Finding Bàbá Sùwé, without Omídínà — by ‘Wùnmí Bayọ̀
By: Wùnmí Adébáyọ
Tags: Television, Theatre, Culture, Film, Comedy

Bàbá Sùwé

On a more broader theme that I was pursuing which centered on an Historical outlook of characterisation in Nigerian Theatre/Nollywood. I had described three characters as “a trilogy of Bàbás” and they are Bàbá Sàlá, Bàbá Mèró and the centre of this writing Bàbá Sùwé. Indeed at the centre of Nigerian Theatre was the creation of unique characters whose role traversed many plays while retaining the same characteristics. Away from characterisation, theatre is without doubt one of the most potent agencies of realising imagination in flesh and blood. As a platform, theatre presents her audience with human characters that are hitherto without existence but powerful enough to seek domicile among humans. These non-existent-existing humans are usually fortunate to find human beings that would interpret their core without a fault. In the instance that the relationship between these characters and an actual human being produces a marriage, any audience they stand before will always be in awe, during such performance and after it. The fruit of this kind of marriage is the imprint that it leaves on the minds of its audience that could be replayed without the restraint of time.

Indeed the character Bàbá Sùwé , a black faced seemingly chubby bodied and overdressed man most likely in his 50s found a home in Babátúndé Omídínà. Bàbá Sùwé hatched his eggs in the now deceased veteran and Omídínà did justice to his character on stage, television drama and in film. At a first glance, Bàbá Sùwé appears to be a migration hopeful who fantasized the idea of permanent residency in Europe or America. His dressing was a little dynamic but there were constant features which included a head warmer, thick blackhand gloves and canvas shoes, if he wasn’t wearing a winter sweater underneath a dàńsíkí bùbá with a kembe sòkòtò, he was wearing his bùbá and sòkòtò aṣọ òkè underneath a thick winter jacket and a few times with a suit jacket in the hand. This was his way of either proving that he was in tune with the dressing abroad to his almost ignorant locals or a hope that one day he would find his way to permanent residency abroad. In the early days of the Bàbá Sùwé character, the Nigerian communities had a few characters who embodied this kind of description usually called “Americana ‘’ because of their mannerisms which was an ignorant attempt at copying lifestyle in the West. This kind of winter dressing is quite absurd for a temperate region like ours. We however, do not have the benefit of hindsight to ask Babátúndé Omídínà on his inspiration for the creation of this character, even though he acknowledged to have been greatly influenced by Bàbá Mèró, another comic character. This kind of dressing was the reason for his nickname “Àdìmẹ́rù’’ which means a hand luggage or in more comic sense something portable enough to be packed into a luggage, he even joked about this in some of his scenes that he was packed as a luggage to Jandom (his own contraption for London). This is an irony when considered with how puffy he looked when fully decked in the Bàbá Sùwé costume. The Bàbá Sùwé character was obsessed with London. This nickname became so popular that it earned him a musical track from fújì legend K1 the Ultimate. Bàbá Sùwé was arguably the biggest comic star of the entertainment industry in the 90s working across television, film and music especially music videos. He worked with Sikiru Àyìndé Barrister, K1 the Ultimate, Abass Àkàndé Òbésèré featuring in their music videos. His fame and followership was global, somewhat larger than life.

