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OPINION: Flying Gods, Lying Prophets And Power Bandits

Published

1 year ago

April 8, 2024

By Lasisi Olagunju

In May, 1891, James Richard Jewett of Brown University, Providence, United States, presented a paper on ‘Arabic Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases’ to the American Oriental Society. The paper was eventually published as an article in that society’s journal in 1893. One striking line I picked in that paper last week is the author’s entry of what he calls Jiha’s Cow. He writes: “Jiha slaughtered his cow, sold the meat, and received his pay. After a while, he again demanded pay from each purchaser and received it. He kept doing this till he died.” What Jiha did would not be strange to you if you were a Nigerian. We pay many times and forever for a paradise long lost.

Nigeria is a low wall mounted by every goat. I see Jiha in how the regime we have treats us. Trending now is electricity apartheid that stratifies the haves and the have-nots. They call it electricity subsidy removal. They band and disband cities; they grade and degrade streets. They distribute darkness and allocate fanciful power hours. The favoured are queued up as Band A; the disfavored are petty men packed into other bands ending empty-handed with letter E. Families sob, businesses weep. Indeed, the regime’s Julius Caesar “doth bestride the narrow world like a colossus.” They reduce all to the emperor’s “underlings, …petty men (who) walk under his huge legs”. In response to our cries, they bid us to do what Shakespeare’s Romans do: “peep about to find for ourselves dishonorable graves.”

A gluttonous government eats with both hands and ten fingers while asking us to skip meals, and fast and pray for John Milton’s paradise regained. Rupert Russel, author of ‘Price War$’ would look at them and say they are ‘prophets’ and we are their scammed ‘followers.’ He would explain our situation with his “cargo cult” metaphor of visionary prophets and stupid, expectant followers. Phil Murray explains him: “The prophets share a vision that God will deliver ‘cargo’ in the form of goods but the followers must first offer some sacrifice in exchange. The prophets take the sacrificial food or money, but the cargo never appears.”

I know there are partisan optimists who still wait at the port for the illusory cargo and at the harbour for the crab of this regime to wink. But for me, it is enough on this domestic darkness and the banditry in our forest of demons.
I shift my gaze to the enemy outside.

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If you canter, trot or amble like a horse, the world will saddle you up. I see Jiha and his cow meat in how Nigeria and Nigerian businesses are treated by competition from outside. The outside is never tired of demanding payment for goods it never sold to us – and we keep paying. They did and do it in telecoms – the Globacom experience. The trending act is in aviation. Air Peace, a Nigerian airline, recently started operating the Lagos-London route. I read of hell being unleashed by the world’s lords of the sky.

I thought we were told that the sky has enough space for all birds to fly without clashing. It is no longer so. Or, it has never been so in the business of air travel. One Jide Iyaniwura, a passenger on Air Peace’s recent inaugural flight from Gatwick to Lagos, in a social media post, alleged that from what he saw on the day of the inaugural flight, the British government was intent on frustrating Air Peace out of the London route. He said: “British Airways and Virgin were the only airlines doing direct flight from Lagos to London before Air Peace joined. The British government will do everything within their power to truncate the effort of any Nigerian carrier trying to break into that market.” He provided clues and cited acts that suggested his conclusion. “It is a government-to-government fight. It is a British government versus the Nigerian government fight,” the passenger said while warning our leaders not to see it as a war between businesses.

Other observers say a war is on already from some established foreign airlines. Said to be leading the pack is expensive, elite British Airways. That should not be a surprise. The lion’s den is never free from bones. A behemoth company with imperialism as its foundational philosophy and ethos cannot be seen brooding any act of impudence from an upstart airline from Africa, its country’s inheritance. The lords on that route take the route as their bequest. Their mindset is rooted in history.

