A veteran TV producer with the defunct Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation, Rev Bayo Awala, 80, tells ALEXANDER OKERE about his growing up in the creeks and career as a dramatist
ALEXANDER OKEREThe name, Awala, is not Yoruba; it is an Itshekiri name. My father, Dibofun, hailed from Jakpa in Warri North. His mother was from Ilaje in Ondo State, and when his father died, his mother took him to Ilaje. That was where he grew up and was very well known. Originally, we are Itshekiri. That was where I was born. I grew up there and attended school there. As of 1956, there was no secondary school in the area. So, I had to go to Sapele, Delta State, to attend a secondary school.
My mother was not educated; many parents did not want their girls to go to school because they considered it a waste, thinking they would end up in the kitchen, smoking fish. At that time, people didn’t believe education was central. However, my father had some modicum of education before his father died. I remember that in those days, the district officer, who was a white man, used to invite my father to interpret his language to the Olugbo .
In October 1965, I came down with a savage illness that left me paralysed. I had to use crutches. At that time, I was working at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation, so I stopped going to the office because of my illness. In March 1965, I was at home when a friend of mine came to see me and urged me to follow him to see another friend at Christ Church Cathedral Primary where the Federal Ministry of Education was organising training for teachers in secondary school to be knowledgeable in drama.
Turning 80 should not come to me as a surprise because I have lived long enough. However, I didn’t know I was approaching 80; I know what people who are 70 or 80 years old look like. There is nothing in me that suggests that I am 80 but the reality is that I am 80.
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