Adieu! Felix Ogbekile, One Of Igbanke’s Highlife Musicians That Played Music For Being Food Of Love

While Nigerian music has undergone thoughtful transfiguration in recent history, there are still lyrical songs for dance that we hold close to our hearts and are inherent with lyrics that even the young generation listens to and can be found on music playlists of Disc Jockeys at most Nigerian weddings; both at home and abroad, and highlife music makes up a greater part of it.

In as much as it is factual to say that Igbanke is an Ika-speaking community in Edo State, it is equally germane to clarify that Ika is an Igbo dialect that is spoken in some parts of Delta and Edo States of Nigeria. As gathered, Igbanke was founded by migrants from various parts of Benin, Onitsha, and Ika land. Thus, autonomous communities in Igbanke cut across Omolua, Ottah, Idumuodin, Ake, Oligie, and Igbontor. There are Enogies in all communities in Igbanke. Also for the sake of clarity, Enogie is a Benin title for a Duke.

At this juncture, it is expedient to say that Igbanke, as a community was influenced by Benin culture and tradition, and thus located in Orhionmwon Local Government Area of modern-day Edo state of Nigeria. However, as an indigenous community that is literarily not tied to the apron string of any ethnic group, the people of Igbanke speak the Ika dialect in its own peculiarity that is comprehensible to affiliates of other Ika-speaking communities that spread across Edo and Delta States.

Ostensibly emboldened by the somewhat poetic license of its unique linguistic, it will in this context be recalled that the late music maestro, Ucheka Eluehike of Igbanke, popularized Ika music as he started his Sound City Dance Band with virtually all the Eluehike family comprising James, Obika, One–Nigeria, Victor Nwanbi, and later to be joined by the likes of Felix Efokuajuntin Ogbekile who was also related to the great music family.

Sad enough, what seems to be a change movement against the native mode of playing highlife music has unarguably been negatively impacted by the death of one of the change agents, Felix Efokuajuntin Ogbekile whose death was a few days ago announced to the consternation of virtually every Ika-speaking person.

At this juncture, it is expected that not a few readers of this piece will at the moment be pondering over the headline of this piece as it conveys a Shakespearian quote that says, “If music is the food of love, play on.”

The response to the foregoing cannot be farfetched as the quote aptly find expression in his passionate demonstration of highlife music, not just for money but for the love that is inherent in it.

Explanatory put, he believed, like Shakespeare in the opening scene of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream that music was a tangible force that had the power to magnify and enhance people’s emotions: it was quite literally “food for the soul”. Love was seen as the emotion most susceptible to this, making music the “food of love”. This effect was heightened when lovers experienced music together, as they would be bound together through the shared experience of the music. Against the foregoing backdrop, it is expedient to ask “Did you ever watch Chief Felix Ogbekile perform on stage in his lifetime?” If you did, then you ought to be convinced that he loved music. To him, music was food.

Meanwhile, why I am confident that some of his hit tracks will continue to memorably resonate into the future, there is no amount of time and space that can make the people of the entire Ika Nations forget that Chief Felix Ogbekile in his earthly mounted the stage, and entertained them for the umpteenth times.

Adieu! Felix Ogbekile, you will forever remain in our collective memory as one of Igbanke’s highlife musicians that played music for being the food of love; not solely because of money.