Ajayi Crowther's Piano

By Yemi-D Prince and Yemi D. Ogunyemi

Ajayi Crowther's Piano is a dramatized historical novel touching upon the political, commercial, sociological, religious, philosophical, literary, humanistic and adventurous reflections about the slave trade during which time Ajayi Crowther (1807-1891) rose from a basket-weaver to become the first Anglican African Bishop in Nigeria.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Yemi-D Prince
• Release date: Mar 10, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393545347

Yemi-D Prince

Former research fellow, Harvard University, Yemi D. Ogunyemi (also known as Yemi D. Prince) is a luminous fellow whose work reflects the savvies and radiance of his spirit, and always fascinated by books, letters and the power of words.

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Yemi D. Prince

(Yemi D. Ogunyemi)

(A Dramatized, Historical Novel)

Ajayi Crowther’s Piano

Yemi D. Prince/Ogunyemi

By the same Author

Novels

The Melodrama of the Last Word

My Gazar With My Geisha

The Enchantress of Triple A

Modicums of O

Make Me Your Own

Twice Anagram

The Myths of the Coffee Boys

The Dreams of Joy

The Sweet Mother

The Talking River

The Last Cowrie Queen

The Literary Philosophy for the Year 2000

The Voice of the Earth

Ajayi Crowther’s Piano

Novelettes/Novellas

My Sworn Friends

The Demise of a Would-be Title-Holder

Pursuit of Wisdom

(Sub-Title: A Divine Story that Never Ends)

Short Stories

The Chief Who Married 35 Wives

The Yellow House

Follow Me

Aduke is a Singer, Mama

Okobaba and the Nine Angels

Tortoise, the Storyteller

Waiting for the Dry Season

Vendetta

A Divine Story that Never Ends

My Beautiful Sister

Letters from Our Empire

The Floating Bungalow

Poetry

The Anthologies of the Diaspora

The Covenant of the Earth

The African Soul

The New Talking Drum

The Dawn of Tomorrow

M-A-S-T-A-M-A-N-D-A

Sued for Paternity

The Danger of a Single Rejection

Codes of Morality

Children’s Stories

The Source of River Koku

How Dogs Become Friends of Men

Tortoise, the Wisest Creature

January—December Lyrics

Why Giraffes Have Long Necks

A Hut Never Hurts

Why a Cock Cannot Crow

The Belling of the Wild Cat

Why Catty-Coo Chases Mousy-Loo

Jumbo and Piggy

Butti and Moti

How Zebras Got Their Whites and Black Stripes

My First Dream

How Tortoise Survived the Famine in Ogba

The Muddy Glade

Why Daddy Was Called Ho, Ho, Ho

How Lulu Became a Swimmer

The Missing Child

How Kemi and Layo Started Schooling

The Postman and His Son

Tortoise, My Friend

Why Grasshoppers Hop

Time for Competition

The House an Elephant Built

A Day with a Hunter

My Daddy’s Sweet Potatoes

How Hoody and Hoofy Became Soccer Players

How the Lion Became the King of the Beasts

Why & How the Elephant Got His Huge Ears

The Ostrich and the Boomerang

Talk to me, I am Listening, O Angel

The Bee that Keeps her Promise

Why Jako Shoots without Missing

My Neighbor’s Diary

Long Live the Queen

Mama, Let Me Be Me

The Song of a River

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Actualities

Literatures of the African Diaspora

Introduction to Yoruba Philosophy, Religion and Literature 

Path to Ifetherapy and Its Healing Poems

The Literary/Political Philosophy of Wole Soyinka 

Women in Europe

Media in Africa

The Political Ideas for Peace & Development in Nigeria 

My Contact with Africans and Africa (Editor)

The Writers and Politics

Studying Creative Writing in Nigeria

We Should All Be Philosophers

The Artist-Philosophers in Yoruba-land

Drama

Three Plays

Obama, the Pragmatic President

(Subtitle: The Ankh of Progress)

King Oduduwa Comes to Americas and Europe

Instead of casting my imagination upon the memories of the departed who are flirting with my imagination, I would rather implore my Muse to dramatize and novelize the memories of those who are flirting with my imagination.

The Author 

If we knew how much bliss awaits us within, if we had even an inkling of it, we will drop all other pursuits and rush towards it.

H.H. Sant Rajinda Singh Ji Maharaji.

If  we know how to divorce ourselves from the physical realm, from day to day, we will enjoy the sheer sublimity and divine bliss, available in the spiritual realm of our Creator-Philosopher God.

The Author

Human existence is committed to many registers and it is not given to anyone to play all of them.

Melvin Rader/ Bertram Jessup

Dedication

Dedicated to the prodigious linguist of the 19th century, Bishop (Dr.) Samuel Ajayi Crowther for being in the vanguard of the Enlightenment Movement of the Yoruba Modern Philosophy and for his precocity and extraordinary ingenuity and ability to translate the English Bible into Yoruba Bible, and for re-alphabetizing a standard orthography for the Yoruba language in 1842.

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Copyright © 2017 byYemi D. Prince/Ogunyemi

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be produced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote a few pages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal. 

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First Printing: Boston: United States of America.

