What is left when honour is lost? – Publilius Syrus
When negative things continue to happen one after the other, be careful! The signs are ominous! A Yoruba first-class Oba was caught on camera, in broad daylight, stooping or cringing before the Emir of Ilorin of all persons! Recall the history of how the Fulani usurped Ilorin from the Yoruba and the Emir in question is a descendant of the usurpers, still holding tightly to their prize – though the Yoruba have neither forgotten nor forgiven, and history, being a very long rope with bends and knots, will revisit the treachery of both Afonja and Alimi at some point down the road.
The excuse given by the Yoruba Oba in question was jejune, to say the least. “Jejune” is a term I first learnt from Femi Falana, SAN, during our days at Great Ife. Another one was “lacuna”. Comrade FF, as we fondly call him, was fond of using those words in those days, just like my friend, Prof. Tope Ogunbodede, immediate past VC of OAU, once alerted me that I, too, was fond of using the word “shenanigans”, and I have since consciously moved away from it! But I digress!
Kabiyesi must be told in plain language that he defecated on his own throne and desecrated the Yoruba traditional institution. In the traditional Yoruba setting of yore, he would have had no choice but to do the needful for, as the saying of our people goes, death is preferred to shame and disgrace. When you disgrace not only yourself but the traditional institution that you represent, what is left? For, as Publilius Syrus quoted above opines, nothing is left when honour is lost.
If Kabiyesi failed to realise what to do, the Kingmakers of that era would ask him to open the calabash (a euphemism for him to quickly join his ancestors). But just like Professor Okot p’Bitek argued in Songs of Lawino and Songs of Ochol, the Yoruba traditional institution, like many other African traditions and culture, has since fallen on bad times. Birds no longer chirp as birds… That is Number one.
Number Two: At first, I didn’t know what they were complaining about; I mean about Ayinde Wasiu aka KWAM 1. I am not a lover of Fuji. The only song or outing of his that ever fascinated me was where he appealed to people eager to take to the dance floor at an occasion: “Ijo maa kan yin/Nwon o ti pe yin/Nwon maa pe yin/Ijo o ti kan yin”. Quite poetic! Therefore, I wasn’t keen on finding out what was the matter with the musician – until I stumbled on the “ko-ko of the matter”, as they say!
The musician was on the phone to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who had called to commiserate with Wasiu on the death of his mother, and, suddenly, the musician began to record and put the president on the speaker for everyone to hear the president’s trademark voice. Wasiu gallivanted about the room, with a few other fellows there watching and listening. As if that was not bad enough, the episode became public consumption. Try that with some presidents, like Idi Amin Dada of Uganda, and see whether the culprit will not bake his “eba” on earth but travel to heaven to collect the “ila a-se-po” to eat it with!
In olden times, that was how it was even here! I will tell you a story. A very powerful chief in my town of Owo in Ondo state married a new wife and being his “aghayo” (the preferred), he insisted that she would be the one to help him scrub his back every morning as he had his bath. One fateful day, only the devil knew what entered into this woman as she performed her wife-ly duty; she said: “En-hen; are you more than this? See how skinny you are! Yet, the whole community shivers at the mere mention of your name!” The chief responded: “Don’t mind them! I am not more than this o!”
As soon as he left the bathroom, the chief sent his men to go and bring him the heads of both the father and mother of the errant wife – which was promptly done. He then called the wife and said to her, “Because I enjoyed the way you helped me scrub my back a while ago, I decided to give you a special present” And he handed the grinning and thankful wife a covered calabash. She hurried into her room, with the other jealous wives in tow, to savor the special gift from Kabiyesi. When she opened the calabash, lo and behold, the heads of Daddy and Mummy stared at her. Back in the presence of Kabiyesi, he told her: “Just a sample of how powerful this skinny little me is”!
Hence the saying to this day in Yoruba land: “Ori yeye ni m’Ogun, t’aise lo po” or the add-on from the juju musician, Orlando Owoh: “Ori yeye ni m’Ogun t’aise yeye”. Oh yes, many innocent (but unfortunate) persons end up being sacrificed to the gods. In those days, it was usually the guilty, prisoners of war, strangers who strayed into town on forbidden days, and criminals that get sacrificed to appease the gods. It is not for fun that our people say “Eni ba f’oju d’Oba, awowo a wo”! He who disrespects an Oba will grind in the dust! Or “Eni ba f’oju ana w’oku, ebora a bo l’aso”.
Once a person changes mortality for immortality, he is no longer the ordinary person you used to play around with. Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu that Wasiu used to know and play around with is no longer the same as Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. If he commands you to miss now, you will miss – except by God’s grace. What will happen thereafter is what I cannot say!