Sir Samuel Hoare was the British Secretary of State for Air from 1922 to 1929. He wrote in his Empire of the Air (1957:90) that he “saw in the creation of air routes the chance of uniting the scattered countries of the (British) Empire and the Commonwealth.” To him (and his country), air travel and route allocations were carefully etched and aimed at making sure that Great Britain did not “surrender in the air a paramountcy won on the ground by a generation before.” In other words, as elegantly couched by Hoare, the official British air travel policy was (and should still be) undergirded by the national desire to “make closer and more constant the unity of imperial thought, imperial intercourse and imperial ideals.”

Direct territorial acquisition of land that is not yours is colonialism. Garnish it with political and economic control from an outside power and you have the textbook definition of imperialism.

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Imperial Airways, the grandfather of British Airways, was set up as the “chosen instrument” to achieve England’s imperial agenda. Indeed, The Times of London of December 28, 1923 noted and emphasized that in the choice of name for that airline, ‘Imperial’ and not ‘National’ had been used as its label. For these details and more, I suggest you read (as I did) Robert McCormack’s ‘Airlines and Empires: Great Britain and the Scramble for Africa, 1919-1932 published by the Canadian Journal of African Studies in 1976. You will read in that piece how the first scheduled flight of Imperial Airways on its trunk route to Cape Town on January 20, 1932 was celebrated by a British newspaper as “an imperial event of outstanding importance.”

Ninety years ago (18 October, 1934) at the Chatham House, London, Lt. Colonel H. Burchall, General Manager of Imperial Airways, spoke on ‘The Politics of International Air Routes’. He warned that “any country which maintains regular air services over routes crossing foreign countries has to encounter many difficulties.” He added that of those difficulties, “none is greater than those presented by international politics for these are based upon the uncertain and shifting foundations of national prejudices and aspirations.” You would probably understand Burchall’s words better if you advert your mind to the fact that on that London route used to be Nigeria’s Arik, Medview and Bellview. The gods of the skies swat them; they closed shop.

There is a gush of ground calls for support for Air Peace in this war. They say it is patriotism to do so. Before the coming of Air Peace on the London route, flying became food only for the gods of cash. Virgin Atlantic increased its price for economy class to N2,353,200; its business class was N5,345,700. Turkish airlines’ economy class ticket for the Lagos-Istanbul -London route rose to N874,661 while the business class ticket jumped to N1,980,876. Nigerian travellers experienced same with British Airways, Delta, Lufthansa, KLM/Air France, Air Maroc and Ethiopian Airlines. Nigerians cried, wailed and waited for succour, none came. Air Peace’s entry and cheaper fares have now forced the gods to reconsider their judgement. Reports say the flying spirits have not only reduced their fares, they are weaponising them against the upstart from Lagos. They are charging fares lower than Air Peace’s. That is war, price war.

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Every war, including a price war, has an objective. A petrol station manager in the United States tells Strategic Pricing Solutions his own experience: “During the price war my company fought, consumers got some of the lowest gas prices in Dallas, but those low prices could not last. The end result for the consumer in that neighborhood was two of three gas stations on one corner going out of business, and as soon as they closed their doors, the remaining company raised prices higher than ever before.” That is what the dominant birds seek to do to the cattle egret. Their lowered prices are clippers for the wings of the competitor. The news will be very bad if Nigerians buy their guile. The Nigerian flyer will pay if the aliens win.

Those leading this war seek to prevent importation of aviation into their country from Nigeria while exporting theirs to Nigeria. It happened in other sectors, particularly in telecoms. It is still happening. What kind of trade and economic relations opens my door for your goods and closes yours to mine? American economist, William D. Grampp (1914-2019), in his ‘The Third Century of Mercantilism’ (published in the Southern Economic Journal in April 1944) argues that the prohibition of imports should be seen also as a prohibition of exports. This, he argues, is “not only because such protective devices lead to retaliatory measures but because exports must pay for imports and imports must pay for exports.” The greedy does not think so. They do to us here what they won’t accept in their home.

