At a recent symposium in Lagos on ‘Corruption in the Nigerian Judiciary’ the speakers persuasivelypresented facts and figures to amplify the popularly held opinion that Nigerian judges are probably the most corrupt group in the country. In truth, none of the speakers said anything new.

After all, some 6 years earlier, a survey by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) and the National Bureau of Statistics NBS had revealed that “20 per cent of those who had contact with the Nigerian judiciary were confronted with a request for the payment of bribe.” A year later, the UNODC published another reportwith a focus on gender and corruption which statedthat “male judges are far more likely to be involved in bribe-seeking conduct than their female colleagues.”

The ‘question-time’ segment at the Lagos symposium was particularly exciting as the speakers referred copiously to disparaging remarks on the nation’s judiciary by senior lawyers and even retired judges who were in agreement that corruption amongst judicial officers had eroded public confidence in the judiciary and indeed the country’s justice delivery system. On its part, the media tends to believe that it would be difficult to find a Nigerian judge that is not corrupt. I disagree with the hypothesis. To start with, there is no empirical basis for such a sweeping statement. In addition, it is ethically unacceptable for the media to support any unproven generalization because one of its own ethical values is to maintain balance and objectivity by projecting with equal emphasis,all the sides to an issue.

Based on the above, we need to throw ample light on some Nigerian judges who amidst the stinking corruption in their sector have at one point or the other shown considerable evidence of uprightness while performing their duties. The main area of interest to look atwould certainly be election and political cases where many judges had because of materialism dropped the ball. With a good effort at dissecting even cases in that lucrative area, it is not really difficult to identifyand applaud some judges as I will show shortly from an overview of such cases. Starting from the interesting stories in Imo state where at a time the impeachment of deputy governors was in vogue, there were wonderful judges who stood their ground and kept democracy on-going in the state.

In 2018, the Imo State House of Assembly having been mobilized by the state governor to impeach his deputy, Eze Madumere swung into action; a hurriedly prepared list of gross misconduct was served on Madumere while the Chief Judge of the state also set up a panel to investigate the allegations against him. The embattled deputy governor rushed to the judiciary to stop the process whicha high court judge in Owerri, Justice Benjamin Iheka saw as meritorious. He then swiftly restrained 3 parties, namely: a) Paschal Nnadi the Chief Judge of the state, b) Acho Ihim, Speaker of the State House of Assembly and c) the State House of Assembly from taking any further action in the impeachment process until the hearing and determination of the suit.

Despite Iheka’s restraining order, the state assembly and the impeachment panel went ahead with the impeachment process in which 19 out of 27 members of the house purportedly impeached the deputy governor. Justice Iheka thereafter courageously nullified the impeachment and stopped the swearing-in of a new deputy governor. The judge also flayed his own Chief Judge as well as Militus Nlemadim, the commissioner for justice, for not adhering to the provisions of section 188(5) of the 1999 constitution on impeachment. That put paid to the fake event. Of course, Iheka could have been swayed by material benefits to allow the travesty but he did not. Whether or not the current judges in the same state can still display such uprightness is a different matter. The example of Iheka has howevershowed that there are still some decent judges in our clime.

Ondo State presents another scenario in which some judges prefer to lose the favour of a governor and his marauding ruling party than to pervert the cause of justice. Indeed, but for the judiciary, the present governor of Ondo state, Lucky Aiyedatiwa would have had his political career scuttled following attempts by some party chieftains in the state to impeach him as deputy governor. The state house of assembly had requested the state’s Chief Judge (CJ)Justice Olusegun Odusola to set up a panel to investigate allegations against the then embattled deputy governor with a view to impeaching him. But the CJ reportedly declined to do so in compliance with the order of an Abuja Federal High Court halting the impeachment process. This removed Aiyedatiwa’s impeachment steam but it is simplistic to imagine that Justice Odusola could not have acted differently like some other judgesusually did in some other states.

