By Suyi Ayodele

“Good morning, sir, what do you think about the southwest governors’ forum and their recent collaboration efforts? Let’s leave Tinubu for a week or two and discuss other things. Man shall not write about Tinubu alone nah! Variety, they say, is the spice of life.” That came from my cousin a few days ago. It was his response to my last week’s piece, “Between our Govt and New York Times.”  My cousin, a namesake, and a dyed- in-the -wool Emilokan, gave the ‘directive’. But I am going to disappoint him. Bí iná kò tán lórí, èjè kii tán leekáná (as long as one has lice in one’s head, one’s fingernails must remain bloodstained). One interesting thing about this younger cousin of mine is that he did not wait for Tinubu to celebrate his one year in office before he, like the famed Andrew of the Ibrahim Babangida’s national orientation jingle of the 90s, sold all he had, including his boxers, and japaed to the United Kingdom. Anytime he responds to defend Tinubu and his voodoo economic policies, I always draw strength in the saying of our elders that if farming is such an easy venture, no blacksmith will ever sell hoes (Oko dùn ro ni alágbède nro okó tà).

Nigerians are hungry. Many of them have died of hunger and other poverty-induced diseases. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has an answer to the hunger cum poverty in the land. We are not the only hungry or poor people in the world, he told us. He spoke during the celebration of Sallah last week Monday. “Yes, there is poverty; there is suffering in the land. We are not the only people facing such, but we must face our challenges”, are his exact words. President Tinubu went further to lecture Nigerians on how to cope in a situation like this.

He said hungry Nigerians must change their attitude and value system. Don’t allow me to be interpretative here. Even at the risk of doing that, I think what the President was saying is that when Nigerians are hungry, they should show the countenance of people that have eaten and filled. Or how do you interpret this: “The need (for some citizens) to change the rent-seeking mind-set and become more productive to the economy is a challenge?” He equally talked about smuggling, economic sabotage and stealing of public infrastructure. President Tinubu’s Media Adviser, Ajuri Ngelale, told us that his principal made the comments when the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, led the leadership of the National Assembly on an Eid-el-Kabir homage to the president.

President Tinubu is a lucky man. He has so many fans like my cousin above. Many of them who could not cope with the woes that have been the only thing Tinubu administration hawks, and checked out of Nigeria, but keep telling us that we should be patient. This is exactly what the president said while playing host to Akpabio and his gang of amenable legislators during the last Sallah. Tinubu asked Nigerians to face their challenges. One of the most daunting challenges in the country today is hunger. Our culture teaches that once hunger is eliminated from poverty, the rest is easy (tí ebi bá kúrò nínú ìsé, ìsé bùse).

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Nigerians have been hungry from time immemorial. Tinubu did not start the hunger in the land; that is a fact. However, I can’t recall, since I knew “how to lift a lady’s skirt”, any government that has inflicted hunger on the people more than the Tinubu administration! But the president does not know this. Those around him who should have told him the home truth about the pain in the country would not do so for obvious reasons. If Tinubu were to know how much agony his one-year administration has caused Nigerians, he would not have alluded to the fact that Nigerians are not the only ones suffering; and the country is not the only poor country of the world.

Leaders have been insensitive for as long as the creation of humanity. If not, our president would not have compared our sufferings and poverty with the situationelsewhere. Did we elect Tinubu to aggravate suffering and promote poverty? The answer is a strident NO! There has been a lot of controversy over the authorship of the French phrase: “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche”, which means: “Then let them eat brioches.” Many theorists attributed the saying to “a great princess”, later identified to be Marie Antoinette, who in the 18th century, when told that the poor people had no bread to eat, retorted: “Then let them eat brioches (cake).”

The controversies notwithstanding, the French political philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, gave life to the phrase in book six of his Confessions (1765). While the phrase is regarded to be the most insensitive response any leader could offer when the masses suffer, it is noteworthy to recall that the lack of bread, the staple food of the masses, led to what is known in history as the May, 5, 1789, French Revolution, which ultimately terminated in the “coup of 18 Brumaire” on November 1, 1799, and the emergence of the French Consulate. The 10 and half years, and four days revolt, is estimated to have claimed between 30,000 to 40,000 French nationals. When the masses are pushed to the wall by the sadistic propensity of their leaders, they do the unthinkable!

