Discover Atakpame, The most western major settlement in Yorubaland 
An
ethnic group in Atakpame, Togo (The Ana Ife) hold on to a distinct
brand of Yoruba they inherited from their forefathers, writes AKEEM
LASISI, just back from the West African country.
Denise Fantchede
would have been a Nigerian but for an accident of history as a native of
Ife. But she is a native of Atakpame, a community of Yoruba origin in
Togo and one of those whose ancestors migrated to the West African
country when tribal wars raged in the 17th century. Yet, the same
history that changed the course of her descent has made her
multilingual. Fantchede speaks French, which is Togo’s official
language. She speaks English, which she learnt in school and in
neighbouring Ghana. She is also fluent in Ewe, one of the indigenous
languages in Togo. Most importantly, her mother tongue is Ife (One of
the native Yoruba tongues of Togo), which some scholars would call
Ife-Togo, an ‘independent’ Yoruba dialect spoken by the majority of
Atakpame indigenes, who trace their origins to Ile-Ife. (It should be noted that combined, all Yoruba subgroups in Togo are said to number about 0.3 Million)
Today, Atakpame is the 5th largest settlement in Togo by population.
Like Atakpame, like Idanre
In
terms of landmark, Atakpame shares some similarities with Ibadan and
Abeokuta. While the capital cities of Oyo and Ogun States flaunt the
Olumo Rock and Oke Ibadan as their ancestral symbols, respectively,
Atakpame, a settlement town that is about 160 kilometres away from Lome,
the Togolese capital, defines its origin by seven mountains that
surround it. Just like many other towns in Yorubaland, where myths are
explored to trace the people’s roots, Atakpame’s history is not complete
without reference to the mountains. According to some elders of the
town, the rocks played supernatural roles when the natives were engaged
in battles with other ethnic groups. This is how Atakpame also shares
topographical and historical similarities with Idanre, Ondo State, a
town famed for the huge and acrobatic mountains that surround it. According
to Fantchede, Ife Togo is widely used in Atakpame because the people,
who trace their descent to Ile-Ife, are the dominant group there.
She, however, expresses concern over the future of the language because
not many young people speak it. (Speaking more of French and other
languages). She says, “The number of young people who speak Ife here is
decreasing because of changes in the society and the fact that it is not
taught in schools. But I speak it any time I have the opportunity to do
so. Our elders also use it constantly.”
As a result of the
entrenched cross-fertilisation that Ife Togo has had with French, Ewe,
et cetera, it is easier for the Yoruba in Lome, Cotonou and Ajase {Porto
Novo), among others, to understand one another than for the immigrant
Yorubas in Lome to understand Ife Togo speakers in Atakpame – and vice
versa.
A
Yoruba scholar, Dr. Felix Fabunmi, notes that a language that is spoken
by many people, such as Yoruba, usually has dialects that may differ
from one another. In a research he conducted on Ife numerals, the
lecturer at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, acknowledges Ife
Togo, Ife Benin, Tsabe, Ajase and Idaatsa, which he describes as
Yoruboid, being “the mother tongues of speech communities whose
forefathers migrated from Nigeria to Dahomey, now Republic of Benin.”
This invariably covers the brand spoken in Togo, too. Fabunmi notes in a
study titled ‘Vigesimal Numerals on Ife (Togo) and Ife (Nigeria)
Dialects of Yoruba’, “Today, the capital of Ife (Togo) is Atakpame. The
Ifè (Togo) dialect of Yoruba is spoken by approximately 90,000 people in
Atakpame town and the speakers of that dialect stretch from the Benin
boundary around Bante and Tchetti up to Atakpame in Togo. “The majority
of these Ife settlers migrated from Ija-Oku in former Dahomey into the
Togolese territory and subsequently founded the city of Atapkame. “There
are several other early settlers or ethnic groups in Atakpame, such as
Fon, Ewe, Aposo, Kabrelosso and Ketokoli, but the people of Seti, Jama
and Igberiko are predominantly Ife. Other Ife (Togo) villages where
speakers of Ife reside include Alabata, Okutaya, Efujaye, Oko Asade,
Asoko Ayepada and Yanmosile.”
Ife-Togo is well tone-marked
Yoruba
is a tonal language, comprising the high, mid and low tones. That is
how a word such as ‘odo’ can mean different things as the tone changes.
