There is a Yoruba proverb that plays around the surname of leading human rights advocate Mr Femi Falana. It surmises that one should first face his face before peeping into others’. I see the Falana gbo tire (Falana, mind your business) wisecrack as a derivative of the admonition of Jesus in Matthew 7, particularly the portion that charges us to remove the log in our eyes before attempting to remove the speck in our brothers’.
Today, I’m returning to Ijesaland on this page as a selfless obligor to her development. That doesn’t mean I do not expect gain from this intervention. But it’s not the type man gives. My reward expectation is rooted in Psalm 133:6, with Ulesa simply exchanging for Jerusalem.
My birthplace, where I also began life and am still connected to till today, has a long association with hard work and prosperity. Àjàpá (itinerant trading) and oso’malo (traditional debt recovery of literally sitting on the debtor’s neck until the debt is defrayed) are two phenomena among other commerce concepts exclusive to my people that define the age-long perception of us being industrious and always creating wealth anywhere we are found.
Alongside innate stubbornness, which I think ranks behind Ondo and Ekiti’s, the Ijesa of old were also war-minded, and the legend of Ogedengbe Agbogungboro needs no retelling. But at a point, it would seem something grievous happened to the psyche of Ijesaland and the kingdom, especially Ilesa, the most prominent of the towns making it up and its headquarters, was almost becoming a haven for fraudsters, led by the supervillain tactically identified by juju maestro King Sunny Ade in a song as the fellow who swindled him. What is Olorunlugo sef!
Then revival began to pick up in the land, with prominent Christian leaders springing from its bowels. The land began to look like what we used to know, from the farmland on Imo hills, to the rusty Ukoromoja, to our dusty streets and neighbourhoods of old, when birthday rice was usually served in a big tray and invited children would be asked to sit round it and wack (slang for eating), with the droplets from someone’s mouthful draping back for the next person to paw with his own handful. Then the song over the food; hin koro hin koro, lule yesi, lule Banjo (Ijesa’s variation for hip hip hooray).
How happy we were, doing it without discriminating that the next person to you had ìbé, yòrò, akokoro or segede (all symptoms or aftermaths of mouth infection or ailment).
At this point, I should convict myself of a certain kind of hypocrisy. Why would those of us who lived communally this way without discrimination now get up North and start sniffing at the young boys who are into alms-begging known as almajiri, pooling their “resources” of leftover food together to eat together!
Well, maybe the only difference is that our rice trays used to be clean, handled by adults, and the birthday food would not be a leftover or a mix of culinary odds and ends. It was usually piping hot white rice and stew! Protein, whether meat or fish, would be served after the tray was drained of the rice. Children weren’t meant to eat protein before or in the course of the meal, even any meal for that matter. Anyone found not being compliant would be excoriated as a potential thief! How odd.
Now, children are pleaded with to start with the protein in their meal for some nutritional reasons, even in the same Ilesa! Changing times?
Somehow, I have always kept tabs on happenings in the land; its politics, commerce, socials et al., even when I hadn’t been home in years. There had been certain shifts that make a lot now unrecognisably different. The last time I was home, even the way to our place was barely recognisable to me, with my children teasing if I had lost my way, which I had, actually, and they couldn’t help because it was the first time for nearly all of them!
Some local women bailed me out, smiling while countenancing the Lagos State registration plate number on my car. In their minds, ara eko ti sonu (Lagosian or Ujesa abroad had missed his way). Guess I have former governor Rauf Aregbesola and incumbent Demola Adeleke to thank for the miss.
I’m certainly not a fan of Aregbesola’s divisive politics of politicising religion, and it was also at the heart of my fervent wish that APC’s candidate in the last Osun guber, Bola Oyebamiji, would not win, despite several reliable quarters and contacts confirming him a good man.
Religious fanaticism or extremism of any kind that would throw the state back to the Aregbesola era of students coming to school in masquerade costumes should never be tolerated again, and any candidate suspected of such an inclination should be stopped at all costs. They say the governor has no religion; I say leave our FaChrisLam governor for us like that; at least he’s not ashamed to praise his Maker openly, dancing like the biblical King David, with the peace of heaven upon the state while developmental projects aren’t that sparse either. What else can one ask for?
As much as I detest the politics of the one I call Buoda Raufu, which is bitter like the biblical Marah waters, Ijesaland, particularly Ilesa’s inner and connecting roads, are what they are today because of the efforts of his administration. Then the dancing governor took apart the main Ilesa township road, from the roundabout/Owa palace straight down to Omi Asoro where the brewery is located, expanded it and made it almost unrecognisable to a once-in-a-while Ijesa Lagos visitor like me. The road was under construction when I was home. That was when the guber election was months away, and if I had a vote (I’m Lagos-registered) to cast in the state, my thumb would have gone for the Thumb party. After all, all politics is local. May God grant the governor the grace to complete the dual carriageway.