Bàbá Sùwé’s stardom was predicated on television and established by the proliferation of home videos, a trend that was pioneered at the end of the 1980s and reached its peak in the early 2000s moving Nigeria to being number three film market in the world after Indias’ bollywood. Omídínà’s sitcom “Èrín Kèéke” quickly became the cynosure of Yorùbá television led by NTA channel 7, Tẹ́júosó. At this time there were almost no other TV stations in the country other than NTA channels 7, 10 and NTA 2 channel 5. Èrín Kèéke was aired for thirty minutes which was a big deal at a time when viewers only had the privilege of television for eight hours a day between 4pm and 12midnight and power could be ceased while a production was on. Èrín Kèéke was aired on mondays from 7pm to 7:30pm. Whatever fame the Bàbá Sùwé character gained from the Èrín Kèéke era was only a foundation for the fame that he would enjoy for the next decade in the film industry. By the time home videos had fully taken over, Bàbá Sùwé became full blown as it almost became legislated that no Yorùbá film was complete without a Bàbá Sùwé scene. He moved from being comic interludes to playing major roles in movies with stories woven in a way that his character featured significantly. Bàbá Sùwé was the poster child of comic nollywood. In Omídínà the Bàbá Sùwé character fulfilled the dream of living in countries where the winter dressing was appropriate.

Babátúndé Omídínà

In an interview with Mogbedé TV, Omídínà puts Yorùbá comedy variants in four categories namely “Ẹ̀fẹ̀”, “Àpárá”, “Àwàdà”, and “Àsé”, the very thought of his distinction of these categories of Yorùbá comedy show his depth and professionalism. Interestingly, these variants allude to the eras of Omídínà’s embodiment of the Bàbá Sùwé character. There was a period in which it was Ẹ̀fẹ̀ for Bàbá Sùwé, Ẹ̀fẹ̀ is a yoruba variant of comedy closely related to jesting, in Ẹ̀fẹ̀ a jester twists conventional situations, stories and information upside down. Ẹ̀fẹ̀, as a Yorùbá comic tradition could either be acted, mimed, or spoken in words. Bàbá Sùwé in his Ẹ̀fẹ̀ days specialised in the negation of Yorùbá proverbs, sayings and idioms, subtly making jest of their operational usage by providing his own alternatives, even though he knew their usage and application. There was almost no proverb that he didn’t have a spontaneous alternative reply for. This earned him the imaginary chieftaincy of “Ààrẹ

Atúwe of Nigeria’’ meaning Traditional Prime Minister of proverb interpreters in Nigeria. For example in a conversation with his colleague Yọ̀mí King popularly called Ọ̀pẹ̀bẹ́ (a stage name he earned for playing the role of a hopping stroke survivor), Ọ̀pẹ̀bẹ́ used the Yorùbá proverb “Iduro gba ikoko ni iduro gba ide” and Bàbá Sùwé quickly cautioned him that he wouldn’t exchange a clay pot for one made from brass or bronze as the clay pot was subject to breakage. In another set of exchanges Bàbá Sùwé replies thus:

Yorùbá Proverbs , Bàbá Sùwé’s Version

Ilé ọba tó jó, ẹwà ló bùkun , Ilé ọba tó jó, gbèsè ló kó bá ará ìlú

Ilé là á wò sọ ọmọ lórúkọ , Ilé là á wò ká tó mọ irú ọ̀dà ta a ma fi kun

Bá mi na ọmọ mi kò dé nú ọlọ́mọ, Bá mi na ọmọ mi apá ẹ̀ ò ka ni

Òkun ò ní ó ruru ká wà á ruru , Òkun ò ní ó ruru ká wà á ruru òhun ná fi ń wẹ̀ fún wèrè

In a conversation with Gbénga Adéwùsì of Báyọ̀wá Films and Records (one of the major promoters of the Bàbá Sùwé brand), Báyọ̀wá used the proverb Owo fún ni ò tó ènìyàn, with maybe translated to mean Humanity is treasurable than money, Bàbá Sùwé quickly retorts that whoever said that was foolish as he would rather collect the money to invest as he wished than rely on the instability of humans, while he might have seemed right, in the usually manner of his act he took the proverb and its meaning out of context. Indeed Bàbá Sùwé was a master of jesters with a specialisation in comic proverbs and interpretations.

