for this reason that most Nigerian filmmakers, such Kunle Afolayan, Tunde Kelani, Tade Ogidan, Frank Rajah, and Pat Nebo among others, have been making frantic efforts to meet the ‘Hollywood standard’ in their respective movies. ‘Hollywood standard’ is scare-quoted here because cultural activism argues that no culture is superior to another and a given cultural product expresses the uniqueness of a culture; no film culture upholds better standards than another. The differences in the quality of the movies produced across the cultures of the world are attributable to the efficiency and effectiveness of the human and material resources invested in the making of films. With the above background information, this paper’s focus is on the assess- ment of Kunle Afolayan’s October 1 as an evolving mode of cinematography in

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Nigeria’s filmic/cinematic culture in terms of characterization, thematization, plot, and overall aesthetics. As a fresh direction in the discourse of Nigerian movies, Kunle Afolayan’s October 1 qualifies as neo-Nollywood—a recent term in the description of the nature and quality of films produced in the country’s film industry.

Kunle Afolayan’s October 1 as an Example of Neo-Nollywood

Neo-Nollywood is not a derivate of Nollywood.The former is simply a discourse on the quality of the process and product of filmmaking in the country, whereas the latter is a name imposed on Nigeria’s film industry by Matt Steinglass in 2002. This paper accordingly reiterates the view of Duro Oni on the etymology of the term ‘Nollywood’ in discussing films produced in the Nigerian film industry:

Among the major issues in Nollywood is strangely the name with which the industry is now known, which was apparently first used in 2002 by Matt Steinglass in the New York Times (Haynes 2005) who for want of a name for the emerging Nigerian video film industry simply used n- to connote Nigeria and called it Nollywood after the American Hollywood and India’s Bollywood.1

The inference to be drawn from the above is that ‘Nollywood’ is an inaccu- rate and inappropriate terminus for characterizing the country’s film industry because it does not consider the cultural complexities and complications that characterize filmmaking in Nigeria. It is not, then, a name but, rather, name- calling, as argued by Foluke Ogunleye, who proposes the name ‘Naijafilms’ to describe movies that are produced in the country. In support of her argument, she provides the following explanation:

The word, Naija, is now synonymous with the expression—proudly Nige- rian. […] This new nomenclature is very apt because a name is a term used for identification and names are usually given by parents or rel- atives, not by outsiders who possess less than honorable intentions. A

1 Oni Duro, “Context and Nature of Contemporary Nigerian (Nollywood) Film Industry,” in Africa Through the Eye of the Video Camera, ed. Foluke Ogunleye (Matsapha, Swaziland: Academic, 2008): 19–20.

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Yoruba proverb states: Oruko omo ni ijanu omo, which loosely translated means that a name is a means of checks and balances for the bearer of the name. A name is different from name-calling and the term Nollywood smacks more of name-calling than a name. The name ‘Naijafilms’ reveal the Nigerian-ness of the video films and it is designed as a revolution to reclaim the video film universe and its aesthetics in a way that will position Nigeria and its people at the epicenter of the art form.2

Ogunleye’s conceptualization of ‘Naijafilms’ for the description of the Nigerian film industry is not magisterially final. It is a proposition that needs testing and validation for appropriateness and accuracy. The focus here, however, is not on weighing up the rightness or wrongness of the name Nollywood in the description of Nigerian films. Rather, the focus is on the discourse of neo- Nollywood and the qualification of the Kunle Afolayan’s October 1 as a film in the neo-Nollywood category. Neo-Nollywood here is viewed as a tradition and not a name—a tradition of quality that advances the technical and dramatic components of Nigerian films. This tradition of quality is reflected in casting, costuming, props, sound and image, decor, stunts, and (sur)realism. Open-endedness of meaning, therefore, is one of the qualities of movies in the neo-Nollywood tradition owing to the innovation and creativity of the filmmakers. In this line of argument, this paper aligns its view with the position of Azeez Akinwumi Sesan and Toyin Shittu:

The core argument of creativity in neo-Nollywood is that the films should have open-ended meaning and the audience should take active role in the reading and interpretation of films. Neo-Nollywood filmmakers are radical, apart from being creative, in their filmmaking process. In the neo-Nollywood tradition are Ije, Maami, October 1, Narrow Path, Madam Dearest and DangerousTwins, etc. These films reconstruct the production paradigm of films in Nigeria.3

As a neo-Nollywood movie, Kunle Afolayan’s October 1 revels in multiplicity of meaning—a term close to Sesan and Shittu’s “open-ended meaning.” Consid- ering the open-endedness/multiplicity of meanings and ‘radical’ innovation in

2 Foluke Maltida Ogunleye, Thespians and Cineastes as Engineers of the Nigerian Soul (Ile-Ife: oau Press, 2012): 50–51. 3 Azeez Akinwumi Sesan & Toyin Shittu, “Nollywood and Cultural Re-Orientation: Prospects and Problems,” Nigerian Theatre Journal 15 (2015): 23.