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There is nothing wrong in leaders calling on the people to face their challenges. But there is everything wrong when the leader who calls on the people to brace up and confront their economic woes is not ready to let go of any of the luxuries he enjoys. This is exactly what President Tinubu is asking Nigerians to do now. A president who admits that Nigerians are facing hard times, and should brace up, should not be the one looking after his own personal comfort every second, and at the expense of the public purse. Mr. President cannot be talking about a new jet for himself and another one for his deputy, Kasim Shettima, while asking Nigerians to face their challenges. President Tinubu should lead the way. One of the challenges facing his presidency at the moment is the issue of mobility.

We are told (we will never have the opportunity to verify the claim independently), that all the aircraft in the Presidential Air Fleet (PAF), are bad, and “unserviceable”, anymore. In that PAF are a Boeing 737, a Gulfstream GV, two Falcon 7Xs and a Challenger CL605. On the helicopter side are two Agusta 139s and four Agusta189s. All went bad at the same time. The House of Representatives Committee on National Security and Intelligence, which initiated the project of new aeroplanes for Tinubu and Shettima, recommended that for the office of the Vice President, Nigeria should purchase a Boeing 747-200, which is like the United States of America’s Air Force Two Aircraft VC-25A. For a one-hour trip in the aircraft, the operating cost is put at 177,000 US dollars. The US Air Force One costs an average of $4 billion. So, which one is Nigeria buying for its president?

Expectedly, there has been outcry against the purchase of these luxuries for the president and his deputy. Many Nigerians, including yours sincerely, feel, and rightly too, that it is most insensitive, callous and an outright disregard to, and for the hardship of the masses, for the presidency to be thinking of such purchases at a time like this. The emotional blackmail, especially in the pitiable statement by Bayo Onanuga, President Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, that Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), in the 2023 election, wishes President Tinubu dead by his opposition to the purchase of a new aircraft, would not dissuade us from telling the president that this is not the time to be this profligate! Nobody says Tinubu or Shettima should fly about in half-dead aircraft. We are talking about the timing. Tinubu cannot ask Nigerians to manage one irregular meal while he himself is having a seven-course-gourmet-meal! Leaders should learn to lead by example. It is morally wrong for President Tinubu to ask Nigerians to make sacrifices while he himself is not doing so.

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How much has this one-year-old administration spent on the comfort of the president, the vice president and their households? Tinubu knew the shape of the economy before he contested. Nigerians expected him to cut down on the cost of running the government. Has he done that? How many ministers did General Muhammadu Buhari have, and how many ministers do we have today? When the president moves around Nigeria, what is the size of his convoy? How many aides does the president have at the moment?

The recommendations of the House of Representatives Committee on the PAF are more of ego trips. It talked about Nigeria’s “leading role in the West African, African, and global scheme of affairs” as one of the reasons we need new aircraft now. You may wish to ask, as I do here, which leading role? What is our position in the African continent? Yes, nobody wants the president, or any other fella dead. They should just stop at that instead of telling us about non-existent leading roles for a country that is struggling to lead itself. Let us do the right thing first.

Records have it that while Buhari promised to reduce the number of planes in the PAF by selling off some of them but never did, he instead, increased the maintenance cost of the fleet by almost 200 percent by committing between $1.5 million to $4.5 million maintaining each of the planes. Can we just ask the Daura General why the fleet which gulped such a humongous amount of money would suddenly become “unserviceable” in just a year after he left the office? Can we also get to know the market value of the “unserviceable” planes, and then subtract it from the cost of the new ones we intend to buy? And if we must buy new aircraft for the presidency, must they be like the ones in the fleet of America’s presidency? Are we as buoyant as the US?

The Tinubu presidency does not need a Peter Obi to tell it that the push for new aircraft currently shows how disconnected the president is from the people. It is something he should know himself. In the last one year, Tinubu has spent billions of naira renovating the vice president’s residence, buying cars for the office of the First Lady, an office that is not recognised anywhere in our constitution, and wasted more on other frivolities. No matter the urgency and necessity of new aircraft for the PAF, Nigerians are not likely to show any support. It does not matter the flowery way, “basic thing any sane government will do”, an Onanuga may couch it; or the appeal to emotion by asking: “Does Peter Obi want the President dead? Is that his wish? Does he want him to continue moving around in a rickety plane and die like the VP of Malawi and Iran President?”, death will come when it will come.

