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The exit of Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Odunayo Akeredolu, by Bolanle Bolawole

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11 months ago

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The exit of Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Odunayo Akeredolu

By Bolanle Bolawole

[email protected] 0705 263 1058

My phone rang, rousing me up from sleep, and the words rang out: “Bola, has that boy called you?” I hesitated! Who is the person speaking? And who is “that boy”. To ask “who is speaking” will be discourteous. The masculine voice on the line sounded familiar and did not hesitate to call my name – and he did so with confidence and authority. The voice, too, was that of an elderly person. So, I asked: “What boy, Sir?” “Your governor, Arakunrin Akeredolu”

By this time the voice was damn decipherable. I have sat in the same room and around the same conference table too many times with one of the doyens of the journalism profession not to recognize his voice. We had rubbed minds while I was at The Westerner newsmagazine, when it was adding The Nigerian Compass to its stable; we also, together with other patriots, had plotted the way forward for the Yoruba Nation at the Yoruba World Congress before it scattered. Aba Saheed of the Nigerian Tribune fame in those politically turbulent days of the Chief Obafemi Awolowo-led Unity Party of Nigeria versus the National Party of Nigeria needs no introduction – a one-man riot squad that was an unrelenting thorn in the flesh of President Shehu Shagari.

“No sir, he has not called me”. “He will call you. I shared your piece with him and told him to call you” “Yes sir. Thank you, sir” The next day Aba Saheed called me again. “Has he called you?” “No, sir!” “Aaha? What is wrong with this boy? He will call you” “Yes, sir!” After one or two more “Has he called you?”, which received the same “No, sir” response, Aba Saheed muttered some words and gave up. Till date, I wouldn’t know what they discussed and why Arakunrin was meant to have called me.

But Aba Saheed was not the only respected Yoruba leader or doyen of the journalism profession that wanted or felt that Akeredolu should call me. Many who called to ask me for his phone number expressed shock whenever I told them I did not have it. “Are you not from the same town?” Yes, we are from the same Owo!” Many felt I should have been one of his unofficial media aides! I wasn’t – and couldn’t have been. I never met or spoke with Aketi, as he is famously called. The closest I ever got to him was during the 8th Day Fidau for my late friend, Taiye Haruna, as Aketi and his team walked off the field at the end of proceedings.

That is not to say, however, that I did not impact his administration in some ways. While he had newly won his election and was yet to be sworn in, I warned the people of Ondo State to watch it; that the bad side of Akeredolu had to be tamed if Ondo State was to enjoy his good side. I was viciously attacked by the elites of Owo! What kind of an Owo son are you, they asked! One even threatened to report me to Olowo! I was at a media function when one of the reporters, a lady, gave a low down on governor-elect Akeredolu’s lack of human relations.

To be forewarned is to be forearmed; so, I decided to sound a note of warning, not because I had anything against the man but just that his tenure as governor might bode well for the state. Weeks later, and Aketi was yet to be inaugurated, an ardent reader of my column, and an Aketi acquaintance, called to complain about what he suffered trying to access the governor-elect. “Aketi’s human relations are bad, his wife’s are worse” he lamented. Again, I wrote and warned. Again, I was bashed by some Owo elites.

However, many of the people around Aketi – commissioners, special advisers, etc – secretly applauded things that I wrote, which they dared not say themselves. I learnt from them that some of my writeups swayed him. Good! Like the one on the Alabi family house at Igboroko, Owo that he had planned to demolish to make way for his cenotaph of controversy but which he later spared after my advocacy.

Playing God is not peculiar to Aketi or Ondo state. Our big men play God and many of their aides are damn too cowardly to stand up to them. Those who dare are unceremoniously shown the door, like Aketi did to my senior at Owo High School, Kola Olawoye SAN, who was Aketi’s Commissioner for Justice and Attorney-General. Two stubborn men met in Akeredolu and Olawoye. While Aketi advanced his family interests, Olawoye, supported by the then Chief Judge of the state, Hon. Justice (Mrs.) O. O. Akeredolu (nee Fagboyegun), advanced Ondo state’s interests but Aketi eventually had his way.

Remember that “Abe Nazet Olooni” advert of yore? The razor-blade tongue of aketi was double-edged and spared no one, cutting friends and foes alike. He was blunt, up to the point of being called irascible. Yet, some tact and diplomacy were expected of anyone in high office.