In addition, Odusola must have had at the back of his mind what a former CJ of the state, Justice Olaranwaju Akeredolu, had wisely done in the same circumstance in 2020. At that time,the State Assembly under the leadership of Speaker Bamidele Oloyelogun had arranged to impeach the then deputy governor, Agboola Ajayi.To ensure that justice was served Justice Akeredolu formally wrote to inform the Speakerthat the lawmakers had not completed the constitutional process that would lead the Speaker to invite her to set up an investigative panel as stipulated by the Constitution. She also took judicial notice of the fact that the matter of the impeachment of Ajayi had become subjudice. As an upright judge, Akeredolu held-on to the provisions of the constitution which compromised judges would have conveniently overlooked.

One reason local government elections are a shade worse than the poor general elections conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC is because all the members of a state electoral commission are usually friends, political associates and relations of the state governor. As a result, the conduct of a local election is always programmed for the ruling party to ‘sweep’ any local polls. It is usually so badly handled that every result would ordinarily have been nullified. But since it is a state affair in which almost everyone is in the governor’s pocket, not many judges can act professionally. Yet, Edo state had one Justice Alero Edodo-Eruagawho some years ago dared the state governor by nullifying the controversial Esan North East chairmanship election where a fake winner had been declared. 

What Eruaga did was to openly deprecate theillegal act of declaring a winner when votes cast in several areas had not been counted. She also frowned at the fact that the hurried declaration was made in Benin City instead of the premises of the Eguare Primary School Uromi the prescribed location for the conduct of the election. Accordingly, unlike what happens elsewhere, Eruaga courageously nullified the Esan local election which was clearly marred by several infractions. It is worthy of note that the judgment wasnot in favour of the state governor’s political partywhich could bring many dangerstothe judge’s way for doing what is right and thereby offending a governor.Justice Eruaga like her above listed colleagues in Imo and Ondo states can berecorded  among judges who were neither influenced by material benefits nor the discomfort that antidemocratic elements may inflict on upright judges.

This piece cannot exhaust the list of Judges that Nigerians should honour in their hearts, but we need to quicklyrecord the outstanding performances of two judges in Akwa Ibom state, Justices Agustine Odokwo and Bassey Nkanang. Election malpractices have remained unabated in our country because some of our judges are materially compromised to use technicality to let known electoral criminals off the hook. The duo of Odokwo and Nkanang are standing tall here for ensuring thattwo professors were sent to jail for election fraud.One of them, Ignatius Uduk, a professor at the University of Uyo (UNIUYO) was indicted for announcing and publishing false election resultswhile serving as the returning officer for Essien Udim State Constituency.

The other convict, Professor Peter Ogban a professor of soil science, at the same UNIUYO, was jailed for tampering with election results. He had been mandated to serve as returning officer for Akwa Ibom North-West District in the 2019 general elections. However, the issue today is not about professors but about upright judges who would be positively remembered by posterity for refusing to be compromised to subvert justice and heighten Nigeria’s unending experiences of failed elections. The Nigerian judiciary would remain indebted to them because it is through their performances that we can say with confidence that not every Nigerian judge is corrupt.

“Traditional democracies will end up on the garbage heap of history” – Alberto Fujimori, 1938-2024, Peruvian President, 1998, VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS, VBQ, p 37.

I started the VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS in 1965 and got it published in 2007 – 42 years after. The first quote which caught my attention was by Dr Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784, “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” It upended everything Nigeria had taught me about being a loyal citizen. I was launched on an adventure.

Fujimori was elected President of Peru, became a dictator and uttered the statement above about a week after my escape from death in Abacha’s detention. As a life-long believer in democracy, and suffering for that belief, I found the utterance repulsive. I debated with myself whether or not to include it in the book. Two decision rules compelled me to retain it. One, intellectual honesty demands that the researcher should include all the evidence available with regards to an idea – those in support and those against.

Two, a quick look around the world in 1998 revealed that democracies too often degenerated to dictatorships instead of the other way around. Maybe Fujimori was right. The USA provided me the assurance that democracy had a chance in the world. The USA and Trump have extinguished any hope for democracy in the world in my life time. Just look around and count. America, land of the brave and home of the free, voted in November 2024 to surrender both its bravery and its freedom.

Democracy died in the US – hitherto its strongest and most vocal defender (though damned hypocritical) when the people in a nation, whose people were always regarded as intelligent, voted for a presidential candidate who openly announced that he will be a dictator if elected. Because, as Joseph De Maistre, 1753-1821, warned mankind about two hundred years ago, “Every country has the government it deserves.”