This is where Onanuga’s ally in this attempt to defend the indefensible, Professor Ishaq Akintola of the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), has my sympathy over his jaundiced theory of evil wishes for Tinubu and Shettima on the purchase of new aircraft. I recommend, and very strongly too, that the Islamic scholar should read Akogun Tola Adeniyi’s tripartite: “Visit the Mortuary” (1974), “Death, I salute You” (1975) and “Death, Iku” (June 20, 2024), to know that death needs nobody’s prompting for it to act! The timing for these purchases is wrong, and absolutely, wrong! The Tinubu administration has been asking Nigerians to ‘manage’, even when there is nothing on their tables. But he is lucky. Nigerians are not asking him to manage nothing. President Tinubu has six planes and six helicopters to play with in the PAF. Please, Mr. President, face the challenge and ‘manage’ those ones till our economy improves! We are not asking for too much!

By Lasisi Olagunju

I had thought that our lawmakers in Abuja cared only for big cars, big bucks and big boobs. I never knew they also have deep love for alcohol – dry gin – and would do anything to protect it from the ravages of restrictive laws. And, because the standards of public and private morality have fallen terribly low, I feel we had better talk now before our democracy becomes synonymous with kaikai, with shekpe, ogogoro and ogwofy.

“No man’s life, liberty or property is safe while the legislature is in session…” is one very popular quote found in an 1866 New York court decision. The judge was Gideon Tucker. Given what we see daily here, I wonder how many Nigerians will say today that the judge lied.

There is this agency called NAFDAC which first barged in on our consciousness when adorable Dora Akunyili was its boss. That woman fought many wars – the one we knew she lost publicly was her long battle with cancer. May God continue to rest her beautiful soul.

The agency she nurtured is never short of wars. It was created to be constantly in the trenches. Some destinies are that wired. And, it has forever been that for NAFDAC. Because of ogogoro, the agency, this moment, faces a low-intensity battle from one of the chambers that make laws for our country.

Whether gin or jenever, spirit drink was at a time here famously called ‘fire-water.’ And, as that name predicts, uncontrolled liquor is fire, it burns the body and chars the soul.

So, on 21 May 2010, at the 63rd World Health Assembly in Geneva, the 193 member-states of the World Health Organisation adopted what they called “global strategy to reduce the harmful use of alcohol.” Nigeria was there, it participated actively in the deliberations, and it signed, pledging its commitment to that policy. The subsequent alcohol-in-sachets ban by our government was an activation of Nigeria’s fidelity to that commitment.

On February 1, 2024, NAFDAC announced that it had started the enforcement of the ban of alcohol sold in sachet or in less than 200ml PET bottles. If that agency and, particularly, its Director General, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, thought the announcement was the end of those small stuffs, they were mistaken. The agency, mid last week, told the press that it was being ‘advised’ by the House of Representatives to lift the ban. It said several meetings had been held on this between them and the lawmakers.

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Something is not clear to me here. The Green Chamber can soak itself in green bottles, our health authorities have not said it shouldn’t. The people who have crossed the river of fortune to the opulent side called the House of Representatives do not drink what NAFDAC banned. Indeed, what they drink no one dare ban. So, of all the existential problems besetting Nigerians, the priority of the National Assembly is Sapele water retailed in abject packs. Are the lawmakers in sympathy-bed with the poor drinkers or with the affluent merchants?

I am shocked that our Reps do not care that official statistics say abuse of alcohol (especially gin in small packs) accounts for 50 percent of road accidents and for 29 percent of deaths in Nigeria. I am also curious to know why a House presided over by a northern Muslim speaker will be making a strong case for easy access to strong drinks. Where the speaker hails from, alcohol sale and consumption have been illegal there since Uthman Dan Fodio’s Jihad of 1804. But NAFDAC’s press statement said the last pro-alcohol-in-sachet meeting of Thursday, June 13, 2024 was at the instance of the speaker and it held in his office with his Chief of Staff standing in for him!

Sometimes you watch drunk bus drivers and tipsy okada riders doing suicidal, homicidal spins. You see them poor and broken and you wonder how they fund their regular inebriation. The answer is in the cheap cost of alcohol in sachets and in small bottles. It is the affordability and the accessibility and the havoc it wreaks that the ban targets.