Some of Aketi’s family members did not help matters. Aketi also did not – could not? – help himself. Friends who could tell him the bitter truth, he cast away – or he was made to cast away. Those who were the source of his rise to power he discountenanced. It will interest you to know that many of the Owo elites who shouted me down at the beginning virtually all fell out, one after the other, with Aketi. Olawoye was said to have been the man who opened Aketi’s eyes to the Ondo State governorship tussle.

As Aketi’s wife, several years his senior in age, got a foothold in her husband’s government, an Igbo mafia emerged. A cabal of political associates with eyes fixed on the next governorship tussle in 2014 also grouped themselves. Some also talked of the Owo mafia. Akeredolu’s illness helped; just like that of former President Umaru Yar’Adua and Muhammadu Buhari’s helped the formation of cabals that took hold of the reins of power. This should interest political researchers.

One theory says Akeredolu’s family members were aware of his health conditions and prepared themselves for any eventualities. That was why his son, Babajide, was promoted to a position of relevance. During COVID-19, Babajide was in the engine room of the State’s response to the virus. Afterwards, Aketi tested the waters when he boasted that he could make his son his Chief of Staff and nothing would happen. Of course, he has a precedence in former Gov. Segun Agagu who made his younger brother, Femi, his Chief of Staff.

Maybe the uproar that attended his boast made Aketi to change the nomenclature but he still installed his son, Babajide, as the most powerful person in his administration. Conflict of interest is the reason why many, who vouch for Babajide’s competence, disagree with the arrangement. But it would appear that Aketi was a man who, like Nostradamus, saw the future. He needed someone he could trust; and there was no one better than his own blood and flesh.

If, then, Aketi and his family knew of his failing health, and prepared for any eventualities, can we still ascribe his health challenges to “Irunmoles” and Ondo State traditional rulers said to be angry with some of his decisions? Or can we still say that it was the cenotaph erected as a memorial to those slain by terrorists at Owo, right in the precincts of the Owo palace and to the alleged dismay of the traditionalists, that triggered the anger of the “Irunmoles” against Aketi?

Sheer coincidence or what? But many people who are not as privileged as a governor survived cancer, why not Aketi who had the money to spend? Aketi’s wife is a cancer survivor; why not Aketi? Aketi – and God — must have been instrumental to Betty surviving cancer; what role did Betty play in her own husband’s battle with cancer?

Aketi is gone; nothing can bring him back again. As Marc Antony said of Caesar in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, “The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones” But before the good deeds of Aketi are interred with his bones, let us recount a few of them here. As president of the Nigerian Bar Association, he kept alive the radical tradition birthed by Alao Aka-Bashorun. His role in the formation of Amotekun will never be forgotten. But for his courageous stand that led to the formation of Amotekun, the South-west today might have become similar killing fields like the Middle Belt. Aketi doggedly and resolutely fought for the presidency to rotate to the South. He spoke vehemently against back-to-back Fulani/Northern presidency. He trod where even angels feared to – and that was massive; really, really massive. While many others were compromising or eating their words, Aketi stood firm like the rock of Gilbraltar, insisting without mincing words that the presidency must rotate to the South. And it did! Again, that was massive! Aketi’s efforts at developing his Owo hometown has given the ancient town a face-lift that many could never have thought possible. Although there are complaints that the development was not evenly spread within the town and that the suburbs were not factored into it, Owo will not forget Akeredolu in a hurry.

Aketi’s shenanigans were many: His and some of his family’s alleged greed and avarice; his lack of tact, civility and gentility; some of his family members were no less obtuse; and together, they lacked finesse and human relations. Still, Aketi managed to leave indelible imprints on the sands of time. May his soul RIP!

LAST WORD: Lucky Aiyedatiwa is the new governor of Ondo State! Congratulations, Your Excellency! I don’t know if I can extend similar congratulations to the in-coming First Lady but let me warn: No battery, no bashing in Ondo State Government House, please! But how I wish the child had been allowed to die from its mother’s hands! Some will now say that our brand new governor was disloyal to his boss! That he broke Aketi’s heart! That in Aketi’s moment of anguish, Aiyedatiwa’s blow – like Brutus did to Julius Caesar – was the unkindest cut of all! That Aiyedatiwa was one of those who couldn’t exercise some patience but harried Aketi to his untimely grave!

Haba! You conveniently forgot that he was not obliged to make you deputy governor. Wouldn’t your predecessor, Agboola Ajayi, now say it served Aketi right? There were others even more deserving – but he chose you. The other side of the argument, though, is that if Aiyedatiwa hadn’t fought for his political life, he wouldn’t be where he is today! I take no sides! But now that the world or stage, as William Shakespeare called it, has become yours, as Aketi himself inadvertently prophesied, the whole world waits to see to what use you will put it. All eyes are on you. The ball is now in your court. The buck now stops on your table!

