Alaafin stool: Oyo prince drags Makinde to court, seeks nullification of Owoade’s appointment

Alaafin Stool: Oyo prince laments supporters’ betrayal for money

Atiba 9: why we won’t accept Owoade as Alaafin

Oba Lamidi Adeyemi, the Alaafin of Oyo, departed earthly life in April, 2022, aged 83. He was on the throne for 51 years. He came to office well prepared. He read widely, especially about the history of his forebears, of Oyo people—towns and settlements. He was always in his elements regaling his visitors with history of the Yorubas in general. Predictably so. If an Oba does not know the history, the story behind the story, of his people, then to whom does a seeker turn for enquiry and enlightenment? Much as he was prepared to share, he was equally ready to receive. Oba Adeyemi was imbued with wisdom, punctuating conversations with proverbs. On one occasion, he entreated a group of young visitors who visited him in his palace to do unto others as they would like done unto them. He did not put his admonition directly that way. He spoke in Yoruba language: Eniti o lo sin oku egbon e ni ihoho t’o mu aburo dani, aburo e so fun pe bi a se se t’oni be e lao se t’ola! Roughly translated, it would read: A man went to bury his elder brother without the customary funeral shroud spread on him, no cloths whatsoever, and in the presence of his younger brother. The young one said to him: As it is done today, so shall it be done tomorrow—to you! A funeral shroud is meant to give dignity to the departed.

Oba Adeyemi attended St. Gregory College, Lagos. This helped him to develop a liberal mind beyond what is customary among traditional rulers in the South-West where they are obliged to allow their townsmen express unhindered whatever spiritual values they may elect to profess. He left barely four months after the departure of two prominent Obas in his axis, Oyo State. The monarchs were the Olubadan of Ibadan, Oba Saliu Adetunji; and the Soun of Ogbomoso, Oba Jimoh Oyewumi.

Because the throne of Alaafin is one of the foremost whether in history and influence in Nigeria, keeping the stool vacant for almost three years had started to raise eye brows and generate concerns, more so that the Olubadan stool and the Soun stool had been filled. What has been the cause of the delay in announcing a successor to such an important traditional office? So went the questioning on the lips of most people. It was public knowledge that the kingmakers known as Oyomesi had forwarded their recommendation to the State Government before the end of the year that Oba Adeyemi 111 passed away. The kingmakers met for two weeks to screen 82 on the shortlist of Princes that applied from the Agunloye Ruling House whose turn it was to produce the new Alaafin. The kingmakers themselves were worried about the foot-dragging by the government even after clarifications on eligibility of two warrant chiefs had been made by the Oyomesi to participate in the exercise. The Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde put paid to all speculations last week. He pulled a surprise by announcing a dark horse, someone who could not be said was in the reckoning whatsoever, whose name did not feature among bookmakers, yet about the most qualified in terms of educational background and exposure, for what the government must have adjudged are the requirements for these times.

The governor predicated his choice on wide consultations and divination. The kingmakers reacted immediately dismissing the government choice as illegal. Bashorun Yusuf Akinade and head of the Oyomesi said that the government did not follow the traditional due process. Government in doing so violated the Chieftaincy law of the state and as it concerned Oyo in particular. All eyes were on Prince Lukman Gbadegesin whose grandfather was Oba Adeyemi’s predecessor. He is by far the most visible of the princes that queued up to wear the coveted crown. He was Personal Assistant to Aruna Elewi, Minister of State for Communications in President Obasanjo’s Administration. He is close to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar. But the first salvo of opposition came from his younger brother, Adebayo Gbadegesin who described him as ill qualified. He levied an accusation against the Oyomesi of not consulting Ifa. He accused his elder brother, of trying “to bring disrepute to those who God has honoured in Oyo.” Two other allegations are grave pointing to transactional baggage against him. Indeed, one grouse alleging threats to lives ended in a petition dated 20 November, 2019, to the Inspector- General of Police. The petition was signed by Henry Ejike Ugwu of H. E. Ugwu & Associates (Legal Practitioners), Abuja. 

