Just as it is said of Time, as having its different seasons, to everything upon the earth , is attached , its different purposes. It is when one is ignorant of the purpose to which a thing is being put into use that abuse, misuse or even disuse becomes inevitable. Also , to every sense , is its own measure does revolve around , but when it is without moderation , it becomes an addiction. To be addicted to a thing is to be bound or hooked to such thing .It is a curse of the Cross of dependence and a prick that pierces and stabs.
Yoruba calls it :" eedi" or " eefun" to which spell one is metaphysically and irrevocably tied.
Sociologically and psychologically, it becomes a stub or a stump of equivocation, and upon which gutter, one stumbles or trips and falls into , leaving behind wounds which stigma or scar , have become an injury that time have refused to heal up .
It is generally believed that hard drugs are the only substances which are easily abused and to which people are addicted .When Nassim Nicholas Taleb however wrote that :" Salary is a financial drug that is as strong as cocaine or heroin " the reactions that yelled at his statement drew tons of distasteful comments from readers.
I am afraid that I will definitely attract from my readers and listeners, a more distasteful reactions by my own declaration and conviction, right here, that dreadlock is a social and religious opium that is worse than heroin and cocaine put together.
To illustrate the irrevocable ugliness pervading the dreadlock either as a fashion , religious or as an ideological expression, it is worth recalling here the encounter between a woman and Winston Churchill over a matter revolving around drunkenness and ugliness. A woman had once approached Winston Churchill, ostensibly stepping upon the tail of his cobra, having planned in her mind to embarrass him in public.
" You are drunk" She said to Churchill , who, was reputed with the knack of an orator ,not known to suffer fools gladly.
" You are ugly " Churchill charged back, adding :" Madam, I may be drunk today and be sober tomorrow but yours is irrevocable."
In drawing similarities between salary and hard drugs, Taleb argued that both give us " high" as the brain releases same hormone.
" You hate your job but the next day it's " bam " ! your salary releases dopamine in the brain while you keep the job despite all struggles..."
For the salary earner , the job is an indispensable part of life , which like drugs, you can't live without as there appears to be no other option for success and sustenance, even as this predicament resembles that of a drug addict. You are accustomed to earning more money without mental efforts , receiving than giving; more on consuming than producing; no incentive for invention ; no application of mind to solve challenges and in a state of numbing creativity, courage and determination. So much addiction for salary and for the salary earner, but worse addiction for the dreadlocked whose addiction is irrevocably weaved around the neck of ugliness, even on his or her hairdo like a rattlesnake. The word , ugly, going by its dictionary definition, means" unpleasing to the sight". It derives from old Norwegian language, " uggligr; to be feared, and from the word:" ugga " meaning " to fear , to dread ".
Just as the word ugly is an appearance that causes dread or horror, dreadlock is a word that connotes fear . It is a number of ugly and dreadful looking strands of hair , curled or hanging together with ferocity.
But wait for it : there are dreadlocks and there are dreadlocks. There are dreadlocks which exquisite beauty, pervading and permeating them, are under the lock and key of gods, having fashioned them after vows of chastity and dignity.
These are the dreadlocks naturally worn by Nazirites. It is when the hairs upon which crowns, their heads are dignified, suffer abuse (as a result of ignorance bufuddling the vision , purpose and mission by which they were created ) that they become an addiction, worse than heroin and cocaine put together. There are ofcourse , dreadlocks which are worn and cultivated artificially as mere statements of expression of ideological and sociological leanings, but which rules of engagements, are riding roughshod over the spirituality from which depths , the strands are curled into threads of dreads and locks.
For instance, when Nigerian music lovers, particularly youths , sing with ferocious hilarity, jumping and shouting as they dance to the golden music of Adekunle Gold that:" Dangote and Otedola " ko lori meji ( Dangote and Otedola, each of them does not have two heads) what message are they trying to convey about "Ori " ( head ) being the concrete part of the body personifying luck, fate and destiny ?
Was it by mere coincidence that the Ooni of ife, His Imperial Majesty, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi and Nigerian billionaire business woman, Evangelist Folorunso Alakija, in separate interviews granted both of them by different media , gave a pride of place to Ori ( Yoruba word for head) being part of the body to which is associated the idea of primacy , chieftaincy, headship and captaincy ?
It's however a matter of regret today how too many of our youths are paying lip service to Ori( head ) through the way they are desecrating the sanctity of their heads , attaching to their hairs , the braids and brainwaves of toxicity and oddicity.
Why do many of our African women find it very impossible to appreciate their God-endowed complexion and hairdos ?
Does the act of fastening to our hairs , the yoke of different colours of imported wigs, peculiar to the white , not portray us as a people of low esteem ?
What of the odious manner in which the African woman bleaches her natural skin of ivory and olive oil?