Matatu 49 (2017) 416–438 Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 11:06:00PM via free access 420 sesan the ethics and aesthetics of filmmaking in Nigeria, the term ‘neo-Nollywood’ is to be understood as a by-product of the cultural diffusion of neo-colonial realities. October 1, in its interpretative mode, does not offer definitive answers but, rather, probes into the problems and challenges of society in its overall film aesthetic. The audience is left to search for the latent meaning of the text, particularly in the encounter/confrontation between Inspector Danladi Waziri and the colonial agents. In realizing the semantics of the text of October 1, there is conflation of space, time, and decor in line with Gilles Deleuze’s conceptualization of artistic creativity. In his treatise on artistic creativity, Deleuze avers that a creative work of art “always entails the creation of new spaces and times”:

(it’s not a question of recounting a story in a well-determined space and time; rather, it is the rhythms, the lighting, and the space—times themselves that must become the true characters). A work should bring forth the problems and questions that concern us rather than provide answers.4

The creation of new space and time offers a new discourse in the interpretive analysis of October 1. As a text that probes our cosmos and existential condition, the text provides us with ad infinitum questions about tendencies in colonial Nigerian history and, by extension, African history. The producer of the movie, in an attempt to achieve the goal of the text, re-brands the known and existing techniques of filmmaking, as is evident in the overall film gestalt. The filmic modality in October 1, in relation to its ethics and aesthetic, negates the Hegelian (mis)conception of Africa as void of cultural creativity and innovation. In his eurocentric manner, and like other European culture critics and historians (with the possible exception of Herder and the Hum- boldts among the bigger names), Hegel characterizes Africa as retrogressive, disorderly, and irrational. These characteristics inform the subject-matter and themes of cultural texts in literature and films about the colonial periods. Octo- ber 1, however, re-interrogates European cultural hegemony through the characterization and representation of such European figures as Father Dowling, Winterbottom, and Sebastian who conspire to ensure the death of Nigerian

4 Gilles Deleuze, “The Brain is the Screen: An Interview with Gilles Deleuze,” in The Brain is the Screen: Deleuze and the Philosophy of Cinema, ed. Gregory Flaxman (Minneapolis: u of Minnesota p, 2000): 370.

DownloadedMatatu from 49 Brill.com09/23/2021 (2017) 416–438 11:06:00PM via free access the rhetoric of return in kunle afolayan’s film october 1 421 independence even before its attainment. Through this characterization, the film upholds the fact that the colonialists, abetted by Christian missionaries, do not epitomize the justice and equity that they preach in their scriptural and non-scriptural discourse. October 1, seen as a neo-Nollywood exemplar, provides a re-direction from the familiar/the known to futuristic uncertainty in the march of a country towards political independence. Achieving the artistic goal of the film text, the producer/director radically manipulates form and content to re-interrogate coloniality through camera angle, shots, and other technical details. The success of this manipulation qualifies the film as a speaking-back to issues of coloniality in Nigeria and Africa as a whole. In this context, the film attempts to deconstruct Western hegemony that presented Africa as inferior, in line with Said’s position in Orientalism; for Said, not only was Orientalism a system of control but it also allowed the colonialists to reinforce their own position, to consolidate their own identity.5 The film text of October 1, therefore, mocks the ‘established hegemonic struc- ture’ as instituted by the imperial European authorities. It mocks the logicality of political independence granted on the foundation of deceit, deception, and calumniation.

Kunle Afolayan’s October 1 in Socio-Historical Contexts

Afolayan’s October 1 was released in 2014, which year coincided with the cen- tenary celebrations of Nigeria, counting from 1914 when the Southern and Northern protectorates with the Crown Colony were amalgamated by Lord Frederick Lugard. Afolayan perhaps hoped at that time to make a statement that we should look beyond 1960 in the evaluation of the socio-political problems that the country currently faces. He achieves this viewpoint in a dialogue with Prince Adérọ́pò, who argues that Lugard created a huge problem for the survival and sustenance of the country as a single unit. In Adérọ́pò’s view, independence was unworthy of celebration because there were pressing, unsolved problems at the attainment of political independence and thereafter. The timeliness of the movie is justified by the topicality of its subject-matter: ethnicity, corruption, and socio-political intolerance, all of which have characterized post-independence Nigerian society. The peculiarity of the turbulent

5 As paraphrased by Roger Webster, Studying LiteraryTheory: An Introduction (London: Arnold, 1997): 120.

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figure 1 Movie Poster for October 1 source: movie evolution presence of these various phenomena in Nigeria is consistent with Ola Rotimi’s conceptualization of “utopian models”6 (a theme of hope in the face of seeming unrelieved, national despair) as one of the prominent themes in postcolonial African literature and political experience. The movie is an intervention in the postcolonial discourse of African experience; at the same time, it is a refraction of the political tension and crises that are engulfing Nigeria decades after political independence. The release of the movie in 2014 is also consistent with one of Kunle Afolayan’s cardinal objectives in filmmaking. In an interview with Adeshina Afolayan, the director states that “one of my objectives is that my audience should be able to identify with the stories I tell.”7 In fact, every member of the Nigerian audience of October 1 can identify with its subject- matter—the movie, from the time of its release to the present, remains the toast of local audiences. Kunle Afolayan comments further:

the interesting thing about the story is that it contains a cinematic blend of all the dynamics of Nigeria’s national development from the eve of colonial disengagement to independence proper.