Rapidly growing in renown for thoroughness, it is expected that Governor Seyi Makinde would have intelligence reports on the candidates and make consultations on them. The Oyo Alaafin throne, the seat of Oyo Empire must be both a flagship and an exemplar, and an office without stain. He has found one that matches his picture and vision in Prince Akeem Abimbola Owoade who has appeared in the horizon with glittering and impeccable testimonials. Step forward Oba Abimbola Owoade, the descendant of Oduduwa, the descendant of Oranmiyan, the descendant of Agunloye Royal Family.

Born in 1978, Oba Owoade is a product of Baptist High School, Shaki, the 1992 set. He is a graduate of Ibadan Polytechnic and Ilaro Polytechnic. He read engineering in the two polytechnics—in one, OND and in the second, HND.  He attended University of Sunderland (2008) where he had his BSc in engineering. He took his Masters also in engineering from Northumbria University (2012). He became certified in Project management in June, 2015. He held a planning engineer position at Oil Reach Company, Glasgow, United Kingdom for some years before moving to Canada where until he returned home to mount the ancient throne, he was project coordinator at Manitoba Hydro and Natural Gas Utility Providers.

The Kingmakers, rejecting Owoade as the Alaafin of Oyo, said they had selected Lukman Gbadegesin since 2022. But two of the seven-man members of Oyomesi, the Samu of Oyo, Lamidi Oyewale; and the Agbaakin of Oyo, Asimiyu Atanda had reservations about the process the Kingmakers employed and dissociated themselves from the decision. However, as the profile of the new King in terms of age and credentials spread, it is increasingly clear Owoade is the new face Oyo has been waiting for, the personality befitting the ancient high office of the Yoruba people. One of the contestants, Prince Ayobami Ladigbolu, congratulating the new Alaafin, Oba Abimbola Owoade, said: “He was chosen by God Almighty. Oba Akeem Abimbola Owoade has been destined to take the throne. I am happy for him. The entire Ladigbolu family felicitate with the new king. Congratulations. Kaabiesi.”  The warm embrace of the Ladigbolu family was no more than a hint foreshadowing the grand reception awaiting the new King. As soon as news spread that their King was arriving in town all shops and offices closed to receive him. All roads and all streets were jam-packed with people besieging and descending on the Palace to hail the new King. The crowd as was the reception was unprecedented in recent memories. Some just wanted to catch a glimpse of their king. Many were on horseback, some in cars, countless on motor-cycles. People were emerging from everywhere and from just nowhere.

In the painstaking recruitment of a new Alaafin, Seyi Makinde did not want to leave anything to chance and strangely, and perhaps to fulfill all righteousness, failing which he knew traditionalists would use to entrap him, he consulted the gods a step described as divination! He called up Professor Wande Abimbola, a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, who is an internationally acclaimed medium and Ifa priest. First, what is medium outside of secular definition? Chambers 21st Century Dictionary revised Edition defines a medium as someone through whom the spirits of dead people are said to communicate with the living. Advanced Learners Dictionary (Second Edition) gives a fuller definition as follows: “A person who acts as a go-between, especially in spiritualism; person who claims to be able to receive messages from the spirits of the dead.” 

In the culture of South-West people, authority to select a king is expected to go beyond the earthly plane to consult what they regard as gods and goddesses or higher beings. The stars are not left out. It is clear from efforts to reach out to the gods or high beings in the beyond there is more to life than the modern man wants to make people believe. We now learn through higher knowledge mercifully made available to mankind today that everything radiates, everything emits rays and man is in the centre of webs of radiations—not as a victim, a great deal being what he has given rise to through thoughts, speeches and deeds and what he attracts to himself. 

Fateful works, for example, emit radiations and the stars also radiate. When this happens stars and fate are connected through radiations. The radiations of the stars form the channels through which the contents of the radiations are guided to the originator of deeds when the fruits are ripe. As Schiller says, “For, only when it is ripe does the fruit of Fate fall.” Longing to serve, what President Umar Yar’Adua called servant-leader, could have been as a result of seed sown way back in a previous earth-life, or as in the case of a Called one, a supplication to the Most High at certain Realms Above to be permitted to serve in the Light Envoy’s Work of Salvation and Redemption. In that case when the request is granted he is obligated to be exemplary in conduct, in service in his assigned role and in acts of goodness.

