[UncleTisha]

How would you describe your relationship with other prominent obas in Yorubaland?

Very very cordial.


But there have been some controversies concerning supremacy?

You see, the issue of who is supreme among the obas is a 20th Century phenomenon. No oba can say he is greater than the Alaafin. Up till now, there is no oba who has come out to make such claims; they only use surrogates. If any oba wants to attack the Alaafin, he uses a baale or another inconsequential element to do that, whereas the Alaafin has come out openly to say he is the head of the Yoruba obas and nobody has controverted that.

If you go to Sir Lugard?s political memoranda in 1917, he detailed the hierarchy of all the traditional rulers in the north and the south. My father or my grandfather was not there to influence Lord Lugard to write it. If you say Johnson had bias for Oyo, go and see C. R. Neeving, who stated unequivocally and authoritatively that the Alaafin is the supreme oba in Yorubaland. Go to Johnson, see the treaty signed by the Alaafin in 1881,1888, stating, ‘I, Adeyemi I, Alaafin of Oyo, King of Yorubaland.’

In his letter to the British in 1881, 1888, during the internecine wars, he wrote, “I, king of the Yoruba…” There is no dispute over that. I have challenged them to a debate, at least for 10 minutes, but they have run away because the facts are there. Somebody wrote recently that the first settlement was ruled by the first Alake. Do you believe that the first settlement of Yoruba was established by Alake who was established in 1830?

Do you believe the history of Yoruba started in 1830? The first Alake in Abeokuta, Okukenu, was a Sagbua, a chief of the Alaafin. Go to the book, Egba and her neighbours, written by an eminent professor of history, Professor Sabiru Biobaku, page 15. He wrote that the Egba forest lay within the remotest part of the Alaafin empire. And how the Alaafin superimposed his authority over the Alake and all other Egba traditional chiefs is acknowledged.

Go to the salary scale of all the obas in 1938, the record of the payslips is in the palace here. Oyo province was constituted on January 14 1914 and Ife and Ijesa were all under Oyo Province. For purposes of effective administration, Oyo Province was broken down into three, namely Oyo Division of Oyo Province; Ibadan Division of Oyo Province and Ife/Ijesa Division of Oyo Province. And principal obas in these areas were designated district heads.

In Ibadan, the Olubadan was the district head of Ibadan, Ooni was the district head of Ife, Orangun was the district head of Ila and Owa was the district head of Igbomina. The Alaafin was the paramount head of the whole province, and in ranking, the Aremo, who was the crown prince of the Alaafin, was the district head of Oyo Province. Twenty district courts were opened for the 20 districts in the province, and the Alaafin never sat in any of the district courts, but at the court of appeal over the 20 district courts.

When there was a problem between Ife and Ijesa, Sir John Macpherson asked the Alaafin to intervene. The Alaafin sent Are Ilugbohun and Alapini and a number of Oyomesi to go and adjudicate. The boundary fixed by the Alaafin at Enuowa still subsists till today. Ditto the dispute between Ife and Ede, Alaafin’s ruling still subsists till today. When Ibadan and Egba quarrelled over Bakasari, the Alaafin settled it and said Bakasari belonged to Ibadan, and he made all the parties to sign an undertaking.


To be specific, there were insinuations that the old Oyo State had to be split into two, Oyo and Osun, because of the supremacy fight between you and the Ooni of Ife.

I would not know the inner workings of government. But I want to tell you this: politics brought out the Ooni. There are so many things we cannot cover in the course of this interview. Like I told you, the question of whether the Alaafin is supreme is a 20th Century phenomenon, when Awolowo emerged the premier of the old Western Region. That was when the government propped up the Ooni. And the only way they could do it successfully then was to get rid of the Alaafin, which they did by deposing the Alaafin, and Ooni Adesoji Aderemi on August 8, 1960 was appointed the governor of the Western Region. The governorship thing was to give leverage to a man who never founded any empire.

When they organised the traditional rulers’ forum in Abuja, Yoruba obas were ridiculed. They put all the emirs on the first row and put Yoruba obas, including the Ooni on the second row. When I came in, I asked for my seat and they wanted me to go and sit at the back. I just removed one of the tags and sat beside the Sultan of Sokoto.

Under the Clifford Constitution in 1922, two obas represented the whole of Nigeria at the legislative council – the Sultan of Sokoto and the Alaafin of Oyo. The Alaafin represented the entire south in Lagos. I left the place and went home, wrote a strongly worded letter to General Jeremiah Useni and copied the late General Abacha. Abacha invited me and I told him that government is a continuum. He reasoned with me and corrected that. The Alake and the Awujale never fought their own cause but I fought mine.