The topicality of the movie helped it attract the sponsorship and support of government and corporate organizations, particularly the Lagos State govern

6 Ola Rotimi, African Drama Literature: To Be or to Become? (Inaugural Lecture Series; Univer- sity of Port Harcourt, 1991): 5. 7 Adeshina Afolayan & Kunle Afolayan, “Of the Figurine: ‘Neo Nollywood’ and the Politics of Film Festivals in Africa,” in Auteuring Nollywood: Critical Perspectives on the figurine, ed. Adeshina Afolayan (Ibadan: Ibadan up, 2014): 362.

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Toyota Nigeria, Elizade Motors, Guinness, and Sovereign Trust Insurance. With this subvention, the movie had one of Nigeria’s largest production budgets (some $2 million). Besides, the cast of the movie reflects the true federal nature of the country, with actors drawn from the three major ethnic groups. I am convinced that Afolayan availed himself of the services of Sadiq Daba to play the lead role of Inspector DanladiWaziri after Daba’s ten-year absence from the film industry in order to ensure the highest aesthetic and ethical value of the movie. Sadiq Daba keys into the picture of Nigerians in the force in the 1950s. Daba, who plays Waziri convincingly as resilient, brilliant, and with a keen sense of patriotic duty, posseses additional credibility for audiences by virtue of having grown up with some of the events that culminated in the attainment of political independence on 1 October 1960. Reading the filmscript of October1 in a socio-historical context, it is clear that the subject-matter of the movie is consistent with a series of socio-political challenges that accompanied the ushering-in of Nigeria’s political independence. Although Afolayan has himself been silent on the political crises and ethnic tension that threaten the attainment of independence in 1960, events in the movie reveal some of these tensions. As Nigeria stood nervously on the threshold of independence, its political problems were far from unique,8 consequences as they were of the questionable transition from colonial possession to independent nation. Michael Peel, reviewing the process and consequences of Nigeria’s colonial experience, comes to the conclusion that Britain has selfish political and economic interests in Nigeria, particularly because of petroleum and its products. He establishes his points with the circumstances that prompted the revocation of the operating licence of the Royal Niger Com- pany in 1900.9 There is a replication of this situation in the movie. The reso- lution of Winterbottom and Lord Sebastian Tomkins (the representatives of British imperial power in Àkótè) to cover Adérọ́pò’s case is a repeat of how the British government covered up the atrocities and gross misconduct of the Royal Niger Company in 1900. The screenplay aligns its argument with the views of

8 Michael Peel, A Swamp Full of Dollars: Pipelines and Paramilitaries at Nigeria’s Oil Frontier (Chicago: Lawrence Hill, 2010): 44. 9 The British government revoked the operating licence of the Royal Niger Company in 1900 because of the alleged cases of corruption, intimidation, and victimization of the populace as well as gross misconduct on the part of the officials and staff of the company. Because the allegations would affect the global image of Britain, British government did not mind to take over all the debt of the company and also offer the company right to the royalties derivable from oil proceeds for a period of 99 years.

Matatu 49 (2017) 416–438 Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 11:06:00PM via free access 424 sesan such Nigerian political analysts as Peel that the contemporary problems the country faces are the consequences of its malformation:

On October 1 1960, Africa’s most populous nation, then Britain’s largest imperial possession, became independent, just 46 years after its masters had created it. What followed will be grimly familiar to students of war, occupation and so called ‘nation-building’. Less than seven years after independence, this complex land, confected in haste and then swiftly abandoned, would be the site of one of the twentieth century’s worst civil conflicts.10

I align my view with Peel’s—that Nigeria was swiftly abandoned on 1 October 1960. This is because all the ethnic and political crises in the country were not properly and adequately resolved before the departure of the British colonial government. The case of the serial rape and murder occurring in Àkótè is not properly solved, so that the movie ends inconclusively, with questions hanging in the air. The director leaves the audience to imagine for themselves the possible consequences of the administrative hypocrisy of the colonial government. The British colonial government did not solve all the problems created in the country. Winterbottom and Tomkins find no lasting solution to the atrocities that threaten the peace of Àkótè. In the contemporary socio- political realities of the country, one problem leads to another, to the extent of violent agitation such as that among the Igbo community in Àkótè. For mexample, the father of an Igbo girl, a victim of serial rape and murder, engages in jungle justice because of the suspicion that the Hausa man (who has been wrongly alleged to have committed the crime) may be acquitted. The narrative of October 1 is thus a review of the socio-political and historical experience of Nigeria as a postcolony.

