Kabiyesi Okunade Sijuwade Waja, Erin wo ajanaku sun bi oke (1) By Jide Osuntokun

Oba-Okunade-Sijuwade

Kabiyesi or kabio kosi means nobody can query the decision of an Oba. This is to say the ruler is an omnipotent and powerful ruler whose actions are beyond question. Oba Waja means the king has escaped to the roof. This is to suggest an Oba never dies; he merely escapes to the hereafter. Obas in those days of yore were deified, kabiyesi Iku baba eye. Alaafin Sango was worshipped and deified as God of Thunder. Obas were regarded as rulers only second to the gods. Erin wo ajanaku sun bi oke signifies the almighty nature of the Oba who when he falls he cannot be woken up because he is like a hill that cannot be moved. The passing on has also been described as the tiger going into the forest. A few months ago, the royal palace in Benin said the tiger is hunting in the savannah in reference to the apparent indisposition of the Benin monarch. In the case of the Ooni, it is said the tiger has gone to hunt in the forest. In Yorubaland and neighboring Benin kingdom, Obas are usually referred to as children of the tiger, signifying the dangerous beauty of the tiger. It is interesting that the use of lions as symbols of royalty was hardly used in Yorubaland, yet tigers are not native to Africa unless one decides to translate amotekun(leopard) and Ekun(Tiger)  interchangeably

The centrality of Ile – Ife , Or Ife ode aye ( the place from where land spread to other places)in Yorubaland , Benin and the forest kingdoms of west Africa up to Ghana cannot be overemphasised . The influence of Ife was not based on political conquest but on its spiritual and religious significance .This significant role lies in historical antiquity. As far back as the 9th century to the 12th century, Ife was home to a civilization that produced the famous Ife terra cottas and bronze figurines which were made using the cire Perdue or (lost wax) process only found among Ancient Greeks which made an itinerant German explorer Leo Froebinius to suggest that this technology may have diffused from Greece through the Mediterranean and across the Sahara to Ile -Ife! This is, of course, nonsense. Earlier on, the Nok culture of which Ife was possibly a successor had existed in the area of southern Kaduna and current areas of Plateau State. What is significant is that the Benin, Ugbo-Ukwu in present Anambra State,  Bida in Niger State and Idah in Kogi with Ile – Ife form the same artistic cultural tradition which Ile -Ife spearheaded.

Until recently when some nationalist historians of Bini history have tried to dispute the exact relationship between Ife and Benin, it was generally agreed that the Benin monarchy is from the house of Oduduwa, the eponymous ancestor of the Yoruba people.  Jacob Egharevba,  in his history of Benin, made this assertion .The new Benin revisionism suggests that Oduduwa was a fugitive Benin prince of the  Erkhaladenhan  dynasty who ran away  for fear for his life and lived in the forest of Ile -Ife until as a result of the political disarray in Benin he was sent for to come back home . This fugitive prince was conveniently called Ideduwa who then sent his son,  Oranmiyan,  in his stead . After a brief stay, Oranmiyan after fathering a son, Eweka, left Benin back to Ife and later went to found a new kingdom in Oyo.. There is a convergence of Benin and Ife oral traditions on the emergence of Oyo which with Benin became the two most powerful empires in West Africa between the 15th and the 18th centuries. This is not the place to interrogate these myths of origin of peoples. What is important to state is the connection of Ife to Benin to the extent that even to this day the standard greetings in the palace of the Oba of Benin is how goes Ife ?(uhe ) in Edo language . The Portuguese were told in the 15th century that the Oba of Benin pays homage to his father the Oghene who lives north west of Benin . It is significant to note that the Edo generally refer to God as oghene(urhobo) .

The late Professor Ade Obayemi raised the question of whether the present Ife is the Ife of historical antiquity since there are currently seven or nine  Ifes . Professor Alan Ryder also suggested that ancient Ife may have been north of its present location and may be somewhere in the Benue valley near Ife -olukotun in Kogi State. This is not far-fetched because migration and replication of original settlements and kingdoms is a common phenomenon in African history. The artifacts found in Ife would then have been carried from the original Ife to the present location. Many centuries of development passed on between these beginnings and future growth  in Yorubaland

No matter how powerful Oyo and Benin later became, and the two empires shared borders in Eastern Yorubaland,  it was forbidden for them to violate the  sacrosanct  nature of Ile Ife . It was the violation of this sanctity of Ifeland when the Alafin’s forces invaded Apomu part of Ife kingdom towards the end of the 18th century that precipitated general wars in Yorubaland that lasted for a century in which a war of movement became a war of attrition in the Kiriji war. During these wars, Ife was constantly evacuated or destroyed but the stool of the Onirinsa was always restored. In those hectic days the Ooni continued to enjoy his influence in Yorubaland;  of course, at the mercy of the Alaafin whose relationship to the Ooni was akin to that of the pope and emperor in medieval Europe with the Alafins enjoying suzerainty over most of Yorubaland before the military imperialism of Ibadan in the 19th century. The coming of the British stabilized the traditional political institution not only of the Alaafin and Ooni but also in the far north of Nigeria in the beleaguered Sokoto Caliphate where there was a revolt in Satiru to replace the leadership. The British consolidated the position of the Ooni as spiritual head of the Yoruba and repository of Yoruba tradition and culture while accepting the predominant position of the Alaafin as political supremo in Yorubaland . In spite of this division of power, the Oyo-Ife axis which would have been beneficial to the whole of Yorubaland has remained at best tenuous.

Kabiyesi Okunade Sijuwade came to the throne well-prepared. I grew up knowing him as Public Relations Director of Leventis Motors. He later founded National Motors  on behalf of the government of Western Nigeria, selling British  Leyland vehicles before he founded his own company,  the West African Technical Company (WAATECO) selling Soviet Union vehicles and equipment , somehow mirroring the shift in the Action Group party’s rapprochement towards the Soviet Union .This was obviously to the discomfiture of the then Federal Government that dreaded relations with the Soviet Union in spite of its avowed policy of nonalignment . The then Prince Sijuwade made a huge success of it and that began the story of his success in business  spanning so many other businesses from construction to trade relations with Israel and Britain.

NATION

END

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