Americans, including Leon Musk, who have lost trillion dollars of their wealth in the last month and a half, have only themselves to blame for whatever befalls them. Certainly, their losses are just starting. The most obvious is financial. Staggering as that might be, right now, unfortunately, more wealth is destined to be wiped out. Leon Musk, one of the architects of the American tragedy, has lost $100 billion of his fortune within weeks. Nothing can save him from losing more. On the aggregate, most billionaires worldwide, irrespective of nationalities, are also destined to share in the financial catastrophe which one man’s election in a democracy would have unleashed on our planet and outer space. 

MONEY IS NOT EVERYTHING

“Money makes everything legitimate – including bastards” – Jewish Proverb.

“Money! Money! How much sorrow it creates in the world” – Leo Tolstoy, VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS, VBQ, p 163 

Trump was honest with Americans during the presidential campaigns about two things. One, he would destroy other nations’ economies by imposing huge tariffs unless they bowed to his wishes.. Two, he would “Make America Great Again” by turning the planet Earth hell for billions of people – including poor and middle class Americans. Other people in other nations were not involved in the decision to provide him the opportunity to prove his points.

Trump was “Made in America”; so are the global economic and political calamities unfolding. Like all dictators before him, wanting to play God, he and his inner caucus of advisers, particularly Elon Musk, very quickly discarded one of the eternal lessons history has taught us – nobody can single-handedly create the world as he chooses. Unintended and frequently unpleasant consequences result from such attempts. More often than not, millions of human beings die in the attempt.

Already, experts in various fields of endeavour, from the armed forces of several nations to agriculture and food production, manufacturing and markets, are predicting an unprecedented humanitarian crisis worse than what the world experienced during Covid-19 in 2020. Unknown millions will die globally because the repercussions of Trump’s policies will leave them without a dime and without any means of support – all over the world and in America. 

Money is indispensable; it can also lead to the death of millions by its sudden withdrawal. Trump and Musk are aware of this. It is quite possible that a study had been conducted to provide them an estimate of the millions of people to be rendered destitute from the abolition of USAID, Social Security for tens of millions of Americans, and, above all, global imposition of tariffs. No leader in history has ever been able to wipe out hundreds of millions of fellow human beings by merely signing an Executive Order. 

Hitler was inefficient. He spent millions building detention centres, transporting victims all over Europe and building gas chambers. Americans have given the world Trump and Musk, two Arch-angels of death, who can now delete one billion dispensable victims, selected by Musk’s Artificial Intelligence, AI, outfit, with just a flick of the pen. America is already great again – but, for the wrong reasons. By the time Trump is finished with his second or third term, the USA would have rendered millions of people expendable who never threatened its security or waged war against it. America would also have become a full-blown dictatorship; grinding the citizens of a formerly proud and free nation into dust. 

CONSEQUENCES OF THE RISE OF DICTATORSHIPS

“The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime” – Sir Edward Grey, the British Foreign Secretary, on August 3, 1914, on the eve of World War I.  

Working on the VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOATIONS was almost like staying in a university to read ten or more courses. I certainly read more history books – over 300 – than most graduates of History. From them it has been possible for me to discern when current global or national events repeat those that led to certain repercussions in the past. For instance, most people, including Presidents Trump and Xi – of the USA and China respectively – are not aware that World War III has started. All that is left is the shooting.

Everything possible, including Artificial Intelligence, AI, is being weaponised. Trump, like the leaders of any strongest power, facing a challenger threatening to replace it, invariably opts for war before the upstart becomes stronger. National interest dictates it. And, what is national interest?  “National Interest is defined in terms of power”. Hans J Morgenthau, 1904-1980, a key American figure in International Relations in the last century, was the author of what had become central to America’s conduct of foreign policy.

Underlying the concept was the notion, alien to history, that the USA would perpetually remain the strongest military power on the planet. The leaders of the nation which gave me the opportunity to read history obviously have forgotten that “Fortune, ever fickle, will assail with sudden stroke, the kingdom of the proud.” (Geoffrey Chaucer, 1342-1400). Incidentally, Professor Morgenthau taught me International Relations, in my Senior Year as an undergraduate in 1968.