You say what about Buoda Raufu and his ADC and the ona-baba-ona (the best in road construction) sobriquet when he was in power? Well, the Yoruba will say nobody clears the road for yesterday’s horse rider. His party’s candidate lost scandalously in the two local governments making up Ilesa (East and West) and didn’t win in any of the remaining four making up Ijesaland! Why would our people quickly forget Aregbe and his infrastructural dividends? Maybe because he also engaged in too much iregbe (needless distraction, especially with religion) and possibly because of the afusa (pejorative coinage from the half-salary his administration paid civil servants that sank the dignity of many who had to beg for their families to eat) crisis.
Well, Baba Kabiru has done his best, though I worry how fast he’s disappearing into political oblivion since he lost the backing of his mentor, who was significantly responsible for his meteoric rise in politics. Someone says he doubts Aregbe is genuine Ijesa because, according to him, you hardly see an ungrateful one. When you did good yesterday, it would be “hin seun ana” (thank you for yesterday). Another day would be “hin seun ijeta”. Days after, it would be “hin seun ijosi” (thank you for the other day), to the point you will start wondering if the appreciation over a thing will never end.
While recent Osun politics would seem to have favoured Ijesaland in a way, something would also seem to have broken in its milieu. Her younger demographic would appear headed in the wrong direction. It is so sickening that if you ask after about 10 young boys you used to know whom you haven’t seen in about 10 years, at least seven of them would be identified as now solidly into yahoo, and most of them, their parents, particularly their mothers, are still alive! This couldn’t have been our Ilesa!
Then if you travelled even abroad and returned with a car the neighbours’ timing mathematics suggested you couldn’t have acquired legitimately, your family would be in the trouble of a pregnant side-eye and laborious gossiping! Such returnees usually disappeared within a day or two of the homecoming, and they dare not leave such a car behind! And they usually bolted before dawn!
But now, beyond okada riding, which has taken almost all artisans away from their trades and crafts, yahoo would seem the next best thing for the young people. The police are reportedly feasting on them to cash out through phoney arrests, from which they would be freed once settlement is procured.
The Owa Obokun Adimula is the paramount ruler of Ijesaland, and the authority and relevance of the occupant per time is mostly measured by the social texture of the young people, and to a large extent, the cooperation of the elite and feedback on commerce from the women’s wing.
When the last Owa was on the throne, Aregbe, an Ijesa, was also in office, a situation that should have strengthened the hold of the Kabiyesi on the land and the restless youth. But it would seem that as he aged before his eventual passing, his grip continually slackened, and because the Ijesa elite reportedly had scant regard for Buoda Raufu (I learnt he’s considered by most of them as not lettered enough to represent them at that level of governance), the gap was almost yawning until the new Kabiyesi mounted the throne about 17 months ago.
I have heard plenty gist about the developmental programmes of the industrialist-billionaire Adimula to return his kingdom to its place of ancient prominence in commerce locally, nationally, and even internationally. I have also heard plenty gist about the tension among the Ijesa elite for control, ascendancy, and influence. A couple of such persons, some of them with deep pockets like the Kabiyesi, I heard, are even trying to impede the progress of the palace agenda!
They should heed a timely warning. Yes, they are being venerated now, but the moment Ijesa pinpoint them as enemies of progress, their unborn generations will carry the vilification. Anytime Ijesa contort their mouths and noses simultaneously and clear their throats of phlegm before muttering “i omo lagbaja ye” (isn’t this the offspring of XYZ?), a terrible story of his father or mother, especially if late, is about to be told.
Multiple socio-cultural organisations, especially those peopled by moneybags, should be a blessing to any community desirous of development and restoration of old glory. Is it not why educated and rich princes are now the favourite pick of opele (divining cowries)?
But trying to overreach should be a no-no. Adimula is a deity. Goodness of heart should not be taken for granted.
Let competing socio-cultural and development associations fight with projects; if the one led by a certain billionaire is siting four, let the group of a once-upon-a-time managing director go for broke with seven. Not impeding the vision of the one they should all be supporting.
I’m keeping names out now, not out of trepidation. If the shenanigans against the developmental vision continue, Series 2 will name names and who is doing what, so the Ijesa will know their new enemies and, in turn, become their nemesis.
I’m particularly disappointed in one egbon and his alleged antics. I used to rate him highly.
In less than two years, Adimula has kept an unbelievable pace on Ijesa restoration. He should be supported by all, all the way. May his reign be peaceful.
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