The Motif of Return in October 1

The theoretical orientation of the film text varies. One of the film’s propositions is the motif of return, projected on two levels: selfhood and nationhood, a motif mediated through the characterization and representation of collective catharsis as a product of the collective unconscious of a people or race:

10 Peel, A Swamp Full of Dollars, 44.

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In every society, in every collectivity, exists—must exist—a channel, an outlet through which the forces accumulated in the form of aggression can be released.11

The release of accumulated aggression is found in the suppression of experience by Àgbẹ́kọ̀yà and hyperactivity/aggression of experience in the characterization of Prince Adérọ́pò. In their respective reactions to the abuse suffered in the care of Father Dowling, Àgbẹ́kọ̀yà and Prince Adérọ́pò adopt different mechanisms—the former adopts withdrawal from and rejection of European civilization and the colonial ethos, while the latter becomes sexually aggressive towards the young ladies in his community, Àkótè. On the level of nationhood, the motif of return bifurcates into return to nation (as seen in the role and characterization of Winterbottom and Tomkins, the colonial government representatives) and return of the nation (as seen in the colonial experiences of individuals such as Adérọ́po ands Àgbẹ́kọ̀yà in Àkótè). This idea explains the ideological differences that exist between the colonizer and the colonized. For the colonizer, return signals nostalgia, because they are leaving a nation that has offered them unlimited freedoms compared to what is available in their homeland in Europe. For the colonized, the thought of return fills them with hope for a better tomorrow under self-governance. The motif of return, in this context, leans on philosophical and psychological orientations of textual negotiation between the creator (author/auteur) and the recipient (audiences) of the text. These orientations are proposed because the nuances of literary and film texts reveal their latent quality as the process and product of culture. As a product of culture, literary and film texts are shaped by society and in return shape the orientation and experience of that society. This argument is the concern of scholars and critics of literary and film texts about the functionality of art. The film text of October 1 is a functional art, offering ideological and epistemological explanations for the challenges of Nigerian political independence and neo-colonial disillusionment. Such explanations, however, do not tempt me to situate my argument in political terms. Instead, I rely on postcolonial critical procedures to explain the complications surrounding the march towards independence on the private and public levels of experience. This postcolonial theoretical orientation should also go a long way towards an understanding of the philosophical orientation of the film. The

11 Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, tr. Charles Lam Markmann (Peau noire, masques blancs, 1952; London: Paladin, 1970): 464.

Matatu 49 (2017) 416–438 Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 11:06:00PM via free access 426 sesan focus will be on the analysis and understanding of ‘self’ and its significant relation to the external environment and the return motif which runs through the text. Selfhood relates to the fact that the understanding of human motive is informed by the nature of man as a social animal with personal preferences and challenges which have an (in)direct influence on the social and political climate of a country. The film October 1 reveals salient social and political issues in history (from pre- to post-colonial) surrounding Nigerian independence, projecting the latter as immature and as immaterial to the positive development of the country. As indicated earlier, the nexus is the amalgamation of the Southern and Northern Protectorates with the Lagos Colony in 1914. There is a need to interrogate the film’s position that blames the present woes of the country on amalgamation. The view of Adérọ́pò in the film is hereby rehearsed:

adérọ́pò: Lord Lugard woke up one morning in 1914, had a cup of tea and threw us all together and say behold Nigeria. Meanwhile the tribes can barely withstand one another.

The view tendered in the present paper, however, differs from the general view, which blames the contemporary socio-political problems of the country on the events of amalgamation. There is a need to shift attention away from the issues of amalgamation that brought into existence the country called Nigeria. The argument of this paper is consistent with Azeez Akinwumi Sesan’s view:

If the amalgamation of the country had been done by Nigerians, it would have been a failed project from the start owing to the factors of ethnic intolerance, chauvinism and unhealthy ethno-religious solidarity. In the pre-amalgamation history of Nigeria, there were series of intra-/inter- ethnic rivalries and wars across all the ethnic nationalities in the country. In the post-amalgamation period, the same problem still persists as shown in the militancy in the Niger-Delta region and terrorism in the Northern region of the country.12

12 Azeez Akinwumi Sesan, “Hegemonic Masculinity and the Quest for Sustainable Demo- cratic Governance in Nigeria: Achebe’s Arrow of God as a Paradigm,” Ibadan Journal of English Studies 11 (2015): 291–292.

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In line with Sesan’s position, Nigerians need to be realistic about their analysis and evaluation of the country’s amalgamation. It was an exercise with good intentions, but Nigerians, with all their ethno-religious differences, failed to make it work out as hoped. The above opinion of Adérọ́pò about the formation of Nigeria as a single entity registers his displeasure with the preparation of the country for political independence. He is not sure that independence will be fruitful. In the light of this argument, Prince Adérọ́pò is presented in the film as an exotic other (the view that those who are different from oneself possess inherent dignity and beauty, perhaps because of their more undeveloped, natural state of being13). Adérọ́pò, because of his university education, sees himself as the best in the whole community of Àkótè. While evaluating the events that build up to the celebration of political independence, Adérọ́pò intones that “my educated opinion tells me that independence has arrived ten years early” (October 1). In this view of the unripe state of the country at independence, Adérọ́pò is self- contradictory. He blames Lugard and other colonial agents for amalgamating the country but is not comfortable with the return of the country to Nige- rians for self-governance. Adérọ́pò’s psychological position on amalgamation and the political independence of the country can be described as double- consciousness or double vision, in postcolonial terms. Double-consciousness often produced an unstable sense of self, which was heightened by the forced migration colonialism frequently caused—for example, from the rural farm or village to the city in search of employment.14 In the case of Adérọ́pò, he acquires his double-consciousness through the quest for education, which is consistent with his native intelligence and philosophy of moral behaviour. W.E.B. Du Bois’ view of double-consciousness (his own coinage) is entirely relevant to the understanding of Adérọ́pò’s psychological state of mind. Du Bois describes double-consciousness as follows:

It is a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness, an American, a Negro; two souls two thoughts two

13 Anne B. Dobie, Theory into Practice: An Introduction to Literary Criticism (Boston ma: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2009): 217. 14 Lois Tyson. Critical Theory Today (New York & London: Routledge, 2006): 421.

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unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.15

The two-ness of the identity and ideological view of Adérọ́pò reveals that some educated Nigerians fail to reconcile the past, present, and future of the country. Apart from demonstrating double-consciousness in the film, Adérọ́pò is also a cultural hybrid in his demonstration of the colonialist ideology that the country is not ripe for political independence. These situations of double- consciousness and cultural hybridity raise critical issues pertaining to the return motif in the film. With his education and civilization, Adérọ́pò, scep- tical of the success of political independence, considers the issues of ethnicity and tribalism characterizing Nigeria prior to political independence. Adérọ́pò’s scepticism is consistent with Soyinka’s thesis in A Dance of the Forests, a play initially commissioned for the celebration of Nigeria’s independence. In this play, the symbol of the half-child expresses the playwright’s doubt about the sustainability of independence without any form of (ethnic) rivalry and corruption. Both Afolayan in October 1 and Soyinka in A Dance of the Forests achieve a review of pre-independence politics and posit that Nige- ria was unprepared for political independence on 1 October 1960. At least a decade before the attainment of political independence, intra-party and inter- party political rivalries prevented Nigerian nationalists from acting in unison to plan a new Nigeria. An excerpt from the film reveals the situation of political rivalry that characterized the pre-independence politics of Nigeria.

1st officer Sé Awólọ́wọ̀ ni kí á ma a tẹ́tí sí báyìí àbí Akintọ́lá? Gbogbo rẹ̀ kò yé èèyàn o jère.

ọmọlọdún Kínni kò yé ẹ níbẹ̀? Akintọ́lá ni Premier ní Ìbàdàn. Awólọ́wọ̀ ni asojú ẹgbẹ́ alátakò ní Èkó

2nd officer Sebí Tàfáwá Bàlewà àti ẹgbẹ́ npc ni ó gbé igbá orókè ní. Ìjọba Federal. Kí wá ni ti Awólọ́wọ̀ àti ẹgbẹ́ rẹ̀?

15 W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, ed. David W. Blight & Robert Groding Williams (1903; Boston ma: Bedford, 1997): 38. (My emphasis.)

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1st officer Should we now listen to Awólọ́wọ̀ or Akintọ́lá? One is even confused.

ọmọlọdún What is the source of confusion? Akintọ́lá is the Premier in Ìbàdàn. Awólọ́wọ̀ is the party leader in Lagos.

2nd officer I think Tàfáwá Bàlewà with his npc party won at the Federal level. What is now the concern of Awólọ́wọ̀ and his party?

The excerpt suggests that the dust of the decolonization process had not settled before the attainment of political independence on 1 October 1960. This raises the question of nationalist sentiment in the decade before political independence and thereafter. The nationalist movement in Nigeria, from the colonial years to self-government, was plagued by the self-centredness of some of the nationalist leaders that leading the struggle. The return of the country to the nationalists did not rest on a solid foundation. The dialogue of the 1st Officer, Ọmọlọdún, and the 2nd Officer points to the fact that such nationalist leaders as Awólọ́wọ̀, Tàfáwá Bàlewà, Akintọ́lá and a host of others paid more attention to their ego, status, and material opportunities than to considerations of sustainable nationhood. This argument leads us to Adérọ́pò’s position that Nigeria’s independence has come a decade too early. By his calculation, the country was sup- posed to gain independence in 1970. Considering the historical experience of the country in the decade immediately following political independence, there was political turbulence, military coups, and ultimately the civil war, which nearly put an end to the existence of the country as a single entity. The implication of Adérọ́pò’s position is that no understanding of the present political problems of the country is possible without a critique of the events that ush- ered in political independence in 1960.The self-centredness of past nationalists and contemporary politicians has adversely affected the progress of Nigeria since the period of political independence. Afolayan, in October 1, questions the rationale for political independence by reviewing the parties involved (the colonialists, the colonized, and the nationalists) in the decolonization process. The interrogation of the characters involved in the decolonization process and the postcolonial situation in Nigeria subscribes to Aimé Césaire’s conceptualization of “colonization-thingification.” Césaire explains this as follows:

