As an interesting onlooker, I wish to just air my views on the whole imbroglio in Ikirun at present.
I can say I know Ikirun fairly well by the virtue of the fact that I went to school in that town in the late 70s before I travelled outside the country.
Even after I left, I have always been following happenings in this town though not as an Indigene, at least as a stakeholder, having tapped from the fountain of knowledge in the land rich in kolanut during my evolutionary educational process.
Besides the fact that the town was – and I am told it is still – acommodating, I have cultivated enduring relationship with a number of friends whom I met then and still have as my best friends till date.
So, I should be interested in the goings on in that town. The discordant tunes coming from Ikirun will discourage any rational, truth-inclined and God-fearing person.
The selection of a new king ought to be a thing of joy, one event that should have been heralded by pomp and pageantry, but sadly, this is not so. The seemingly harmless traditional process has become a hydra-headed monster in the hands of buccanners. It has now been mired in controversies. The whole episode started on a sublime note but later dovetailled to the ridiculous.
In the unfolding drama, the principal characters are none other than the Kingmakers but aided and abetted by some indigene politicians, government officials as well as some monarchs from neighbouring towns surrounding Ikirun.
First, we heard about a tape circulating around which contained detail revelation of how six kingmakers on the behest of some people in government in Osun State went to a secret location and decided there and then who becomes the king.
Not more than a week later the same kingmaker whose voice was vociferous and tear-inducing in the voice note came to a radio station in Osogbo with another colleague of his to debunk the story he narrated in the voice recording, claiming he was attacked with metaphysical power to say all he said previously. What arrant nonsense!
He was said to have been counselled by one Achitophel among the chiefs, who is not a kingmaker. His chief-adviser told him to go out and negate all he had said earlier. And when he got to the radio station, the voice we heard again was that of a broken record.
He was speaking like a geriatric patient, allowing himself to be goaded on by a younger crook. He and his ilk probably forgot the days of reckoning. And they have wives, children and even extended families. The immortal lines of Alexander Pope, one of the most prolific English Neoclassical poets,’ is instructive to these bunch Walter Mitty character:
Ask them the cause; they‘re wiser still, they say;
And still tomorrow’s wiser than today.
We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow;
Our wiser sons, no doubt, will think us so.
The way these custodians of the ancestral heritage have been behaving in the last few weeks over the selection a new king signpoasted Ikirun as a land that God has forsaken and taken leave from its people.
Iwofa Mefa (or Iwarefa. Whatever!) individuals reposed with the confidence of the entire people, who should act sagaciously and give people the best leader they deserve, – these conscience of the people – chose to tow the path of Judas Iscariot.
They disappeared and reappeared and announced through a kangaroo election that one Yunusa Akadiri had been selected.
Granted that the said Akadiri has blue blood flowing in his veins; granted also that he has interest in contesting to ascend the throne of his forefather; no one, absolutely no one, has the right to deny him what by birthright, belongs to him.
It is however wrong for him to collude with the kingmakers to ascend through the back door. It is by far better to win respect than to command it. Respect secured by the latter channel does not live long.
The ignoble and inelegant manner with which the kingmakers arrived at his candidature is what the generality of the people revolted against.Not the person of Akadiri. He should get that right.
And that was how profiling of candidates became an issue in the ensuing melee. The kingmakers had opened the eyes of the people, having overly demonstrated they are treacherous, unreliable and disloyal to the people who appointed them as their representatives.
The question is: Why would a people put their first eleven on the bench and entrench mediocres? Why? Ikirun that I know will never condone such. Is it the same Ikirun that produced the likes of late Dr. Adeniyi Oroge?
The same town that bred the likes of Lawyer Usman Kusamotu, his younger brother, Dr. Hammed Oladepo Kusamotu (may the souls of Great Kush rest in peace); Dr Olayiwola Adejare Lawal, the reknowed Economist, late Lawyer Tunji Abolade; late Lawyer Abdul Ramon Adeyemi; his younger, Dr. Ismail Lasun Adeyemi (London trained physician).