You declared a 3-day mourning period for your boss; great! But you couldn’t wait out those days of mourning before making important appointments! Incongruous! Now, some will ask if you were truly mourning! But now that you are shopping for a deputy, the criteria you listed amuse me! Did I hear you say you are searching for a loyal, trusted, and supportive deputy? Karma must not hear that from you! What goes around comes around! Did not the scripture say whatsoever a man soweth…

 

Oorun ni n gba t’owo omode/Iku ni n bo bata l’ese Rago/Ko sohun t’o ni’bere ti kii l’opin/Bee si ni ko si ohun ti a n je l’enu ti kii tan/Afi ola Olorun Eleduwa/Igba o lo bi orere/Aiye o lo bi opa ibon/Bi oni ti ri, ola o ri be/L’o mu Babalawo d’Ifa ojoojumo/Toto, o se bi owe/O tun se bi ayajo/O si le f’ara jo ogede/Sugbon ase ti Eleduwa fi da ile aiye niyen/ Enikan o si le yii pada/Yala Oba ni, tabi Ijoye/Yala olowo, tabi talaka/Ogbo-oogba ni gbogbo Ise Ojo Kefa/Ni’waju Aseda, Ameda! Oro ree, e gbee yewo!

“When sleep beckons, a child is forced to release what he had staunchly held on to/It takes death to remove the hooves of a horse/There is nothing that has a beginning that will not have an end/So also there is nothing, no matter how sweet, that we can savour forever/Only the grace of God is everlasting/No condition is permanent/What is today, may not be tomorrow/Which is why Babalawos consult their Ifa oracle on a daily basis/ This may sound proverbial/It may even appear like incantation or divination/But it is the way the Creator has arranged the things He created/And no one can change it/Be you king or chief/ Be you rich or poor/ Equal before God are the Man He created on the sixth day/This is food for thought/Consider it!

 

* Former Editor of PUNCH newspapers, Chairman of its Editorial Board and Deputy Editor-in-Chief, BOLAWOLE was also Managing Director/Editor-in-Chisf of THE WESTERNER newsmagazine. He writes the ON THE LORD’S DAY column in the SUNDAY TRIBUNE and TREASURES column in the NEW TELEGRAPH newspapers on Wednesdays. He is also a public affairs analyst on radio and television.

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Opinion

Farooq Kperogi: One president, many spokesmen, and mixed messages amid misery

Published

3 days ago

on

November 23, 2024

By

Farooq Kperogi

Farooq Kperogi: One president, many spokesmen, and mixed messages amid misery

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s unparalleled appointment of three official, cabinet-level spokesmen—in addition to 9 other senior media aides— symptomizes an insidious governmental malaise. It shows a government that is obsessed with public relations at the expense of public welfare, propaganda at the expense of progress, and mind management at the expense of meaningful management.

On November 14, Daniel Bwala, the former mouthpiece for PDP’s Atiku Abubakar during the last presidential campaign, was inaugurated as Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Media and Public Communication. This move added him to a line-up that already included Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, who had been informally recognized as the senior spokesperson after Ajuri Ngelale’s dramatic exit, and Sunday Dare, Special Adviser to the President on Public Communication and National Orientation.

Yet, on his very first day, October 18, Bwala brazenly declared himself “the spokesman for the president” to State House correspondents, proclaiming that he was the direct successor to Ngelale. His Twitter declaration further cemented his self-anointment: “Resumed officially as the Special Adviser, Media and Public Communications/Spokesperson (State House).”

Since Onanuga had effectively functioned as the spokesman for the president after Ngelale was forced out of the Presidential Villa, it seemed like Tinubu had no confidence in Onanuga and chose to upstage him by bringing in Bwala.

That puzzled me. I wondered what reputational, symbolic, or political capital Bwala had to earn such an edge. Here’s a man who is deeply resented by Tinubu supporters for his erstwhile caustic attacks on the president and APC during the last election, who is reviled by the opposition for his perceived treachery and mercenariness, and who is disdained by people who couldn’t care less about both Tinubu and the opposition. Such a person is more of a reputational liability than an asset for persuasion.

So it came as no surprise when I read a swift news release from Bayo Onanuga disclaiming Bwala’s self-description as “the spokesperson” for the president. TheCable of November 19 reported that Tinubu was “furious on learning of Bwala’s manoeuvre and immediately instructed Onanuga to issue a clarification.”