These include odo (mortar), odo (river) and odo (zero). Also, ‘ere’ can
be translated as play, sculpture and profit in different contexts and
with different tonal marks, just as ‘agbon’ can be a word for basket,
coconut or wasp. Investigation by our correspondent reveals that the Ife
Togo dialect retains the tonal property of the Yoruba language. Apart
from the inflexions that the natives interviewed demonstrate in their
speeches, words in the books that our correspondent bought in Atakpame
are duly tone-marked. Perhaps the only difference is that the mid tone,
which is no more marked in the modern Nigerian Yoruba language, is still
marked in Ife Togo. Indeed, our observation also shows that Ife Togo
has not responded to the series of orthographical changes that the
standard Yoruba has experienced, especially since the early 1970s. As
a result, while Yoruba grammar now forbids the collocation of two
consonants in a word, which makes Offa, Otta, Oshogbo and Ogbomosho to
be written nowadays as Ofa, Ota, Osogbo and Ogbomoso, Ife Togo still
flaunts words such as nwon (they), itsu (yam) and Atakpame itelf!
As
another Yoruba scholar, Mr. Mudasir Alabi, however, notes, Ife Togo is
as rich as any other dialect of the language. Based on his observation
in some of the books, he notes that what it may also have lost in terms
of the words that the standard Yoruba borrowed from English and other
Nigerian languages, it has gained through its relationship with French
and other languages in Atakpame and Togo in general. “But I could also
see that Ife Togo uses phonological symbols in its writing of Yoruba
vowels and consonants like ‘o’ and ‘j’,” Alabi says. Our correspondent
further observes that the Atakpame variant of Yoruba is also imagistic. A
review of the Ife Togo Bible and other story books bought by our
correspondent that it is deep enough to produce a rich literature and
writers the way the Yoruba Language has produced great works and writers
that include Wole Soyinka, Niyi Osundare, Amos Tutuola, Olawuyi
Ogunniran and Lanrewaju Adepoju. Our investigation does not reveal any
major writer in Ife Togo, but we came across artistes, especially
singers who have popularised the language in their works. Among them is
Victor Star, who has released several albums, including
‘Nonu-Etse-Yeesu’, which can be translated as ‘Thank You Jesus’. “She is
a very popular singer in Atakpame. Many people like her and she uses
Ife in most of her songs,” Fanknede says. Our correspondent also visited
a pharmacy shop operated by Kujo Akpo, where Ife is the medium of
communication with customers.
Nagbe Kotannoa is very proud of the
exploits of the forefathers of the Ife people of Atakpame. A historian,
culture promoter and musician, Kotannoa is, in Atakpame, synonymous
with the Tchebe traditional art, whose features are largely traceable to
what obtains among the Yoruba in Nigeria. Particularly, he promotes the
pole dance, a variant of what the Yoruba call ‘ageere’. In different
parts of South-West Nigeria, ageere dancers entertain people at
socio-cultural events, just as some of them work with masqueraders.
Kotannoa, who worked in collaboration with Emmanuel Lambert to produce
‘Thebe: Danse Traditional au Togo’, a book that documents the activities
of Tchebe dancers, agrees with the authorities that trace the history
of Ife Togo to Ile-Ife, Nigeria. Kotannoa adds that when war
eventually pushed the people to the present location in Togo, which had
yet to be named Atakpame then, they met the Udu people, said to be of
Ghanaian origin. But they were later outnumbered by the Nigerian
migrants. Eventually, a prominent tree called Atakpara, from where
the people get chewing stick till today, inspired a name that all the
tribes agreed could define them. “Atakpara was adjusted to Atakparame
until it was finally shortened to Atakpame,” Kotannoa notes. The Ife in
Togo also pay homage to the seven mountains – especially the Oke Ekpa,
the way natives of Ibadan pay homage to Okebadan (Ibadan Mountain) and
the Egba salute Olumo Rock in Nigeria. Kotannoa explains that at a point
the fight became heated, the Mount Ekpa opened and allowed the Ife Togo
people to pass through to the other side. It closed as soon as the last
person crossed. He adds, “When the enemies got there, the mountain
opened again, but immediately swallowed all of them. It swallowed them
like the Red Sea. So, whenever we want to celebrate Odun Itshu – the Yam
Festival – our men go to Oke Ekpa to perform the ceremony,” Kotannoa
enthuses. He gives the names of the other mountains as Oke Ologbo,
Akposo, Omi Kosi, Agama, Aru Egidigbe and Batabali. A visit to the
mountains by our correspondent showed that they surround the town, which
corroborates Kotannoa’s assertion that they serve as a wall of defence
for the people. Not much is, however, going on there, perhaps in terms
of the need to really turn them into tourist attractions.