Because pure water costs more than dry gin in sachet, you can’t use cost to convince the guzzlers to stitch their throats against the burns of the fire they drink. We’ve always had alcohol abuse challenges in this country. There was a time under the British when gin functioned as convertible currency. In one instance, some unscrupulous government officials were accused of accepting gin as payment for fines. Today, there is an epidemic of drunkenness, even among children.

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“Children who drink alcohol are more likely to use drugs, get bad grades, suffer injury or death, engage in risky sexual activity, make bad decisions, and have health problems,” NAFDAC’s Director-General, Professor Adeyeye, said in February this year while explaining that the ban was focused on controlling unrestricted underage access to alcoholic drinks. She said “It is a response to the growing concerns about the health risks associated with excessive alcohol consumption, particularly among the youths who are the primary consumers of these sachet and small bottle alcoholic beverages.”

I thought lawmakers are leaders and leaders exist to protect the led from all forms of harm – including from affordable spirits.

On September 1, 2005, BBC’s Africa Live opened a discussion on whether home-brewed alcohol had a place in modern Africa. It mentioned Ogogoro in Nigeria, Umkomboti in South Africa, Nsafufuo or Muratina in Ghana and Chang’aa in Kenya. The BBC got varied and very interesting responses from across the continent. The one from Nigeria particularly interests me. One Owolabi Kayode from Nigeria told the BBC that: “In Nigeria among the lower classes, local brew has become an integral part of their every day diet. As early as 0700 in the morning you find people at the bus park taking their usual ‘shot’ as they call it. The most painful part of it all is that the bus drivers also ‘mark register’ with the sellers. Hence, I am of the opinion that it does more harm than good to the society, as these drinks cause more health problem to these folks.” You and I know that what that fellow told the BBC 19 years ago was very true then and it is truer now. If there is any variation between what was in 2005 and what is now, it is just that spirit in sachet has largely displaced local brews.

History is a beast. It repeats itself in very ghastly details. Long before independence; in fact, long before amalgamation, the white man was torn, as our lawmakers are today, between stopping our people from destroying themselves with cheap liquor and protecting the business interest of white importers of spirit drinks.

From the last decades of the 19th century to the first two decades of the 20th, a robust campaign against the liquor trade was met with equal response by the importers. Pro-liquor government officials argue that “drink produces an amount of revenue which cannot be surrendered without a complete dislocation of finances.” The abolitionists sneered at what they called the “moral bankruptcy” of the officials. The British House of Commons took a hard stance against this drink pejoratively called ‘fire-water’ on 24 April, 1888. The 1890 Brussels Conference of the European Powers in Africa had time to also consider the matter. It banned the spread of liquor sale to “where it had not yet been established” – northern Nigeria. Lord Lugard, in a confidential memo dated 8 April, 1916 described the liquor trade as “a sterile import which does not improve the standard of life or add to the well-being and comfort of the people.” The colonial government subsequently tried all tricks to tackle the gin trade. It imposed higher import duties, it didn’t work. It ordered a reduction in the quality and ‘strength’ of the drinks; the drinkers drank heavily still. Then in January 1919, the government “prohibited the importation of spirits into Africa. This was effected in Nigeria by the Customs Tariff Ordinance (1916) of 25 March, 1919”.

I suggest that our lawmakers read Ayodeji Olukoju’s ‘Rotgut and Revenue: Fiscal Aspects of the Liquor Trade in Southern Nigeria, 1890-1919’. I drew the above from there, and from Richard M. Bird’s ‘Taxing Alcohol in Nigeria’. I also drew strength from other related sources. During his time, the white man chose the side of humanity – he took measures that disincentivized buying alcohol cheap and drinking alcohol heavy. Our current lawmakers can help protect the law by not getting our democracy drunk. They will do this by pocketing their lift-the-ban advice. It is a poisonous brew.

By Lasisi Olagunju

Persons who answer Ijebu typically party as hard as they work. They sweat out their heart to make money; they rock their money in ways that add value to their personal and group existence. Their pitch could be high, it could be mid or low; what they choose depends on what point they want to prove. In doing these, they skillfully walk the thin line of balanced responsibility. When Chief Obafemi Awolowo transited to immortality in May 1987, Fuji mega star, Kollington Ayinla, sang about Ijebu’s unmatchable ability to balance their acts. He said “the yams of the Ijebu are six. They sell two; they eat two. The remaining two they give to their gods (Isu méfà ni’su Ìjèbú/ Wón nta méjì; wón nje méji sí’kùn ara won/ Ó l’Órìsà tí wón nfi méjì t’ókù bo…”).

