Setting Forth from Ebrohimie Road

Ebrohimie

 Photo illustration by Dami Mojid / THE REPUBLIC. Ref: Ebrohimie Screening / KỌ́LÁ TÚBỌ̀SÚN.

THE MINISTRY OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS

Setting Forth from Ebrohimie Road

The producer and director of Ebrohimie Road: A Museum of Memory, Kola Tubosun, discusses the making of the documentary and the significance of the setting to Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka’s life.
Ebrohimie

Photo illustration by Dami Mojid / THE REPUBLIC. Ref: Ebrohimie Screening / KỌ́LÁ TÚBỌ̀SÚN.

THE MINISTRY OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS

Setting Forth from Ebrohimie Road

The producer and director of Ebrohimie Road: A Museum of Memory, Kola Tubosun, discusses the making of the documentary and the significance of the setting to Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka’s life.

On 15 January 1966, a group of Nigerian soldiers working independently attempted a coup against the civilian government of Nnamdi Azikiwe and Tafawa Balewa, sworn in on 1 October 1960, at the country’s independence. These soldiers, including majors Kaduna Nzeogwu, Adewale Ademoyega and Emmanuel Ifeajuna, believed that they were acting in the country’s best interest, convinced of the revolutionary import of their putsch. With their military action, Nzeogwu and his mates aimed to rid Nigeria of the corrupt political administration and install a fairer, more efficient one. They attacked major cities such as Kaduna, Ibadan and Lagos; blocked off the rivers Niger and Benue; and successfully assassinated 22 individuals, including the prime minister, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the premier of northern Nigeria, Sir Ahmadu Bello, the premier of Western Nigeria, Chief Samuel Ládòkè Akínt́lá, and the minister of finance, Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh. 

Although foiled only two days later by the Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi-led Nigerian army, this coup set in motion a series of events that would irrevocably mark the decade, impacts that are still with us today. Significantly, it would be regarded as one of the causes of the Nigerian Civil War, otherwise called the Biafran War, which broke out on 6 July 1967. By then, it had become common to refer to the coup as ‘the Igbo coup’, a sentiment borne of the fact that four of the five masterminds of the coup, which killed mostly northern political bigwigs, were easterners. Continuing, despite the relentless refutal by the coup plotters. Nonetheless, this sentiment would give rise to widespread resentment of easterners, especially among northerners. More insidiously, it would serve as the convenient excuse for the unleashing of terrible violence by northerners on easterners in every part of Nigeria, a phenomenon that has been termed ‘the anti-Igbo pogroms’. 

It was in response to the enormity of this violence that the governor of the eastern region, Lieutenant Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, would declare the region’s secession from Nigeria and the birth of a new nation called Biafra, a move that swiftly resulted in war. When Nigeria launched its attacks on the newly seceded Biafra, there was a storm of controversy. Two opposing sides of debate quickly formed, as can be expected, each aligning with and consisting majorly of citizens of each side of the conflict. In other words, while Biafran intellectuals decidedly argued in support of the secession, many Nigerian intellectuals tended to argue against and in favour of the military action on the new nation. 

But it wasn’t all Nigerian intellectuals; one, a young playwright and poet, lecturer at the University of Ibadan School of Drama, was particularly vociferous in his condemnation of the war. He was none other than the inimitable Wole Soyinka. In those early days of the war, Soyinka published several articles in Nigerian newspapers, denouncing the war and excoriating the Nigerian intellectuals who supported it. But more than merely launching a newspaper campaign, he got involved with a pressure group made up of intellectuals like him. As he writes in his prison memoir, The Man Died, the group aimed: 

For a total ban on the supply of arms to all parts of Nigeria, creating a third force which would utilize the ensuing military stalemate to repudiate and end both the secession of Biafra and the genocide-consolidated dictatorship of the Army which made both secession and war inevitable. 

It was his activities with the ‘third force’, specifically his trip across battle lines into the heart of Biafra to negotiate with the Biafran leader Ojukwu, that led to Soyinka’s infamous arrest in 1967 and subsequent imprisonment without trial by the Nigerian military government. A new feature-length documentary, Ebrohimie Road: A Museum of Memory, has attempted to bring to life what that experience of imprisonment was like, not only for Soyinka, who has written extensively about it, but also for his friends and family, his students and his colleagues.  

Produced and directed by Nigerian poet and linguist, Kola Tubosun, with funding from the Open Society Foundations, Ebrohimie Road: A Museum of Memory covers a period in Soyinka’s life and the lives of his family, between the mid-1960s and late 1980s. It premiered on 11 July 2024, with a tributary screening at the University of Ibadan’s Institute of African Studies, in celebration of Soyinka’s 90th birthday. The documentary’s focal point is Soyinka’s University of Ibadan home, 8 Ebrohimie Road, which lends its name to the documentary’s title and was the place, as Soyinka himself tells us in the documentary, from which he went into detention and to which he returned upon his release. But the film covers more than just Soyinka’s singular life during this period; it also explores the significant role which the house would come to play in student activism and artist community building in the late 1970s–1980s, a period during which Soyinka no longer lived in the house.  

