The traditional ruler of Eti-Oni, Osun State, Oba Taiwo Oladokun Thompson, is a great-grandson of Thompson Gujere, the Ijesha warrior reputed for introducing the snider gun. The name of the famous Kiriji war was derived from the sound of his invention. His great-grandson, Dokun, who is the current traditional ruler of Eti-Oni, has also brought dynamism into community development via his pet project, Eti Oni Development Group and Cocoa Festival. In this interview with GBENGA ADERANTI, he talks about his plans to enhance the fortune of Eti-Oni inhabitants who have been famous for cocoa farming for more than 120 years. He also explains why white is his preferred colour, his attitude to polygamy, why his coronation rites were held in the church, his thoughts on Christianity, among other issues.
Do you feel fulfilled being a traditional ruler?
I don’t feel fulfilled right now. I’m fulfilling my assignment, my destiny and everything, because I am doing what I am supposed to do. My friend, the CEO of Eti Oni Development Group, always tells me that any time I change focus on Eti-Oni, a little bit of confusion comes in, but the minute I’m focused on Eti-Oni, things appear to move faster, I get the materials and resources I need to get to the next stage. That is fulfilling. That is reassuring as well. It gives you the confidence to know that you are on the right path.
I don’t think I will ever arrive at my bus stop. There can never be a bus stop because it is going to be a continuous process. We have a long term development plan which is based on 20 years, and it is in line with the United Nations 2030 sustainable development growth. For us as well, after 20 years, we will continue. We know that at some point, there is going to be a lot of pressure, a lot of challenges in terms of population explosion, and that the only solution to that is to ensure that we are able to replicate our solutions to other locations so that the urban cities that are suffering today will no longer suffer, the rural communities that are suffering will be equipped to take in that new population injection. So, there is a lot of synergy that is going to be required to create that sustainability and at the same time create that workable environment that will eventually put Africa where Africa is supposed to be.
If you were not made an Oba, what would you be doing?
In 2002, I ran for the House of Reps. I would have gone into politics full time. And the reason why I would go into politics is to look for a way of offering genuine service, sacrificial service, not service that is about self but service that is about people. That is what I am doing right now. That is the heritage that has been handed over to me, not just from my father but from my great grandfather to my father.
My great grandfather in Kiriji war was ready to die on the battle field rather than cede an inch of Ijeshaland. He brought his own army into the field. Initially, it was Ekiti Parapo War. But by the time he got into the war with his own army and his own gun called the snider rifle, the war’s name was changed to Kiriji, coming from the sound of snider rifles that were introduced into the war by Gureje Thompson. That is the type of heritage that has been handed to any Thompson. That is what we always pride ourselves in. It is never about us; it is about a nation at large. That is what makes true leadership.
You said your community has been planting cocoa for the past 120 years and now you want to take it to another level. What is that new thing you are planning to do?
After the war in 1886, Eti Oni was created. The first thing they did was to create an economic model that would sustain the community. They introduced cocoa into it. About 120 years after, cocoa has been all over the place but we are still where we were. So what do we do to get to the next stage? What are we in lack of? We are in lack of good housing. We are in lack of good health. We are in lack of good education. So the environment is poor. We need to address all these issues. We need to create models that will provide the social infrastructure that will provide us with the economic power that will make us develop.
But beyond all these things, we need people to develop. We need education at every level, from the kindergarten up to the older people. So we need to develop the people and we are looking at how we are going to be developing the people so that we can create a truly sustainable society that is for the future. They have to understand what the future is all about so that they can embrace that future. While we are developing them and we put models in place to generate income, we know they will appreciate it. They will understand what it is all about and they will participate.
They are already participating and they are already engaging us to bring more. But they don’t know that all these things are about money. Even when we talk about 10 to 20 years, they think what we want to achieve in 20 years, we can achieve in five years, because they have suffered a lot. Because the cocoa festival created a lot of succour and a lot of hope, and it came out to be what it is. The renaissance of cocoa production is where we are going into.
How regularly do you stay in the community?
I was there throughout last week and I’m going back next week. I am in and out of the place. It not just about living there and not coming out, it is actually about looking for partners in the stage we are now. I have to be in and out, looking for local partners, global partners, people that will help us in consultancy. That is why our CEO is not Yoruba or a male figure. We are open. It is all about the model we are building. It is about whoever can do it, whether man or woman, whether young or old, from South East or South West, from Northern Nigeria or even Egypy or Ethiopia. As long as we have a synergy and understanding to build a pact that would have workable opportunities that will take us to where we want to go, then we are able to do all these things.
But at the same time, we are also trying to protect whatever we are doing so that it is not messed up. There is too much we are doing, so it is complex. The only way we can explain it to people is to show that it is working. Because it is a smart model we are building, we have a lot of digital solution we are bringing in. We have already started in such a manner that people will now begin to understand what we are trying to do.