I find them a fascination. I am writing this not because I am Ijebu; I am not one of them. I am a proper Òyó-Yoòbá. Never poor players too; but we are a people who can be loud and subtle at the same time. My lineage is Ìlòkó, Erúmosá omo aj’óbalólele/ Tètù o j’óba l’óhùn èrò (offspring of forebears who never answered the king softly). If you think not speaking softly to the king should have consequences, it means you’ve not heard Oyo say: Màá wí, màá wí/ oba kìí mú òkorin (speak out, the king does not arrest the bard).

Malawians say “life is when you are together, alone you are an animal.” I don’t know if the Ijebu have an anthem – old or new. But I know their oríkì glides with their gait: Oni mi je nu’bu omo Olúweri/ Omo Aj’ebu j’osa de Igbobini/Omo As’ale jeje booni nobinren/A b’aya kun’le tititi (Rovers of the deep sea, offspring of Oluweri/ Rovers of deep waters as far as Igbobini/Whose forebear indulged concubines as if not married/Whereas his home is packed full of women). If you want more of this, my source, Ayinde Abimbola’s ‘Poets as Historians’ has the oríkì in full.

Flavour, the musician in his ‘Big Baller’ asks: “How much is money?” He goes on to assert that “it’s nothing.” Flavour has probably not met them – the Ijebu. They say they are money (Kékeré Ijebu owó/àgbà Ijebu owó). They are wealthy because they don’t walk alone; they bond, holding hands in life and in business. They band in dancing too. They lace their drumbeats with sèkèrè – the netted, rattling gourd which does not go on outings of shame. Their drums, in shrill and mellow tones, remind them of their forebears who had been spending dollars before the Oyinbo man arrived these shores. For them, it is “premium or nothing.” Their neighbours secretly envy them.

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Three days after the Ileya festival last week, the Ijebu-Yoruba, home and abroad, staged their annual breathtaking Ojude Oba festival. Their paramount ruler, the Awujale, Oba Sikiru Adetona, aged and glorious, sat at the event receiving the tens of age-grade groups of his male and female ‘children’. Those ones, the ‘regbe-regbe’, gaily dressed, came around to pay homage to their oba. They do it every year and there is no sign that they will ever get tired of doing so. On horse backs there were ‘aristocrats’ said to be from warrior families in Ijebuland. Others from other illustrious and not so illustrious segments of the land staged their own acts in colours that dim the rainbow. People danced; horses pirouetted; the ground quaked.

They came out heavier this year than they ever did, and so heavy have been the reviews. There have been ‘disputes’ and ‘fights’ on several internet platforms on the event. Some question the ‘sanity’ and the ‘wisdom’ in spending so much just to show how wealthy a people are. Some of the critics insist Ojude Oba is nothing more than an annual display of ostentation and flamboyance. Some say they only come home to party, they don’t build factories and set up businesses at home; others say they should spend on renewing the rust of their city. I reacted in a Yoruba leaders’ WhatsApp group at the weekend that the bonding across age groups that we see yearly at Ojude Oba, to me, trumps all charges of ostentatious display of wealth.

I ask if the value of everything should be calculated in naira and kobo, brick and mortar? One of the greatest bequests of Ancient Greece to the modern world is their art – their drama and festivals. But the drama and festival-loving Greeks were sternly rebuked for investing generously in these ‘wasteful’ items of art. Read David Pritchar’s ‘Costing Festivals’. Pioneer economic historian, August Boeckh, attacked Athenians for “squandering away public revenue in shows and banquets…” Plutarch accused third-century Athenians of spending more on the production of tragedies (drama) than on the maintenance of their empire. Plutarch, in his ‘On the Glory of Athens’ wrote that: “If the cost of the production of each drama were reckoned, the Athenian people would appear to have spent more on the production of ‘Bacchaes’ and ‘Phoenician Women’ and ‘Oedipuses’ and the misfortunes of ‘Medeas and Electras’ than they did on maintaining their empire and fighting for their liberty against the Persian.”