Echoes of Oyo Empire
While
official figures say Atakpamé is the fifth largest city in Togo by
population (84,979 inhabitants in 2006), sources identify the ‘Battle of
Atakpame’ as one of the major wars the people fought in 1764. That
year, the town had played host to a clash between “the rebellious Akyem
vassal state with the help of Yoruba mercenaries of the Oyo Empire and
the Dahomeans against the forces of the Ashanti Empire under their
Asantehene , Kosi Oboadum. “The result of the battle was a crushing
defeat of the Ashanti forces and the death of their Juabenhene (head of
one of the royal clans). The repercussion of this defeat by the Oyo
Empire was the destoolment of Kusi Obodum, who was replaced by a much
younger and charismatic Asantehene, Osei Kwadwo Okoawia,” an online
source says. However, there are no indications that the Yoruba in
Atakpame in any way pay allegiance to or maintain any relationship with
the Oyo heritage in Nigeria. But our correspondent saw sights and sounds
of Yorubaland, including ‘real’ pounded yam (and not mechanised poundo
yam), moinmoin and akara, which were on sale, as part of the cultural
heritage of the Ife Togo people that their ancestors must have taken
from Ife.
"Here, names also have meanings"[
In
Yoruba, as is obtainable in many other African languages, most native
names have meanings and are usually symbolic. ‘Babawale’ means ‘Our
father has returned home’. That is why it is usually given to a boy born
after the passage of a father in the family. Its feminine counterpart
is ‘Yetunde’, ‘Yewande’ or ‘Iyabo’, names given to a girl born after the
death of a mother. Atakpame people of Yoruba origin still keeps this
tradition. For instance, Kotannoa says his full name is ‘Afo-kotana’ or
‘Afo-kotan-ninu’, meaning when people talk or say something, a lot is
still buried in their stomachs (minds). Also. Agounkey explains that his
name literally suggests ‘Ma-gun-mi-ke’, suggesting ‘Ma-gun-mi-ni-kese’ –
‘Don’t push me too much’ or ‘don’t push me with your elbow’, or,
metaphorically, ‘don’t push me to the wall/‘don’t provoke me’.
Playing politics with Ife?
Although
Kotannoa concedes that Ife Togo is neither official nor taught in
schools, he believes that the language cannot die. While this contrasts
with Fentchede’s position, who fears that a language not embraced by the
elite is endangered, Kotannoa says, “Ife already dominates other
languages in Atakpame. Even Udu people now speak Ife. But Ife people
don’t speak Udu.” Experts have argued that it is not possible to
separate language from politics. So it seems for Ife Togo and the local
politics in Atakpame. Since Ife people trace their roots to Ile-Ife in
Nigeria, one would expect that they would physically maintain their link
with their origin. But this does not seem to be so. Chatting with
Kotannoa, for instance, our correspondent wondered why Atakpame did not
send any delegation to Ile-Ife when the new Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye
Ogunwusi, was recently installed. His response indicates that Ife Togo
would ordinarily want to oil its link with Yorubas in Nigeria, but there
are some political issues at home. According to him, some
politicians in Atakpame, at a point, wanted to fly sentiments that the
Ife Togo people were not Togolese but Nigerians. Because this could
weaken the Ife Togo people’s chances, they, too, have learnt not to take
steps that their opponents could exploit to campaign against them.
Church to the rescue
Recalling
that it was Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther that translated the Bible into
Yoruba, it is interesting to find out that a Christian organisation is
in the forefront of the propagation of Ife Togo in Atakpame. The group,
the Association Chretienne pour l’Alphabetisation et la Traduction de la
Bible en Langue Ife (the Christian Association for Bible Translation
and Literacy Programmes) otherwise called ACATBLI, organises tutorials
in the language, with a focus on people who never had the opportunity to
acquire or learn it before. As Crowther did, one of the main
achievements of the non-governmental organisation is the translation
of the Bible into Ife Togo. Titled ‘Iwe-Odaye Imole-Ikannyi’ (Iwe Idaye
Imole Ikeyin, that is The New Testament), the 635-page publication is
already in the hands of many people, with ACATBLI’s Director, Kaleb
Agounkey, saying only 2,000 copies are now in stock, from the 11,000
produced in 2009. The organisation’s literacy programmes are also
being supported with several other books it has published. Among them
are ‘Les Peuples Ife et Leur Origine’ – being a comparative analysis of
Ife Togo and an ancient Egyptian language; ‘Obe Dictionnaire
Ife-Francais’, which is an Ife Togo-French dictionary.