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The “clarification” says Bwala is now Special Adviser Policy Communication and Sunday Dare is now Special Adviser, Media and Public Communications. “These appointments, along with the existing role of Special Adviser, Information and Strategy, underscore that there is no single individual spokesperson for the Presidency. Instead, all the three Special Advisers will collectively serve as spokespersons for the government,” the statement said.

Tinubu has by far the largest media team in Nigeria’s history—just like he has the largest cabinet in Nigeria’s history. Yet his government has inflicted the most hardship on Nigeria and demands the greatest sacrifice from Nigerians whom he has already stripped of basic welfare and dignity.

Despite this elaborate roster of media professionals, Tinubu’s government stands as a paradox: the most expansive communication team in Nigerian history, yet the most tone-deaf administration in addressing the agonies of ordinary Nigerians. Like his record-breaking cabinet size, his communication machinery seems less about functionality and more about optics—a poorly orchestrated façade against the backdrop of deepening national suffering.

Historically, Nigerian presidents have managed with far leaner communication teams. President Olusegun Obasanjo had a relatively modest media and communications team. His first spokesperson was Doyin Okupe, who was designated as Special Assistant on Media and Publicity from 1999 to 2000.

He was succeeded by Tunji Oseni whose designation was changed to Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity and served in that role from 2000 to 2003. He was replaced by Remi Oyo from 2003 until 2007.

Apart from these official spokespeople, Obasanjo appointed Dr. Stanley Macebuh as Senior Special Assistant on Public Communications. After firing him, he replaced him with Emmanuel Arinze.

He also appointed Femi Fani-Kayode as Special Assistant on Public Affairs and replaced him with Uba Sani after elevating him to a minister. In other words, Obasanjo never had more than three media/communications people at any one time, and he always had just one official spokesperson.

Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s had Olusegun Adeniyi as his one and only media person/spokesperson. He is also on record as the first president to elevate the position to a cabinet-level position by redesignating as a “Special Adviser” position.

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Goodluck Jonathan sustained this tradition. When Ima Niboro was his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity from 2010 to 2011, he had no other media/communications person. And when Reuben Abati took over from Niboro from 2011 to 2015, he was the only spokesperson and media/communications person for the president.

The slide into a propagandocracy began with Muhammadu Buhari, who doubled down on PR appointments. While Femi Adesina served as his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu operated as Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity. Buhari’s entourage also included social media mavens, photographers, and digital content creators—an unprecedented escalation in spin management.

There was Tolu Ogunlesi (Special Assistant, Digital & New Media); Lauretta Onochie (Personal Assistant, Social Media); Bashir Ahmad (Personal Assistant, New media); Sha’aban Sharada (Personal Assistant, Broadcast Media); Naziru Muhammed (Personal Assistant, TV Documentary); Sunday Aghaeze (Personal Assistant, Photography); and Bayo Omoboriowo (Personal Assistant/ President’s Photographer).

But Tinubu has taken this expansion to absurd heights. Apart from three cabinet-level official spokespersons, you also have Tunde Rahman (Senior Special Assistant to the President — Media); Abdulaziz Abdulaziz (Senior Special Assistant to the President — Print Media); O’tega Ogra (Senior Special Assistant (Digital/New Media); Tope Ajayi – Senior Special Assistant (Media & Public Affairs); Segun Dada (Special Assistant — Social Media); Nosa Asemota – Special Assistant (Visual Communication); Mr Fredrick Nwabufo (Senior Special Assistant to the President — Public Engagement); Mrs Linda Nwabuwa Akhigbe (Senior Special Assistant to the President — Strategic Communications); and Mr Aliyu Audu (Special Assistant to the President — Public Affairs).

Such bloated extravagance sends a disconcerting message about the administration’s priorities during a time of profound economic hardship.

In a March 4, 2017 column titled “Propagandocracy and the Buhari Media Center,” I pointed out that the size of a government’s propaganda apparatus is often inversely proportional to its confidence in its own legitimacy. Tinubu’s indulgence in this over-the-top PR operation signals two troubling realities: insecurity and incoherence.

The insecurity stems from an acute awareness of its own fragility—an administration desperate to control the narrative because it knows it has failed to deliver on substantive governance. The incoherence arises from the cacophony of voices in this unwieldy structure, breeding contradictions, turf wars, and conflicting messages. How can a government unable to synchronize its internal communication hope to connect with its citizens?

