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OBA ADEYEMI III: A postscript and a song

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If any man held a position for nearly 52 years and made a habit of turning heads and wowing audiences even as an Octogenarian, you have got to give him enormous credit.

What Oba Adeyemi III embodied was a fusion of his personality with the historically chequered stool of the Alaafin of Oyo. A studious voyage into Oyo history will reveal that very few Alaafins ruled without one serious crisis or the other. From the dethroned to the exiled; from the disgraced to the murdered. Oyo even had an interregnum for 80 years. This means Oyo was in such debilitating disarray, it was an exiled dynasty with no real leadership for 80years. No other kingdom other than extinct ones has that kind of history.

It follows that whoever becomes an Alaafin wears a potentially problematic crown. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.

Oba Adeyemi III certainly had a delicately vulnerable youth. He was his father’s favourite. Alaafin Adeniran had seen bodily marks and spots on Prince Lamidi immediately after he was born in the same areas he, the father, had. He had the hunch the baby would be future royalty. In a household of about 200 wives and Prince Lamidi’s mother, Ibironke, having passed away when Prince Lamidi was an infant, Alaafin Adeniran had to protect him from harm. He first sent the Prince to live with an Anglican school teacher and disciplinarian in Oyo. Later, he arranged for the young Prince to gain royal tutelage in the household of the Alake of Egbaland, Oba Oladapo Ademola, in Abeokuta.

Unfortunately, the Alake started having running battles with market women in his domain chiefly about taxation. The confrontations or protests were led by Funmilayo Ransome Kuti and Eniola Soyinka (Wole Soyinka’s mother). They chased the Alake away from his palace. He abdicated his throne and was exiled to Oshogbo. Prince Lamidi followed him there and saw the tribulations firsthand.

Prince Lamidi later found his way to Lagos where he lived in the household of Sir Kofo Abayomi, an ally of his father. It was while he was in Lagos that his father suffered the same fate as the Alake of Egbaland.

In Oyo, Alaafin Adeniran was facing civil/political battles of his own. There was political unrest in Oyo. Also, Chief Bode Thomas, an erudite lawyer and minister, had died mysteriously after an altercation with the monarch. The Action Group leadership pointed accusing fingers at the monarch who was a staunch supporter of the rival NCNC led by Nnamdi Azikiwe.

In the aftermath of political unrest in Oyo Town in 1954 which claimed six lives including Pa Gbadamosi Afojna (father of ex-minister and former Chairman of First Bank, Prince Ajibola Afonja), the regional AG-led government suspended and de-stooled Alaafin Adeniran. Sir Richard Lloyd QC, senior crown counsel to Nigeria’s Governor-General Sir John Macpherson, headed an inquiry into the unrests. The Commission of Inquiry’s recommendations fell short of expressly exonerating the Alaafin but it thought that elected representatives ought to show more tolerance to older members of the Oyo Divisional Council, including the Alaafin, on account of their difficulty to adapt to a new system. The AG-led government of the Western Region nevertheless deposed the Alaafin and exiled him to Iwo-Oke and later Ilesha.

I bet Prince Lamidi lapped up all the excruciating details of his father’s travails and swore revenge. The deposed Alaafin would later move to No 31, Egerton Lane, Lagos, the home of Alhaji N.B Soule, a wealthy NCNC stalwart who offered all material support to the deposed monarch. Alaafin Adeniran died there in 1960.

In Lagos, Prince Lamidi had taken to boxing, a sport that guarantees physical and mental toughness. He would later work with an insurance company. When his father’s successor, Oba Bello Gbadegesin Ladigbolu, joined his ancestors in 1970, it was a tug of war between Lamidi and other contenders to the throne. While Prince Sanda ‘Ladepo Oranlola was seen by many as people’s favourite, Prince Lamidi’s nomination was confirmed by the appointing authorities and he ascended the throne in January 1971. That came with the assistance of certain well-connected indigenes of Oyo, notably Chief E.O. Ashamu.