I spoke with Kola Tubosun via email between 25 September and 8 October 2024 about the making of this new culturally empowering film. Tubosun helped me understand his motivations for making Ebrohimie Road: A Museum of Memory, as well as the thought processes behind some of the major decisions he made while creating this documentary. 

IJAPA O

Thank you for agreeing to this interview. I wanted to start with a gossip question. Ebrohimie Road: A Museum of Memory has been out for three months now; I have seen quite a number of reviews of the film. What has been the most interesting reaction or review you’ve seen about it? 

KOLA TUBOSUN

The most pleasing, I think, has been from Chief Mrs láyídé óyínká who was, at the beginning, the most reluctant to participate. At the first screening at the University of Ìbàdàn in July, she came with extended family members—in spite of the heavy rain—and left with glowing reviews and happy tears. It took a while to convince her of my vision for the film, so I was happy to see that she enjoyed the outcome. It was the same, I think, with most of the [Soyinka’s] family members who participated. Some of whom I never met physically until we showed up with the camera. The positive reactions likely came from the relief that I didn’t take that access for granted. The other interesting reaction has been from the University of Ìbàdàn community which showed up to see the film on the front lawn of the Ebrohimie Road house on 12 Jul, and took turns posing on the steps of the building like óyínká did in 1969. It was an emotional moment for me looking at it—a full circle realization of a vision. 

Because most of the written reviews of the film have been positive, I don’t want to rate one above the other, but this work by IfeOluwa Nihinlola in Isele Magazine went hard. 

IJAPA O

I found it curious that Nihinola reads the film as Yoruba art in his review. What do you think of this reading? Did you approach the project as Yoruba art?  

KOLA TUBOSUN

I approached the film as an ode to memory, but I enjoyed reading Nihinlola’s take because he brought a lot more of himself, history and a tradition of criticism to the work—which means that I’m reading his work as its own creation, much more than just a response to mine. 

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IJAPA O

I imagine Professor Soyinka himself has seen the film. What was his reaction to it? 

KOLA TUBOSUN

óyínká is famously reticent about discussing himself or works in which he appears. Were working on a private viewing, but Im not holding my breath that hed say much publiclyin line with how he’s approached everything from adaptations of his work to personal tributes. Unless he has a strong objection. 

IJAPA O

You’ve written a feature essay on Professor Wole Soyinka and his Abeokuta home in the past. Since Ebrohimie Road is your first film project, what made you decide that film was the best medium to tell this story?  

KOLA TUBOSUN

Well, I hadn’t planned to do a film. The story of Ebrohimie Road was supposed to be a chapter in a book on óyínká Id been working on since 2018. But sometime in 2023, I met someone from Open Society Foundations who was leading a search for new ideas, and I suggested a film that explored óyínkás time in Ìbàdàn through that photograph from 1969. They jumped at the idea faster than Id expected, and I had to quickly adjust myself to the reality of what Id got myself into. In some way, Ebrohimie Road continues the conversation that my Popula piece on Soyinka’s Ab́òkuta home started. But in other ways, it charts its own course. 

IJAPA O

Why have you been so interested in Professor Soyinka’s homes? 

KOLA TUBOSUN

I don’t know if it’s an interest in óyínkás homes particularly, though he is a fascinating and rewarding subject. My interest, as I see it, is in the engagement with memory and transience. Look, for instance, at my work in re-publishing An African Abroad, my work at the British Library, documenting Yorùbá names, travel blogging, library curiosity, book collection and even translation. What connects them—and it took me a while to admit it—is memory, archive and related threads. I’ve also written about homes of Flá Kuti, Mark Twain, Scott Joplin, Abraham Lincoln, Victor Olaiya, among others. The matter of memory is also the subject of my keynote at the British Library last November. 

IJAPA O

What challenges did you encounter while making this film and how did you overcome them? 

KOLA TUBOSUN

One was mortality. Chief Jimi ólànḱ fell sick the week we were supposed to interview him. He died shortly after. Madam Tinú óyínká (Wole Soyinka’s elder sister) passed the week of my earlier appointment with Prof. Fláb̀ Àjàyí óyínká in November 2023, so she [Fláb̀] had to travel to Nigeria for the burial. I spent the period appeasing all the gods for her safe journey back to Kansas. There were a few other subjects we couldn’t speak with because they were otherwise indisposed, including the journalist who we believe interviewed óyínká in that 1969 video. It [mortality] pressed the issue of memory and transience more clearly on the mind throughout the production, so one didn’t take anything for granted. 

