Dafe Ivwurie
Revellers smoking, clutching bottles of their preferred lager or soft drinks, even water and dancing to the heavy beats of the music of 9ice, Naeto C, D’banj, D Prince, Duncan Mighty and several other new age chart toppers from the club of musicians who refer to their music as Naija hip-hop. The young boys (and girls too) knew all the songs, they sang along, they danced rhythmically, the new age dance - the woman in front, the man holding her waist and both of them gyrating back and forth and sideways, sweat dripping down their faces.
No. It is not a club, neither is it one of those carnivals in Rio or Notting Hill. It is twenty-first century Ikoyi Prisons. And no, these were not prisoners. They were free people, fun seekers, partiers and merrymakers within the confines of what was once a notorious holding place for troublemakers, political prisoners and those awaiting the hangman’s noose.
Back track to the twentieth century, to the political history of Nigeria and the names that you would find behind those walls will read Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Herbert Macaulay, Michael Imoudu and Adeyemo Alakija, just to mention a few. They were either jailed for daring to ask for freedom from the colonialists or incarcerated for treasonable felony, for trying to “subvert the unity of Nigeria.” We may not go into a political discourse here as to whether the reasons these men were held as inmates in this place were justified, but we may draw a lesson or two on life and freedom and what they mean to different generations.
Sir Herbert Macaulay and Chief Michael Imoudu were among the first generation of Nigerians that began to ask for independence from the colonial masters. Their agitation and political activities were what landed them in the then dreaded Ikoyi Prisons. These were founding fathers of Nigerian democracy, of the rights that we now enjoy to organise political associations and organise ourselves into government that will benefit the people either on the long or short term.
For the men mentioned above, they probably never knew if their struggles would yield any tangible result. But for some of the characters in the scene described in the opening paragraph, they probably never knew the history that place holds or the history that these men wrote with their lives.
We have enjoyed 50 years of self rule and the journey has been long and hard for majority of Nigerians and it was proper that this once iconic landscape and piece of real estate of great notoriety be turned into something of value; a place where history can be learnt, a place where the human desire for freedom is perpetuated and given space and the wings to soar.
I am happy that this place was not sold to the banks, multi nationals and the money bags, who would have broken it down and built some money spinning high rise of no meaningful impact to the common man.
But greater kudos must go to Theo Lawson, that architect of impeccable reputation for conceptualising the idea of a Freedom Park out of the Old Ikoyi Prisons; of bringing out the beauty of modern Nigeria from the ashes of colonial and chequered history.
Since the commissioning by Babatunde Raji Fashola, governor of Lagos State, the Freedom Park has hosted dozens of cultural, dramatic and arts festival, the last being the CORA (Committee for Relevant Arts) stampede on Yeni Kuti at 50 and discourse of Nollywood as it is today.
Ten or 15 years ago, this same kind of event would have held in the premises of the Goethe Institute or the French Cultural Centre, which were the unofficial but de facto ministries of culture in Nigeria. The directors of these institutions would have sat at the head of the table to pontificate about us, our culture; our way of life, our music, our drama, our art, our being and point us in the direction to go. We had to defer to them because we did not have the venue or resources.
Today, Freedom Park provides that opportunity for big celebrations like the Black Heritage Festival where what used to be the hangman’s noose has been turned into a stage that hosted Ajantala Pinocchio by Bode Sowande; where the grounds that hold the invisible footprints of men once incarcerated now tremble under the feet of dancers stomping to the contemporary groove of Nigerian musicians.
Fashola hit the nail on the head and prophetically pronounced, “This is why we now christen it Freedom Park because it was a road to our freedom and we intend to keep it as a favoured destination to tourists and all those who seek freedom as a memorial in honour of all those eminent and illustrious nationalists who protested against and successfully ended colonial rule and dominion in Nigeria.”
The redeveloped site is now, indeed, the new destination on the Lagos social and tourism map.
On Broad Street, opposite Island Maternity, behind the tall archaic walls of an old prison there is rebirth and a cry for cultural freedom midwifed by Nigerians, for Nigerians; one that will make the founding fathers of a free Nigeria smile in their resting places and say “truly the labours...were not in vain.”