At its core, Tinubu’s sprawling PR machine is emblematic of an administration focused on perception management rather than problem-solving. This gluttonous obsession with propaganda, in the midst of soaring inflation, subsidy removals, and austerity measures, is an affront to struggling Nigerians.

Leadership demands more than just the appearance of competence; it demands action. Until Tinubu shifts his focus from multiplying spokespersons to delivering substantive governance, his legacy risks being that of a leader who built a fortress of spin while the people languished outside its gates.

Farooq Kperogi : One president, many spokesmen, and mixed messages amid misery

 

Farooq Kperogi is a renowned Nigerian columnist and United States-based Professor of Journalism. 

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Opinion

From warmongering to lie-peddling, Alapomu go explain taya

Published

4 days ago

on

November 22, 2024

By

Tunde Odesola

From warmongering to lie-peddling, Alapomu go explain taya

Tunde Odesola

(Published in The PUNCH, on Friday, November 22, 2024)

Ankara needs no introduction; it’s the capital of Turkey, an Islamic country with a 99% Muslim population. Ankara needs no introduction; it’s the name of the brightly-coloured cotton fabric popular in West Africa. Ankara is the introduction. It marks out its wearer as a guest qualified for semo and plastic bowl at Nigeria’s owambe shindigs. Welcome, dear ankara – the uniformity cloth, clothing the lowly and the mighty at parties, like green leaves clothe móín-móín and èko, two edible kindreds, tumbling in embrace down throaty road.

Native to Ankara, Turkey’s second largest populous city after Istanbul, are the Angora goat, Angora cat and Angora rabbit, renowned for their extraordinary coats which are shorn and made into mohair, a globally prized source of cotton, with Angora being the westernised name for Ankara.

Yet, there’s another meaning to ankara. In Spanish, ‘encara’ means ‘still’, an adverb, whose synonyms include yet, nevertheless, nonetheless, notwithstanding, however, despite that, all the same, even so, in spite of etc.

On April 18, 2007, at 19 years of age, Lionel Andres Messi Cuccitini, football GOAT, during a Copa del Rey semifinal first-leg match between Barcelona and Getafe, singlehandedly dribbled past the entire Getafe team, leaving in his wake, players and goalkeeper biting the grass, with the commentator, Joaquim Maria Puyal, screaming, “ankara Messi, ankara Messi, ankara Messi, Messi, Messi, ankara Messi, ankara Messi, ankara Messi, gol, gol, gol, gol, gol, gol, gol, gol, gol, goooooooooooooooooo…”

From Barcelona’s right half of the centre circle, Messi got a short pass from Xavi and made a beeline for goal, ghosting Getafe players, who fell over themselves like bags of beans, making the commentator scream, “ankara Messi, ankara Messi – meaning: ‘still Messi’, ‘still Messi’, ‘still Messi’, as each Getafe player tumbled and the entire stadium stood on edge, frenziedly watching if the charging GOAT was going to miss or score. The GOAT did not miss. He scored the greatest Goal of All Time. And the whole stadium – Barcelona and Getafe fans – erupted in ecstasy.

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Gripped by the pulsating dribbling run that produced Messi’s goal, the Catalan radio commentator, Puyal, mispronounced ‘encara’ which means ‘still’ in Spanish as ‘ankara’, thereby gifting football lexicon a new word. If you’re in doubt, please, google ‘Ankara Messi’.

I’m ready to put my neck on the chopping block at Ìmògún, the ancient place of skulls, if any of the three following assertions is wrong. One: Ankara, Turkey’s capital city, is not unfamiliar to the Alapomu of Apomu, Oba Kayode Adenekan Afolabi. Two: The Igbákejì Òrìsà is not unfamiliar with ankara, the popular fabric; and three, the stylish Alapomu is not unfamiliar with designer clothes made from Angora furs.

But, by the king’s insistence on standing his ground even though he’s standing on quicksand, the crown may tumble into the gutter of politics. It’s evident the kabiyesi believes that a lie vehemently told possesses the capacity to become the truth after some time like a lizard becoming a crocodile after eating. His rejoinder to the viral video of his call to arms screams, “A bad excuse is better than no excuse.”

Since public outcry trailed the video of Oba Afolabi, in which he personally called for violence in the 2023 Ayedaade/Irewole/Isokan House of Representatives election in Osun, Afolabi has remained as tenacious as Messi, trying to dribble out of the odium his indiscretion has landed him.

This is the badly-worded rejoinder the king sent to The PUNCH: “ALAPOMU IS NOT A WAR MONGER – Alapomu Media Aide.

