Opinion
Oba Dr. Victor Adesimbo Kiladejo: Kings In History And Modern Democracy
Published
3 years agoon
By
Toyin Falola
During the recent Toyin Falola Interviews, His Imperial Majesty, the Osemawe of Ondo, Oba Dr. Victor Adesimbo Kiladejo, mentioned that maybe Nigeria should turn its attention again to the place of African kings in a republic and modern democracy. The prominent political scientist, Professor Nuhu Yaqub, also revisited the possibility of restoring kings to the Nigerian political system. According to Oba Kiladejo, kings are the closest to the grassroots and have better ideas for solving community crises. I want to follow up on the exchanges between Professor Yaqub and Oba Kiladejo to review the status of kings in Nigeria’s changing politics.
From the beginning of the Fourth Republic with the 1999 constitution, there has been the depreciation of the roles of the king in Nigeria’s democracy. Kings and chiefs have been relegated to the back seat in our modern democracy and are now subjects of state governors. An instance of this was the dethronement of the former Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido, by Governor Abdullahi Ganduje, the current serving governor of Kano State. The reason for the dethronement is complex and subject to various interpretations. Nevertheless, it is fascinating that a sitting governor for just eight years could dethrone a lifetime king.
Before the founding of modern Nigeria, kings within the geographical area took their titles from those who had ruled the separate states or communities before them. In pre-colonial Nigeria and probably Africa, they wielded enormous influence, possessed significant autonomy and power, and commanded respect from their communities. For instance, the enormous wealth and political influence of kings such as Mansa Musa of the 14th century are still considered a subject of debate.
According to Yoruba mythology, Oduduwa founded the Yoruba kingdom. Following this, his sons also left to establish their states, which are the origins of the present Yoruba kingdoms. The Ooni of Ilé-Ife, who was chosen from a branch of the ruling dynasty on a rotating basis, controlled the traditions of as many as 400 religious cults to gain political advantage. This model was also adopted in Oyo, and it eventually became a constitutional monarchy. In the old Oyo Empire, there were the likes of Alaafin Abiodun, who ruled well in their various domains. Their decisions were well-grounded in consensus. In the Benin Kingdom, the legendary Oba Ewuare restructured the kingdom’s political systems, considerably enlarged the territory, and encouraged arts and festivals. Thus, he gained enormous power that everyone in the kingdom was forced to reckon with.
READ ALSO: Kabiyesi Alayeluwa, Dr. Victor Adesimbo Kiladejo: The Exceptional King Of Ondo Kingdom
The rulers and kings of the pre-colonial era were notable for their accomplishments and zeal for expansion. To the northeast of what is present-day Nigeria lay the great Kanem-Borno Empire. One of the great leaders was Mai Dunama Dibbalem, who expanded his kingdom further northeast. These kingdoms had a well-organized administrative system that provided and maintained law and social order. In pre-colonial Nigeria, kings and chiefs were involved in the governance and decision-making of the states. This was evident in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart that portrays a “traditional” African society in which governing and political decisions were made by the chiefs and elders. However, Nigeria’s colonization altered this form of governance.
Oba Dr. Adesimbo Kiladejo recalled that even though there was a change in the pattern of governance during the colonial era, kings and traditional rulers were actively involved in the state’s governance. The British colonialists used indirect rule to maintain control over portions of their colonial empires by relying on pre-existing indigenous power structures. Traditional rulers were actively involved in the management of local administration during this period. With the governor at the helm, the administration was in good hands. This chain of command had the Lieutenant Governors in charge of the provinces, District Officers over the divisions, and the Native Authorities governed local communities. The Native Authorities were the local rulers, and they were solely responsible for local administration and government within their sphere of influence. They were the last link in the colonial administration’s chain of command, and all decisions made were carried out locally through them. The British set the general parameters but left much of the policy-making to the Native Authorities, subservient to the District Officer as a central government representative. The District Officer served as an advisor to the Native Authorities as long as they stayed within the set course.
However, as the colonial reign continued, the role of the kings began to diminish. This led to the formation of the different constitutions to balance the co-existence of native authorities and the national legislative council. With each of the new constitutions—Richards, Macpherson, Lyttleton, the 1960 Constitution of Independence, the Republican Constitution of 1963, and the 1979/1979 Constitution—the role of kings in governance gradually diminished till there is no longer a single position for traditional rulers in the Nigerian constitution of 1979 and 1999. By the turn of the 20th century, the kings’ role in political decision-making had ceased to exist. They are now compelled to seek ultimate power and survival from politicians and the government.