I would say Oba Adeyemi III’s 51-year reign was marked, in my view, by his adherence to the 48 Laws of Power applicable to anyone with supreme authority. The ones he did not wield are the ones below the status of a first-class monarch. He deliberately picked the trajectories of his kindness and also his revenge. He was unforgiving to those he thought disgraced his father. He meticulously timed his reprisals. He drew some of them close before he pounced on them.

I heard and confirmed a story of one of them. He was reported to be one of those who led a chorus of songs to mock his exiled father. He died but his son sought a Chieftaincy title in the town during Oba Adeyemi III’s reign. The Alaafin led him on by giving a “commitment” that he would be installed as chief in a pool of contenders. An installation date was picked. There was pomp and merriment on the grounds of Oyo palace. The chief-in-waiting came with his people. The Alaafin came to the forecourt of the palace to meet them. Surely, the installation would happen. So they thought. The Alaafin motioned the vociferous crowd to be quiet. He hinted that before the installation, the crowd would help him to give a chorus to a song. The crowd was excited. The drummers were poised. The chief-in-waiting was all smiled. The Alaafin rendered the song strung together to mock his exiled father immediately after he was deposed. Many people in the crowd, including the chief-in-waiting, got the hint. They dared not give any chorus. You could hear a pin drop. The Alaafin asked why there was no chorus. Dead silence. The Alaafin stormed back into the inner recess of the palace. There would be no installation. It was revenge perfectly exacted. Whether or not he should have taken a route like that is left to an individual’s interpretation of Karma.

Upon ascending the throne, Oba Adeyemi III primed himself to give truly royal impetuses to the institution of the Alaafin. What he didn’t get in terms of certificated qualifications, he made up for with a supremely admirable sense of history served in the most knowledgeable, candid, sometimes controversial, and witty manner. He had a solid grasp of both Yoruba and English languages. His choice of adjectives and mastery of diction was top-notch. If you hated him for any reason but had a chance encounter with him, your hatred of him would dissipate, even if for the moment.

He was indeed a controversial Oba. Sometimes for good reasons, as an indigene of Oyo, you just wished he did certain things differently. If he was not an Oba or a boxer, a sport he loved till his last breath, I bet he would have been a terrific lawyer. He knew his onions and deployed all his arsenals to fend off any circumstance that would challenge the status of his institution. He fought through the court’s certain incursions that came from Ooni Okunade Sijuade in a supremacy battle in the old Oyo State. As the feud reached a combustible crescendo, Osun State was created. Both historical stools went their separate ways. The supremacy tussle left the battlefield of government offices and the courts to have mere academic and bragging rights significance. Oyo owes him and his descendants a debt of gratitude for always standing firm in the affirmation of the supremacy of his throne. He never wavered. He never faltered. He never capitulated. He never failed. He had almost everything HIS WAY.

My study of Oba Adeyemi started within my own family. He was at the early part of his ascension very close to my uncle, Mr. Muraina Oyedemi Afonja, of blessed memory. My uncle was well-traveled, urbane, happy-go-lucky, and financially sound. He arranged Oba Adeyemi’s first-ever travel to the western world. He took the Kabiyesi to London and also arranged to have his first daughter, Princess Akofade, in a school in England. Both would soon have personal differences and they fell apart. To be candid, the Alaafin recorded a very good number of falling apart with allies. I don’t know the causes of the estrangements but collaborating with many of them would have been in the best interests of Oyo Town and the institution of the Alaafin.

I was a constant visitor to the palace. I went there as a child to watch cultural events and also football on a dusty pitch on the west side of the palace. I became friends with his son, Prince Akeem (now a second-term member of the House of Representatives), during the time we attended St Francis Nursery and Primary School together. That friendship continued at Olivet Baptist High School. There was a blackout in Oyo around June/July 1993 and the final of the Under 17 World Cup was to be played between Nigeria and Ghana. I met Akeem in school and asked if I could come to the palace to watch the final. We had no generator in our own house. He obliged by telling me he would meet me at the palace gate by 9 am. He was there on time. We walked towards the palace’s expansive quarters and Kabiyesi was doing a light workout close to the palace mosque. In absolute awe, I prostrated fully. He greeted me. Akeem introduced me. Remembering framed London pictures of the Kabiyesi and my uncle hung in the latter’s sitting room, I quickly told Kabiyesi I am a nephew to Mr. Muraina Afonja. He beamed and said nice words about him. It was my first personal meeting with the Kabiyesi. I thereafter followed Akeem into the living room of Prince Babatunde Adeyemi, the Alaafin’s first son, where we watched the World Cup final.