“The attention of Oba Kayode Afolabi, the Alapomu of Apomu has been drawn to an opinion written by a Columnist titled “Apomu King turns war monger for PDP” published in a national newspaper.

“A statement made by his media aide, Tolu Adetunji said Oba Afolabi is not a war monger but a man of peace. He said the article is biased, prejudiced, subjective, one sided opinion which is not based on facts but on a video which the King has refuted in many national newspapers and online publications.

“The refuttal was made shortly after the video went viral nearly a week ago” according to the Media Aide.

“In the refutal the King said the video was doctored to bring his reputation down in the eyes of the right thinking members of the society.

“Based on the rebuttal, the Media Aide said “anyone who wants to do a story or write an opinion on the video should be fair and objective by balancing the story with the king’s official response to the video.”

I won’t bore you by reproducing all the incriminating assertions the Alapomu made while gassing at the empowerment programme by the incumbent House of Representatives member for Ayedaade/Irewole/Isokan federal constituency, Lanre Oldebo, recently. I’ll take just a paragraph of his speech.

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Oba Afolabi, “I said, Mao, if the election turns to war, so be it; if it turns to combat, so be it. No one can cage the king but God. I told Mao that at all costs, I am solidly behind him – go and unleash absolute violence – this candidate (Lanre) MUST win the election. Then the situation snowballed into “Ta! Ta! Ta! Ta! Ta! To! Ta! Ta! Ta! Ta! Ta! We thank God the effort yielded good fruit…”

May it please your kingship, Oriade, to know I did not remove one ‘ta’ from the 10 ‘ta-ta-ta’ and the one ‘to’ you said to describe what followed your battlecry. This is because I do not want to misquote your majesty.

Being a commoner in conversation with royalty, I need to minimise my excitement and maximise this opportune moment of man-god correspondence because the bull is no mincemeat to be hit twice by the hunter’s arrow, a kìí rí efón ta léèmejì.

The more I watch the video, the more I’m confused as to the motive of the kabiyesi coming out more than one year after the electoral heist, to publicly admit his role in the coup. I’m confused because the kabiyesi is a man of integrity; he wouldn’t say such a thing for money.

I sincerely feel pity for the kabiyesi because the video pinned him against the wall. Going by the language of his rejoinder, he didn’t really want to start a media war but he needed to say something, and by saying something, he impugns my own integrity, leaving me with no option than to spit out the salt and the fart. Omoye has run into the market naked, the flowery ankara clothe is of no use to her.

Kabiyesi, I know the APC are no saints. They cheat, shoot and maim, too. They have kings in their pockets, too. But every infraction on public integrity should be condemned fiercely as this is being condemned.

Oba Alapomu, you said, “Anyone who wants to do a story or write an opinion on the video should be fair and objective by balancing the story with the king’s official response to the video.”

What a cheeky statement! Kabiyesi, I advise you should just squarely face the warmongering duties you’ve taken on behalf of your party, the PDP, and leave elementary journalism alone.

Alayeluwa, I guess those around you, who have passed by a newspaper house in their wakabout peregrinations, are the ones telling you I must ‘balance’ my article, “Apomu king turns warmonger for PDP,” with your baggage of lies.

Kabiyesi, let me throw this in real quick, it might help your understanding of journalism. Sir, journalism is a profession based on truth, fairness, equity and justice. You lost the moral authority to call for balance when you gathered the balls of the APC in your hands and sharply pulled them backwards. Ouch!! You know it hurts. As the saying goes, “He who comes to equity, must clean with clean hands.” Igbá Kejì Òrìsà, did you come with clean hands?

Alapomu, you also said the video of your shenanigans was doctored. Please, kabiyesi, with due respect, ask enlightened people around you what is meant by, “He who alleges must prove.” Your Highness, the onus lies on you to produce the ‘authentic’ video, where you didn’t say all the things you said.

My Lord, I humbly challenge you to produce the video proving that I maligned you in any way. I am dead sure you can never produce such a video because any video you produce won’t only become an exhibit in court, it will also be subjected to forensic analysis as INEC, Police and the DSS will be joined in the case, and then, what the PDP cooked that burnt down the whole house would be revealed.

Kabiyesi, sir, your laughable rejoinder mistook denial of an allegation for proof of innocence. That may be a royal way of thinking but it’s not the justice way of thinking. Truth doesn’t think like that.

I’ll advise the kabiyesi to just apologise (publicly or privately) for the viral outburst and treat all citizens as his children, going forward. But if the Oriade prefers media back-and-forth, I’ll hold steadfastly my truth to his sword.

