Àjà ló lerù (It is the loft that does the heavy lifting)

“Àjà ló lerù, Iró Ni Pepe Ńpa” is a Yoruba proverb. It is also the title of a detective fiction written by Oladejo Okediji, who passed away earlier this year.

Translating Yoruba proverbs is a very risky venture. There was a famous politician from the South West of Nigeria who took on this risky venture on the BBC many years ago. That illustrious Yoruba scored zero on effort. I wanted to crawl under the seat as I watched the broadcast. I remember a friend of mine describing his own sense of embarrassment and how confusing it was to non Africans he knew.

The Yorubas speak a lot in proverbs. The Yoruba language is very rich in figures of speech. Our metaphors and similes do not have to be rooted in reality. So, when a Yoruba proverbs says “Ilé tí a fi itó mo, ìrì ni ó wo”, you can’t afford to transliterate this. It is better to find an expression that is very similar in meaning in the language of interest. In this case, you can just use the expression “a house of straw”.

Having said all these, I would still venture to translate this expression. For me, it means the “The loft does the heavy lifting while the shelf is just a pretender”. For me, “Àjà” is the loft. The space that you have in your loft is very big , so, your loft has a great capacity for storage. Pepe is a shelf. is also a storage space but it has a little capacity compared to the loft.

The title of the book gave a glimpse into the story. It was the story of a farmer, Lapade. Lapade used to be a policeman but when his father died, he left the police force in order to look after his father’s farm. The book was first published in 1969 and was set in one of the most densely populated cities in Nigeria, Ibadan. The Ibadan of 1969 appeared to be one in which the police were struggling to maintain law and order. The newspapers were also on their back, so, there was pressure to deliver results.

It appeared as if Lapade lived on the farm which was located on the outskirts of Ibadan and periodically comes home to spend the weekend. While cycling back home on one occasion, he saw a man hide some money under a tree and so he helped himself to the money. Shortly after pocketing the money, he ran into Audu, the Police Commissioner and immediately he was nervous that it was a setup. To make matter worse, the man who hid the money also saw Lapade steal it and he made an attempt on Lapade’s life.

It turned out that Lapade had unwittingly inserted himself into the activities of a sophisticated organised crime network. The network was behind a spate of kidnapping. They were also the growers of cannabis that was rampant in the city of Ibadan. When Angelina turned up and begged Lapade to investigate the disappearance of her ward, it further led Lapade deeper into the activities of the criminal network.

Meanwhile, Audu was deeply suspicious of Lapade. Lapade did not rate Audu at all as he believed that all the good cops had already left the force. Audu’s suspicion of Lapade deepened because everywhere he turned in his own investigation of the spate of crime in Ibadan, it was Lapade that he found. Lapade was too smart to pin down.

Eventually, Lapade got to the root of the kidnapping and the cannabis growers. After freeing the kidnapped girl, Lapade tipped off the police and they were able to round up the cannabis growers. The police got the credit for the work, but it was Lapade who did the heavy lifting, suffering severe beatings a number of times and a few close encounter with death.

It was the guardian of the kidnapped child, Angelina who uttered the proverb: “Àjà ló lerù, Iró Ni Pepe Ńpa”. After all, it was Lapade who did all the heavy lifting and he was completely in the background. The police didn’t do much but they took all the credit and were praised by all the newspapers.

What was happening in Nigeria in 1969? Nigeria was fighting a civil war. It did not register in the book. That was not surprising as most of the war was fought far away from Ibadan. It is also interesting to see that kidnapping was already a serious problem in South Western Nigeria in 1969. What was more surprising was the cannabis farm which suggested there was a reasonable demand for that drug in South West of Nigeria in 1969.

There is a great deal more to write about the book and I plan to come back to the book in the next fortnight.

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