Then, logistics. I was in the United States throughout the production, and more than half of my subjects and film crew were in Nigeria. Thankfully, technology came to the rescueand capable hands. Realizing how expensive it is to license a few seconds of songs or archival video was something else that one doesn’t always understand from the outside of a film project. I learnt hard and quickly. 

The biggest challenge, I think, was getting the consent of core subjects. The story involved a period in time where the personal intersected with the national—for óyínká, his family, colleagues and the university. There were certain issues the writer would probably prefer we didn’t excavate. So it was hard, first, to convince him that the project was not a wild goose chase around his life. Ebrohimie was important to me, but he didn’t share that enthusiasm.  

The original synopsis of the film had him returning to Ebrohimie to pose on the steps in a recreation of that old photograph. But he’d told me, since 2018 when I first asked him, that he was not interested in that idea at all. So, when the film was greenlit and I brought back the request, I found that his answer had not changed, though I was praying that he had forgotten. I had a few sleepless nights, and took a number of conventional and unorthodox steps, hoping to change his mind. (Don’t ask). None worked. Eventually, realizing that I could jeopardize the one concession I already secured—that he would sit down to answer my questions, but not in Ìbàdàn—I gave up asking. Getting Mrs óyínká to sit down at all was harder, and it almost didn’t happen. But it was in hindsight that I realized that óyínká’s refusal to return to Ìbàdàn was a more resonant plot direction than the one I had in mind before, so I have no regrets. 

IJAPA O

What was the research process like? What books did you read, for example?  

KOLA TUBOSUN

I’d carried the story with me for many years, even before the 2018 Morland Scholarship. So I didn’t need to read anything new particularly. People interested can, however, check Ìbàdàn the Penkelemes Years (1994), You must Set Forth at Dawn (2006) and The Man Died (1972), which mostly cover the subjects that the film explores. 

A number of secondary sources supplied the missing clues. One was F́mi Euba’s Experiencing WS: The Making of an Artist Scholar (2021)—which was recommended by Akin Adéṣọ̀kàn. It painted the picture of the late 1950s and early 1960s óyínká and helped situate the social and intellectual environment in which óyínká first worked, in Ìbàdàn, before he moved to Ebrohimie. The book was why Prof. Euba was the first person I interviewed for the film, in his home in New Orleans. So much of his interview didn’t make it onto the screen because they covered the period before Ebrohimie, but they contained a lot of historical gems I hope can be useful for future work. Most of the other research were news clippings needed to illustrate particular scenes, and that happened at the Nigerian Archives, Newspapers.com and other video archives. 

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IJAPA O

Were there any films that served as guides or inspirations in the making of this film? 

KOLA TUBOSUN

Not particularly. The last film I saw that examined a writer’s life was Toni Morrison’s The Pieces I Am, which is a totally different work, with the subject being the anchor of the story and narrator. Ebrohimie Road depended on others, with óyínká being just a character witness. I started Baldwins I Am Not Your Negro, but couldn’t finish it because the intensity wasn’t helpful for where I wanted this work to go. I also saw Ken Burns’ work on Ernest Hemingway a number of years ago, and the óyínká-narrated Joshua: A Nigerian Portrait from 1962. I can’t say that I depended on either of them as guide, particularly because the circumstances of this work, funding, subject availability, story, timeline, etc, determined the path we took in the end. But it was helpful to see how others have approached work of this nature so I could feel a little more confident in my own stubborn departure. 

IJAPA O

What’s an interesting story about Soyinka or the period the film covers that you discovered during the making of this film that you hadn’t known before? 

KOLA TUBOSUN

I didn’t know that his second marriage didn’t end when he left for exile in 1972. The impression one got from reading his memoirs was that on return from prison, he left Ìbàdàn and his marriage for good. Conversations with the daughters helped clarify that. I also didn’t know, at least until I started researching the story, that Mrs óyínká continued to live at Ebrohimie until the late 1980s.  

The biggest discovery for me was the reason for his leaving the University of Ìbàdàn. He had hinted at it in many of his writings, but nothing was definitive. Professor R̀mí Rájí, who had excavated the archival files from the university records, was able to put it to words on the screen, and I am grateful for that. I also learnt a lot about Christopher Okigbo, none of which made it into this film. But we got it on tape and might have it show up in a later work. 

IJAPA O

Can you walk me through the thought process behind some of the key decisions you made while creating this film? For instance, I was intrigued that the film opens with an animated sequence. Why did you decide to animate that specific part and not others? 