Have you been getting assistance from government on the Eti Oni development project?
The state government has actually been very helpful, they have been helpful in everything we have been doing. I think I will use this opportunity to commend the governor (Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola). The governor, when he knew about the cocoa festival, I was given his personal email address to send a letter of the notice on the cocoa festival. I got a call from his office within the hour I sent the mail that they should give us complete support for what we are doing. They brought in resources to train the farmers. They brought in all sorts of materials and they also participated in every aspect of it, up to the grand finale which we tagged Gureje Day.
Unfortunately, the governor had to travel. But he sent in representation to launch the Eti Oni Chocolate. At the same time, we were given reasonable access to Eti Oni. So the government has been very supportive. Of course, as time goes on, we are going to engage them the more to explain how elaborate our plans are and how they can also help further.
The project is massive. Was there any point in time you felt like quitting?
Yes, you are right. There are times you feel like knocking your head on the wall, especially when you think ‘I don’t have a penny, how am I going to do this?’ Of course, like I said, I am a Christian. I also have this trust that where there is no way, God makes a way for me. And in truth, that is what has always happened. Up until the Cocoa Festival, when there was no way, He made a way for us. The access road to the town was completed at 10 am on the day of the Cocoa Festival. There was a particular portion of the road that I thought nobody would be able to cross, and that place was not completed until 10 in the morning the festival happened. People came from all over the world. Nobody would know that we had challenges from day one to the end. So God creates a way where there is no way for people who trust in Him fully.
I observe that in all your pictures that I have seen so far, you are always in white. Is that your preferred colour?
Well you can call it my signature. I actually got it from my father. My father was called Baba White because he always wore white. So when I became an Oba, I felt if he could get that identity for wearing white, I could also get that from him. This is a person I respect so much and also give honour for who I am today. I believe that if I copy him, it would add to me. It has not taken anything; it has added to me. He was the one that encouraged me that when the time comes, I should ensure that my installation is done in the church. It is now to do what is right, and what is right is to do the installation in the church. All I did was to have a little twist of colours. With my white, I use six or seven colours, but it is still all white. These colours are like trimmings and on my caps and on top of what I wear.
But funny enough, I use other colours for casual wears, maybe when I’m taking a stroll around the community, around Lagos or moving around casually to the supermarket or something like that. At times, I’m in white, at other times I’m in coloured ankara. The colour depends on what I wear. But 95 per cent of the time, I wear white.
In Yorubaland, Obas usually marry many wives. Is that also the case with you?
(Prolonged laughter) Do you have any plan for me? Tell me. I’m open to ideas.
Okay, what is your attitude to polygamy?
I’m a very simple and straightforward person. Polygammy has its advantages and disadvantages. But it is an individual thing. I don’t condemn it. It is different strokes for different folks. That is how I see polygamy. But for me, my partner will always be my best friend. So polygamy can be a bit tricky.
You said Christianity originated from Africa. There was no way Jesus Christ would have been an African or a black man…
Nobody knows who Jesus Christ was. I believe Jesus Christ was a black man. The Egypt we know today was not populated by Arabs or Europeans. The Egyptians we know today are European Egyptians or Egyptians from Arab. That was not the case when the bible was written during the time of Hebrews. A lot of things have changed. A lot of things have disguised. They have erased a lot of things to make us believe that we have lots of Europeans in Egypt, in Arabia and all those places.
In the dictionary, we know how a Caucasian was addressed. But today, Arabs are addressed as Caucasians. That is the Europeans saying this is who they are; they own this, they own that. They own what we are, they own what we do. The problem with Africa is that Africa does not define itself on who truly they are. We are defined with poverty, war, famine, corruption and everything that is bad. But in reality, Africa is the origin of humanity. If we are here in Africa and we believe we are part of the origin of Africa, it means the world started from here. It means the Hebrew language is an African language. And because good came before evil, it means Africa is the good one and everything that is not good came from outside Africa.
I’m saying we are the beginning of human existence.
Every other thing is a copy or metamorphosis of who we are. So you must be African before you can be European. You must be African before you can be Asian. You must be African before you can be a Chinese, evolution or whatever occurs. To reverse it or to accept is not doing ourselves justice. To do justice is to call ourselves what we are not or what they call us.
Has this line of argument ever put you in a kind of trouble?
When I started saying it, I quite realised that there were a number of people saying the same thing. Even if you go to Israel today, there are a number of Jews who are saying they are not the real Hebrews. There is a difference between Israelis and Hebrews. The people that are called Jews today are European Jews; they are not real Jews. How come you have people in Ethiopia who are like us in terms of our colour and skin but they are called Jews? They are fighting for their rights in Israel. Some of them have accepted them. They know they are the real Jews.