At the beginning of the GSM/mobile telephony story in Nigeria, the two foreign companies licensed to operate here gave everyone pills that were as bitter as their ineffectual properties. Ebenezer Obadare, a professor and researcher, puts it succinctly in his ‘Playing Politics with Mobile Phone in Nigeria’ published in March 2006. Obadare writes that in the first two years of mobile telephony in Nigeria, Nigerians suffered and complained of “exorbitant tariffs, poor reception, frequent and unfavourable changes in contract terms, and arbitrary reduction of credits.” I experienced it.

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In 2001, our national minimum wage was N5,500 but they sold their SIM cards for N30,000. I could not afford it – my salary was N21,000. They fixed their call tariff at N50 per. There was no saviour if your one-minute call strayed into 61 seconds -your credit would be down by two minutes and no tear shed would argue your case. A second’s call was a minute’s call and you must pay even if the call dropped. It was so bad that at a point, protesters redefined GSM as an acronym for “Grand Swindling Machine.”

Who were the edá rats behind that odious treatment? Foreigners who thought we deserved no more than slave treatment on our own soil. Obadare’s words are very apposite here. He writes that the foreign telecoms companies’ excuse “had been that it was impossible to offer customers per second billing until they attained ‘reasonable maturity’ or at least three years after the commencement of operations.” He continues: “However, following…. the introduction of Mike Adenuga’s Globacom, which gave its customers the per billing option on 29 August, 2003 (its first day of operation), Econet and MTN had no choice but to follow suit. Yet, they did not do this without attempting to claw something back- subscribers who opted to be billed on the per-second platform were made to pay a switchover fee of N300 each.” Obadare adds that one of the foreign operators offered its customers “100 free texts, many of which, ironically, did not reach their destinations.” Twenty one years after Nigerians defeated them through Globacom’s patriotic intervention, the outsiders have refused to forget. They still work and fight dirty.

They fleece Nigeria and escape sanctions. Their immunity is sourced from Nigeria’s peculiar self-hate and self-neglect. The forex crisis that today ravages Nigerians and Nigerian entities makes no sense to them. They make forex and ship them home to their owners. At a point in the decade before the last, the Central Bank of Nigeria complained loudly that the foreign companies did not allow their cash to stay for more than a few weeks in Nigeria “before they were converted to foreign exchange for one purchase or the other.” Since that decade up till now, their foot has remained slammed on the throttle; they do not think what is wrong is bad.

Do not blame them. Blame Nigeria that does not clothe its own from the ravages of dry winds from outside. If our government would not create heaven for us and for entities that belong to Nigerians, they should at least lead us away from the hell of hostile aliens. In the complex tapestry of adultery and concubinage, the Yoruba say the husband (the child’s father) is the one who runs round to wean his child from death. The man outside – the àlè – does not care if the child dies. The ‘enemy’ are not of here, their love is for where their umbilical cords lie buried. Nigeria is the cow tethered (by us) for them to milk. We think our charity should forever begin from outside. The Arabs say that a borrowed garment will not warm, and if it warms, it will not last.

Does international relations still have reciprocity as a reward for acceptable behaviours and as a check on aberrance? If you scratch my back I should scratch yours. If you take an eye, I take an eye. Why not have Nigerian enterprises in South Africa making what MTN and MutiChoice make here? Why should it be fatal for a Nigerian airline to operate in London when British Airways and Virgin come in here and go out with billions in their pocket? It can’t be sweet if one side picks the bill all the time. It is like subsidy withdrawal by this government of highly subsidized people.
They wring us out in the sink. We are where they put us – spread out in the sun to dry. Their parrot speaks only of received benefits. It does not give.
Contemporary Egyptian-American poet and artist, Suzi Kassem, in her ‘The Unforgiven’ writes on people “who take and don’t give. The kind to whom you give and give, and they keep asking. The kind to whom you give and give and they say you gave nothing. The kind who have never offered anything but act like they’re the ones providing EVERYTHING. The rat that never gives back yet is so quick to attack – because they think the word TAKING seriously means GIVING.”