KOLA TUBOSUN

I had planned to animate a number of scenes actually, but no one warned me ahead about how much these things cost. It’s one of those tough lessons for a first-timer. It was during the editing, when I was playing around with an idea of an opening sequence, that I saw that the lone animation fit there. So, I left it there.  

The editing was both the most fun part of the process and also the most frustrating, and yet the most rewarding. Unlike a feature film where the script is set before you start shooting, the editing process in a documentary is really where the story is told, and that can be overwhelming. You’re working with conversations you couldn’t always control, to tell a story whose arc you have in your head but may not always lend itself to the reality of the responses elicited. In at least one instance, we had to return to the set, after the editing already started, to do a follow-up interview and flesh out some answers.  

IJAPA O

We often hear that the Nigerian Civil War is not discussed enough. It’s not taught in schools nor adequately memorialized by the government. Since this film centres on that period, I anticipated that it would thoroughly examine the war and the specific events leading to Soyinka’s detention. But I was surprised to see that these topics were only briefly addressed. Why did you choose not to delve deeper into these details, particularly regarding Soyinka’s involvement with the ‘third force, in this film? 

KOLA TUBOSUN

I’ve heard a version of this critique from one or two other reviewers, so let me respond. First, I strongly disagree with the premise. The most prominent issue in our documentary concerned Biafra: óyínká’s arrest, detention and exile. So, there was no avoiding it either way. But we also had Odia Ofeimun, Fláb̀ Àjàyí and óyínká himself speak to the environment of those times, how the war affected the university culture and óyínká’s employment, and even Nigeria’s contemporary attitude to the Igbos today. They were not subtle. So, to accuse Ebrohimie Road of avoiding Biafra betrays the reviewer’s inattentiveness. 

I didn’t make it a more central theme because another film about the same period, The Man Died, directed by Awam Amkpa, took a more frontal look at the war, the details around it and óyínká’s work with the ‘third force’, etc. Amkpa’s film was already in production when I started mine, so there was no need to duplicate the effort. And also because it led to a longer and more unwieldy plot when I explored making it more central in the earlier edits of the film. It just didn’t quite fit; it was somewhat distracting. I’ve seen The Man Died now, and I think we made the right call. That complementarity is good.  

IJAPA O

The film’s subtitle, ‘A Museum of Memory’, is explicated in the third chapter by Professor Izevbaye, who refers to Ebrohimie Road as a ‘museum of memory’ due to its role as a centre for student activism and the artist community in the 1970s and 1980s. This was achieved by Chief Mrs Olayide Soyinka, whose efforts fostered that community. Many people I’ve spoken to believe Mrs Soyinka’s significant role in shaping Ebrohimie Road as a ‘Museum of Memory’ deserves more exploration in the film. What are your thoughts on this? 

KOLA TUBOSUN

There was only so much we could put into two hours of film (from about 16 hours of interviews) without boring everyone or pissing someone off. What a documentary does is take one particular point of view, outside of a broad scope, while all the other directions remain open for exploration. The crux of Ebrohimie Road is memory, its transience and resilience. I am confident that others will take up the challenge that the supporting storylines throw up. Or maybe I’ll come into some great money and turn it into a TV series myself, where each subject/theme can get its own full treatment. 

IJAPA O

The film concludes with a call to convert the Ebrohimie Road house into a museum in honour of Wole Soyinka. Why do you believe it is important to preserve this house in his name, particularly given that his former home at the University of Ife has already been adapted for this purpose, and considering that the University of Ibadan has, in recent years, lamented its inability to provide accommodation for many of its staff? 

KOLA TUBOSUN

I’ve been to the If̀ house, and its not a museum. It was, at least when I visited, a space to host some carvings of óyínká for a few weeks, and that was it. I dont know if it has been more comprehensively set up as an active museum since then. I like the idea of physical structures as bearers of history and memory. In Prof. Izevbaye’s words only a people who don’t value history will not memorialize their history markers. I also like its potential as a tourist draw to the University of Ibadan. But it’s up to the university to decide what they think the house should be. The film already fulfils its own purpose, which stands apart and outside of whatever happens to the house in the end.  

IJAPA O

Can we expect more film projects from you in the future? What subjects interest you these days? 

KOLA TUBOSUN

My current interest, through our work at OlongoAfrica, is in the Black Orpheus journal from the late 1950s—the generation it helped birth and nurtureand its role in the development of African art, literature, criticism and documentation. Maybe a short film will come out of that also, or maybe not. We’ll see. I have just published a new book of poems titled ù at the Library, from which I’ll be reading in London and Oxford. I’m also working on my first collection of essays and collected translations ahead of 2025, in-between work in linguistics. At other times, I’m editing the Best Literary Translations anthology as a co-editor. The sophomore edition comes out in 2025, guest-edited by Pulitzer prize winner, Cristina Rivera Garza

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