How helpful can we say of Seyi Makinde’s consultation with Professor Wande Abimbola? Of course, there is possibility for the gifted to receive messages from higher realms. The ethereal region more known as the Beyond is filled with multitudes separated into different planes of existence and perdition. There are helpers, and there are guides. Ifa has been known to help the Yoruba people in their recognition, revealing to them the structure of Creation and different Realms of Heaven up to what they call Ojude Orun, the Fore Court; Orun; Paradise of Human Spirits; There is Azure Island, Isalu Orun; Oke Orun, Summit of Creation; and Ajule Orun, the First Creation, Primordial Creation; The Elders at the Boundary of the Divine Realm, they call Agbagba Merindinlogun; and hold it: Imanuel, they refer to as Ela! Such a people can hardly be persuaded to jettison what has so glaringly helped them in their development.

What can determine whether contact with helpful helpers is, however, the inner state of the medium, the purity of his inner being, how rarified his environment in the earthly and the environment in the Beyond. It may so happen that when there is a message for an individual through a medium, it may be intercepted by a degraded, soiled soul along the way. The pure messenger conveying the message will steer clear to avoid being stained. The message if the impure soul somehow has access to it is consequently either substituted or distorted, and the medium is misled!

The matchless Work, In the Light of Truth, The Grail Message, by Abd-ru-shin, says: “Moreover it is certain that unless there is a human being of advanced development, whose presence purifies all coarseness, something really higher cannot approach a medium, much less speak through him. Materializations from higher circles are altogether out of the question, to say nothing of such popular pastimes as knocking, movement of objects, and so on. The gulf for this is far too wide to be easily bridged.

“Even with a medium, all these things can only be carried out by such souls in the beyond as are still very closely connected with matter. Were it otherwise possible, that is to say, if an exalted being could so easily make contact with humanity, then there would have been no need whatever for Christ to become man, but He could have accomplished His Mission also without this sacrifice. Men of today, however, are certainly no more highly developed psychically than in Jesus’ earth-life, so it cannot be assumed that it is easier to establish a link with the Light now than it was in those days.”

Yet, we need the link. But from where can guidance come if not from the chains of helpers connected with the Light in On High? The fault, indeed, is in our faults!

All said, in the Love and Mercy of the Lord, man is afforded all the help he needs for his sojourn and development on this planet earth. To redeem the indictment, what we need to do is to reverse the loss of the spiritual receptive capacity of the hind brain which is the vehicle of guidance for mankind. Man is meant to be more of a receiver than a thinker! The blood produces a radiation bridge, like a magnetic field, on which the spirit transports its messages. If the blood radiation is fine and healthy, the communication is smooth and successful. The spirit sends its messages in picture forms to the back brain which is the spiritually receptive part of our brains, and through the solar plexus, as I have mentioned in these pages before. That is why guidance is in pictorial alert. We say something strikes us or occurs to us. No spoken words are involved. The back brain uploads the picture on the blood radiation to the frontal brain, the cerebrum, the frontal brain, the intellectual brain. This brain decodes the pictures from the spirit into thoughts, words and necessary action. This is why dreams in which words are spoken are not real dreams. Real dreams are experiences of the spirit pictorially transmitted to the back brain. They are dreams in which words are not spoken and colours are distinct. They are experiences of the spirit for warnings or guidance.

There is no doubt that Governor Seyi Makinde has made a really good and wise choice in a well accomplished choice of Oba Akeem Abimbola Owoade, a refined, well polished fellow. I salute the governor’s courage and the wisdom manifested in his reaching out to Professor Wande Abimbola to satisfy all righteousness. Little wonder the platform of the Old Boys of Baptist High School, Saki, has been agog with celebratory writings and messages. That a foremost king in the South West, who, going through memory lane of Oyo Empire, can easily draw on the wisdom of his forebears, passed through their portals is, indeed, great cause for celebration. He is the second Oba, although the first may be of lesser status, to have been raised in their formative years by the school. The first is the Oba of Ago-Are, near Saki.

Seyi Makinde should beat his chest and rise to clink glasses for pulling out this feat!