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When a people is colonized and “nationalized,” they become a tool used by the dominant hegemony for the furthering of economic, military, and religious ideologies which, of course, benefit the colonizer and are masked as a positive means to “improve” the lives of those colonized. How confusing is that for an indigenous people? Strangers come to their home, tell them they are savages, and use the ruse of “helping them” to dominate, control, and destroy.16

The Nigerian nationalists adopt the administrative styles of the colonial master upon the attainment of independence. What is meant by the adoption of the administrative style of the colonial master is that the nationalists who took over the affairs of the country from the colonialists also demonstrated class consciousness and social stratification, opening a chasm between the government and the governed. What Nigeria has been witnessing, therefore, from the period of independence onwards is a shift from European colonialism to internal colonialism by a few political (and military) classes. Even with the return of Nigeria to the nationalists and the return of the white colonialist to their own country upon the attainment of political independence, a “partial presence”17 of colonialism lingers in the postcolonial discourse of Nigerian socio-political experience. Bhabha situates his conceptualization of “partial presence” in ideas of (largely inadvertent) mimicry and (largely inten- tional) mockery. He is of the view that nationalists and other indigenous leaders after political independence have been indoctrinated into the European ideals of governance. The kernel of the argument here is that most indigenous political leaders after independence lack creativity and ingenuity in governance. While commenting on the mimicry of the post-independence African leaders, Bhabha avers that it is a “metonymy of presence”:

Mimicry, as the metonymy of presence is, indeed, such as erratic, eccen- tric strategy of authority in colonial discourse. Mimicry does not merely destroy narcissistic authority through the repetitious slippage of difference and desire. It is the process of fixation of the colonial as a form of cross-classificatory, discriminatory knowledge in the defiles of an inter- dictory discourse, and therefore necessarily raises the question of the

16 AiméCésaire, Discourse on Colonialism, tr. Joan Pinkham (Discours sur le colonialisme, 1950; New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972): 21. 17 Homi K. Bhabha, “Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse,” October 28 (Spring 1984): 126.

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authorization of colonial representations. A question of authority that goes beyond the subject’s lack of priority (castration) to a historical crisis in the conceptuality of colonial man as an object of regulatory power, as the subject of racial, cultural, national representation.18

Bhabha’s position on mimicry aptly explains the European concept of return to the land and return of the land. The colonialists hoped for a representation of colonial ideology even at their departure. As a way of fulfilling this hope, they put in place a sort of colonial education for the select few such as Prince Adérọ́pò and Àgbẹ́kọ̀yà. The colonialists believed that, with education, these few select indigenous people would be indoctrinated into colonialist ideology to ensure a neo-colonial grip on the new nation. Besides, it was a general belief among indigenous Nigerians that the few educated ones among them would take over control of the country from the white colonialists. In October 1, there is a high expectation that Adérọ́pò will be the next Premier of the country after the departure of the British. The view of Sergeant Àfọ̀njá is representa- tive of the view of most members of the Akote community. While describing the personality of Adérọ́pò to Inspector Danladi Waziri, Sergeant Àfọ̀njá avers: “Future leader, future premier, the first with university education” (October 1). The implication here is that there is “authorization of colonial representations.” The colonialists have formed an opinion that Adérọ́pò will be the right candi- date for the maintenance of their colonial agenda even after leaving Àkótè. The film October 1, then, is to be read as a documentation of the trajectory of colonialism in Nigeria. This paper also argues that there is an attempt to institutionalize a dynastic regime, perpetuating a family or lineage in power. By virtue of being a prince, Adérọ́pò’s father is the king of Àkótè. The point here is that the king’s family will continue to enjoy leadership of the community/country. This situation is one of the serious problems that have been confronting the political system of Nigeria since the return to self-governance on 1 October 1960. There are some situations in the film that reveal how the colonialists are nostalgic for their past colonial adventure in Àkótè (standing for Nigeria as a whole) and fretful about the future. But they conceal their fear and ‘impose’ negative identity on the people of the colony, acting as if all they do is in the best interests of the land. The dialogue between Captain Winterbottom and Inspector Danladi Waziri reveals as much:

18 Homi Bhabha, “Of Mimicry and Man,” 132.

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winterbottom Send this file to the Ministry of Justice stating that Usman Dangori is the suspect. Nigeria may be independent, you have no idea of the politics of the fragile land.

danladi Is this about protecting Nigeria or about the fact that one of your own, a clergy was busy molesting innocent boys? Do you intend covering up all the crimes of white men in Nigeria?