He symbolised the proud and complacent American; who believed that no nation will ever challenge the USA. I remember one of my classmates, Willie Ndongo, a Cameroonian, telling Prof that “One day America will be fighting for its life – like the Roman Empire.” He was almost thrown out of the class for the impudence – which has now become a prophecy. Obviously, great scholars can also be myopic.

Morgenthau was taking his position at the time when the sun of the British Empire was setting – contrary to the pronouncement of an English author and fool. Today, America is scared of the Chinese and getting ready to fight for its life. Unfortunately, the US has also turned its back on democracy and freedom. A dictator has replaced a President. The lights of freedom have gone out. God’s Own Country has been taken over by the Devil. When a war breaks out, every leader becomes an autocrat out of necessity. America is at war; which it might lose – despite the breast-beating by dictator Trump – for a simple reason the Americans lose sight of. 

On Page 28 of his very provocative book, The Present Darkness: A history of Nigerian organized crime, (2016) Stephen Ellis, British historian and Africanist, compared Nigerian politics to con artistry. Their practices, he said, were not different from acts of fabulists and fraudsters. Ellis’ take on Nigerian leaders synchronizes with a Henry Louis Gate’s The New Yorker piece of September 25, 1995. With the title, “Powell and the Black Elite,” the piece quoted ex-American Secretary of State, Colin Powell, as saying, “Nigerians as a group, frankly, are marvelous scammers… I mean, it is in their natural culture.”

As it is done in scholarship, traditional Africa also gives justification for the Ellis comparison. It says, when the shape and size of a peanut’s shell bears striking semblance to the coffin of a species of rat called Eliri, then a justification is successfully established. Last week, there was an eruption of weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth in many homes. Investors in the digital financial platform called CBEX met their financial waterloo. CBEX ultimately unraveled as a Ponzi scheme, with about 600,000 Nigerian victims in tow. It has given critical minds an opportunity to examine whether there is a meeting of minds between Ponzi chancers and Nigerian political leaders. Why do we dwell so much on Nigerian economic scams and scammers, while we sacralize the equally cancerous virus of political scammers?

The genealogy of this crave for quick wealth dates back in time. In 1925, J. K. Magregor, headmaster of Scottish-Presbyterian-founded, Hope Waddell Institute, of which the great Nnamdi Azikiwe was an alumnus, had written the Nigerian governor-general. His complaints were based on a motif of pupils of the school writing incredibly suspicious letters to unknown persons abroad. In the letter, the pupils asked to be sold medicines of esoteric teachings which guaranteed success and happiness. They turned out to be quack. In a single mail delivery, said Ellis, Magregor discovered 125 of such scam letters. One laughable example was a 12-year-old pupil who had purchased through post from India a “Mystic Charm” with an instruction to him to send more money so that he could be sent “blessings from the Hindu deity Siddheswari”. The letter also told the boy that the sign he would get to confirm the efficacy of the deity was “by watching the flow of his nasal mucus”!

Our visible connect to this pre-colonial crave for mysticism was re-enacted during the First Republic Nigeria. During this period, secret societies played pivotal roles in governance. The barbarism and primitivism of killing people for sacrifice in order to gain ascendancy in political circles became rife. The Ogboni cult held a supremacist place in Western Nigerian politics. It was only the northern part of Nigeria that was saved the barbarity. By the end of the Third Republic, however, military despots like Sani Abacha had reportedly began to seek spiritual interventions of Muslim brotherhoods of Senegal for a mystic buy-in into their infernal rule. Cows were reportedly buried alive in all outposts of Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory by the goggled General. By the Fourth Republic,  politicians had fully imported into Nigeria this Islamic mysticism which was spreading in sub-Saharan Africa. The marabouts were Islamic priests who combined Islam with the syncretic practice of local healers, fortune tellers, spiritual guides and diviners. Today, virtually all Nigerian politicians, like that 12-year Hope Waddell old boy, still seek mysticism, either from Islamic mullah, clergies, Babalawo or Senegalese marabouts to guarantee their political happiness and success.

