When Ola Rotimi’s Our husband has gone mad again delighted lovers

Updated: Tuesday 17-02-2009

A scene in the playOn Valentine’s Day, lovers, families and friends across the country, expectedly went out to have a great time. Adewale Oshodi was at an event in Ibadan, where late Ola Rotimi’s play, Our husband has gone mad again, was the menu served the lovers.

One of late Professor Ola Rotimi’s classic plays, Our husband has gone mad again, was staged by The Bridge Theatre Ensemble, at the Nustreams Conference Centre, Ibadan last Saturday, to celebrate this year Valentine’s Day.

The play depicts how most of Nigeria’s retired military officers take to politics after their discharge from military service.

The play, a comedy, tells the story of a retired military officer, Major Rahman Taslim Lejoka-Brown, who suddenly decides to go into politics, despite the fact that his ambition to hold a public office is borne out of selfish personal desire and not patriotism or the urge to serve his people.

This makes it difficult for him to succeed as a politician. Being a retired military officer, he also combines military tactics in his political campaign and this affects his ambition and in extension, his matrimonial home.

Those at the centre of Lejoka-Brown’s life are his wives: Liza, Sikira and Mama Rashida, as well as his friend, Okonkwo, also a retired military officer who supports his gubernatorial ambition.

Though Okonkwo identifies with the political ambition of Lejoka-Brown, he is, however, not familiar with the political strategies of ambitious aspirants like that of his friend, Lejoka-Brown.

Okonkwo is also an Igbo, and the native laws and customs of the Yoruba people and the Islamic faith — his friend is a muslim— are alien to him.

Liza is the American-trained medical doctor who happens to be the legally-wedded wife of Lejoka-Brown. Though she is not used to polygamous life style, she, however, has no choice than to adjust to the fact that her husband, Lejoka-Brown, has other wives.

Her arrival from her base in the United States of America, coincides with the period of high politiking and her appearance at this period brings a new challenge to Lejoka-Brown’s push for the gubernatorial candidacy.

Sikira is another wife of the retired military officer. She is a woman who believes in the independence of women and with little information and instruction from Liza, her husband’s other wife, who is enlightened (Sikira is an illiterate) she abandons her husband (Lejoka-Brown) and takes to politics, which she feels will make her independent, as well as popular, and towards the end of the play, she becomes the gubernatorial candidate of her party, campaigning and canvassing for votes.

Mama Rashida, another wife of Lejoka-Brown, is an example of a good and peace-loving woman.

Also like Sikira, she gets an advice from Liza about how to make her business flourish, and immediately, she leaves her husband and moves to a village where she can acquire land for her business venture.

Mama Rashida’s reason for leaving her matrimonial home is as a result Lekoja-Brown’s loss of the gubernatorial candidacy, which she feels could have changed the social status of the family. Also, she feels she has nothing to show for her stay with her husband and thinks the best decision is for her to leave.

Lekoja-Brown’s wives are all unique, representing different generations and different attitudes. The conflicting impulse that arise from these characters provide the play’s comic tensions.

In the end, Lekoja-Brown’s political ambition falls apart, along with his family, with his wives deserting him — Sikira leaves to pursue her political ambition, while Mama Rashida leaves to pursue her business venture.

The play clearly likens Nigeria’s, and even Africa’s retired military officers, to Lejoka-Brown, who, after retirement, take to politics, not to serve, but to find something doing, and for their own selfish reasons.