I would meet him personally again after I became a lawyer. He had suggested to a surveyor to find a young lawyer who would work with the surveyor in the administration of certain stool land. I was before the Kabiyesi. He offered me a seat. I felt trepidation but he put me at ease. He gave the instructions and I commenced the job. I must’ve made up to #5 million on the job before my foray into politics drew me away from him and the job, partly due to my political naivety, as I felt I was not safe with Alaafin’s affinity with a rival political party. I met him again in 2014. One of his chiefs was in police trouble. He mentioned that I should handle the matter. I resolved the case within hours at Iyaganku. The chief insisted I must accompany him to thank the Kabiyesi. I did so reluctantly. Kabiyesi had traveled but we got feelers that he was on his way back to Oyo, so we waited. He came in and he saw me among the hordes of visitors who milled around his car to greet him. “Lawyer, o ya ma bo kin tete da e loun”. I followed him sheepishly into a living room where I narrated the circumstances of the case to him. He asked if I’d been paid. I applied native intelligence and said “Kabiyesi, eyin le ran mi n’ise”. He reached for a leather purse, unzipped it, and retrieved a wad of mints which he handed to me.

Despite publicly aligning with the Muslim faith and at one time the Amir-Ul-Hajj for Nigeria, he was the father of all. He attended church programmes when necessary and could copiously quote from the Bible. There was a time some Islamic clerics declared opposition to certain parts of the Egungun festival routine. It was an incendiary moment. War was imminent. The Alaafin stood firm and erred on the side of tradition.

His sense of tradition was patent in the way he preserved much of the palace’s old architecture. He did not embrace swanky modernity. While the palace is not particularly modern, its identity as a palace of grand royalty is unmistakable. He dressed the way a Yoruba monarch should dress. Regaled in beauty, style, panache, and comportment, Oba Adeyemi was always a star attraction. His outfits from his dog-ear (abeti aja) cap to his shoes left no one in doubt about what true royalty should be. Never outlandish. Just adequately regal. When he was in the mood, he treated onlookers to a sui generis dance move that culminated in the forward thrust of his right leg for a light stomp on the ground. Classy.

He had the carriage, the swagger, the looks, the speech, the show of love, the elicitation of fear, the compassion, the mean streak, the never-say-die attitude, the mischiefs, the magnetic aura, the eye for opportunities, the penchant for spotting talents and the knack for picking the best brains to his fullest advantage. In a place like Oyo where people had a history of turning against their king, he needed to be all this. Call him Dr. Jekyll and Hyde, you’ll not be far from the truth. How he did all in nearly 52 years, walking where Angels fear to tread, with only a few stumbles, is remarkable. He ended his reign as the longest-serving Alaafin in history and one of the longest-serving monarchs anywhere in the world.

Oba Adeyemi III was a Solomon. I’m not talking about his numerous women but his wisdom. You just couldn’t out-think him. In the unlikely event that you managed to outsmart him, steer clear. He was almost always one step ahead even in the face of shattering controversies.

He navigated the disgrace that could have come from a drug incident in the United Kingdom in the early 90s. He was exonerated by the British authorities. He didn’t own the bag containing the package. A storm hovered over him upon the murder of Amuda Olorunosebi, the last Ashipa of Oyo. A mob stormed his palace and it was torched. He rode that storm. Another serious allegation of murder came when my mentor, Alhaji Rashidi Adebayo Atingisi, was murdered. He made it to the UCH, and wrote a statement in his handwriting naming one of the “palace boys” as the man that shot him but he died about 24 hours after volunteering his written statement. The alleged shooter was arrested and charged in court with murder. There was a trial but the court ruled that Atingisi’s statement is not a dying declaration. The shooting happened at night and there were no corroborative witnesses. The accused was discharged and acquitted. Another major reputational damage was averted.