Economic chancing of the CBEX kind is not purely native to Nigeria. In August 1920, after months of covert investigations by Clarence Barron, Boston Post newspaper’s top financial journalist, of the activities of Charles Ponzi, burst his bubble. Barron had found out that Ponzi, an Italian, born 1882, who immigrated to the United States in 1903, was a notorious con artist. In January 1920, Ponzi had established a “Securities Exchange Company” where he promised investors returns of up to 50% in 45 days. The scheme attracted thousands of local investors who, mimicking early Christians of Jerusalem’s mode of spread of the religion, engaged in a mouth-to-mouth spread of the “good news”. Gradually, they escalated its rapid growth and staggering participation. At the height of the scheme, Ponzi collected not less than $250,000 a day from unsuspecting victims, quadrupling his wealth to over $15million. Immediately after Barron’s investigation leaked, Bostonians rushed to and camped outside Ponzi’s offices. They were panicky crowds of local investors demanding a return of their money. Last week, same scenario was reenacted as angry and exasperated Nigerian victims of CBEX stormed its Nigerian offices.

The divide separating economic, political and leadership Ponzi in Nigeria is very thin. As Ponzi scammers feed fat on the red blood corpuscles of trickery and deceit, so do Nigerian leaders and politicians. Ellis insinuates that scam can be found in the bloodstream of Nigerian politics and political leadership since they first began in the 1940s. If you break Ponzi to its most basic moral component, it is driven by unrighteousness, desire to outwit the other person, gain personal advantage and in most cases, leave sorrow as mementos. Nigerian politics and leadership are founded on same nefarious aspiration.

 Only last week, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ordered top US law enforcement agencies to release confidential information generated during a 1990s federal investigation. One Mr. Greenspan had, between 2022 and 2023, filed 12 FOIA requests seeking information about a joint investigation of the FBI, IRS, DEA, and the US Attorney’s Offices for the Northern District of Indiana and Northern District of Illinois. He wanted the charging decisions on the activities, including money laundering, of a Chicago heroin ring that operated in the early 1990s made open. The Nigerian president is said to be located at the vortex of this investigation.

While reacting to the American court ruling, the Nigerian presidential media office dismissed it as “having been in the public space for more than 30 years,” and did not in any way “indict the Nigerian leader” while concluding that “lawyers are examining the ruling.” My people say, if someone does not move in gaits that resemble an African pouched rat’s, no one would ask them to eat a meal of palm-nut seeds that is the culinary preference of this species of rats. (Bi eeyan ko bá rìn ìrìn awasa, wón o ní fi ekurọ lọ). The fact that the president’s name is enmeshed in such shame is already a national disaster. I don’t know of any scam bigger than a presidential Ponzi of paying millions of dollars to American lawyers so as to keep blocking American courts from disclosing to Nigerians and the world the truth or lie in the allegation that our president was involved in a heroin trade in the 1990s.

Ellis provided a nexus, no matter how tenuous, to the Ponzi. As far back as 1952, he wrote, Nigeria had become a staging point for heroine drug trade. According to him, the country was “a heavy dope traffic” from the near East to the USA via Europe, with one of those implicated at the Nigerian end of this pipeline being “one O. Chagoury.” Ellis’ conclusion on this pee-independence Nigerian drug trade gives the reader of the book today the latitude to connect its frightening nexus. He had written: “A few decades later, a Lebanese family with the same name had become very influential in both business and in political finance: Gilbert Chagoury, born in 1946…He was very close to the military dictator of the 1990s, Sani Abacha…It seems he is a descendant of a heroin trader who arrived Nigeria in 1952…the heroin trade may provide start-up capital for other forms of business…” You may find this on Page 92 of Ellis’ book.

While we lament the Ponzi scam of CIBEX, I put it to us that we are merely being hypocritical. Ponzi, MMM, CBEX, either figuratively or literally, have always constituted our ways of life. In our individual, collective and national relations, our modus operandi has never been dissimilar from these scammers’. We take delight in sucking the nectar of the joy of our fellow man. We elect known scammers into political offices and when they scam us, we complain. We are like the farmer who knew that the land he planted peanuts on was squirrel-infested. At the time of harvest, this same farmer became grumpy because squirrels had eaten up all his farm proceeds. When a man tells his people he was going on a two-weeks “working vacation,” which we all knew was a euphemism for a date with his Chagoury business partners or a date at the infirmary, didn’t both the man who spun the yarn and we, the people who received it, know we were mutually involved in a CBEX transaction? Or, didn’t we know that the spinner of the lie wasn’t dealing with us straight? Our forebears sounded alarm on characters like this in their saying that, when you meander round truth and refuse to walk straight, you are most likely encumbered by issues of finance (Sàn làá rìn, ajé ní mú ní pẹ kọ̀rọ̀).