News

Organisers Unveil Venues For June 12 Protest

Published

2 hours ago

June 10, 2025

Editor

Organisers of the June 12 protest, Take It Back Movement, have released a list of venues across the country where Nigerians will converge for a scheduled protest.

The exercise was to protest against worsening economic hardship, insecurity, and what the organisers described as the shrinking civic space under President Bola Tinubu’s administration.

Speaking in an interview with newsmen on Monday, the National Coordinator of the movement, Juwon Sanyaolu, said the protest would take place in at least 20 locations nationwide.

“In Abuja, we will converge at Eagle Square by 8.00 am. In Lagos, we have four locations: Badagry, Maryland, Agbara, and Toll Gate, all starting by 7 am.

“In Akure, Ondo State, we will gather at Cathedral Junction by 8 am, and in Benin City, Edo State, at the Museum Ground by 9 am. In Niger State, the venue is Gida Matasa at 8 am.

“In Yobe, we will meet at the Maiduguri Bypass Roundabout in Damaturu by 7:30 am, while in Oyo State, it is Mokola Roundabout in Ibadan by 8 am.

“In Bauchi, the protest will be held opposite the Bauchi School of ACR, Yelewam Makaranta, by 8 am. In Osun State, it will be at Olaiya Junction in Osogbo,” Sanyaolu said.

He listed five locations for Delta State as Amukpe Roundabout in Sapele; Summit Junction and Koka Junction in Asaba; Otovwodo Junction in Ughelli Effurun Roundabout, PTI Junction, and DSC Roundabout in Warri; and Police Station Junction in Abraka.

“In Adamawa, we will meet at Juppu Jam Road, Yola, by 8 am. In Borno State, the venue is Kasuwan Gamboru Flyover by 8 am,” he added.

He stated that the protest, fixed to coincide with Nigeria’s Democracy Day, was meant to demand accountability and reaffirm Nigerians’ constitutional rights.

“Our demands have not changed. We are using June 12 as a day to exercise our democratic rights as Nigerians to demand accountability and democratic governance.

“The Constitution clearly states that the primary responsibility of the government is the security and welfare of the people. All these have completely failed under the government of Tinubu,” Sanyaolu said.

He cited the report by Amnesty International that over 10,000 Nigerians had lost their lives to insecurity since Tinubu assumed office.

“Over 133 million Nigerians are multidimensionally poor. Thousands have been displaced from their homes due to forced evictions and insecurity.

“For instance, in Benue State alone, over 40,000 people are displaced, while in Plateau, the figure is about 68,000. This is the state of welfare and security in the country,” he said.

The activist also accused the government of stifling dissent and cracking down on opposition voices.

“Under this administration, the civic space is under attack. Freedom of speech is under threat as government critics and opposition voices are being hounded.

“These are the issues we want to bring to public attention by expressing our democratic rights,” he added.

Sanyaolu warned security agencies against any form of repression during the demonstrations, noting that the right to protest was guaranteed under the Nigerian Constitution and had been upheld by the Supreme Court.

“To the security agencies, we want to state categorically that they must protect protesters, not repress them.

“It is a constitutional mandate and a lawful one. Nigerians have the right to protest, and during such actions, the police must ensure protesters are safe and that their voices are heard, “ he said.

He listed some of the confirmed protest venues and convergence times across various states:

Sanyaolu urged Nigerians to come out en masse to “reclaim the soul of the country” and hold those in power accountable.