I do not look further, any longer , for any reason, why mere Affirmative action driven outside of the mindset of the African woman, would not liberate the African woman from inferiority complex . No wonder why she is not readily embracing her rightful position as an amazon, either in political or economic or sociological phase.
However , there are enough case studies about women, who with their natural dreadlocks , have led men , nations and kingdoms to victory , both in moments of crises and at critical periods.
These are women around whose dreadlocks are woven vows of commitment to chastity and spirit of liberation.
Call them Rastafarians , the Dadas , the Dodondawas or the Nazirites, their Rastafarianism, individually , takes root
from " Ras- Tafari" the " Ras" being " head " sharing same root with Arabic " ra'" while " Tafari" signifies dread fullness.
An ode to the woman of valour, dignified in her natural dreadlocks, should here suffice.
" Although I am not in any way effeminately helpless by my bodily construction ,the strands on my head are under the lock and key of gods .
It was this uncultivated but consecrated land of virginity that raised the metaphor of "Mariama", "Mary" and "Moremi "in their commitments to their vows of naziriteship.
They were able to devout their offsprings to the gods in order to free their people from the bondage of slavery and menace of satanic forces. Like the proverbial goose reputed to bring good luck to her family, we are the rare female equivalence of the Biblical Deborah, the woman who is manly in everything she does.
" I am not only manly in my physique as a woman but in my behaviour , constituting the opposite side of what people do, even in taste, in my attire and in my utterances."
Talk of “nazir" in Hebrew and “Nadiyr” in Arabic and you are finding my equivalence in the "Ndira" cognate which is referring to a woman behaving like a man-: That's the Ndira Gandhi of India. As the vocabulary dictating my hairdo moved to Greek, my Dada metamorphosed into "Andrrizonai "which is a personification of one who is not effeminate , but manly enough to confront danger head-long.
This is why the Ndira of India wears the same robotic android-loaded energy of the Andrew and the android culture in the English expressions.
Ruminating on the dreadlocks of artificiality, and the half-obedience to the rules of Naziriteship ,even , the criminality which partiality constitutes an addiction, like hard drugs, the phenomenon of which has become worse than heroin and cocaine put together, I am reminded of Nazirites that have come and gone , leaving behind "so-so" sorrow. Knights are no longer knights but Knaves. Nazirites have ceased to be nice, Notoriety is now the stock in trade of Nazirites, even as all manner of Dadas are feigning dreadlocks and painting the picture of stupidity.
" We now wear dreadlocks that are as fascinating as they are incriminating.
" I am Dada Ogbegun in Yoruba land, the Dodondawa in Hausaland.
With my hairdo, I break into the garden of fantasy, recruiting into fashion every fad of fallacy .
what an array of youths whose vision and mission are as blurred and as dead as dodo.
Fake prophets in their artificiality, Sorcery and sophistry are all at street corners disciplining the riff- raffs in their hundreds. Reckless house wives keep filling the ilks with insanity of the highest order.
I am now the Dada Ogbegun, I am recalcitrant, a truant, dropping out of schools like a teddy boy.
I dared the forest of ten thousand demons with the midas touch of my terrific hair do.
Even against sense, reasoning and Commonsense.
I smoke weeds of different cannabis in the wee hours of the night.
You would find me at the proverbial lya fatality's joint , smoking like hell, snuffing weeds, Sweet grass like a teddy grass.
I am still myself, the David of the Hebrew generation.
The only Dawodu whose David is without the sceptre of honour.
I exercise power without responsibility as I am Lemuel who has rubbished the sanctity of my mother's vow.
Poor contemptible Bobby who has continually disgraced his father's Corrections.
I shunned my mother's pruning as a wild cannabis which twines have twinged her heart a thousand times.
I am not like the obedient Sammel who stood rooted to his mother's post at Shiloh.
I have been placed on the narcotics of the sacred herb, ganja, goaded with the fantasy that it was capable of erasing other scriptures that do not believe in the truth of our Rastafari.
Amid this rebound of an echo of character, would it not amount to fighting Belzebub with belzebub ? Would this dreadlock of unending narcotic not going to end in a deadlock of insanity?
I am Dada Ogbegun , or simply call me Dada Dodon Dawa.
I am the brother of Ojo the proverbial Troublemaker who is fond of brewing defiance from the bridge of his two nostrils.
I have desecrated every rule of Nazirite, dragged in the mud of temerity, the name of Moses Orimolade, the first Dada of honour in Yorubaland.
I am the Samson , heavily dread-locked in my mission to break the jinx that had haunted long my people of Israel.
Alas I endedup being broken between the two laps of Delilah who made me foul my nazirite ship.
OLALERE FAGBOLA
( Dedicated to commemorate International Day Against Drug Abuse .
Delivered at Osogbo Window on America.
Sponsored through collaborative efforts of Imole foundation and Trauma of the Dreadlocked Publishers .
Monday, June, 26, 2023 .