Our scam began from the very beginning when Nigerians brought in a presidential baggage they didn’t have access to its constitution. Last week, the White House released President Donald Trump’s annual health report. Nigerians are left to make guesswork on what ails theirs and the billions of their patrimony spent to maintain it. Our president’s health is run like a coven, which reminds one of the miasma that surrounded the health of monarchs of pre-modern Africa. The king must not be seen to have taken ill like a commoner. It is a sacrilege. What Ponzi is greater than this, full of its opacity!

Replying to criticisms that, after almost 200 Nigerians had been killed in the president’s absence, he is still oscillating like a spirit from France to London, his media office told us he could rule Nigeria through remote control from anywhere in the world. Nigerians instantly remembered they had walked that punishing road before. At Easter, the statement purportedly issued by the president was that, “evil forces will not triumph in Nigeria” at a time when Evil had been crowned as King. What evil is greater than the carnage ongoing in Plateau and Benue States which, as usual, was dressed beautifully in a refrain, “the president has ordered decisive action”. Both of us, the president and Nigerians at large, know that this statement is a complete scam. There is no action coming from anywhere, not to talk of its being decisive. When the killers strike again soon, the presidency will recalibrate the commiseration refrain. Charles Ponzi must be happy he has identical offspring in the Nigerian presidency.

Wherever you turn, Nigeria is a an ocean where sharks feast on sharks and lesser fishes devour one another. Atiku Abubakar and his co-travelers on a coalition have started spinning their own political Ponzi which they know its end is not basically for the Nigerian people. Peter Obi is busy with his own Ponzi as well. Muhammadu Buhari, who regressed Nigeria colossally in eight years as president is the one to decide Nigeria’s political future now because he is patrons to millions of Almajiri voters who know not their right from left. As the week was ending, Reno Omokri, the Peter Obi-hating political Smart Alec, spun another of his serial Tinubu intervention Ponzi yarns. “Nigeria is safer now under Tinubu”, he said. If any of Omokri’s family members had been among the almost 200 victims of Nigerian Ponzi rulers killed in Benue and Plateau in the last two weeks when Nigeria had not even a scare-crow in Aso Rock, will the “Ambassador” spew this undiplomatic puke?

What is glaring is, by the time this current CBEX government in Aso Rock finishes with us, we will have a long roll-call of victims.

I was nowhere near the venue of the coronation of the new Alaafin of Oyo but, thanks to technology, I fed my eyes with a lot of happenings at the colourful and eventful event. The media, be it traditional or digital, electronic or print captured the event for posterity and beamed it to the world for everyone so interested to watch and read from the comfort of their homes or workplaces. The new Alaafin’s colour sense – or was it his wife’s? – was baam! He must have a liking for bright colours like Nelson Mandela. The late South African president loved bright colours. Long may you reign, Kabiyesi!

The controversies and intrigues that trailed the coronation did nothing to detract from its importance or momentum; such big events cannot but attract all sorts – what the Yoruba call “iru wa, ogiri wa”. While “iru” has a smell that is “fanimorous”, as they say, “ogiri”, on the other hand, fouls the air and offends the nostrils. Growing up in my native Owo, the Iya Olojas selling “ogiri” at Ulede or Oja-Oba market had their stand closest to the toilet – if you understand what I mean! Yet, both “iru”and “ogiri” are time-honoured seasonings that have great medicinal value.