ISBN: 978-1-889601-09-0

Diaspora Press of America

21 Nazing Street #100

Boston, MA 02121-3011

Tel: [phone]

E-mail: [e-mail]

Ajayi in the 19th Century

Reading the literary works of the past brings us to know the works of the past. The works of the past expand our knowledge of the past, in other words. Reading and writing in the 19th century was beginning to become an established occupation, but never established. It was the century during which all the world institutions were beginning to review their affiliations with the religious establishments, and trying to position themselves as private or independent.

Ajayi was born in to this century and his passion for those who belonged to the circle of sciences and the humanities grew on a daily basis with the light Creator-Philosopher God has lit in his heart of hearts. In the 19th century, Ajayi taught himself as

he was taught that any principal work—philosophy, religion, literature, history, sociology and anthropology was made interesting and memorable by the messages that placed them in relation to the past, the present and the future, enabling us to reflect and discourse the truths of facts and the truths of imaginations.

Nineteen century was indeed the century when man was moving from the path of brute behaviors to humanness, from slavery/serfdom to freedom, from small minds of small ideas to the big minds of big ideas.

What this author is driving at by way of expounding is that Ajayi’s corpora had enriched our minds and expanded our horizons about the 19th century Yoruba land in particular and the world in general. The novel, Ajayi Crowthers’s Piano, has helped in maximizing our literary pleasures with diverse resources for intellectual reflections and adventurous curiosities.

Ajayi in the 20th Century

Imagining and remembering Bishop Ajayi Crowther in the 20th century was less significant than what is supposed to be. The 20th century was the century in which Africa made its mark as a continent of literary, religious, philosophical, political and economic promise. But no one seemed to appreciate the daring accomplishments of this illustrious creature of a man who was always first in whatever Creator-Philosopher Olodumare had called him to do. It was sad and inexplicable that there was no street named after him. There was no institution named after him. There was neither biography nor a body of poetry in his name. Yet his contribution to Yoruba letter is second to none. His religious, philosophical and literary mark on Yoruba cultural mind and map remains indelible.

Ajayi in the 21st Century

With the increase of enlightenment in the 21st century (with some water balloon of civilization), the Yoruba scholars and intellectuals have commenced to speak to those who had shaped their past and present—historically, religiously, philosophically, sociologically and literarily. A new dawn of Enlightenment has come and tarried like a visitor with a divine story that never ends.

Now, it is only now that the world has come to recognize Bishop (Dr.) Samuel Ajayi Crowther, not only as an icon but also as a pioneer. As the rays of enlightenment are touching young and old, Ajayi Crowther University whose background was dated to 1853, was re-established in 2005. This is the first higher institution of learning in the world to immortalize the first African Anglican Bishop whose name is gradually becoming the talk of the village, town and city.

Chapter One

The Dreamer

"After many years of experience, I have found that the Bible, the Sword of the Spirit, must fight its own battle,

by the guidance of the Holy Spirit."

Bishop (Dr.) Samuel Ajayi Crowther (1807-1891).

Ajayi was Tofu’s younger brother. He was nine and his older brother was ten. They were very close. Both of them had taken basket-weaving as their part time occupations. Their second part time was pot-making which they did in conjunction with their mother, Lila. Which like basket-weaving, they had learnt from their mother. Many people considered them to be twins, or erroneously thought they were twins. They were slightly built and their oblong heads were identical. But their domed foreheads symbolized that they belonged to, and came from the same womb. Where is your twin brother? This was a common question on the lips of aficionados of twins and who wanted the two brothers to behave like twins. And fair enough, they admitted openly that they never knew which is which.

One day Tofu had a dream. In his dream, Tofu saw Ajayi and himself fishing on River Meji, a tributary of River Oshun that has its historical connection with River Niger. They caught fishes of every description. They were happy as their boat was full of fishes, including arapaima, the choicest fresh-water fish in the world. On rowing to the bank of the River Meji, Tofu got off the boat but Ajayi did not. Soon, the boat was drifting away by the slow-moving currents of the spumy river. As the boat was disappearing from Tofu’s view, he woke up. The dreams scared him a little bit and could not but regard it as an omen.

During the play of ayo game after their breakfast of amala, pounded yam and egunsi that looked very much like taramasalata, Tofu told Ajayi about his dream. Ajayi was not surprised, knowing that they belonged to a family of dreams and dreamers. Ajayi released a munificent smile and told his brother that everyone dreams and dreams are parts of a good sleep. He added that an unpleasant dream could symbolize a boding of an omen that was beyond his understanding; they should leave that omen to Creator-Philosopher Olodumare who has the key to unlock every omen, good or bad.

During the second night, Ajayi had a dream. In his dream, he found himself walking up and down River Oshun, whistling hilariously like a lover who had been promenading a wonted natural promenade where he used to meet his beloved lover for a beloved romance. Ajayi dreamed a sweet dream. A sweet dream was dreamed by Ajayi. Some while later, he sat under a well-foliaged araba tree—the paternal head of all trees, by the river, feathering his nest and playing a portable piano, fashioned like an accordion. He played mirthfully on it and sang mellifluously. The following is some of his ditties:

I was born to see a river

And everything by the river

Alive and full of sanity of life

The beauty of life cannot be compromised.