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OPINION: For Tinubu And Sanwo-Olu [Monday Lines 1]

Published

12 hours ago

June 9, 2025

Editor

By Lasisi Olagunju

“When lions battle, jackals flee.” Isaac Newton wrote that to his bitter rival, Gottfried Leibniz. It was a barbed remark on their feud over who between them invented calculus. The more you read of the mutual respect those two had for each other, the more you wonder why they ended their respective careers in very bitter, reckless animosity; the more you also ponder over the cost of that fight and whether it was worth the troubles.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos are two big men who are not equals. One is the boss, the other the boss’s boy. They are not equals, so, there cannot be a rivalry between them over feats and achievements. But they fight; and it is right here in the open. I’ve heard people demanding to know what they are fighting over. We do not know. Let no one talk about Lagos speakership. The sack of Mudasiru Obasa, which was as abortive as Dimka’s coup of 1976, was just what it was – a symptom; it was a reaction to something; there was an underline cause. What was it?
Sanwo-Olu and his boss are no Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz and so their fight couldn’t be over who takes the priority on a matter designed to help humanity. If there is a delectable Queen Cleopatria somewhere, I would have drawn a parallel between what is unfolding in Lagos and what unfolded between Rome’s Octavian (Augustus Caesar) and Mark Anthony. But there is no seductress in the mix, I will, therefore, not deliver to age what it is no longer capable of tweaking.

So, what did Sanwo-Olu do? Or what did he not do? Both sides are not talking. All we’ve seen was an ungracious rejection of a friendly gesture; the snub of a handshake by the more powerful potentate. We’ve also seen a convenient skip of the junior power where he ought to speak.

Politics is a fast-paced game. You slept yesterday at the war camp and woke up today to news of a ceasefire. But the wise knows that political feuds inflict invisible wounds. They use that to explain why political wounds never heal and wars never end even when you read texts of forgiveness consequent upon atonement for unknown sins and apologies for unstated crimes.

Some people are happy, clinking glasses over the power buffetings in Lagos. They drink to the health of the feud; they wish it greater vigour; they wish its fire is unquenchable. These are people who do not like Lagos and its politics at all and who have been their victims. They see the fight as the elixir that would cleanse the land of all its sins and cure it of its sicknesses. They talk of power and its excesses. They point at Akinwumi Ambode, the man who was brought low so that Sanwo-Olu could ride high. They remember Babatunde Fashola who escaped breathlessly simply because he was like Coca-Cola, more popular and successful than the parent company. They point at a Governor Bola Tinubu of Lagos who serially used three deputy governors in a tenure of eight years. If I were the president, I would also look at this unedifying statistics and repack my big and small intestines.

A leader should be very careful on the way he treats his people, particularly, the companions who look up to him. There was an Orangun of Ila who bulldozed his way to power with charms, and then elevated the humiliation of his principal chiefs to an art. An Ila historian wrote that the king’s “humiliating treatment (of the chiefs) reached intolerable proportions when he frowned at seeing the Iwarefa (the kingmakers) in decent attires. When a chief made a new garment, he was obliged to excise the breast and patch it with a rag.” But every reign, no matter how glorious or inglorious, must come to an end. How did it end for that oba? He didn’t die on the throne. His character gave him a fate which made him farmer outside power. Ó fi’gbá ìtóòrò mu’mi nínú oko (he drank water with ìtóòrò melon calabash on the farm). I suggest you read ‘The Orangun Dynasty’, a very rich 1996 book on the history of the Igbomina stock of the Yoruba, authored by Ila Orangun’s very first university graduate, Prince Isaac Adebayo; check pages 40 and 41.

A leader is a masquerade; he must not tear his own veil. When a leader makes and unmakes subordinates, he rends his own cover. “Ènìyàn l’aso mi” is a Yoruba expression which, in English means “people are my clothes; they are my covering.” As a Yoruba proverb, it emphasizes the importance of people in people’s lives. Whatever cloth the masquerade wears is that ‘thing’ that makes the wearer an Egungun. He must protect it because it is his store of power. But my people say power is like medicine; it intoxicates. A researcher adds that “ultimately, the accumulation of power becomes dangerous even to its owners.” Is that why someone saw “a link between mask and menace”?

