Gani Adams embraces the Aare Ona Kakanfo jinx.
Warfare is gore and glory. If you are killed, by that insane war illogic of kill-or-be-killed, it is gore. If you kill, it is glory. However, neither the killed nor the one that killed escapes the gore.
Even then, the Aare Ona Kankanfo, war generalissimo of the empire years of the Alaafin of Oyo, has come with a frightful jinx of its own, aside from the basic gore of warfare. It is this charmed title that Gani Adams, a humble carpenter of yore from the tough neighbourhood of Mushin, in Lagos, has inherited. The Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi III, just named Adams the Kakanfo.
Will Gani Adams buck the tragic trend of previous Kakanfo, consumed by hubris and jinx, or turn the latest to be consumed by the title’s dreaded jinx?
The dread and the jinx underscored the Alaafin’s explanation on the inevitability of Adams’ choice. He said worthier Yoruba sons, earlier offered the title, had balked. But the intrepid Adams had not only been unfazed by it all, he actually applied and actively lobbied for it.
Besides, the Alaafin was all praise for Adams’ cultural activism, hosting and largely funding the yearly Olokun Festival, generally making himself the cultural ambassador of the Yoruba in the Diaspora, not to talk of his Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) cells in all parts of the Yoruba South West. His choice, the Alaafin declared, was not only well thought out but an excellent one.
The Kankafo curse started with a complex court intrigue, aimed at eliminating the powerful Kakanfo Afonja (Afonja of Ilorin, whose treachery led to the Yoruba loss of Ilorin to Alimi, the Fulani friend-turned-foe, according to accounts from Samuel Johnson’s The History of the Yorubas). Afonja demanded the Kakanfo title; and got it whether the Alaafin liked it or not. That earned him the baleful Alaafin’s ire.
But the plot ended with Alaafin Aole, surnamed Arogangan, committing suicide — no thanks to his army, camped in the field, rejecting his rule and sending word home for the king to kill himself. Afonja — who else? — masterminded that counter-plot.
Aole committed suicide. But before he did, in what history has recorded as the dreadful “Curse of Aole”, he cursed Afonja and his co-plotters with wars and endless wars. In what not a few have interpreted a prediction of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, of which the Yoruba were prime victims, Aole also sentenced the offspring of his treacherous chiefs to be slaves and captives, home and abroad, though their forebears were conquerors and empire builders.
True enough, Afonja ended in grief. He not only lost his Ilorin throne to Alimi, he got pumped with so many arrows that the sheer weight of it all held him standing — but stone dead. Thereafter, his remains were burnt to ashes. The Oyo Empire too was disintegrating fast. Thus began the Kakanfo jinx.
Then Kurunmi, the Ijaye warlord, perished in battle, with all his sons, and his Ijaye totally destroyed — all a victim of personal hubris. His tragedy was the gripping fare of Kurunmi, the late Ola Rotimi’s profound and riveting tragic play.
Down the line, another Kakanfo, Latosisa of Ibadan, flush from victory over the powerful woman, Iyalode Efunsetan Aniwura, in imperial Ibadan’s internal power play, also ended badly. He died (though not from enemy fire) at the tail-end of the Kiriji War (1877-1893), which stalemate ended Ibadan imperialism.
So did Samuel Ladoke Akintola, former premier of the defunct Western Region (Kakanfo from 1962-1966), killed in the first putsch of 15 January 1966. Yet between Latosisa and Akintola was 75 years, during which the Kakanfo title was unoccupied.
Between Akintola and Moshood Kasimawo Olawale Abiola (MKO), the last person to hold the Kakanfo title was 22 years. MKO was installed Kakanfo in 1988.
Yet, the jinx would appear alive, for shortly after, MKO was involved in the Air Force “mad dogs” saga — a personal humiliation by Air Force other ranks who, AVM Nura Imam then dismissed as “mad dogs”. MKO would die in detention in 1998, five years after he had won Nigeria’s freest and fairest presidential election; but never became president.
This then is the jinx-laden title Gani Adams has just accepted — 19 years after MKO’s passage. Would he buck the jinx and make the title whole for possible successors? That is in the womb of time.
In spite of the jinx, the Kakanfo is an important historical title, which underscores the political sophistication of the Yoruba, even in pre-colonial days, in which the army was submissive to the Crown, subject to constitutional checks and balances. The Ibadan Latosisa tried to merge the title with the Olubadan, thus proclaiming himself a warrior-king. He failed. So, robust state institutions are no monopoly of Western democracies. It was right there in Yoruba evolution in history.
So, jinx or no jinx, the Kakanfo is no ordinary title. That is why the new beneficiary must do well to brace up and uplift himself.
The Alaafin rightfully lauded Adams for his cultural activism. That is praise well-earned, for from a lowly carpenter of yore, Adams has thrust himself as a somewhat credible cultural ambassador for the Yoruba, especially among the Yoruba diaspora, thirsting for their essence.
But Oba Adeyemi also cited Adams’ Odua People’s Congress (OPC) exploits which regrettably, are not too stellar. OPC did its bit during MKO’s battle for the retrieval of his presidential mandate, illegally annulled by a reckless military junta. But thereafter, it has never really risen above push-come-to-shove enforcement image of the quasi-underworld. This has somewhat compelled civil and polite society to give it a wide berth.
If the OPC is vital enough to Adams’ credentials for the Alaafin’s “citation”, then it is time for Adams to revamp the body to rise in tandem with his new Kakanfo status. Not a few still cringe from the OPC brazen show of shame, on Lagos streets, just before the 2015 general elections, with its cadre going on an orgy of outlawry, for partisan purposes. Aside from the condemnable outlawry of its action, in exchange for partisan political lucre, its naïveté was well and truly benumbing.
That was Gani Adams, at his worst, punching above his weight and making uninformed political commentaries. Then, OPC was also unfazed poster boy of political racketeering, going after dubious oil pipeline contracts, to the shock and shame of the generality of the Yoruba, its core constituency.
All the racketeering, derring-do devilry and scandalous political naïveté must be a thing of the past, either for Gani Adams himself or for the OPC, the most vibrant faction of which he leads as “national coordinator”.
Since he applied for the job of Kakanfo, Gani Adams must take responsibility and shun these past draw backs. He may yet come from humble beginnings like eminent past Yoruba warriors, Kakanfo Latosisa (a palm wine tapper) and Basorun Ogunmola (an apprentice blacksmith to the iconic Oluyole, the Ibadan paterfamilias) to make a success of his new endeavour.
