By Funke Egbemode
THE Old Oyo Empire would have lasted longer if the actors had loved the empire half as much as they loved the power and influence they wielded. There probably would have been little or no wars if the powerful kings and their warriors had focused more on the prosperity of the land and welfare of the people. Unfortunately, the leaders of the Empire were like peacocks strutting around and showing off their colourful and luxuriant plumage. They challenged both man and the gods if anybody dared to caution them or protest that their weight of oppression was suffocating. The Alaafin was second-in-command to God or representatives of the gods or both. He held the power of life and death. Many deployed their powers weakly. Others were little better than monsters. But what was even more frightening was how the chiefs, kingmakers, warlords of these rulers aspired to be like their bad rulers and did everything to take over from them.
Take the case of Afonja, an Aare Ona Kakanfo (Commander-in-Chief) of the Army of Oyo. An Aare was installed by the king to lead the army, defend the territory and do battles against the empire’s enemies. The families and compounds that produced the Aare were a long proven lineage of warriors. They were not royalty. The royal houses feed the throne in Yorubaland. But Afonja wanted to be king, I guess he got tired of taking instructions from a man who spent his days dressed regally and his nights in the bosoms of the most beautiful women in the land. Why should he, Afonja, spend his days dodging fiery arrows of death and his nights chanting non-stop incantations until his mouth was swollen while the king just flipped his irukere and a dozen slaves fanned him so he would not sweat under all the royal fineries?
So Afonja rebelled, and rebelling against an Alaafin was no small venture. Afonja knew what, or so he thought, was at stake. He went on a massive recruitment drive to expand his army, the one that would make him king. Using Ilorin as base, the rebel warrior organized what Toyin Falola (Ibadan: Foundation, Growth and Change 1830-1960) described as desultory wars in the northern part of Oyo Empire ‘to create the nucleus of a new kingdom.’ He incited Hausa slaves against their masters and recruited those who forcefully left their masters (we know what that means, right?) into his expanding army. Then he went into alliance with Alimi, a Muslim preacher who also had designs on Oyo deeply inside him. Alimi’s primary aim was Jihad and he must have seen the chaos Afonja’s war of rebellion was causing among his people as the pedestal he needed to enlarge his religion frontiers. That was how a rebel and a jihadist bonded against Oyo Empire.
Neither Alimi nor Afonja considered the collateral damage of their self-centered alliance. They did not care whose blood or pain would fuel their ambition. They were just big boys who wanted to be bigger boys. Their alliance did work, for a while. With the help of Alimi, Afonja was able to bring down the Alaafin, walking through the blood of his own people but did not allow him enjoy the kolanut of success for long. The pains of pregnant women who became sudden widows and the cries of babies who suffered hardship because they were born fatherless soon reached the ears of Eleduwa (the Supreme Being). There broke out confusion in the camp of the enemy and around 1823, the Islamic cleric killed the rebel.
According to Professor Toyin Falola, ‘Alimi was probably more ambitious than Afonja.’ He planned to carry the Jihad to Yorubaland and control a large expanse of the territory in the process. His army repeatedly set out from Ilorin to attack northern Oyo area which had already been weakened by previous invasions by Afonja. Between the bloody ambition of a rebel Commander-in-Chief who wanted Alaafin’s throne for himself and a pretend-pious man who also wanted to build his own empire, the Old Oyo Empire came to an inglorious end.
Ambition, blind ambition. Powerful men who want more powers. Like the popular Fuji artiste, King Wasiu Ayinde Marshal (KWAM 1) sang:
A ba so o
E de gba
K’a f’eniyan je lemomu
Ko tun ma du Seriki.
A chief Imam warned to be contented with his holy title but is determined to become a Sarkin (king) will not end well. That is the translation of those fuji lines, essentially.
Do you see it, ambition everywhere? Do you see them, ambitious men, everywhere? Ambition in itself is not a bad thing. It is just that in Nigeria, the self-centeredness quickly becomes selfishness and swiftly to blinding ambition. This new set of coalition figures should ordinarily bring us hope. At least now, we have an alternative to all the job seekers who call themselves politicians running into APC, the biggest recruiter today.
Ordinarily, that a group of politicians are volunteering to rescue us from poverty should gladden my heart but it doesn’t. One, I have heard all that they are saying before. Two, I have seen all of them in the same hall before. Three, the things they promised then are still the things they are promising now. I am confused. Isn’t this what they call gas-lighting? Or is it musical chair? The only redeeming feature of this coalition or collusion is that some of the faces of the coalition ahead of 2027 are men who gave a good account of themselves when they were helmsmen of their states. As governors, they built impressive schools, improved health facilities, gave impressive face-lifts to their state capitals. They left their states better than they met it. But as soon as they moved to federal level politics, the accolades started dwindling. People stopped clapping and now they are grumbling. The people are now looking at these once celebrated good men with suspicion. Some cannot even disguise their sneer. Because while the states improved a little under many former governors, too many things fell through the economic cracks.
Too many things have gone wrong. Too many promises have been broken. Too many oaths of office have been breached. Nigerians are feeling like abandoned brides, jilted women. A woman scorned more than once is not a woman you can toast easily. She no longer trusts any man. The man may think he broke only her hymen, no big deal. The deal is big, trust me. A woman robbed of a hymen and left with a broken heart is a woman to be feared. You and I can write a book on how hard she can be, mean and menacing. That is where Nigerians are. They have been taken to the altar too many times by men who did not keep their promises, men who heartlessly threw away the orange after sucking the juice.
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A new coalition? It could work. Maybe it won’t. What is in it for the common man if it does? The ones that seemed to have worked, worked for who? It is a conversation, or questionnaire that leaves you exhausted because we have been at this game for so long, too long, even. Yet it is not how long a man stays on top of his wife that determines whether she will have twins or triplets. A two-minute man can impregnate his wife with quadruplets while the marathon man may end up with just one bouncing baby. Nigerian politicians have stayed too long on top of this wife with little or nothing to show for it. Yes, we can see the sweat. True, the mats and mattresses have suffered under their weight and huffing and puffing. But where are the babies? This wife is old and menopausal. That is why this coalition is not exciting. We have been tickled and tantalized before. This old wife has been left high and dry. She is tired and dry. And it did not have to be like this, old men behaving like teenage boys who are seeing a woman’s naked nipples for the first time. I can understand the wobbly knees and bulging eyes of a 15-year-old boy the first time he sees a woman in her birthday suit but a 70-year-old dazed and drooling at the sight of a woman’s body is embarrassing. What our leaders should have done swiftly at the first attempt is what is haunting them.
Chief Obafemi Awolowo was Premier Western Region between 1952 and 1959, less than eight years and he left such a great legacy that he is today, 66 years later, still a reference point. Alhaji Lateef Jakande was governor of Lagos State between 1979 and 1983 and no minute passes in Lagos that his name is not mentioned. Yes, you read that right. There are Jakande bus stops all over the state, not just for honourary reasons but because of Jakande Estates, affordable low cost housing estates across Lagos. Chief Bola Ige was governor of the Old Oyo state for just four years, 1979 to 1983, and his legacy in education is still a reference point. In four years, these leaders left names their children are not afraid to mention among talaka was Aminu Kano and Sardauna did their bit and became reverred ancestors before they died. Dr Nnamdi Azikwe did not have to relocate permanently into the boxing ring to become a champion.
Today’s politicians? They are like an impotent man who brags that he would break the waist of his woman but at the end of the day could not rise to the occasion. Do you think the next time he comes bragging again, the woman will be impressed? No, she will just yawn loud and long, hiss and roll into a deep sleep, snoring.