 The controversies surrounding the choice of the new Alaafin started immediately when the previous Alaafin joined his ancestors. Usually in Yoruba land, all interested princes from the ruling house would be free to compete for the throne. Everyone deploys whatever arsenal is at his disposal to get the job. In the olden days, Ifa oracle was heavily relied upon but even then, occasions were recorded when either the custodians of Ifa or the kingmakers perverted the course of justice. Corruption is as old as humanity itself. Chief Hope Harriman, brother of his better known brother, the diplomat Leslie Harriman, told me in an interview when I was still an editor at The PUNCH that injustice is not a new phenomenon but that it started yester-years. God Himself said the heart of man became corrupted in his youth and that it repented Him that He created man.

 So, I was not surprised when the process of choosing a new Alaafin was mired in controversy. One of the princes favoured by some of the kingmakers was alleged to be the candidate of the Sokoto caliphate and but for the timely intervention of the Oyo State governor, Seyi Makinde, he would have been railroaded into the sacred palace of the Alaafin, which is one of the pricest Yoruba palaces regardless of what anyone may think, say or do. A reporter’s gumption is that there is no smoke without a fire. Eventually, Ifa was approached and the outcome was the choice of the new Alaafin. The unassailable integrity of the man who said “Ifa said” was enough for everyone to file behind the choice of the new Alaafin.

 And that is of utmost importance. The new Alaafin must not forget that. I heard him say he did not lobby anyone or manipulate the process to become the Alaafin. If Ifa chose him, then, he MUST not turn his back on Ifa. If he acts otherwise, God sparing our life, we will still be around to remind him! The river that forgets its source will do what? The religion, customs, traditions, medicine, body of knowledge, and belief system of our ancestors are nuggets of wisdom which, unfortunately, we have thrown away on the altar of all things foreign, which profit us little, if anything at all. Instead, they are at the roots of the wars, insecurity, corruption, bad governance, acrimony, confusion, and hatred that bedevil our society today. Alien culture breeds habits that are alien to our land. This is apart from the fact that no matter how much we try, we can never master anything alien as their originators or owners. Shina Peters told us that “O-ni-n-kan l’a n je o se” Abi no be so?

 Today, I bring to your reading pleasure a piece written by Wale Olajire Ajao, a friend, classmate and comrade at the then University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), Ile-Ife, on the lingering Alaafin-Ooni controversy which, unfortunately, was also said to have reared its ugly head at the coronation of the new Alaafin. I watched a video which alleged that the Ooni was not accorded the dignity and recognition due to his office as the Ooni of Ife, the Arole Oodua, whereas other important traditional rulers outside of Yoruba land were so dignified. Can that be true? I hope not! Shouldn’t our charity begin from home? “Ile l’a ti n k’eso ro’de” is the wisdom of our elders. Should the age-old nonsensical spat between past Alaafins and Oonis begin so soon with the new Alaafin, Iku Baba Yeye?

 The treatment meted out to the Oluwo of Iwo was even worse, allegedly! He was shown on television being denied entry through a particular gate purportedly reserved for a certain category of dignitaries. If I may ask, is the Oluwo of Iwo no longer a first-class Yoruba Oba? What qualifies the Sultan, an Emir or Oba from elsewhere that did not qualify a Yoruba first-class Oba? We must watch it! What you call your cloth is what others will call it with you. Orlando Owoh crooned that whosoever sells his own person very cheap in the marketplace will not be able to buy him back with the same amount. The wisdom of our elders is that it is not every cloth that we spread out to dry in the sun. I am averse to the theatrics of the Oluwo as a person but it is our fault that he sits on the throne of Iwo. Did he appoint himself? Was he not appointed by some people? As our people will say, the “oyibo” that made pencils also made erasers. If we are no longer comfortable with him, remove him but the throne of Iwo, a first-class Yoruba throne, must be kept sacrosanct – “Iwo Odidere, Iwo omo ajagun” as Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey crooned.              