Same people like us are the real Egyptians. It is not occupying Israel physically that matters; it is when we occupy Israel in our hearts and we know that this is who we are that matters. That is when we have the final freedom as people, because right now, that is what I call colonial mentality. We need to free ourselves from that mentality. We need to free ourselves from slavery. We need to free ourselves from oppression. We have gone through this in the last few centuries. It is when we free ourselves that we will begin to move forward. But to free ourselves is not to get into the jail that has been prepared for us by the same people. Now it is psychological, emotional and sentimental jail, not the physical jail. A lot of our people are falling into the trap.
Could that be the reason why you did your coronation rites in the church?
Yes, that is the reason. Having gone back to the origin, Christianity is my faith. That is why my coronation was done in in the church. I am a Christian. I believe in the words of the bible. ‘Rulership’ or kingship, in that regard, is spiritual and you must get it right from the outset. If some of our communities claim that they have been in existence for 1000 or 2000 years with the chaos they are in today, then there is a problem. Communities or countries that are not as old are far better off.
It is high time we stopped blaming colonialism or come up with this conspiracy theory for our woes and face reality. Number one, we have got the spiritual aspect wrong. Once we get that right, we would be able to rebuild our foundation. The next thing people will come up with is that ‘oh, religion is the one killing Nigeria. Nigeria has so many pastors’, and all that stuff. But I look at the developed world today, not just developed, organised world, which of them is not religious?
In the Yoruba tradition, it is believed that if the Akoko leaf is not put on your head, you’re not yet a king. Have you encountered any problem, either from the kingmakers or other families who are also interested in the position?
You know the truth? The number one Gureje, my great grandfather, who founded Eti Oni, founded it on Christianity. He was one of the pioneers of Christianity in 1870 or 1860, and it continued in that light. Even the cathedral in Ilesha is credited to the Gureje Thompson family, to have been able to bring the diocese and the cathedral then to Ilesha, I mean the Anglican Diocese of Ilesha, probably there was only one diocese in Ife, Ilesha and probably Ekiti.
And because of our long-standing history within the Anglican community with my father, at that time, he was in Ogbomosho and his brother, who was the Oloni then, were able to make sure that the cathedral was situated in Ilesha. And that is why when that Oloni passed on, he was buried at the cathedral where bishops are normally buried. That is my origin. That is my heritage.
Yes, some people may want to bring in what I call object deification. I don’t want to call it traditional worship because my own traditional worship is Christianity, Christ-based faith. What I would call the other one apart from Islam is deifying the object. Either you have an object that you call an orisa (idol) and you deify it. I don’t believe in it. It is not a tradition to me and it is not part of my heritage. It has never been part of Eti Oni heritage.
Yes, one or two times, there had been attempts to introduce it but has never been successful, and in my own time, it will never be successful. I even pray that in the time we are now in Nigeria, they would embrace the true worship of God in spirit and in truth, so that we will get ourselves out of the problems we put ourselves in right now.
At what point did you decide to be a traditional ruler? What was the attraction? Many would wonder why a professional with good education would want to stay in a remote village…
Well the truth is that right from the time I was young, I was told that I was going to be an Oba. I’m a twin and my mother told me that during the naming ceremony, the reverend father that came to do the naming ceremony said ‘this is a king’, and they made a sort of crown from paper and put it on my head. After that, I remember one time when I was in Kings College, I said when I become a king, I would go into full time agriculture and create an economy from that. I didn’t know what I was saying then but I knew that was the way forward. And sometime in 2002, when I came back to Nigeria from England, I tried to go into politics. I started giving life a different meaning. I now understand life to be something where you just don’t exist now and then disappear. You need to have life after death. In other words, you must have impacted people’s lives positively in such a manner that you would live beyond your time. When you go, your life will still be living in other people.
My father always made us understand that your heritage is very important. You need to hold on to your name. You need to cherish your name. You need to value yourself and at the same time understand that any position you find yourself is a position of sacrifice and you have to live up to that expectation. So, for educated people who run away from service, running away from giving themselves as sacrifice for service, they are as guilty as everybody else. In fact, they are more guilty than those they call corrupt. They say that the country is in a mess, the politicians have messed up the country and all that, but the truth is that those who have abandoned their responsibilities are more guilty than those who are in it and are messing it up. If they are in it and they are messing it up, it is because they don’t know better. If you know better and you allow people to mess it up, then you are more guilty.
What are those things you are missing as an Oba?
Maybe what I’m missing is that I can’t have many wives (laughter). There is nothing I’m missing. I have gained a lot more. We are able to put smiles on the faces of people. We are able to live a life of sacrifice.