The same Ikirun that produced Mr Wale Adesina and late Yakubu Olayiwola Afolabi; Chief Tunji Ibikunle, Chairman defunct Savannah Bank; Rasheed Olaoluwa (former Bank of of Industry Chairman) all seasoned bankers; late AIG Simeon Oduoye (two-time military administartor), Retired (but not tired) DIG Adewale Ghazali Lawal, the Asiwaju of Ikirun.
Not to also forget egg heads in the academic like: Proffesors Sunday Owolabi, DVC, Babcock University; Yakubu Fabiyi, Land Economist, Ife; Rasheed Jimoh, Computer, Ilorin; in the military, they have retired captain Ajisefinni, Colonel Adetoro. Mention any profession, Ikirun sons and daughters are there.
With this unexhausted and inexhaustible list of gladiators, does anybody dream that a a bolekaja monarch will assuage the thirst for the best that Ikirun people are known for?. Certainly not!
To say the fact, among the contestants, there are many personalities and professionals, who are eminently qualified to ascend the throne more than the one the Kingmakers and their collaborators are trying to foist on the people. His antecedent affirms this; his track record evidences same. We should harp on the best and not the dregs among the candidates. And that is my take, no matter whose horse is gored.
A little learning is a dangerous thing, says Alexander Pope. Some half baked illiterate just sat down in corner with the six among the kingmakers, imposed and almost practically forcibly foisted mediocres on the people. What a shameful act!
And when their atrocities came to the fore, even the one they called Ekerin of Ikirun, denied his involvement. He quickly invented an alibi to exonerate himself, coming up with a beggarly explanation of how he was in Ada where they conferred on him a chieftaincy title and so it was impossible for him to be in two places at a time.
As unlettered as he is so he thinks are the people. He was hiding behind one finger. If what he did was the right thing, he ought to stand tall and defend it. Ekerin or is it Ekarun, should go and ask those who are learned about the story in the early 1970s of the notorious land grabber, Jimoh Ishola Ejigbadero.
It was the same alibi he relied on when he killed one Raji Oba over a piece of land.
We can run but we can’t hide from our creator. His watertight alibi- which availed him in court of first instance and the Court of Appeal – later came crumbling like a pack of cards and he was exposed for what he was: Ejigbadero was a murderer. He murdered sleep like the eponymous hero of Shakespeare, Macebeth, and couldn’t sleep again until Raji Oba’s death was avenged.
Ekerin and the kingmakers and their other co-travellers in crime – politicians and monarchs alike – have done their worse. They have commited sacrilege, wronged the ancestors.
We shall leave them in the hand of the omnipotent God, who will recompense them according to their deeds. Echoing Alexander Pope once again, only the ‘fools rush in where angels fear to tread.’
By now, they should all cover their faces in shame after that despicable conduct! Or did I hear someone call them kingmakers again? No! That is not what they are after their recidivist carriage. They have sold their conscience to the devil. These mephistophelean characters have no fear of God.
Only the Eesa, Kareem Adetoyese, who is the Akinrun-in-Council Chairman, stood tall and proved himself a man worthy of being reposed with people’s trust. He deserves the people’s accolade. The role each and everyone of them played and will still play is left for posterity to judge.
Let me say that it is not too late for them to retrace their steps and come to term with what the people want. All these frantic attempts to salvage an incurably bad situation is a mere window dressing, sheer damage control. The road they travel at present only lead to Golgotha, total perditions.
With or without these Chiefs, with the resilience of Ikirun people, I know this storm will soon blow over the town and by extension its people.
Let me reassure you that there is silver lining in the sky. The poem of Walt Withman will sooth and calm the frayed nerves:
But not, child; Weep not, my darling,
With these kisses let me remove your tears,
The ravening cloud shall not be long victorious,
They shall not long possess the sky.
Zayyad Hamza writes from Dublin