Inspector Danladi is quick to discover the hypocrisy of the colonialists. They want to return to Europe with a clean record, which is contrary to what actu- ally happens at Àkótè and in Lagos, particularly to the young boys entering secondary education under the supervision of Father Dowling. Adhering to a common practice among colonialists, Winterbottom ascribes negative vision and poor self-perception to the people of Àkótè and the country as a whole. As Lois Tyson states,

ex-colonials often were left with a psychological “inheritance” of a negative self-image and alienation from their own indigenous cultures, which had been forbidden or devalued for so long that much precolonial culture has been lost.19

Inspector Danladi boldly questions the European misrepresentation of Afri- cans as people with no positive attribute in the construction of humanity. Dan- ladi Waziri issues a subtle challenge to Winterbottom: the colonial adventure has been a failure, and the viability of the country as a single entity depends on sincerity of purpose in the colonialists disengagement from the administration of the country. The dialogue between Winterbottom and Danladi reveals the struggle of racial purity between the colonialists and the colonial. The position of Danladi is that the colonialists have wrought more havoc than good on the colonial people. The discourse here assumes a new dimension in terms of the significance of ‘self’ in the understanding of the motif of return in the film. There is analysis of the impact of the individual self on the realization of the collective self of the nation. Ezekiel Kolawole Ogundowole’s thesis on the central (im)materiality

19 Tyson, Critical Theory Today, 419.

DownloadedMatatu from 49 Brill.com09/23/2021 (2017) 416–438 11:06:00PM via free access the rhetoric of return in kunle afolayan’s film october 1 433 of the socio-cultural landscape in the construction and determination of ‘self’ can serves as the orientation for exploring selfhood in both the private and the public spheres with respect to the film’s treatment of its subject-matter and of the rhetoric of return:

The self then is that propelling life-force in the human that encompasses the socio-cultural material and immaterial, spiritual possibilities, imme- diate and remote such that its absence reduces the significance, the actu- ality the very essence of the human. Its presence increases, enhances the capability of the human to confront frontally his environment, historical or biogeospherical. It makes human become full, complete prototype human. The self is not in any sense a “token person” or “type-person”.20

Ogundowole’s thesis points to the influence of culture, society, and personal traits on the manipulation of social variables in the construction of selfhood. A mature person with proper self-awareness in a socio-cultural configuration becomes a prototype for dignity and integrity, whereas the “token-person” or “type-person” is a negative model with little or no self-determination and free will. The characterization of the whites and the blacks in October 1 upholds the position of Ogundowole in the paradigmatic construction of self as prototype and type-person. The whites are seen as the model that decides the fate and integrity of the blacks. An instance of this in the film is the confrontation between Inspector DanladiWaziri,Winterbottom, and Lord SebastianTomkins on the outcome of the investigation of Inspector Danladi into the serial-killing case in Àkótè.

inspector danladi I cannot sweep this under the rug.

winterbottom(Getting irritated) Now listen to me, you’ll do as you’re bloody well told.

lord sebastian tomkins … impudence … would be flogged in Kenya.

20 Ezekiel Kolawole Ogundwole, Inexhaustibilty of Self-Reliance (Inaugural Lecture Series; University of Lagos, 2007): 24.

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The excerpt reveals the resentment that the white imperialists have for the blacks. These white imperialists do not believe that blacks have independent opinions on matters that affect them. Winterbottom and Tomkins expect In- spector DanladiWaziri to shrink at their presence.This is why Sebastian regards the insistence of Danladi that the truth of the crime be revealed as “impudence.” Considering this situation, this paper argues that the white imperial- ist in Africa suffered from Narcissistic Personality Disorder (npd), otherwise known as grandiosity—an unrealistic sense/feeling of superiority and self- importance. Winterbottom and Lord Sebastian know the truth of the situation but attempt to pervert the course of justice for their selfish imperialistic rea- sons. The mood of nostalgia is expressed in this context in the dimensions of loss and uncertainty on the part of European agents (Winterbottom and Lord Sebastian Tomkins), whereas Inspector Danladi retains some degree of respect for justice and objectivity. The sense of loss of the country’s [glorious] past of normalcy and humanity is also reflected in the characterization of Àgbẹ́kọ̀yà, a beneficiary and victim of European civilization, education, and religion. His attitude is a negative sequel to the abuse and brutality he suffered in his teens under the lax supervision and paedophile predation of Father Dowling, as he makes clear in an exchange with Inspector Danladi:

àgbẹ́kọ̀yà I was 14, Ropo was 12 when we left for Lagos. During the day time, we attended school but on Thursday night, Father Dowling beckon, “it is time for evening prayers”. The man will do unspeakable things to me in that room. Things I could not understand. Afterwards then, it would be Ropo’s turn.