Bàbá Sùwé was a very notorious croner of Àpárá and Àsé. He was the gateman or driver who always confronted his boss at every slight opportunity in a manner that presumed they were either mates in age, of same social class and sometimes even speaking to them like business partners. Bàbá Sùwé’s Àsé was second to none, while you communicated to him from an angle he goes to an extreme opposite to reply to you and rationalises this in a way that confounds his counterpart. In a scene with his boss, Bàbá Sùwé was asked to go and buy Punch Newspapers from the vendor, he replies “what if the vendor doesn’t have buns can I buy puff-puff”? His boss replies, Yes (that kind of yes that means no, Yorùbá readers will understand better). Bàbá Sùwé returns with a nylon full of “corsage” (his contraption of sausage) and buns some of which he had already started eating even as he walked into the office, when asked by his boss about the meaning of this retraiting the he sent him to buy Punch Newspaper, Bàbá Sùwé replied “Bus kẹ̀, sé Mólùẹ̀ àbí Dáńfó”, explained that he heard buns and since he couldn’t get buns, he bought the closest competitor. His angry boss, being confounded by this display of foolishness, asked him that even if it was true that he was asked to buy buns was it right for him to have started eating it and his reply was that he wanted to avoid a case of false accusation should the man die after eating. In annoyance the man asked that he finish the nylon full of snacks, and you wouldn’t be ready for Bàbá Sùwé’s next action. He sat in his bosses office, emptied the nylon on his table and began stuffing all the snacks in his mouth attempting to choke himself in his bosses office. This is a classic Bàbá Sùwé Àsé act. The interesting thing about this act is Bàbá Sùwé’s play on the sound of the words Punch, Buns and Bus. Another popular Bàbá Sùwé Àsé act was abruptly stopping his car at the centre of an expressway and coming out of the car standing straight without talking to other road users who his action had affected. The sole reason for this was because he heard the national anthem being played on radio as he drove and he had to wait as a patriotic citizen that he was. When the anthem was over, Bàbá Sùwé was not apologetic of the scene he had caused, instead he lectured his fellow road users on patriotism. Àsé could have been the bane of his flourishing career, as viewers soon began to complain that he was over acting and losing the savor of comic stew. If you offered Bàbá Sùwé a ride he would attempt to sit in the owners corner.

As time fast caught up with many of the traditional characterisation that transitioned into film from theatre, viewership began to clamour for a more diverse content in comedy, this coupled with the rise of other talents in the comic genre gave Omídínà a tough time towards the end of the first decade in the 2000s. Omídínà began an evolution of the Bàbá Sùwé character, he jettisoned the idea of blacken his face as he had earlier done to the accentuation of his moustache and eyebrows leaving only a Hitler style moustache on a few occasions. He also gradually dropped the idea of over-dressing until he began wearing contemporary clothing. At some point, Omídínà began accepting to be casted in roles outside the Bàbá Sùwé character. While Omídínà was still battling with this evolution in his career he suffered the loss of his wife and screen partner Ọmọladùn Kẹnkẹlẹwù, as he was recovering from the aftermath of this loss, the infamous drug scandal hit the airwaves and it did dealt a blow on his image leaving unanswered questions about his reputation. Perhaps this contributed to his protracted illness that eventually took his life. As Omídínà bows out and the curtains fall, one is puzzled, is that the end of the Bàbá Sùwé character? Did Omídínà take along with him all the theatrics of Bàbá Sùwé? Has Bàbá Sùwé finished his purpose in Omídínà? The questions are endless.

Beyond the questions one thing is true and it is the fact that in the Comedy Hall of Fame, Omídínà’s space is reserved in the unique imagery of Bàbá Sùwé which was his life work and most significant impact on the movie industry in Nigeria. While we may not be able to say Good Night to Bàbá Sùwé as we are not sure if he has finished his purpose in Omídínà, we can only bid Mr. Babátúndé Omídínà Good Night for the legend that he was. Let me lend the words of Achebe

For whom are we searching?

For whom are we searching?

For Bàbá Sùwé we are searching!

Nzomalizo!