 Because of space constraints, I can only bring you snippets from Wale’s piece titled “Monarchy, democracy and development in Nigeria”. When we return, I will make concluding remarks. Enjoy it: 

“History may turn out an unintended tool of self-destruction if its interpretation and essence are misused or misunderstood advertently or inadvertently. As the younger generation of historians go about the business of interpreting and presenting past events, they must keep in mind the fact that we study the past to do better now and in the future. In his article titled “It is the turn of Alaafin Owoade”, Dare Babarinsa indirectly referred to the unending and needless debate on who is superior between the Alaafin and Ooni. He gave the impression that the Ooni is superior because Ooni Adesoji Aderemi was chairman of the Western State council of obas all through the reign of Ladigbolu I, Adeyemi II, Ladigbolu II, and Adeyemi III. His submission led Ajisebi Oyo radio TV to respond with their own version of history as they argued that Alaafin is superior to the Ooni because Ladigbolu II was also at a point chairman of the Western State council of obas even when the legendary Oba Adesoji Aderemi was still the Ooni of Ife and also Governor of the Western Region. In these presentations, both Ajise bi Oyo TV and Babarinsa revisited a needless debate that has been overtaken by events.

 This is a debate which one of the leading Yoruba historians, Professor Siyan Oyeweso, deliberately avoided in his address at the coronation of Alaafin Abimbola Owoade on Saturday, April 5, 2025. I imagine that Oyeweso would have thought that revisiting the superiority debate is needless. Yoruba land is now part of a nation created by nineteenth-century British imperialism. The Nigerian state today must address the major challenges facing all neo-colonial states. That task is about how the disparate political and administrative structures bequeathed to all former British colonies can be recreated to achieve democracy and development. In our world today, democracy and development have become the major yardsticks of assessment of the performance of nation-states. In this regard monarchy, no matter how effective it still may be in some parts of the world, will also be assessed in relation to how far it can bring development to the people. It is in this sense that historians have no choice but to relate monarchy to its usefulness in contributing to the development of a nation. It is also in this sense that the role of the Ooni and Alaafin in Nigeria’s contemporary history must be assessed.

 In her quest for development, the Nigerian state has made efforts to restructure the dysfunctional aspects of the neo-colonial state. For example, the colonial state created three regions –  North, West, and East – and made the North bigger in land mass and convoluted census figures… More states have been created since then. Still, many still say that the Nigerian federation is imbalanced because those who own the resources do not control them. The central government controls the resources and tells the real owners what share they can have. Neither the Alaafin nor Ooni has a say in this very critical matter. The Alaafin and Ooni are now under different state governments and who is superior has no relevance to the administration of their two different states. It is a waste of time, energy and resources for both monarchs to flex muscles over superiority when nineteenth-century British imperialism had turned them both into cheerleaders of whoever is the governor of their respective state.

 All Alaafin agreed that they originated from Ife. However, their claim to superiority is because they eventually built an empire which controlled more than half of Yorubaland. But this was useful only in the pre-colonial era. The foremost Yoruba historian, Samuel Johnson, in “History of the Yoruba” suggested that both the Alaafin and Ooni be given equal leadership roles. He advocated that the Alaafin should be the political head of the Yoruba nation while the Ooni should be its spiritual head. Professor Adeagbo Akinjogbin and Professor Ade Ajayi advocated that the Ooni ought to be the leader because of the “orirun” concept in Yoruba culture. This means that where a person originated from takes precedence. But colonialism brought the Yoruba into a new nation.

 It is true that the colonial masters recognized Alaafin as the leader of the Yoruba because he was the head of the Oyo empire from which Ibadan and Ogbomosho and other Yoruba towns took instruction. The Oyo empire even extended to the present-day Benin Republic and parts of Togo. Yet we need to move forward and read history forward… The idea of classification of obas as first class or second class flows from colonialism. No oba is superior to another oba as no people are superior to other people in a democracy. Ife is not superior to Oyo just as Oyo is not superior to Ife. Babarinsa, in referring to Adeyemi III, kept saying that he reigned from 1970. The correct sequence is from January 14, 1971. But this is just by the way…”

 Well said, Wale! Wale, Oyeweso and my humble self were classmates at Ife. While Wale and Oyeweso read History as their major, I read History and Political Science combined. Babarinsa, on the other hand, is my professional colleague and contemporary as a journalist. The controversy over superiority between the Ooni and Alaafin is a mere academic exercise; but it is also a rich source of mischief-making for enemies of Yoruba unity and progress. Professor PLO Lumumba said: In a controversy between two dwarfs, what sense does it make for one dwarf to say he is taller than the other, seeing that both still remain a dwarf! Neither the Ooni nor Alaafin wields effective power anymore! They are both relics from the past! Let no one disturb our peace over non-issues!