By Babajide Alex Adetunji
On Saturday, January 18, 2025, the Saturday Tribune published an interview with renowned education administrator and former Vice Chancellor of my alma mater, Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife.
Great Ife! Great Ife, Africa’s most beautiful campus—conscious, vigilant, progressive, Aluta against all oppression! We would sing that glorious anthem with all our strength in those days. Much as I would love to continue writing about Great Ife, this piece is not about one-upmanship against products of all these small small universities (apologies to UI and others). It is really about deconstructing the interview granted by Prof. Wande Abimbola.
I didn’t have the privilege of knowing Baba Wande Abimbola in person; we only heard of his exploits as a Vice Chancellor. We heard how he was loved, adored, and even feared—especially because he was a Babalawo and allegedly had oogun! Prof. Abimbola tried to clear the air in that interview, but I doubt if the myths about his days as Unife VC will ever change. Fearsome, powerful, but loving and fatherly, our seniors told us the legends of Prof. Abimbola, and I have come to revere him in that light.
If I had any reverence for Awise Ifa Agbaye, the interview by Tribune’s Lasisi Olagunju, Festus Adedayo, and Saheed Salawu made me revere him even more. Through that interview, I lucidly saw what transpired in the selection of the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Akeem Abimbola Owoade, and what people fighting his emergence—and the process taken by the state government—would not want the world to see.
For quite some time, I have been disinterested in the ongoing discourse over the Alaafinate. I naturally detest all the messy angles being read into the presentation of staff and instruments of office to Alaafin Akeem Owoade—especially the religious coloration and the attacks on the state government for presenting him with instruments of office at the Governor’s Office. The questions that naturally agitated my mind were:
Would Nigeria be able to make progress with the rate at which people often throw up the religious card for selfish gains?
Does any law dictate where state governments can present instruments of office to an Oba?
Much as I wanted to ask these questions, I stayed off. But that staying off only lasted until I read Prof. Abimbola’s interview. In that interview, Baba raised some critical issues that interested parties in Oyo should not overlook.
He talked about the Ifa divination process for selecting the new Alaafin and made a bold claim that an earlier exercise had in attendance the Oyomesi and that he did an 80-page report on the process. According to Awise, a nonagenarian and a well-respected Nigerian—who probably has nothing to gain or lose by lying to support the emergence of Oba Owoade—Ifa picked Owoade the very first time in the presence of the Oyomesi, and the said report could attest to this fact. Ever since I read that interview, I have been waiting for a rebuttal from the other side.
For the sake of those who didn’t read the interview, let me reproduce a part of it:
“I don’t regret what I said, but I don’t want to say too much anymore; only to let you know that for the first time in modern times in Yorubaland, Ifa played a key role in the selection of a prominent oba. I said for the first time because in the past, in the entire Yorubaland, that is how it was always done. Ifa used to be the one who would pick the successor to the king who died. And any time they did that, it was not done with the influence of money or position. The choice of Ifa was always respected. But in recent times, they don’t do that anymore; it is now usually done with the influence of money. So, I was happy and surprised, too, that we could find a governor who says that we should consult Ifa. A year or two ago, we divined and it was so easy to pick someone, anyone—I didn’t want to know the person. That was how Ifa selected a person.
“We did it, and for a long time, we didn’t hear anything again. Actually, I came home for the marriage of one of my sons in Lagos. When the governor heard that I was around, he said he was just about to send for me again because he was ready, and the kingmakers were fighting among themselves. Some of them were questioned by the EFCC because it was allegations galore; some of them received money—plenty of money. Two days ago, they summoned me again and he said they presented names to me last year, so which one? I said the one Ifa picked remained the choice of Ifa. Fortunately, when they screened him, that number one, they didn’t find anything wrong; he hadn’t committed any crime. They know how they do their own screening. That was the person whose name was announced.”
Now, the question is: If the kingmakers were present when Ifa divination was done more than a year ago, and that process threw up the name of Owoade, who subverted the process and why?
Can the report by Prof. Abimbola be made public so that members of the public can see the time and date and answer the question about the subversion of Ifa? Or should we wait for the Oyomesi chiefs in court to controvert Prof. Abimbola?
Another interesting part of the interview was when the interviewers asked Awise Abimbola whether his divination was influenced by pecuniary benefits, and he said:
“I, Ogunwande Ifagbemi Sangodahunsi, did not collect a kobo from anyone. I turned 92 in December. I am satisfied with where I am…”
How beautiful it was that Baba—whose story continues to be told as a model that National Assembly members should follow in terms of remuneration—can still stand tall and say he is as clean as we all have heard. Legends of Prof. Wande Abimbola had it that he served as a Senator in 1991 and refused to milk the country dry, as lawmakers do nowadays.
Now, can the Oyomesi chiefs in court also swear by their chieftaincies that they didn’t collect money from anyone?
This is where I have always frowned on the impact of foreign religions on our tradition and culture. How I wish all matters relating to the Alaafinate could be withdrawn from all courts and every interested party would just converge on Idi Ogun in Oyo or go to the courts of Sango to swear that their hands are clean. How I wish…
No matter what happens going forward, one thing has been made clear: old age and wisdom will always have a place in restoring peace and order to society. Agba o nii tan ni orile is the Yoruba proverb that expresses the wish that the wisdom of elders remains sacrosanct to society.
Courtesy of Baba Abimbola’s interview, light has been shed on what transpired in the selection of the next Alaafin and how the state government had to act fast to prevent falsehood from gaining ascendancy. Sadly, however, Baba Abimbola’s interview can only shed light on the issues—it will not make them go away.
But the courts will do justice—unless, of course, the people involved allow the court of reason and the love for Oyo to prevail.
●Adetunji lives in Jankata, Ibadan.