By the way, instead of cheerleading the PDP, the kabiyesi can earn some foreign currencies from publishers of English dictionaries – Thesaurus, Longman, Oxford, Merriam-Webster, Cambridge and Collins – by patenting his own meanings of electoral violence, rigging, prebendalism, serfdom, injustice, vanity, intolerance and evil.

Email: [email protected]

Facebook: @Tunde Odesola

X: @Tunde_Odesola

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Opinion

Apomu king turns warmonger for PDP

Published

2 weeks ago

on

November 15, 2024

By

Apomu king turns warmonger for PDP

Tunde Odesola

(Published in The PUNCH, on Friday, November 15, 2024)

As a nobody son of a nobody, I dare not caress the blade of the king’s sword with the palms of my hands. Otherwise, blood shall trail my footsteps to Ìmògún, the ancient place of skulls, where the heads of the guilty and the guiltless tumble down the hill on the king’s inviolable order. In utter respect and total submission, I bow and tremble before the throne of Apomu! Who am I to look into the eyes of the gangster of Apomu, Oba Kayode Adenekan Afolabi? Èwò orisa!

As a commoner, I dare not disrespect the Alapomu. May Sango kill my bata drum and its accoutrements! I fear the king, I swear. May the king’s sword not be unsheathed from its scabbard before my very eyes, and stabbed into my very back – won ò ní ti ójù mí yo idà, kí wón tí èyìn mí kíbó. The mighty king kills who dares, aróbafín ni oba n pa! May my writings and agitation not kill me like Ken Saro-Wiwa. May the king not kill me.

Trembling – therefore – I maintain égbèfà distance near to the king; fearful – thereof – I move away from the king at égbèje distance because, in the land of Ódùdúwà, you dare and die – the king is the next in command to the gods.

In the land of Káárò Ójíire, nobody greets the king standing, we prostrate to greet the Alapomu, the almighty oba who gallantly fought on the side of the Peoples Democratic Party in the Osun House of Reps election war in 2023. K-a-b-i-y-e-s-i o!

Actually, I didn’t set out to write about the Alapomu in this edition. I had my mind set on the great Baptizer, sorry, I mean the great Balthazar of Equatorial Guinea Kingdom, Emperor Ebang Engonga (GCFR), who baptised over 400 women in the sea of his semen.

Because of its faraway distance, I was preparing to tread the spider’s web to Malabo, moving gingerly, ensuring my feet and hands did not get entangled in the naughty knots dotting the spider’s silky entrapment while trying to critique Balthazar.

But, a day before I was to write the Balthazar article, a bedlam suddenly arose over the viral video of the Alapomu in a Whatsapp group I belong to. I didn’t join the hullabaloo but took notice of the various press statements about the unkingly action of the Alapomu.

Most Whatsapp groups are madhouses with madmen and madwomen prescribing medications for madness. To maintain your sanity, you must know how to unstick yourself from the gummy madness online.

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The farmer’s calamity is the sparrow’s hilarity. I repeat, the farmer’s cause of weeping is the sparrow’s source of laughter. The sparrow’s belly, full of corn, draws scorn and baleful looks from the helpless farmer.

Journalism and quicksilver and shifting sands are all children of the same father called Dynamism. The life of a columnist is the fate of the Swiss watch – tick-tock, tick-tock without rest – life of news monitoring round-the-clock, and when you think you finally got a topic you want to write about, another bigger story breaks, belittling the story you’re exploring. When this happens, the columnist becomes a creative spider, webbing a potpourri of tales.

You will agree that Balthazar’s story should be a stand-alone tale. Balthazar is big. He’s an elephant, he needs space. And I figure the Balthazar story will still resonate throughout the year, so I can always come back to it, but the Alapomu story would soon be lost in the ocean of the tyranny our tyrant elite drown the masses.

Along the way, I had also given a thought to the interview by popular gospel musician, Yinka Ayefele, whose radio guest – a demented cannibal, claimed to have killed over 80 persons. Ultimately, however, I had to drop Balthazar and Yinka Ayefele, and hug the Alapomu.

Crowned only four years ago, the viral video of Alapomu’s verbal dysentery during a PDP empowerment event in his domain recently is both repulsive and shameful.

Fellow Nigerians, this is a translation of what the man called kabiyesi said in Yoruba, “I will tell you PDP members a secret: Go and take good care of your house because we do not know who the rival party will put forward (for the next election). If the rival party puts forward a strong candidate, and if there’s no unity in PDP, it can affect us. I always say something to people – you don’t know the value of your possession until you lose it. No matter what, let’s cherish our common interest.