Monarchs’ powers have been eroded in contemporary democracy to the point that governors determine the date and funding of coronation ceremonies. In most cases, a governor can ridicule the king or dethrone him without suffering any consequence. A good illustration of this was when a traditional ruler in Rivers State was publicly mocked for shaking his head during a speech by Governor Nyesom Wike. In front of an assembly of traditional rulers, the governor ripped into the humiliated king, eliciting laughs from the audience. Also, in 2019, the Supreme Court of Nigeria dethroned another Oba in Oyo State, declaring his ascension to the throne as unconstitutional. The Eleruwa of Eruwa, Samuel Adebayo-Adegbola, had been on the throne for 21 years until he was forced to abdicate, following the court’s ruling that he was not a member of the two royal houses eligible to produce a successor.
In southwestern Ekiti State, traditional rulers were embroiled in a fight with the governor when he chose an Oba to lead the traditional council in March 2020. A group of sixteen local Obas was upset by the “intervention” and boycotted state ceremonies, earning them a scathing letter from the governor who accused them of “insubordination.” Similarly, in August 2017, the former governor of Oyo State, Abiola Ajimobi, installed 21 kings in one day. These were former chiefs elevated by the governor. This act displayed the power of the governor to enthrone new kings. The Olubadan of Ibadan, Oba Saliu Adetunji, denounced the governor’s action, stating that it was a dishonor to the monarchy. By November 2019, the new governor, Seyi Makinde, withdrew the crown from the 21 kings, further implying the supremacy of political leaders over kings and traditional rulers in this modern-day democracy.
During pre-colonial times, the kings governed their polities. However, this is no longer the case today. The role of kings has virtually disappeared from governance. Perhaps, in light of Nigeria’s current challenges, Nigerians may want to decide the appropriate role for their kings or to even consider the appropriateness of kingship in a republic. As His Imperial Majesty, Oba Dr. Victor Kiladejo reiterated, traditional rulers are closer to the people and would have better ideas for solving community crises, which may result in peace and unity in the country as a whole. His view on this is worth considering in light of the growing crisis of insecurity.
(This is the third report on the interview with His Imperial Majesty, Kabiyesi Alayeluwa of the Ondo Kingdom, Dr. Victor Adesimbo Kiladejo, on July 25, 2021. With the number of views now over 120,000 on eight platforms, there is a clear demonstration of city loyalty. For part of the transcript, see https://youtu.be/BpI0Oi6_zGM)
Falola is a Nigerian historian and professor of African Studies. He is currently the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin.
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By Hope O’Rukevbe Eghagha
One of the interesting proverbs I picked up in our General African Studies (GAS 201) course with the late Professor Jabez Olowo Ojoade in the University of Jos in 1979 was ‘it is a bastard child that points at his homestead with his left hand! The Akan people of Ghana put it this way: a bastard child points to his father’s house with his left hand’. The Yoruba say that ‘a person who points to their homestead with the left hand is not a good person’, while the Luhya of Kenya say that ‘when pointing to your village, use your right hand’. It is in the Swahili language that a sort of generalised use of the left hand is concretised when it says ‘the left hand is for personal hygiene, not for pointing!
Bastard child! Homestead! Pointing with the left hand! These three constituents and functional parts of the proverb tickled my teenage imagination to no end. What is it about the left had that it should not be used to refer to one’s family? Why is this metaphor common across the continent? Indeed, there must be something about the family, about the homestead, about one’s origins that deserves respect no matter the circumstances.
By the way, some Nigerians in the diaspora also point to Nigeria with their left hand. ‘That country’, is often used to describe the place where some spent eighteen or thirty of their lives as they tried to find their feet. So, in a sense, Kemi is simply doing what some full-blooded Nigerians do in reaction to the anomie which currently rules the land. Kemi stands out because of her delicate and prominent position in the world. We all took offence when Bully Donald Trump referred to ours as ‘shithole countries! At that level, who said what becomes very important, that is, the message is given prominence because of the stature and calibre of the messenger.
The proverb, according to Wikipedia, is ‘often used to convey that someone who is not respectful or grateful to their roots or heritage will eventually be rejected or ostracised by their community! The left hand, we are told, is for personal hygiene. We don’t use it to give or receive gifts; we don’t use it to serve drinks or for traditionally important functions.
In the African context, a bastard child is not one who was born out of wedlock or whose father is not known to the family. Bastard child represents a person who is disconnected from their family. Pointing to the family house with the left hand is indicative of disrespect.
