Rumbles in the Art |Adediji Wasiu

By Adediji Wasiu

There is a saying which says a goose that lays a golden egg is never fed until it goes into extinction. I cringed last week when I saw the ugliness, abandonment, and deteriorated condition of ‘Baba Theo House’ otherwise known as ‘Tewogbo House’ a once-elegant structure built with an excellent and precise outlook and adorned with the creative works of art. Sadly, such an iconic edifice allows to waste, the walls, rooms, sculpture materials of art, and cultural heritage are fallen apart.

Theo’s house is arguably the home of art and sculptures in Ibarapa apart from then Ibadan Polytechnic, now Adeseun Ogundoyin Polytechnic which has similar works of art and sculptures in the early 2000s when I was a teen. I doubt if we have any other kind of this monumental heritage in other parts of Ibarapa apart from natural historical sites such as Akolu and Isamu. Now, once an iconic architectural masterpiece edifice to behold, housing different masterpiece cultural monuments, that resemble a palace of arts and culture, which today has become an eyesore and given away to rodents, serpents, and all sorts of crawling creatures.

The entrance to the house has two sculptures called Ere Tewogbomo, which are symbols of motherhood to which the house was later Christianized as ‘Tewogbomo house’. So it’s so unfortunate that this kind of monumental edifice was left to be ruined when it can be preserved and ascribed value to be utilized for both historical and commercial cruise centers.

If it’s other jurisdictions houses like this would have been adorned with garlands and bouquets that would give the impression that it is diety of sort and turned into a choice tourist destination for people all over the world for any kind of research from the owner’s lifestyle, academic research to historical onsite research as well as an archive for a common future where other arts and archeological materials works of art and monumental heritage are being archived and made available to the public for exhibitions.

This will not only keep the legacy of the owner in this case, ‘Baba Theo’ alive for future generations, but it will also serve to evoke memories, emotions, values, customs, indigenous culture, and Identity of Eruwa from the historical past events that can be preserved for the common future. But this seems not to be the case as these valuable archeological works of art that are worth millions of naira in other art jurisdictions when auctioned abroad are allowed to rot away.

So allowing this monumental edifice of ‘Ere Tewogbomo’ amongst other monuments: architectural works and sculptures, structures of an archaeological nature, and inscriptions that are of outstanding universal value from the point of vietourismmsm, art, and science within this building to ruin when it can be archived as a vehicle for traditional discourse, cultural and entrepreneurial purposes, as well as educational and marketing tools for Eruwa as a choice tourist destination under UNESCO, seems to be our collective failure as sons and daughters of Eruwa, and a not too wise decision so to speak by the government both at local and state level for such abandonment.