“I’m using this opportunity to beg you (PDP members) to stand by Lanre (Oladebo). On the eve of his election, Akogun stormed my palace, and said, “Kabiyesi, you have been slammed to the ground.” I said, “Who slammed me to the ground?” He (Akogun) said, “It is Olufi (the King of Gbongan).” I said, “What? Olufi!? Olufi is my son! Gbongan was founded in 1793, the Olufi is junior to me, he should be calling me father. How can he slam me?

“Akogun spoke and maintained that the rival party had met.” I said, “Ha, the election is no longer between Lanre and Oluga, it’s now between Olufi and I, and I will show him (Olufi) that I’m his father. I had an elaborate meeting with Mao, who didn’t reveal the content of our meeting to you people. He (Mao) is right behind me here. (He looks sideways to his back where Mao was seated).”

Boasting of his indomitable powers, the Apomu ruler continued, “I said, Mao, if the election turns to war, so be it; if it turns to combat, so be it. No one can cage the king but God. I told Mao that at all costs, I am solidly behind him – go and unleash absolute violence – this candidate (Lanre) MUST win the election. Then the situation snowballed into “Ta! Ta! Ta! Ta! Ta! To! Ta! Ta! Ta! Ta! Ta! We thank God the effort yielded good fruit…” And the people hailed the king.

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Lanre Oladebo, the incumbent House of Representatives member representing the Ayedaade/Irewole/Isokan federal constituency, is an indigene of Apomu while his major rival in the 2023 election, Mrs Taiwo Oluga, an All Progressives Congress chieftain, whom Oladebo overthrew, is an indigene of Gbongan. Mao’s full name is Alhaji Lateef Adeniran. An ex-chairman of Isokan LG, Mao is also from Apomu.

The Ayedaade/Irewole/Isokan federal constituency has a history of producing women for the House of Reps seat, with a former Speaker, Mrs Patricia Etteh (PDP), and Mrs Ayo Omidiran (APC), representing the zone for two terms each before Oluga was elected in 2019, losing re-election in 2023 to Oladebo, a male.

The inadvertent revelation of the Alapomu confirms the ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-to-ta-po-pa that shot Oladebo to victory. What a king! What a country!

The ta-ta-ta-ta-ta king of Apomu is not an ápòdà; he’s educated, handsome and suave. But a king should not abandon the nobility of his throne to roll in the gutter of politics because, eventually, he would be like the old man, who ties corn cobs to his waist and is being chased about the village by chickens pecking at his Balthazar.

Apomu was a great community, historically. For about 400 years, Apomu was the economic nerve centre of the entire Oyo Empire of the 16th Century. Its strategic location as a land connecting various Yoruba inland and riverine communities, together with its proximity to resources, accessible roads and political stability, made Apomu the market of choice.

Because of the humongous wealth it generated, security was not discounted in Apomu. Guards were on alert in the land, securing lives and property. But one day, says Yoruba oral tradition, something strange happened to one of the guards, making him to flee the town, bequeathing to the Yoruba language this proverb that describes profound calamity, “Ìlóyá, oníbodè Apòmù, a kó o n’Ífá, a gbà á lóbìnrin, òpèlè tí kò bá wolé mú, ajá gbe e, ‘e bá mi mu, e bá mi mu’, ajá ko si kònga, ilé tí kò bá wò, ilé jóná.” Meaning: It’s time to go, declares the Apomu border guard, whose Ifa goodwill was stolen, and his wife was snatched. He rushes inside his house to get his Ifa oracle to divine why life is going awry, a dog snaps up his oracle. He runs after the dog, shouting ‘help, help’ ‘help’, the dog falls into a well, he runs back home only to find his house on fire.”

That wasn’t the only unfortunate incident in the history of Apomu. Apomu also witnessed the Owu War between 1820 and 1827. The war involved Ife and Owu over the control of Apomu, which was under Ife. The war which led to the destruction of Owu caused Owu indigenes to flee to present-day Abeokuta. The war arose over slaves and trade conflicts.

By boasting that kings are above every authority in the land except God, Afolabi arrogantly smashes the meaning of k-a-b-i-y-e-s-i on the head of decency while the police, DSS and INEC watch helplessly.

I know most traditional rulers are battleaxes and footmats of various political parties. But Apomu has an illustrious history. The Alapomu should stop stoking the embers of political war, he should lead with honour.

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Apomu king turns warmonger for PDP

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