These thoughts flooded my mind when I read recently elected leader of the Conservative Party in the UK, Kemi Badenoch, gave some hard and bad knocks to Nigeria, the Nigeria Police, and governance in her Nigeria, her ancestral home. To be sure, nobody who has encountered some men of the Nigeria Police in action can fault Kemi. Her chemistry of being brutally frank is what has taken Kemi to the heights in Conservative Party politics. Whether she can indeed lead the Party to victory in an election is a different kettle of fish. As the potential leader of the British government, all cards will count when push gets to shove. Which is why Kemi should remember that no well-trained child points to the family house with the left hand.
Nigeria is in process. It is a building site. And we started this project of disparate and different cultures fused together when the British pounced on our ancestors to create Nigeria. We look back to the years when a British monarch, King Henry VIII (1491 to 1547), who ate two of his six wives for breakfast and dinner. Wives Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard were executed by beheading. Jane Seymour died under mysterious circumstances. Perhaps if Diana had emerged in the 15th century as wife to a British monarch, the reigning king would have sent her to the guillotine instead of the tunnel in Paris! Some British monarchs actively participated, supported, and profited from the transatlantic slave trade. British monarchs oversaw the colonisation of indigenous lands in Africa, North America, and Australia sometimes through genocide! No where in Africa, our dear left-handed and grandly insolent Kemi, would a Prime Minister allow his wife to remain in an adulterous relationship for decades as Harold Macmillan did with wife Lady Dorothy Macmillan did with the bisexual Bob Boothby in the 20th Britain!
We may need to remind Kemi that racism still dominated policing in Britain as it does in much of the Western world. Yet, we have not painted the entire police system as being racist. Indeed, Kemi, without officialdom around her can still be profiled by a police officer if she were found driving alone in some areas of London! Her skin colour, is not typically British, I dare say. Yet, we have not said that Britain is racist. The ‘how dark’ racist discussions which precipitated Harry and Meghan fleeing the British monarchy is still very fresh and raw in our consciousness; yet, Nigeria’s Vice President has not called the British monarchy a racist institution.
Time will fail me to discuss the Damilola Taylor case in year 2000 when the Metropolitan Police handling of Taylor’s murder was seen as slow and inadequate due to racial bias. By the way, Damilola was both British and Yoruba like our illustrious and petulant Kemi who believes in giving hard knocks! What about the Stephen Lawrence 1993 murder case which the Metropolitan Police badly handled owing to racial bias? In 1999, Roger Sylvester, a Black man, died in police custody and an inquest showed that the police used excessive force. In 2009, newspaper vendor Ian Tom died after being struck by a police officer during the G20 protests in London. The 1999 Macpherson Report, which investigated the Stephen Lawrence case, concluded that ‘the Metropolitan Police as institutionally racist! As late as 2017, the Lammy Review which was led David Lammy (MP) concluded that “black and minority ethnic individuals were more likely to be stopped and searched, arrested, and imprisoned than their white counterparts! Need I say more?
So, our dear daughter and bright star Kemi in the British firmament, we shall not point to you with our left hand, because in spite of you, you are our daughter. We can only say that the Nigeria Police is in good company of the Empire of the Police system which was created in 1820 by your progenitors from the other side! Colonial vestiges are not easy to shake off!
Opinion
Afe Babalola And Dele Farotimi: On Justice, A Just Society And The Nigerian State
Published
10 hours agoon
December 22, 2024By Tunji Olaopa
The feud between elder statesman, Chief Afe Babalola and civil rights activist, Mr. Dele Farotimi, is perhaps the most significant discourse that postcolonial Nigerian state has thrown up for the moment, one in a class of those grand defining disputations that surely will gather dust which will take some time to abate. And it is one case that is fraught with all sorts of legal, jurisprudential, moral and political traps and complexities that speak to more than the trivial interventions—leveraged around the David and Goliath motif—that are attending the matter. Those who have been able to go beyond the surface of the case will agree that it goes to the very foundation and founding of the Nigerian society, and the fundamental objective of crafting a good and just society for Nigerians. That the issue revolves around the dispensation of justice immediately alerts us to the deep insinuation about the idea of social justice itself, and how the conception of fairness could be written into the very fabric of the Nigerian society. And yet, the complexity of the case is what makes it a case that is too critical for a public servant like me to dabble in.