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If you are a critic of Ojude Oba and similar festivals, and you hold that Plutarch was right and Boeckh’s judgment justified, think of African literature in English without Greek texts: We have J.P. Clark’s ‘Song of a Goat’ adapted from the Greek’s ‘Agamemnon’ which was authored by Aeschylus. We have Wole Soyinka’s ‘The Bacchae of Euripides’ which has Euripides’ ‘Bacchae’ as its source text. Ola Rotimi’s ‘The Gods Are Not to Blame’ is rooted in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. Felix Budelmann’s ‘Greek Tragedies in West African Adaptations’ has a long list of this class of works. Even, ordinarily arrogant western cultures have no problem admitting that Greek tragedies are part of their cultural heritage. Yet, there was a time when expenditures by Ancient Greece on the arts were termed wasteful and thoughtless. One day soon in the future, glamorous Ojude Oba and the other festivals that we pillory today will serve as the cornerstone of our cultural economy.

Ojude Oba started as an extension of the annual Muslim sallah celebrations. Today, it has evolved into a massive secular event so much that even insular Christian Pentecostals soak their souls in it. It should be an applause for that festival that ‘pious’ Christians who won’t eat sallah meat on Sunday saw nothing wrong feasting with Muslims on Tuesday.

We yearly watch these united people going home to ‘display’ without fears. What they do annually is a proverb for other peoples who have abandoned their own hometowns to ‘witches’ and ‘wizards’. Such peoples should ask the Ijebu how is it that they go home and wine and dine and do not get eaten. Ojude Oba teaches a lesson in knowing that what kills is not death but the fear of death.

The Yoruba person ordinarily values home. And, to them, home is where the unbiblical cords and the placentas of a child’s ancestors are buried. You will understand this when you look at the Owu-Yoruba, for instance. Dispersed and scattered everywhere by an avoidable war 200 years ago (1821), they still spend their love on Orile Owu, their destroyed homestead located in present day Osun State. Someone once told me that M.K.O. Abiola, billionaire Egba-Gbagura man, remembered to plant his bookshop somewhere at Ojoo, Ibadan, where his Gbagura story started over two centuries ago.

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Justice Kayode Eso (God bless his soul) was an Ijesa man who lived his years mainly in Ibadan. He once laughed at the ignorance of a friend who queried why he had a home in Ibadan, Oyo State, and another in his hometown, Ilesa, Osun State. The experience is captured in the Foreword he wrote in Lillian Trager’s ‘Yoruba Hometowns’ (2001: XI-XII). Justice Eso’s words speak better: “A friend, seeing the picture of my regular residence, was also shown the picture of my second home built in my local community. He could not resist asking why one should have two homes.” The late jurist recounted that experience while discussing questions raised by Trager’s American students on why the Yoruba have so much attachments to their hometowns. The questions, according to Trager, are: “Why do people who no longer live in a place, who may never have lived there, continue to spend their money and time there? What is the motivation for someone who may have an important job, who is well known and involved in urban organizations to come home to a small city or rural town or village?”

Around year 2000 or 2001 when Prince Tunde Ponle was building his MicCom Golf Hotels and Resort in his hometown, Ada, Osun State, I interviewed him and asked him if he did not think the investment could be a waste. He responded that one of his sons also expressed the same fears but his position was that if you have money and you refuse to develop your hometown, when you die, your corpse will be taken to that undeveloped place. I nodded. He looked at me and smiled and we switched to other issues.

My people say that if a child offends the sun outside, they should have the shade of home to run to (bí omodé bá d’áràn oòrùn, o ye kí ó rí ‘bòji ilé sá sí). We also say that a child who throws home away has erected a hanger for tribulation. One Ijesa person told Lillian Trager that “at present in Nigeria, the only place you have security, the only place you can be sure of, is your hometown. That is the place where you are known, and where people will protect you.”

People make money and willfully get lost abroad. But Ijebus do not have that problem of not going back home to celebrate their success and uplift their land. The physical celebration of that spirit is what we see annually in their Ojude Oba. The involvement of their big men and businesses, particularly Dr. Mike Adenuga and his Globacom in sponsoring the event since forever – and till eternity – attests to that spirit. There is no part of Nigeria without big men and women. The difference is in what difference they make in their people’s lives. Social scientists would insist that our federation’s constituent parts are states. Some would say they should be regions; yet, some stress that they are ethnic groups. I say they are communities built on what I.A. Akinjogbin conceptualized as the “ebi system.” When every elephant and every ant in every community take adequate care of the life of their home and of their community, we are likely to have a country.