The office of the Akarigbo of Remo is undoubtedly the symbolic expression of the spiritual and physical existence of a particular sub ethnic group within the global Yoruba nation. Hence, the occupier of this office, at any point in time, is not just a persona with the true blood and culture of Remo running in his veins, he is, essentially, a personification of the individual and collective destiny and aspirations of his sprawling subjects spread across hundreds of towns and villages in Ogun State. The exit of the immediate past Akarigbo of Remo, His Royal Majesty Oba Michael Adeniyi Sonariwo (Erinjugbo ii) into the ancestral world in July 2016 has since reincarnated royal aspirations in many individuals having the Remo blue blood, just as this painful exit has recycled the traditional process of filling this all-important stool which, in reality, defines the existence as well as the distinguishing characters of the people of Remo Kingdom.
In a way, the Remo people are traditional democrats. The current uniting consensus on the rotational formula that entitles the Torungbuwa royal family to the vacant stool is nothing but a delighting status quo in an originally complex Kingdom with a highly fragile socio-cultural psychology. If anything, this consensus denotes the reputed sensitivity of my people to issues relating to social justice, equity and fairness, a virtue that has, for long, set us free from threatening identity colonisation by our immediate neighbours.
Notably, our success, so far, on the socio-cultural and political plane has sprung from our resilient and somewhat militant addiction to progress at all times. And, it is simply because any potentially retrogressive development is typically loathed by the average Remo sons and daughters, including even long-standing stranger-residents amidst us, that many a discerning mind is alarmed, in advance, by a tragedy waiting to happen, courtesy of the selfish determination of some moneybags to hijack the vacant stool of the Akarigbo and hand it over to an octogenarian whom the public opinion actually places within the class of nonagenarian.
Although having an over eighty year-old newly installed as a monarch in any contemporary jet-age community is, in itself, a retrogressive deal not just for the community directly concerned but for the extended geo-cultural context it is located, the idea of having such a retiree imposed as a tool of a single man of means in his bid to deploying an originally sacred throne for selfish socioeconomic and political ends will be nothing but catastrophic.
The fear of the majority is quite understandable. More than ever before, money now seems to do all things, almost without exception. Hence, ceaseless cries have rented the Remo air to alert the Ogun State Government, the Akarigbo Council of Chiefs, the Kingmakers, the youth leadership, every other category of stakeholders and the general public to the evil that is about to be sponsored by a single man but which effect is bound to negatively affect the sprawling masses of Remo land whose hope for a better tomorrow is strongly tied to the quality of leadership the Akarigbo throne offers them.
Yes! I mean the Akarigbo of Remo seat, a traditional royal office, and not the federal, state nor even the local government leadership. Truth be told, the closest and most impacting organ of governance on the Remo people has, for long, remained their traditional authority, epitomized by the paramount ruler.
Just as it is in other frontline Yoruba kingdoms of Ile-Ife and Oyo, so it is in Remo land. The bridge between the people and the three-tier constituted authorities known as government in Ile-Ife, for instance, is the highly revered institution of the Ooni of Ife while in Oyo, it is the Iku Baba Yeye, Alafin of Oyo. Only the naïve would contest the fact that the quality of whatever proceeds from government into any of these two traditional communities is, largely, a function of the potent influence characteristically exerted by occupiers of these sacred offices at any point in time.
Perhaps, I should desist from resisting an impulse that dictates I reinforce my argument against the emergence of an octogenarian Akarigbo, at this point in time, through a reference to the tremendous dynamism and progress so far heralded by the ascension of His Royal Majesty, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi Ojaja II, Ooni of Ife. What has become of Ile-Ife and, in fact, the entire Nigeria, not just the Yoruba nation, in terms of socioeconomic advancements either initiated or facilitated by the widely-adored young symbol of Oduduwa, within a little while, are indeed innumerable. To the entire Yoruba race, Ooni Adeyeye, His Royal Majesty’s youthful liberalism, flexibility and dynamism have really boosted intra-ethnic oneness.
To a large extent, the Ooni’s status, personality and psychology succinctly reflect the aspiration of majority of his immediate subjects and much of the contemporary IT-compliant population of the entire Yoruba race.
In another breadth, allowing a godfather whose partisan political leaning is a loud music to the ears of the deaf, a vivid picture beheld by the blind and the simplest logic to the brain of the nit-wit to plant a strategic monarch that the Akarigbo really constitutes in the socio-political affairs of Ogun State and Nigeria, as a whole, is to, in advance, dig a wide pit for all and sundry to fall into.
It would spell nothing but doom in all spheres of life, if I am hereby permitted to call a spade by its true name. Thus, a supposed father of all would become a personification of partisanship, a situation that would surely draw the hands of our national clock back to the teething age of democracy that the First Republic really was. I mean a time when royal father adorned as well as danced in public squares with costumes branded in parties’ logo.
In the build-up to the selection of the next paramount ruler of Remo land, one thing I find interesting is the unity of purpose that has so far tied majority of the indigenes together. Not just the enlightened and educated, even the unlettered mass amongst us, as well as the both the local and foreign based, are united with respect to who and what they do not want as the next Akarigbo of Remo, irrespective of glaring differences of preference relating to the rest of the candidates. In fact, the air that presently caresses the Remo land does nothing but whistles into the ears of the entire global village that our progressive Kingdom does not deserve a King that normally ought to serve us best as one of the Baba Oba (King’s fathers) in our fast-changing world.
- Afaranpojo writes in from the United Kingdom
