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Ebenezer Obey: Unstoppable Flight Of Destiny (1) [OPINION ]

Tunde Odesola
The newborn arrives the world knuckled up. In his clenched right fist is fate. In the left is destiny. Little wonder life is a struggle between fate and destiny. Fate is one-way; destiny is itinerant. Fate slams shut like a coffin, sealed, airtight, with a finality; destiny is open like a shelf containing storybooks portraying bad and good characters.
In the Greek classic tragedy, ‘Oedipus Rex’, which Ola Rotimi robes in African culture, to produce ‘The gods are not to blame’, youthful Odewale, by his strength and magical powers, goes on the destined road to greatness but his inescapable fate was already cemented by the gods, who had decreed he would kill his father and marry his mother. For Odewale, fate is optionless but destiny is optional. It goes to say that Man’s conquest of his weakness, his Achilles heel, is the ultimate hope in triumphing over the gods who are never to blame. Fate is divine, free will is mankind.
It is destiny that irresistibly attracts a toddler to football. Fate makes him emerge as a World Cup winner. Lionel Messi comes to mind. Destiny magnetises a youngster to life in the military, fate kills him in a coup or propels him to power thereafter. General Murtala Muhammed and General Olusegun Obasanjo come to mind.
Explaining the Yoruba worldview on fate and free will, a Professor of Yoruba Language and Literature, Wande Abimbola, said in a telephone interview with me that fate is ‘Orí’ or ‘Àyànmó’ while he described free will as ‘Ìwà’, known in English as character or behaviour.
Abimbola, a former Vice Chancellor, Obafemi Awolowo University, said, “Western philosophy doesn’t believe fate is alterable but Yoruba philosophy believes fate could be slightly changed, at least, to make it sufferable. The Yoruba believe that fate could be changed through sacrifice, which can lessen an unfortunate fate.”
Speaking with me on the phone, the Araba of Osogbo, Chief Ifayemi Elebuibon, said fate ‘is what will happen’, adding that destiny is ‘what a man came into the world to do’. He summarises the finality of fate in a proverb, “Lè s’ebo, lè s’ògùn, bá ti wáyé pé aó rí, ni aó rí.”
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I believe most success stories begin with a passion, followed by dedication and consistency. Focus is the headlamp in the journey to greatness. The seed of greatness can sprout on a rock or in water just as white pap comes forth from the sooty pot. Legends are not town-specific, I daresay.
Despite advancements in science and technology, the essence of life is depreciating daily. Values are eroding, creating gullies in morality, with danger lurking in the blinding darkness called the future. Today, rats no longer squeak like rats. Birds no longer chirp like birds. Even the colours of the rainbow are no longer seven.
To lie idle, Odewale says in ‘The gods are not to blame’, is to be crippled fast. Nigeria will not be crippled fast if Nigerians start the journey to redemption now. Let’s go!
“Let’s go!” That’s the catchphrase of Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey to his band members whenever the stage is set, his fans are waiting, the atmosphere is charged, and the big masquerader is ready to enter the arena of spectacle.
At birth, fate set him up for greatness, making his Owu mother break water in a Methodist Church, 81 years ago, in Ìdògò, a Yewa community of Ogun State. On the eighth day, he was christened Ebenezer Remilekun Aremu Olasupo Fabiyi.
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As a toddler on all fours, destiny ceaselessly crawled Ebenezer towards the choir’s pew, where he would gaze at the drums in wonderment, giggling widely, exposing his toothless gums, drooling and shaking his legs and feet in excitement. His mother would grab him and take him far away from the drums, only for him to crawl back there before his mother caught her breath. The pastor of the church, who saw the mother’s up and down movement, took the little boy from her, prayed for him and prophesied that he would grow up to be a musician.
The mother didn’t say amen to the prayer for she wished for her son to be a medical doctor or a lawyer instead because, in her view, it was the only way he could ride a ‘pleasure car’ or go to England, Ilu Oba.
Years later, he joined the choir and rose to lead it as destined. Exhibiting exemplary leadership qualities, he also became the leader of his primary school band in Ìdògò, making the title, Commander, which he acquired much later, an affirmation of his organisational and leadership traits.
Obey, the name that eclipsed his surname, Fabiyi, wasn’t given by his parents. Obey was a name that stuck in primary school when he was a class monitor. In those days, teachers didn’t brook explanations from truant or dim-witted students, whose palms, backs and buttocks they flogged amid shouts of ‘Obey before complain!’ As a class monitor, Ebenezer would re-echo ‘obey before complain’ as the teacher’s cane stung palms, backs and buttocks, rupturing the skin. Thus Ebenezer got his Obey from ensuring obedience, more than 60 decades before ‘Obidient’ became a political movement in Nigeria.
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Obey knew he couldn’t do music in Ìdògò under the same roof with his disciplinarian mother. So, he set his sights on Lagos, where his father worked, and as soon as he finished primary school, he left the village for the city. Though his father was also strict, Lagos provided an irresistible opportunity to learn, play and grow in music.
As a teenager, he plodded the streets of Lagos in the early 50s, going home to sleep at night but always on the lookout for any place where music was being played.
However, before moving to Lagos, Obey cut his music teeth in his village with the Ifelodun Mambo Orchestra formed by some Ìdògò elders, including his kinsman, Sabitu Ayinla Fasaasi aka Vasco Da Gama, whom Obey highly respects to date on account of being seven years older than him. Obey later invited Vasco Da Gama to join his band which he formed in Lagos, in 1957.
Speaking with me in a telephone chat, a journalist, music historian and popular content creator, Dele Adeyanju, who had done intensive research into the evolution of various Nigerian musical genres, expressed the need to preserve the origins of Nigerian music forms.
Adeyanju had done extensive interviews with leading Nigerian musicians who included the late Fatai Rolling Dollar, King Sunny Ade, Sir Shina Peters, and Segun Adewale, among others. His interview with Obey, in particular, provides answers to the journey of Juju music from the days of Agidigbo music percussion to the tonnes of sacrifices made by budding musicians before success came smiling. Adeyanju’s online TV is called Agbaletu.
The reigning music at the time, Agidigbo, was what Chief Commander played when he first got to Lagos. When he wanted to learn the ‘agidigbo’, it was to Fatai Rolling Dollar that Obey turned, and the former, who later became his master, taught him how to play the agidigbo with five fingers, an unimaginable feat in that era because every popular musician played the agidigbo ‘expertly’ with two fingers.
Life is lived in phases. This fact throws up the following questions: What’s the meaning of Juju music? Who created Juju music? What challenges did Obey face during the evolution of his band?
• To be continued.
Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com
Facebook: @Tunde Odesola
X: @Tunde_Odesola
News
JUST IN: Court Orders IGP To Arrest Mahmood Yakubu, Ex-INEC Chairman