Number Three: When I heard that the Ooni of Ife led a team of illustrious Yoruba elders to Aare Afe Babalola to get the legal luminary to discontinue his legal action against Dele Farotimi over his book that the Aare said defamed him, and the Aare reportedly stepped down on the matter, I heaved a sigh of relief. It would have been disastrous had the Aare said ‘No”. Who then shall we send? Who will go for us (Isaiah 6: 8). That would have been a sad day for the Yoruba nation.
Thank God, the Aare realised that what was at stake was far heavier than defamation or his prestige or the truculence of Farotimi and those edging him on, many of them non-Yoruba who saw in this another opportunity to continue their destroy-them mission against the Yoruba. I, therefore, reckoned that this larger picture motivated the Ooni to embark on the peace, nay, face-saving mission. Imagine the Aare and Farotimi tugging at each other in the witness box; like it happened decades back between Chief Gani Fawehinmi and Chief Rotimi Williams! Things were even better then because the Yoruba were not in the eye of the storm then – but now, they are.
I expected one of two responses from Farotimi: appreciation or disdain. When it turned out to be disdain, I was not surprised. Some people must have been disappointed by the turn of events. The Yoruba’s masquerades will no longer dance naked in the village square! Before then, however, politicians had made a quick profit from it; one such being the appointment of the same Farotimi as the Organising Secretary of a faction of Afenifere (the one in the corner of Labour Party’s Peter Obi). Another Afenifere faction quickly responded by saying that they were the authentic Afenifere. And my mind went straight to Professor PLO Lumumba when he said: In an argument between two dwarfs, what sense does it make for one dwarf to say he is taller than the other, seeing that, in any case, both of them still remain as dwarfs?
Number Four: Afenifere’s problem is not about who is authentic or not but of what relevance, today, is the once flaming Yoruba leadership organisation in the affairs of the Yoruba? Sadly, neither of the factions have come to this realization. Human organizations, empires, and kingdoms rise and fall. They get to their apogee (greatest height possible) and stagnate for a while for a variety of reasons before beginning to wane, deteriorate, regress and eventually collapse, giving way to others to take its place. “His place let another take” (Psalm 109:8, Acts 1:20). Where are the erstwhile empires that ruled the world?
Why is Donald Trump insistent on Make America Great Again? It is because America, having got to the pinnacle of its power, like the empires and great powers before it, has, in the recent past, been on its way down. Others are already on their way up the ladder to catch up with it, oust and eventually replace it. Such is the natural order of things. Afenifere, too, is on its way out! And the reason is simple.
The bitter truth is the changing situations and circumstances, which the Afenifere leaders were not quick to take into cognizance. They acted too little, too late. They operated a closed-shop system like the Guilds of old; it worked when information could still be warehoused but not any more in this Digital Age and with this Gen Z generation. And they should have known that! The Yoruba themselves say the god that the elders worship, but which the children are not introduced to early enough, will soon expire.
Afenifere has served its purpose. The older generations have paid their due and deserve a 21-gun salute. Now is the time for them to understand that Afenifere, having surpassed its apogee, is far past its usefulness. Struggling to still insist on its relevance in present circumstances is like flogging a dead horse. What will take the place of Afenifere is what we should all be concerned with – and not the contest between two dwarfs!
Number Five: After all efforts to worm his way back into the Tinubu fold fell flat on its face, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola took the plunge, bit the bullet and pulled his “Omoluabi” political group out of the ruling APC in Osun state. Some have questioned the appropriateness of the “Omoluabi” tag adopted by Aregbe and his group – but that is a topic for another day. Where are they heading – PDP? They are yet to categorically declare. So we keep our fingers crossed.
But we cannot but link this issue with the rumblings in Lagos over the speakership of the House of Assembly, where the erstwhile speaker was booted out of office. What surprised many was Obasa’s audacity to make a stand and fight back. Many had thought he would be picked up by the EFCC and that would be it. But the politics of it is more complicated than many could fathom. Aregbesola used to fix Alimosho, one of the largest local governments bringing in the votes for the Tinubu political machine. Though he has fallen out of favour, Aregbe still has his die-hard loyalists in Alimosho. Note that the unimaginable happened and Tinubu lost that local government in the 2023 presidential election. Obasa is the new fixer in Alimosho and Agege. Party strategists reckon that the “coup” that eased Obasa out should have been left till after the 2027 elections. Such are the ways of politics!
LAST WORD: The three-pronged attack seeking to unhing the South-west before 2027, if care is not taken, are religion; the influx of bandits and terrorists; and cultism-related activities and violence. To unseat the sitting president in 2027, his opponents must first make his home base the theatre of war, setting brother against brother, and sister against sister! The spade work has started!
* Former Editor of PUNCH newspapers, Chairman of its Editorial Board and Deputy Editor-in-Chief, BOLAWOLE was also the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of The Westerner newsmagazine. He writes the ON THE LORD’S DAY column in the Sunday Tribune and TREASURES column in the New Telegraph newspaper on Wednesdays. He is also a public affairs analyst on radio and television.