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So, when we interrogate the use of power by the one we have come to call Lagos, we should always remind him that the costume is the sacred adornment which people see, respect and venerate in the masquerade. For a leader, his principal boys and girls are his costume, they are his cover. He needs them when harmattan comes with its fury. And harmattan will come whenever the masquerade repairs back to the grove when the festival is over, and it will be over.

Even lions, kings of the jungle, place great value on strong bonds within their prides for survival and well-being. There is an old Irving King song on this: “The more we get together/The merrier we’ll be.” That song emphasizes human interconnectedness; the support embedded in community.

Jackals are opportunists, and they are many in this Lagos fight. Newton’s feuding-lion imagery is an evocation of the themes of strength, of hierarchy, and of consequence. It defines the strained relationship of one big expert with the other big man. The other part of his proverb ‘bombs’ the miserable jackals, minions who lurk around the battlefield, who thrive in chaos and on scraps from the feuding powers.

American novelist, Herman Melville, says a thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men. We should not live our lives as if we exist only for ourselves. Public ‘spanking’ of a governor for unknown and unsaid sins is petty. A president should have snubbed rebuff as his option of engagement. If I were him, If a ‘boy’ offended me, I would just ‘face front’ and concentrate on delivering the Chinaware I carry unbroken. If your load is a pot of palm oil, avoid stone throwers.

But the president is not pacifist me. He enjoys fighting wars after wars. He is like Sango who desperately desired a fight but found no one to fight. Sango looked round and pounced on the wall and wrestled with it. There was also an Aare Ona Kakanfo who itched for a battle and could get none. He stoked a rebellion at home against himself and by himself violently put it down. Because of this and many more like it, the man was nicknamed Aburúmáku (the wicked one who refuses to die).

Are there no elders again where the feuding feudal lords come from? I read texts calling for propitiation. Why not? Appeasement without reason may look stupid but Napoleon Bonaparte settled it long ago when he said that “in politics stupidity is not a handicap.” Borrowing lines from Ulli Beier, I would say that now that men appear to have failed to stop this war with reason, women should be called upon to come and kill the fire. Our mothers are like Osun, “the wisdom of the forest; the wisdom of the river. Where the doctor failed, she cures with fresh water. Where medicine is impotent, she cures with cool water.”

The first lady should therefore step out, open her Bible (KJV) to Mark 4:39 and read to her husband: “And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.”

If she does that, I will be encouraged to give the president two lines from William Shakespeare: “Come, wife, let’s in, and learn to govern better;/ For yet may England curse my wretched reign” (2 Henry VI, IV, ix, 4).

If our president’s reign won’t be cursed for wretchedness, he should prioritise the people’s welfare over serial petty fights with his boys. Nigerians are panting at home and reeling in pains at work; on the road, they groan. They are not entertained at all by presidential beer parlour brawls like Musician Ayinla Omowura’s last fight. You don’t become king and still keep trysts with crickets. No.

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OPINION: Ijebu And Their Six Tubers Of Yam [Monday Lines 2]

Published

12 hours ago

June 9, 2025

Editor

By Lasisi Olagunju

One of the first jokes I picked when I moved to Ibadan 30 years ago is that failure of patronage is the only reason a drummer would go to Oke Ado. The Ibadan surmised that the Ijebu who lived almost exclusively at Oke Ado part of Ibadan never ever got moved to spend a dime on bards.

Those who minted that joke should come back from the dead and see what we see now with the Ijebu. When the day breaks tomorrow, I will go to Oja’ba in Ibadan and ask folks there why their ancestors with relish said that the Ijebu did not appreciate good music and would not put their money on it. The Ijebu I see today do what the Ibadan said they would not do. In a magnificent way, they mass in their capital annually and stage a spectacular festival of culture and splendour. They call it Ojude Oba (the King’s Forecourt). It is an annual festival of sumptuous songs and dance, a parade of success and cultural opulence. They held another edition yesterday, and it is already contagious. Other Yoruba towns appear to be getting bitten by the Ijebu bug. We watch as they evolve.

