Hilly Passions

Idanre Hills, Ondo: In the early nineties, a friend and I once had an opportunity to wander beyond my primary assignment in Ekimogun in Ondo State. We climbed and climbed, conquering the hills and its green strawsit was beauty beyond my imagination. I was envious of the people who lived in its caves. As I remember, it was as chilly as when you are in the black forest of Staufen in Germany. This was one ideal but neglected model of an African living culture.

I went back there the following year and spent hours just swimming in the comforting bosom of the hill and its greens. It's a place I would love to go back to again and again any day, anytime.

On another ocasssion, I took a trip to the Kagoro Hills in southern Kaduna, one kilometre from Kafanchan. By 6pm everyday, I would walk nearly half the kilometre to Aduan to join the locals in a feast of Burukutu or Pito and dry fish (you could have dog, snake or assorted bush meat if you wanted), and we would revel in the pampering atmosphere till say 8pm, and then take the eastward route to the foot of Kagoro hill.

The hills at that time were so quiet. The indigenes believed there were some ghosts and spirits living in the deep of the hills. When we all have had more than enough to drink, we would start dancing to some strange music (heavy drumming), which the people said were coming from the spirits but which I believed were only wafting in from the more advanced town of Zonkwa, some 13 kilometres away towards the military-station town of Kachia on the way to Kaduna city. But those hills were (haven't been there since 1991) the strangest and wonderfully-sculpted formations I have ever encountered. They beat my childhood faves of Shaki (Oyo State) hills.

I had uncountable pilgrimages to the hills. I think not far away was the settlement of Kankon, who were the so-called incubuses that eventually routed the jihadists that had invaded Kafanchan to unleash the religious war of 1987. I think I read somewhere that the Koma people were discovered on the other side of the Kagoro hill.

I did also go on a journey to Lokoja. I was travelling to Jos with a group and the bus had to drive through Kogi State. The town (the local teacher insisted it was a city) sat on an elevation, such that as you approached you had a feeling you were driving into the very heart of a mountain. As one progressed, day became night. Remarkably everybody in the locale seemed to spot a permanent smile. The local dried fish, taken with a gourd or two of palm wine is perhaps the best meal I have ever had on a trip.

Strange enough, the Fulani herdsmen (the ones that wear those colourful costumes that reminds one of the Masai tribe of East Africa) were many in a section of the town as you drove out towards the thick forest. I must retrace my step there one day soon. Would like to take a couple of friends for a reverie in the town.

Okene. I encountered this town during the 1997 nationwide tour with the drama Askari (written by the dramatist Ben Tomoloju and produced by the International Red Cross Society and the Nigeria Red Cross as part of a global campaign for a violence-free world).

I was the Stage Manager cum Assistant Director in charge of the technical team. In essence, I was always moving ahead of the team to go book venues and arrange for welfare of the forty-plus team of thespians. I had a Red Cross road-runner to myself with a driver. We travelled always in the night while the rest of the team followed in the morning.

Also, I like the vast opulence of the Ibom Hotel, Akwa ibom. It is an
excellent piece of touristy property, though the abject poverty i saw on the faces of the original owners of the land who had been carefully fenced off the opulence remains haunting memory for me. Yet Ibom rocks and I wouldn't mind getting lost in its bowel.

It appears like I am obsessed with hills, villages and water. Call me a rural man if you like, but when I finally escape from my current preoccupation, you will find me in one of those places.

O. J. Anikulapo