Kabiyesi then fell out with his godson, Hon Kamil Akinlabi. The feud threatened to get dirty when Prince Akeem Adeyemi squared up against the godson in two consecutive elections (a third is impending). There was an air of fear that Hon Kamil, so close to Kabiyesi he could be said to know everything about the monarch, would spill certain beans. It’s either there are no beans to spill or Hon Kamil will keep quiet forever now that the great monarch has passed away.

Politically, the Alaafin was smart. He moved with the tide most times. For

long periods, he avoided Awolowo’s parties. It is a fact that his deposed father’s humiliation was politically-motivated. Up till 2010, it was the belief in political circles that the Alaafin would never be affiliated with any party having links with Awolowo’s political legacy. That changed with Alao Akala’s mismanagement of his relationship with the Alaafin. The monarch had no choice but to pitch a tent with the ACN to flush out Akala whose second term as governor, if he had gotten it, would have been disastrous for the Alaafin. He fell out with Lam Adesina and Rashidi Ladoja too but he sustained a good relationship with Governor Abiola Ajimobi.

All the time I knew him, he mastered the art of reinventing himself. Opinion polls in Oyo were not always stacked in his favour. But he would come up with schemes that kept him afloat. One was amassing a squad of young wives and the style of going to functions with a minimum of three of them in tow.

If there was a lull, he would invent a Chieftaincy title for the high and mighty. Thousands of visitors would storm Oyo. The glitz of the occasions brought more reverence, patronage, and cash. One was slated for May 27, 2022. Speaker Gbaja would have shut Oyo down with who is who in Nigeria for a Chieftaincy title. Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey and Ayinde Marshall were billed to entertain. It wasn’t to be.

He could have done a lot more to uplift Oyo and a lot of the indigenes. He had the clout and the opportunities. Of course, a good number of indigenes and non-indigenes are beneficiaries of his benevolence. Could we have had more benefits flowing from his clout? Certainly. He was a human being after all. Perfection belongs to God.

His passing will have socio-economic, cultural, political, and “soul-searching” ramifications for Oyo and even beyond. We hope it will be for good.

Kabiyesi, we will miss you. Rest In Peace!

 

Muideen Olalekan Olagunju, a Lawyer and Politician; writes from Oyo

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Opinion

NASS Pensioners: How Akpabio, Abbas Should Not Treat The Elderly

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On Monday and Tuesday last week, workers and political operatives within the precincts of the new Senate building in the National Assembly complex, Abuja, were treated to a replica of the Theatre of the Absurd. This type of drama originated in Europe and later spread to America in the 1950s. It was influenced by existential philosophy and Albert Camus’s essay The Myth of Sisyphus.

In that work, Camus captured the fundamental human needs and compared the absurdity of man’s life with the situation a figure of Greek mythology, Sisyphus found himself, where he was condemned to repeat forever the task of pushing a boulder up a mountain, and repeatedly sees the same roll down the hill as he approaches the top.

He, thereafter, juxtaposed life’s absurdities with what he called the “unreasonable silence” of the universe to human needs and concluded that rather than adopt suicide, in frustration, “revolt” was required.

82-year-old Dr. Muhammed Adamu Fika, former Clerk to the National Assembly and former Chairman, of the National Assembly Service Commission (NASC), who calls himself the “smaller Adamu Fika,” must have come across the Camus essay in deciding to lead an emergency meeting of the Council of Retired Clerks and Secretaries of the National Assembly on November 18. The emergency meeting, which was jointly held with members of the Association of Retired Staff of the National Assembly was meant to salvage the pathetic plights of the National Assembly retirees.