(Un)fortunately, my intellectual maturation, my political science education and my professional endeavor in institutional reform advocacy have prepared me to intervene in this critical matter. I have always been involved with Nigeria, and with reflective thoughts about how to reconstitute her greatness. Three learning encounters with three world-historic icons configured my passion for wanting to see that Nigeria becomes a state we all can be proud of. The first came from my reading of Plato’s Republic. There is a reason that the entire treatise commenced with the question, what is justice? Justice was a fundamental issue in the decline of the ancient Athenian democracy that allowed Socrates to be judicially murdered. The second learning derived from Wole Soyinka’s dense prison memoir, The Man Died. And like most who have read it, Soyinka was troubled by the idea of justice: “For me, justice is the first condition of humanity.” By the time I would be coming to Thomas More’s Utopia, I was already apprised of the connections between my political science education, my professional endeavor as a public servant, and the key elements of institutional reform as a cogent framework for transforming Nigeria.
From Plato to Soyinka, we have a trajectory of political reflection that takes justice seriously as the basis for organizing a just society. This is part of the intellectual frameworks for my undergraduate and graduate studies at the Department of Political Science, University of Ibadan. In one of those explosive seminar classes that played some fundamental role in my intellectual maturation in the graduate school, I had proposed an argument through a seminar paper titled: “Is a revolution an option to fix Nigeria?” The topic was meant to titillate the collective yearning for revolution that would serve as the ultimate mechanism for social change that would flush off all traces of corruption and degeneration in postcolonial Nigeria. Revolutions seem to possess some allure for the masses because they constitute a framework of justice that the constitutional justice mechanism might not be able to handle.
However, as Wole Soyinka, Thomas More, Martin Luther and even Galileo Galilei would realize, the need for radicalism is balanced by the force of establishment orthodoxy. The Nigerian predicament has, as a fundamental foundation, a lot to do with the connection between governance failure and injustice in terms of the persistent and protracted class strife between the haves and the have-nots, between the rich and the poor, indeed, in the final analysis between the government and the governed. And in the case between Afe Babalola and Dele Farotimi, the issues boil down to the administration of justice and the entire edifices and institutions of social justice and the rule of law in Nigeria. And so, in outlining the key issues involved in the matter, we must be careful enough to read between the lines and the noises of analysts who are eager to queue behind their favored protagonists.
First things first. Let us remove the surface debris. Indeed, and in this case, the debris points us in the direction to look for the rot within the matter. First, there is the matter of civil defamation and its legal ramifications. And second, there is the issue of the legal and moral protocols involved in dealing with the pursuit of redress by someone who knows and understands the law. Barrister Farotimi has a legal right to seek redress in court. Chief Babalola has a legal right to defend his reputation in court. In raising the specter of legal prosecution against defamation, I see Chief Babalola as being at the forefront of gatekeeping the legal establishment in terms of what is and is not permissible or possible under the law and its conservative tenets. If you are hurt or an injustice has been done to your person, then the best place to seek redress is not the court of public opinion but the constitutional legal establishment.
Unfortunately for him, Barrister Farotimi’s book, Nigeria and Its Criminal Justice System, impugns the entire legal and judicial establishment up to its apex institution, the Nigerian Supreme Court. However, does radicalism preclude moral decency? A book could be written and allegations made without the complement of atrocious language. Or maybe the rot in the judicial system, and the need for a revolution preclude any niceties, especially with those who are allegedly at the forefront of perpetuating and protecting the rot. But then, how to prove what we all consider to be the norm in terms of legal prosecution of judicial corruption remains a hanging question.
No matter how we look at what we are calling the surface debris, we are redirected deeper and deeper into what lies beneath the surface. The ultimate question is that between Chief Afe Babalola and Barrister Dele Farotimi, what we are asked to contend with is the state of the Nigerian judiciary and the corrupt impediment of social justice, especially for an average Nigerian. What Barrister Dele Farotimi said about the Nigerian judicial system is not new. We are all familiar with the rot within the system. Indeed, this is not the first time an alarm would be raised about what we are all familiar with. Indeed, as far back as 1999, The News magazine carried a most unsalutary headline, “Crooks on the Bench: An Expose on the Rot in the Judiciary.” The magazine headlined the names of 47 judges indicted for judicial corruption. What is new is that Dele Farotimi dared to go so far as to mention specific names, and to confront the big players in the legal establishment. And he did this in a most scurrilous manner targeted at getting maximum traction and attention. It is as if Mr Farotimi, through the public sphere, is throwing the gauntlet to every Nigerian and challenging us on our collective responsibility to clean the Augean stable.