When they asked us for a meeting in Abuja, they asked us to bring our aides for hotel accommodation. The emirs would bring about eight and they put them in suits while they reserved two rooms for me. I just packed to one of the presidential suits. They said but it was not reserved for me, and I said they didn’t have to do that, I did it myself. You see, as the Alaafin, you cannot fear anything.


Was it this supremacy thing you were trying to prove when you recently appointed Mrs Alaba Lawson the Iyalode of Yorubaland?

Nobody is disputing anything. No oba in Yorubaland can say anything to the contrary. It is only the Alaafin that can do it. Are you talking about Dr Fasehun who had gone to celebrate with the Abacha family; somebody who is not consistent?


How is your family life?

I have a very robust family life. I inherited a lot of women in the palace, some of whom are old enough to be my mother, but they take delight in being called Ayaba. Apart from the spiritual aspect of it, one other thing I learnt from them is that they are also the trainers of the Alaafin, because they are custodians of the palace tradition. They are mothers to various sections of the community. They teach me everything about the palace. The palace administration of Oyo is one of the best and the most unique the world over. Many of them head so many compounds and sections. They wear the crown for the Alaafin.


How many of them did you inherit?

That is one of the mysteries we cannot tell anybody.


But you also took many wives.

You must have many wives, not for just conjugal reason, but to take over from the old generation and sustain the institution. For example, the women propitiate the crown that the Alaafin wears; I don’t keep it. Unless there is a very important occasion, I don’t wear the crown. If I want to wear it, it is only a woman who has reached her menopause that can wear it for me, and she has to do it from the back. No oba can wear the Alaafin of Oyo’s crown for one hour. The longest time I have won it so far was for 40 minutes.


Because of the weight?

It is not because of the weight but because of the mythology. That is why you don’t see the Alaafin wearing the crown always like some obas do. Some even put theirs in car boots take them all over the place.


How much of education did you have?

Like I told you, my education was disrupted a lot of time because of the various places I lived. I attended St. Gregory’s College, Lagos and did other courses. I was going to study Law when my father died in February 1960. All that I had was as a result of self-development.


What is your take on the agitation for Ibadan State?

Anybody can ask for any state; that is not a problem. I am not opposed to anything like that.


This issue of the chairmanship of Oyo State traditional council?

There is no issue; there is a law. And when there is a law, you either follow it or you go to court. There is no controversy over the law which says that Alaafin shall be the permanent chairman of the council.


We read it in the paper recently that you were so excited by the the election tribunal ruling that you said you, the traditional rulers, would have sunk with the governor if the outcome was otherwise?

I don’t want to take issues with any newspaper or anybody. I was quoted out of context. What I actually reacted to was the statement by Ibadan people who said they were the only people who could be governor. Ibadan people should not have allowed a non-Ibadan indigene to become the deputy governor since they knew that the mantle of leadership would automatically fall on the deputy whenever the governor is not available.

For one reason or the other, Ladoja was fighting battles on various fronts; he was fighting with Adedibu, Adeojo, the party hierarchy in Abuja and the president. While he was doing that, he allowed the house of assembly to slip off his hands. In other states, the leadership of the party is given to the governor, but curiously, in Oyo State, it was given to Adedibu. I went to him and advised him against the futility of such action but he didn’t listen.

So I made the statement in reaction to what Ibadan said that it was their birthright to be governors of the state. By the time he was reinstated after he had been impeached, the deputy had consolidated. I said all of us would have been in trouble since Ibadan people said the governorship was their birthright. The essence of belonging to the same party is to share ideas. But when everything is reduced to a birthright, it is a dangerous political statement, because in future elections, people would think twice before they give their vote.


A turbulent time in your reign was the assassination of your former Asipa?

There was no turbulence. It was the making of the press to hit the Alaafin. The man offended me, I reported him and he was dismissed. But the government of Bola Ige begged me and I forgave him and recalled him. I gave him conditions which he must fulfilled but he went back to complain to the governor. But the governor reasoned with me by telling him that I appointed him my chief and that he should go back to me and sort himself out. He was told that out of 17 candidates, the Alaafin appointed him. He was told that he was not the official candidate of his family which presented 17 people before the Alaafin appointed him. Because of the circumstances of the case, I would only tell you any other thing off record.