Eighty-two-year-old Fika can hardly gather the pace to navigate round the corners of the National Assembly, but he insisted on making the trip to enable him to preside over the meeting as the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Council of Retired Clerks and Secretaries. As his retiree colleagues, many of whom are far younger, saw him struggling to walk the required distance from the Bola Ahmed Tinubu Library, originally fixed as venue to the new Senate building, they had to provide some shoulders to lean on. At one stage, an office chair was converted to a wheelchair to ensure the elderly Fika got to certain locations. It was a sad tale, especially if you look at the essence of Fika’s trip to the National Assembly. He was there to preside over a meeting to press home the need for the payment of the entitlements of National Assembly retirees. An alarm had earlier been sounded on the different Whatsapp platforms of the retired workers of the National Assembly to the effect their members were dying in numbers. It was revealed that no fewer than 20 retired workers had died awaiting the payment of their entitlements in the recent past. Another set of retirees numbering 12 were said to have been bedridden in different hospitals across the land. That alarm was more than enough to prompt Fika and his retiree colleagues to an emergency meeting. But the sight of an elderly man, fighting a just cause on an improvised wheelchair was more than absurd.

Payment of the entitlements got stalled after former President Muhammadu Buhari assented to the National Assembly Service Pensions Board Act, 2023, which mandated the National Pensions Commission (PENCOM) to hand over assets of the staff of the National Assembly in its custody after the passage of the National Assembly pension law.

In the beginning, there were no signs that things would go south on the implementation of the Act. Three months after the National Assembly Service Pensions Board Act came into effect, PENCOM had written the management to convey its decision to hand off the pension assets of the staff of the National Assembly, while requesting the National Assembly management to provide it with account details to remit the accrued funds. The 10th Senate and the House of Representatives also provided hope for the retirees by providing a take-off grant to the tune of N2.5 billion in the 2024 budget. However, the NASS management could not comply with the request from PENCOM because the Pensions Board had not been inaugurated. Months after months, the retirees waited. Those who were already enjoying their benefits when PENCOM was administering had the payments terminated, while the waiting game ensued.

In trying to fast-track the implementation of the Act, Fika, as the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Council of Retired Clerks and Secretaries had forwarded a letter to the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, intimating them of the council’s recommendations for positions in the National Assembly Service Pensions Board.

Fika said in the letter, dated February 27, 2024, that “Considering the pathetic health conditions of our retired colleagues, Your Excellency will agree with me that the establishment of the National Assembly Pensions Board is overdue five (5) months after Mr. President’s assent.” He said that his letter was premised on the provisions of Sections 2 and 17(3) of the National Assembly Service Pensions Board Act, 2023, which indicate that the presiding officers of the National Assembly shall make the appointments subject to recommendations of the Council of Clerks and Secretaries. But some persons are insinuating that the undue delay might have been instigated by two strange bedfellows-politics and money. Where the two are involved, simply things hardly follow a straight course. However, nothing justifies the nearly 20-month delay in inaugurating the Pensions Board.

At the end of the emergency meeting on Monday, further meetings were said to have been scheduled at the instance of the Senate President, Akpabio, his deputy, Jibril Barau and others but there were no conclusive steps, yet.

A communique released after the meeting indicated that the retirees observed that the National Assembly Service Pensions Board Act, 2023 went through full legislative process in the 9th National Assembly and was assented to by President Muhammad Buhari. It further noted that the delay in implementing the Act has caused undue and untold hardship to the retirees who are unable to access their retirement benefits, adding that while a number of the retired Staff have died, many others are bedridden due to sufferings occasioned by the non-payment of their entitlements.

According to the communique, the meeting decried the pains the retired staff have been subjected to and recalled that appropriate recommendations as per the composition of the Pensions Board have been made to the Presiding Officers of the National Assembly, in line with the enabling Act.