This experience changes his perception of whites’ ideology of maintaining ‘racial purity’. Disillusioned, Àgbẹ́kọ̀yà returns to Àkótè to live according to the norms and values of his people. He even disallows his son to go to school. What Àgbẹ́kọ̀yà fails to realize, however, is that one must keep an eye on the future— barring his child from Western education may deprive him and his offspring of the opportunity to help manage the affairs of their country after political independence. Adérọ́pò, among a handful of Nigerians who cherished a secret ambition to rule the country after the British retreat, is not nostalgic for the colonial past but nevertheless trusts in his Western education in Lagos and Ibadan to make him well-positioned to take up the reins of power. Not been bold enough to question the mistakes of the colonial administration, he was an accommodationist

DownloadedMatatu from 49 Brill.com09/23/2021 (2017) 416–438 11:06:00PM via free access the rhetoric of return in kunle afolayan’s film october 1 435 playing a waiting game. Àgbẹ́kọ̀yà and Adérọ́pò are ultimately individuals in ‘psychological limbo’ or victims of unhomeliness, each responding in his own way to this condition. Tyson’s description of unhomeliness is relevant here:

Being “unhomed” is not the same as being homeless. To be unhomed is to feel not at home even in your own home because you are not at home in yourself: your cultural identity crisis has made you a psychological refugee, so to speak.21

Àgbẹ́kọ̀yà and Adérọ́pò respond differently to their molestation by Father Dowling. The former returns to the indigeneity of his roots in Àkótè, whereas the latter moves forward into post-colonialism, as it were. The retreat of Àgbẹ́- kọ̀yà is a reflection of an individual who is content in himself, can handle situations with decorum, and is influenced by his family background. Adérọ́pò, by contrast, is unwilling to reject Father Dowling despite the molestation, in order not to forfeit the chance of being the first person in Àkótè with a university education; his mind is set on the opportunities which Western education may offer him upon graduation. What he does share with Àgbẹ́kọ̀yà, albeit differently, is the influence of his family background. Despite the contrast in the way they cope with Father Dowling’s molestation, Àgbẹ́kọ̀yà and Adérọ́pò are both individuals with double-consciousness. October 1 implies that there is a need to re-assess the nature of colonial education in any attempt to return to true Africanism. Àgbẹ́kọ̀yà fails to understand that his ability to use the English language fluently is a positive product of his exposure to Western education. His unheroic return to himself and Àkótè derives from nostalgia for the past which leads him to reject European values absolutely, his rediscovered nativism constituting a sort of retrogression. But he must face the reality that if he runs away from European civilization, the latter will come to meet him, exposing his true identity and personality, as in the case of his encounter with Inspector Danladi. Adérọ́pò, for his part, over-internalizes his exposure to Western education, which leads first to para- dox and then to catastrophe. He is of the erroneous belief that his community has disappointed him by sending him away to be educated, a resentment that assumes sociopathic proportions, leading to his mad resolve to kill six virgins after raping them. Though he has a university education far and above that of his compeers, Adérọ́pò is ill prepared for the administration of the country at

21 Lois Tyson, Critical Theory Today, 421.

Matatu 49 (2017) 416–438 Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 11:06:00PM via free access 436 sesan the attainment of political independence. In the case of both Àgbẹ́kọ̀yà and Adérọ́pò, their exilic unhomeliness is bred from the colonialist ideology of subverting the African cosmos toWestern advantage.They are both the product of othering, notwithstanding their heterogeneous backgrounds:

This othering process classifies people of the colony and postcolony into the dominant (the superior) and the subalterns (the inferior). In the process of the re-classification of social and political status, the subalterns have the feeling of unhomeliness (the sense of being displaced).22

Àgbẹ́kọ̀yà and Adérọ́pò feel displaced by the forces of colonialism (the indigenous socio-political arrangement and the agents of colonialism). As well as their physical displacement by these forces, they are spiritual alienated from their indigenous sources of morality and unable to absorb the shock of critical situations. In view of these deformities, one can say that the colonialists leave Nigeria without entrusting the government to any visionary and responsible leader. Adérọ́pò is dead and Àgbẹ́kọ̀yà is unwilling to take up the challenges. This suggests that the leadership of the country at independence will be in the care of mediocrities with a slapdash attitude to governance. The colonialists feel no remorse for the harm done to the psyche of a community and, by extension, a country. Their reluctance to leave the country in a tidy state by 1 October 1960 leads them to make hasty interventions, as when Winterbottom states: “Danny boy, I require this case wrapped up on 1st Octo- ber, independence day. Clear?” Winterbottom’s order reveals the hypocrisy of the colonial government. He knows that Inspector Danladi would normally get to the root of the matter, but in a case such as this which involves a white man, it will be more convenient to compel Danladi to compromise his integrity and sweep the crime under a carpet before the Englishman, washing his hands, departs for ‘Home’.

Conclusion

This paper has examined the rhetoric of return in Kunle Afolayan’s October 1 with reference to plot and characterization. Issues of mimicry and unhomeliness, nostalgia and the rhetoric of return were critically discussed. Colonialists

22 Sesan, “Hegemonic Masculinity and the Quest for Sustainable Democratic Governance in Nigeria,” 287.

DownloadedMatatu from 49 Brill.com09/23/2021 (2017) 416–438 11:06:00PM via free access the rhetoric of return in kunle afolayan’s film october 1 437 and the colonized responded differently to political independence, as illus- trated by the characters Àgbẹ́kọ̀yà, Adérọ́pò, Inspector Danladi, and Captain Winterbottom with their different embodiments of the tropes of exile, double- consciousness, and return. The film qualifies as a postcolonial text that interrogates and evaluates the trajectory of colonialism in the political history of Nigeria.

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