The Ijebu are a very scrupulous people. It is in their oríkì that their fathers had six tubers of yam: they ate two, sold two and offered two to their gods. You can ponder that again: with moderate six survival items, they did justice to their present; justice to their future through trade and investment; justice to the divine who held the rope of life. Anyone who approaches life methodically like this is not likely to fail in any enterprise. In nuanced ways, the oríkì suggests that those who managed the six tubers did not eat with ten fingers. Their descendants still do not do it today: they party hard but they also work hard and trade intelligently; they worship God with utmost devotion.

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I watched a short video clip of the Ojude Oba event at 8am Sunday (yesterday). I grinned seeing everywhere in immaculate lush green, meticulous. Sponsors of the event, Mike Adenuga’s Globacom, has done it for a record twenty years. And both company and owner say they won’t stop doing so forever. Patriotism is love of country. So, what is love of home? “In love of home”, says Charles Dickens, “the love of country has its rise.” That is what Adenuga and his Globacom commit themselves to with Ojude Oba till eternity. With Globacom’s heavy lifting, Ojude Oba has become the biggest cultural festival in Nigeria today. They say they are taking it even further than where it is. Something there to copy by every big, rich man and woman from other towns. The ones who feel too big to lift their homestead to glow will likely live ‘homeless.’ We all should know, as William J. Bennett did, that “home is a shelter from storms – all sorts of storms.”

I did not read history, but I am a lover of history and a believer in what it teaches. I keep seeing in the past the road that led to today, and a possible pathway to the future. T. O. Ogunkoya, author of ‘The Early History of Ijebu’ published in December 1956 offers some glimpses into the elements that make up the Ijebu gene:
“Nobody knows the date of the first migration to Ijebu or the course that it took. Tradition states that it was led by a man named Olu-Iwa accompanied by two warrior companions, Ajebu and Olode. Olu-Iwa settled at Iwade, for Ijebu-Ode itself did not, as yet, exist. Ajebu was instructed to mark out with fire the boundary of the new land. He went westward to the lagoon and marked out the boundaries to the North, South and East as well. To Olode was given the task of marking out and planning the future city, a task which took him more than three years. So well did Ajebu and Olode do their work that the new town was named after them as ‘Ajebu-Olode’, now corrupted and called Ijebu-Ode.”

The writer of that history said “there was ample evidence in favour of this tradition. He wrote that “In Ijebu-Ode today there stands in a prominent place in Olode Street a tomb dedicated to him and bearing the inscription ‘The resting place of Olode.’ In Imepe Street there can be seen a tomb dedicated to the memory of Ajebu. It may be taken for granted that these two men are historical figures whose names have been perpetuated in the name of the city.

Ogunkoya wrote that there is another theory of the origin of the name. He said “Portuguese maps of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries showed cuidade de Jabu or ‘the city of Ijebu.’ Now it is argued that the Ijebu, in common with people of similar ancestry, used the word Ode as a generic name for a town. So the Itschekri people had Ode Itschekri (Warri). The Ondo had Ode Ondo and the Ilaje Ode Ilaje. In Wadai (Sudan) there was an Ode Ijebu, suggesting the transference of the name of the ancient home to the new. In support of this view it is to be noted that until very recently all the village people in the province referred to the city simply as Ode. As they themselves are Ijebus they merely point to their capital town without associating their name with it.”

Note the meticulous mapping of the boundary and the planning of the city. Note that the exercise reportedly took whole three years! Note the communal appreciation of the pioneers who got the job done. Put all those side by side what other chapters of their history say of their survival as a people. They pay attention to details. They valourize themselves as masters of money. They say they’d been spending shillings before the white man arrived (Omo a n’áwó silè k’Óyìnbó tó dé/ Òyìnbó dé tán owó òún pò si). I plan to ask my Ijebu friends what that means. I will tell you whatever they tell me.