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The Fuji Music House Of Commotion

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Like every lover of Yoruba traditional music, language and culture, I have of recent been inundated with requests to lend a voice to the newest raging fire in the Fuji music genre. Since the passage of Alhaji Sikiru Ayinde Balogun, popularly known as Ayinde Barrister or Agbajelola Barusati, there have been longstanding tiffs on whom of the trio of Ayinde Omogbolahan Anifowose, KWAM 1; self-named King Saheed Osupa (K.S.O.) and Wasiu Alabi Pasuma, was the “King.”

These musicians’ recent quest for supremacy is not new. From time immemorial, supremacy battles have been part and parcel of Yoruba music. Apparently now tempered by modernity, in the olden days, the battles were fought with traditional spells, incantations and talisman aimed at deconstructing and liquidating their rivals. Mostly fought on genre basis, I submit that pre and post-independence entertainment scene would have been livelier, far more robust than it was but for the acrimonious liquidating fights of those eras.

In the Sakara music, Abibu Oluwa, a revered early precursor of this Yoruba musical genre, who reigned in the late 1920s and 1930s, had Salami Alabi Balogun, popularly known as Lefty Salami, Baba Mukaila and Yusuff Olatunji as members of his band. Oluwa praise-sang many Lagos elites of his time, especially Herbert Macaulay to whom he sang his praise in the famous track named “Macaulay Macaulay.” In it, he sang the foremost Nigerian nationalist’s alias of Ejonigboro – Snake on the Street and prayed that he would not come to shame.

Sakara also produced the likes of S. Aka Baba Wahidi, Kelani Yesufu (alias Kelly). It was sung with traditional Yoruba instruments like the solemn-sounding goje violin whose history is traced to the north, and the roundish Sakara drum, beaten with stick and whose appearance is like that of a tambourine. Sakara music is often called the Yoruba variant of western blues music because of its brooding rhythm though laced with a high dosage of philosophy.

When Oluwa died in 1964, he literally handed over to Lefty who, born on October 1913, died December 29, 1981. Lefty, a talking drummer under Oluwa, churned out over 35 records before his demise, one of which was a tribute to Lagos monarch, Oba Adele (Adele l’awa nfe – Oba Adele is the king we want) and another to the Elegushi family. I dwelt considerably on Sakara because it is believed to have had considerable influence on other genres of traditional African Yoruba music, especially Apala and Fuji, with the former sometimes indistinguishable from Sakara.

Apala music, whose exponent is said to be Haruna Ishola, originated in the late 1930s Nigeria. Delivered with musical instruments like a rattle (Sekere) thumb piano, (agidigbo) drums called Iya Ilu and Omele, a bell (agogo) and two or three talking drums, Apala and Sakara are the most complex of these genres of traditional Yoruba music, due to their infusion of philosophy, incantations and dense Yoruba language into their mix. Distinct, older and more difficult in mastery than Fuji music which is considered to be comparatively easy to sing, Ayinla Omowura, Ligali Mukaiba, Kasumu Adio, and many others were Apala leading lights of the time. The three genres have very dense Islamic background.

The latest entrant of all the three genres is Fuji. Pioneered by Ayinde Barrister no doubt, for an Apala musician biographer like me, I am confused that Omowura, as far back as early 1970s, asked listeners in need of good Fuji music to come learn from him – “Fuji t’o dara, e wa ko l’owo egbe wa…” Sorry, I digressed.

While KWAM 1 emerged with his Talazo music from the ashes of his being a music instrument arranger for Barrister’s musical organization in the early 1980s, the feud in the house after Barrister’s death erupted when narratives allegedly oozed unto the musical scene that KWAM 1 referred to himself as the creator of Fuji music. He however promptly denied the claim. For decades, Osupa and Pasuma were locked in horns over supremacy of the Fuji music genre. In August 2023, the two however seemed to have decided to thaw their feud as they shared stage with Wasiu Ayinde, at Ahmad Alawiye Folawiyo, an Islamic singer’s 50th birthday celebration in Lagos. KWAM 1 glibly acted as their senior colleague at the event.