If Barrister Farotimi cannot prove his allegations in court, it would not mean that his charges are false. It might only imply that the system which is supposed to guarantee justice has become too corruptly dense to achieve its mandate. But there is also the chance that since the entire judicial system cannot be tarred so broadly with the same brush, Farotimi’s allegation might receive a dispassionate hearing that might deliver justice as we expect it. This might be a tall expectation. Nigeria’s postcolonial predicament has inevitable consequences on the capacity of the judicial system to facilitate the delivery of justice. And this failure also complicates the capacity of the Nigerian state to deliver on its social contract to Nigerians. This is what makes the Babalola-Farotimi case too complex to be decided either in the constitutional court or the court of public opinion. The burdens of postcolonial disruptions that the Nigerian judiciary system carries are enormous: judicial corruption, miscarriage of judgments, executive lawlessness, delayed trial due to insufficient infrastructure, financial dependence on the executive arm of government.
To outline the fundamental challenges of the judicial system in Nigeria this way is not to give in to cynicism and a deterministic mindset that we might be caught in a vice that is inescapable. It is simply to say that the ongoing uproar between the two dramatis personae demonstrates that the court has been given a chance to reflect on the role that (in)justice plays in the fundamental understanding of the Nigerian postcolonial predicament and the capacity of a democratic system to correct itself. When Chief Afe Babalola and Barrister Dele Farotimi are given their day in court, we will have no choice but to trust that same judicial system to deliver unbiased judgment no matter our misgivings about how objective and untainted that judgment could be. This is just a way of saying that though our judicial system is not perfect; it is still the best that we have.
The last words on this reflection on the connection between the ongoing feud between Babalola and Farotimi and Nigeria’s postcolonial predicament must be given to Haile Sellasie, former emperor of Ethiopia: “Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.”
Olaopa is the Chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission,Abuja, and Professor of Public Administration.
tolaopa2003@gmail.com
By Leo Igwe
The Advocacy for Alleged Witches (AfAW) is concerned over the reported arrest of two men accused of being ‘witchdoctors’ in Zambia. The arrest underscores the potency of witchcraft fears and the connection between occult anxieties and the country’s politics. These individuals were accused of trying to bewitch the Zambian president, Hakainde Hichilema. The police claimed that they had charms. They planned to use the charms to harm the president. The report says the two persons have been charged under Zambia’s Witchcraft Act. The Act criminalizes “possession of charms”, “professing knowledge of witchcraft”, and “cruelty to wild animals”. The police found the two with assorted charms, including a live chameleon.
This development is utterly embarrassing and shows that the Zambian government is slowly losing its focus and bearing.The country has many socio-economic challenges. Suspicion of bewitchment or possession of charms should be the least of its worries at this time. There should be no place for witchcraft and possession of charms in modern politics because there is no evidence for these beliefs and practices. Zambian authorities should not weaponize the Witchcraft Act or use it to justify this incident. Zambian law does not recognize witchcraft. Zambia’s Witchcraft Act criminalizes naming or imputing witchcraft. It prohibits accusing or threatening to accuse any person of being a witch or a wizard. In this case, it is the police who are breaking the law.
Otherwise, how did they know the two individuals were ‘witchdoctors’? Did these persons identify as witch doctors? If not, the police are liable because they named and imputed witchcraft and have to prove that these individuals have witch-doctoring powers. The police claimed to have charged these individuals for possessing “assorted charms”, including a chameleon. Really?
The police in Zambia have questions to answer: What are charms? How did they know that what was in their possession were charms, not pets? Is a chameleon a form of charm? What makes possession of a chameleon possession of a charm? When and how does a chameleon become a charm? The police need to answer these questions and more before one takes them seriously.
Again, did the individuals describe what was in possession as ‘charms’? If they did, does confessing or designating something as a charm make it a charm? And if they did not, the police are liable because they need to prove how those possessions translated into charms.
In addition, the police claimed that the duo wanted to bewitch the president. What does that mean? How did they know? Are the police not contravening a provision under the Witchcraft Act by professing knowledge of witchcraft? Can one harm another person using a chameleon? They claimed that the two persons wanted to use the charms in their possession, including the chameleon to harm the president. How did they know that? What is the evidence for that?
The Advocacy for Alleged Witches calls for an end to this state-sponsored witch hunt. There is no evidence of harm through witchcraft or charms. The Zambian government should desist from witchcraft- related infractions and violations including arbitrary arrest, and detention of innocent citizens. These allegations are baseless and absurd. The arrest was politically motivated. This development demonstrates that Zambian authorities are out of sync with their duty and obligation to uphold the rule of law and protect accused persons.
Zambian authorities need to act in compliance with the 2021 UN resolution, which urged states to take measures to combat abuses linked to witchcraft beliefs and ritual attacks. End witchcraft allegations in Zambia. End witch hunts in Africa now!
Dr Igwe directs the Advocacy for Alleged Witches.
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