Despite his exit as the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, the Federal High Court sitting in Osogbo, the Osun State capital, has again ordered the Inspector General of Police, Mr Kayode Egbetokun, to arrest the former INEC chairman, Prof Mahmoud Yakubu, for an offence relating to contempt of court.
The Court order came a few hours after Yakubu left office as the INEC chairman.
The Action Alliance, AA, had instituted a case before the court challenging INEC and its former chairman, Prof Yakubu, over their non-compliance with the judgment of the Court delivered by Justice Funmilola Demi-Ajayi in suit number FHC/OS/CS/194/2024.
In the said judgment, the court ordered INEC to put the names of the National Chairman of the Action Alliance, Adekunle Rufai Omoaje, and other members of the party’s National Executive Committee, NEC, on the INEC portal.
The Court also held that the names of all the state chairmen of the party be uploaded on the INEC portal.
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The court held that the elective convention of the party held on the 7th of October, 2023 which produced Omoaje as the national chairman of the party and other NEC members of the party was authentic as it was properly monitored and supervised by officials of INEC in accordance with the party’s constitution and the electoral acts.
However, INEC claimed to have complied with the court judgment, but the party disagreed with the commission, as the name of Omoaje was yet to be uploaded on the commission’s website despite the orders of the Court.
Although the names of the state chairmen of the party under the leadership of Omoaje and those of the NEC members are already on the INEC portal, Omoaje’s name is yet to be uploaded as of press time, a development that the court frowned at.
The court order obtained by our correspondent dated 7th October, 2025, and signed by Mr O.M. Kilani on behalf of the Court Registrar reads in part, “it is hereby ordered that the Inspector General of Police shall cause the arrest and shall charge the defendant/judgment debtors for contempt and committal proceedings within seven days of this ruling.”
The court also awarded a cost of #100,000 against the judgment creditors.
News
Lagos Closes Adeniji Adele–CMS Lane For Six Weeks Of Repairs

The Lagos State Government has announced a partial closure of the Adeniji Adele Interchange Junction to CMS for six weeks to allow for rehabilitation works by the Federal Government.
According to a statement issued on Wednesday by the Commissioner for Transportation, Oluwaseun Osiyemi, the repair works will run daily between 11:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m., starting Sunday, October 12, and ending Sunday, November 23, 2025.
Osiyemi explained that only one lane of the road will be closed during the period, while the remaining lanes will remain open to traffic to minimize disruptions.
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He assured motorists that traffic management officers will be stationed along the corridor to ensure smooth vehicular movement and reduce inconvenience during the rehabilitation.
“Motorists are implored to be patient, as the lane diversion is part of the traffic management plan for the rehabilitation of the road by the Federal Ministry of Works,” the commissioner said.
He also urged drivers to comply with the directives of traffic officials on duty to ensure safety and efficient traffic flow throughout the repair period.
News
JUST IN: Tinted Permit Enforcement Placed On Hold Due To Court Order – Police

The Nigeria Police Force said on Wednesday that the enforcement of the vehicle tinted glass permit has been suspended following a court order halting the exercise.
Spokesperson for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Police Command, SP Josephine Adeh, disclosed this during an interview on Africa Independent Television, AIT.
She said the decision to halt the enforcement came after the police officially received the court order.
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Adeh said, “Information reaching me from the office of the PRO is that the order has been received and the enforcement of the tinted permit is now on hold pending the court’s verdict”.
Disclosing that the directive to suspend enforcement would remain in place pending the outcome of the ongoing legal process, Adeh said, “We are waiting for the verdict. We are not against the courts, and we will continue to wait until we get a verdict”.
Speaking on public concerns about the purpose of the tinted glass regulation, Adeh explained that it was introduced for security reasons, noting that some criminal activities had been carried out using vehicles with darkened windows.
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“The law was not made by us. We are enforcers. The policy was purely security-driven. Some criminals were using tinted vehicles to commit offences, making it difficult for law enforcement to identify suspects,” she said.
She dismissed claims that the policy was designed for financial gain, noting that all payments related to tinted permits are made directly into the Federal Government’s Treasury Single Account (TSA), not to the police.
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