As an indication that they are no bastards of the teething and recurrent supremacy battles that emblemize traditional Yoruba music, the three Fuji music icons seem to have gone into the trenches again. It first started with Taiye Currency, an Ibadan-based alter-ego of Pasuma picking a fight with the musician who self-styled himself Son of Anobi Muhammed’s Wife. In a viral video, Currency had disclaimed reference to Pasuma as his “father” in the music industry. In another video not long after, KWAM 1, like some kind of father figure, was shown asking Currency to apologize to Pasuma.

A few days ago, a video of Osupa went viral. Therein, he was chastising a particular hypocrite he called “Onirikimo” and “alabosi”, who is “stingy and is ready to shamelessly collect money from those under him.” Osupa also claimed that this “shameless elder” had strung a ring of corn round his waist and should be ready to be made fun of by hens. Watchers of the endless tiffs among these Fuji icons swear that KWAM 1 was the unnamed Fuji musician Osupa was casting aspersion on.

The trio of Sakara, Apala and Fuji music also witnessed such petty squabbles. While many claim that the fights were promotional gambits aimed at having their fans salivate for their hate-laced musical attacks against one another, some others claim that the rivalries were genuine. In the Apala music scene, Haruna Ishola and Kasumu Adio fought each other to the nadir, with Adio, who sang almost in the same voice and cadence as Ishola, suddenly vamoosing from the musical scene. Rumours and speculations had it then that a mysterious goat bit Adio and rendered him useless. While Ayinla Omowura also fought Fatai Olowonyo, Fatai Ayilara, among others in the Apala genre, the duo of Yusuff Olatunji and S. Aka also feuded till their last days. This is not to mention the interminable fight between Kollington Ayinla and Barrister.

If the tiff between the trio of KWAM 1, Osupa and Pasuma is about age and Yoruba traditional respect for elders, KWAM 1 would easily go away with the trophy of the best of the three. However, if philosophical depth, musical elan, research of lyrics and deployment of Yoruba language are at issue, none of the other two musicians can unbuckle Osupa’s sandals. Osupa began his musical career in 1983 as a teenager and has gone through the mills, his late father being a musician, too and Awurebe music lord, Dauda Epo Akara’s musical contemporary.

Unlike their predecessors, the three Fuji musicians are literate and should thus address their musical issues in more mature manner. Osupa even recently bagged a degree from the department of Political Science, University of Ibadan. One thing they should know is that, whether one is supreme to the other or not, their fans will readily queue behind the brand that delights them.

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Almajiri: Why Northern Leaders Must Look Themselves in the Mirror

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Two incidents happened during the 1994/95 NYSC service year, which I was part of in Birnin-Kebbi, Kebbi State, and they gave me profound culture shocks that I still remember till today. I would equally say that those incidents probably justified the Federal Government’s decision to float the scheme.

 

We were told that part of the reasons General Yakubu Gowon floated the NYSC was to ensure national integration, cohesion and exposure of young Nigerians to cultures of other parts of the country other than where they were born.

First was the shock of seeing a director that I was attached to in the then Government House, who had just taken a new wife, and sat among drivers, gate men and other junior staff to dine. I saw them seated round a huge iron pot of Koko, a local delicacy, exchanging one big spoon made of calabash, as each took turns to use the spoon to eat the delicacy. It was as if I was witnessing a scene where children of a big family were struggling to catch a portion of food or where people were eating Saara, as they say it in Yorubaland.

As I walked past the noisy crowd, I was transfixed seeing the newly-wedded director among the lot. He saw me standing still, as I couldn’t comprehend what he was doing there, and he got the message. ‘Taiyo, (as he used to call me) you won’t understand,’ he said as he waved to me to keep going. When we later saw, he explained that what he just did was a way of assuring the commoners that ‘we are all one,’ as they felicitated him on the new bride. But I could not fathom how the occupant of a ‘huge office’ as that of a director in a Government House , would sit among “commoners” on a tattered mat to share a single spoon and eat in public.
The other incident was quite pathetic. My friend, Tunde Omobuwa, was posted to a school in Yauri, in the southern part of the state, for his primary assignment. But he found the place boring on weekends. So, he arranged to always be with me on weekends.