While
there are also several publications on different books of the Bible,
one other major lecture books produced by ACATBLI is ‘Gbale-ee Tana o
Gba Ona’ – ‘Gbale ki o to Gba Ona’, literally meaning ‘sweep your home
before you sweep the road’. The idea here is to help Ife Togo people to
protect their identity even when they have to promote other values.
Agounkey says the project was started by partners who came together in
1981. They began by developing the phonetics and phonology of Ife Togo.
The project covers Bible translation, literacy and social development.
The director says the training that the centre gives to people is not
free, but it gets some funding from some organisations, which it uses to
settle some of the bills. He adds, “When one of our partners who came
from Sweden went back to her country, she helped in getting some funding
from the Swedish government and other organisations. We also work with
Ife people who work in other parts of Togo and Benin, because the area
they occupy is very large.” Agounkey says ACATBLI teaches 3,000
people Ife annually and it has, since the beginning of the campaign,
trained up to 25,000 people in the art of speaking and writing the
language. “I am glad that a lot of people and the language are gaining
from our efforts. Other tribes have published and dedicated their own
New Testaments, but no one buys them. “In our own case, many people,
especially those from different churches such as the Catholic, Anglican
and Deeper Life, use ours. Some congregations and a church like the
Deeper Life conduct all their programmes in Ife – their sermons, songs
and all. Many churches who conduct theirs in French interpret it in
Ife,” the director notes.
Nigerian films subtitled in Ife
Unlike
Atakpame politicians, Agounkey hopes to network with Nigeria. He will,
therefore, welcome any initiative that can make that happen.
Specifically, he wants to work with Nigerian film and music producers in
such a way that ACABTLI can translate their works into Ife Togo. He
believes there is a market waiting to absorb that. But, while
Agounkey is genuinely expecting that, some pirates may have started
reaping where they did not sow in this regard. Our correspondent visited
some film and music shops in Atakpame, where he found out that several
Nigerian works are not only on sale, some of them have also been
translated or subtitled in French, Ife and some other Togolese and
Beninois languages – under very suspicious circumstances. Among the
works sighted and bought by the journalist are ‘Ameka ye L’adem’
(featuring the likes of Funke Akindele and Ini Edo); ‘Jalousie’ (Aki and
Pawpaw) and ‘Flavi Tiata’ (featuring Olu Jacobs and other Nigerian
actors).
Stressful trip
By
road, a trip from Nigeria to Togo ought to be fun-filled. Ordinarily,
it should give a traveller the opportunity to experience three West
African countries, with Republic of Benin in the middle of the three. He
wants to sit by the window of the bus to see villages, see people
selling different things by the road side and have access to one or two
things he would like to buy. If he is a nature freak, he wants to smell
the flora and fauna of different African towns and villages. But that
may really not be on an international route like the Lagos-Cotounu-Lome.
As this correspondent experienced, a lot of fun killers are waiting for
the dreamer almost everywhere. First, how can a journey calculated to
last six hours, which eventually lasts 10 hours or more, spin
excitement? Within Lagos, it took one about three hours to reach the bus
terminus in Mile 2, the Cotounu-Badagry end of the geography, from the
Lagos-Ibadan Expressway end the journalist took off from. At Mile 2, we
had to spend some four hours as the bus endlessly waited for passengers.
Yet, when we eventually left Mile 2, we were filled with the hope that
within six hours, we would be in Lome. But two hours after, the bus
still did not get to Badagry, not to talk of Cotounu, as the road was
bedevilled by traffic jams. Between Badagry and Lome, the bus had to
stop many times, at checkpoints where the principal target of security
guys is money, money and more money. Even at the borders where Customs
and other agents are waiting like hungry lions, many passengers had to
part with various sums of un-receipted cefas. The story was the same
when this correspondent was returning from Togo. For one, be it at Seme
or Cotounu-Lome boundary, West African borders are so rowdy, porous and
corrupt that one could be tempted to think that the region is a million
years away from civilisation.
SOURCE: http://www.punchng.com/in-togo-atakpame-keeps-yoruba-language-alive/
|