One such weekend, we decided to take a stroll round the streets near the Government House. We took off from the place of my primary assignment, the Federal Information Centre; bought corn beside the office, and started ‘blowing’ the ‘mouth organ’ as we strolled. We were too engrossed in our gist and the sweetness of the corn to note that some young boys were trailing us, praying that some leftovers of the corn would drop for them to scavenge. Somehow, the two of us dropped the corn cob almost simultaneously. We were more than taken aback by a commotion that erupted at our back. Four eight or nine year-olds had descended on the supposed leftovers and broken the corn cobs into pieces. I was again transfixed as if one was hit by an electric shock. Remember that feeling when you play with electric fish?

I was moved to tears as I had never ever seen a group of children scavenging on nothing as it were. I beckoned to the kids and offered them N20, which was the highest denomination at the time, and with some smattering Hausa words told them to go buy their own corn from the same place we got ours. As they left, heading to the corn seller, I couldn’t erase that ugly sight from my mind. Was it really possible that some people scavenge on nothing this way? I was later to see incidents of children swarming around restaurants and pouncing on near empty plates.

These incidents told me clearly that the North was a different place and that the life of the boy child is not only risky and endangered but sold to stagnation and deprivation, unless you are one of the lucky few.

Having benefited from the free education policy of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) between 1979 and 1983, when the Second Republic was terminated, I knew that there is a lot the government can do in educating the children. In my secondary school days, I was the Library Prefect at one point, and so I saw an excess of books supplied by the government to our school. So, I was an example of the feasibility of free education. It was the same way the Action Group government had handled education in the years preceding Nigeria’s independence and the First Republic.

So why can’t the state governments in the North declare free and compulsory education for the young ones out there? Why should children be made to scavenge on empty corn cobs just to see if they can find pieces of seeds left over?

And why was my director giving drivers and gate men in the Government House false hope that they were all the same, instead of him to challenge them to seek to lift themselves up the social ladder?
I think there was no excuse for the North not to have adopted a free education policy, just as Chief Obafemi Awolowo did in the South-West. And if we say the North needs to look itself in the mirror, you again remember the efforts by President Goodluck Jonathan to educate the multitude of Northern children through the Almajiri Schools. That government built more than 400 of such schools, which were abandoned because it could upset the oligarchy. The oligarchs forgot the truism that the children of the poor they refuse to train today won’t let their children sleep peacefully.

But the governor of Borno State, Prof Babagana Zulum, appears to have got the message. Last week, I was thrilled to see him organise a summit to reform the Almajiri system.

The Almajiri education system is a traditional Islamic method of learning widely obtained across states in northern Nigeria. Through that system, which is tied to Islamic teaching, youths, especially boys are kept out of the formal western education system. I don’t know why the teachings by Islamic scholars cannot go alongside that of Western education as it obtains in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and other Islamic countries that are doing well economically and in the world of science, technology.
While addressing the summit, Zulum had mentioned the need to address the root causes of insecurity through the provision of education for citizens of Borno, adding that improper teaching of Islamic studies has contributed to the emergence of Boko Haram insurgents in the state.

According to him, to curtail whatever is the adverse effect of Almajiri education; the Borno State Government has established the Arabic and Sangaya Education Board to introduce a unified curriculum for Sangaya and Islamic schools. He said that the reform would include establishing Higher Islamic Colleges to cater for Almajiri children and blending the religious teachings with the secular curricula as well as skills.
He said: “The Sangaya Reform is a great development. It will give Almajiri a better chance in life, particularly the introduction of integrating western education, vocational, numeracy, and literacy skills into the centres, which are also described as Almajiri and Islamic schools.

“Distinguished guests and esteemed educationists, government’s intention was to streamline the informal and formal education systems to quality integrated Sangaya School for admission into colleges and universities.”

One would have thought that governors with radical postures like Nasir el-Rufai and others before him would have proposed this type of reform, but it is better late than never. Zulum should be supported to get something out of this.

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