By Lasisi Olagunju

On Monday, 25 March, 1946, Chief I. B. Akinyele, Chief James Ladejo Ogunsola, Messrs D. T. Akinbiyi and E. A. Sanda, the very cream of the Ibadan educated elite, met behind closed doors with Oyo town delegates at the secretariat in Ibadan. One of them got home that day and wrote in his diary that they “could reach no agreement because we (Ibadan) flatly refused to pay one penny towards the Alaafin’s salary.”

Yet, some 84 years earlier (1862), the same Ibadan went to war against friends, family, and acquaintances in support of Alaafin. Ibadan destroyed Ijaiye because its ruler, Kurunmi, was rude and unruly to the Alaafin. He had to die because he refused to recognise the king whose father made him Aare, and who made Oluyole Basorun of Ibadan.

Ibadan of 1862 served Oyo and its Alaafin; that of 1946 damned them. Between the first stance and the second, what changed or what caused the change? The tongue. The body. Disposition. Reciprocal respect. My Christian friend pointed at a verse in the Bible: “And the king answered the people roughly. In a blustering manner, gave them hard words and severe menaces…” Then it was “To your tent, O Israel!”

On Sunday, 3 February, 2008, twelve out of the then seventeen members of Oyo State Council of Obas and Chiefs visited the Alaafin in Oyo. They said they were there “to solidarise and pay traditional respect to our permanent chairman.” From that visit came a ten-point resolution which was published as an advertorial on page 27 of the Nigerian Tribune of 5 February, 2008. The title of that advert is: ‘Oyo obas back Alaafin for permanent chairmanship of Council of Obas and Chiefs.’ The fifth of the resolutions is the shortest and most categorical: The obas declared that in Oyo State, “remove the Alaafin, and all other obas are equal.”

The obas who signed that statement were the Eleruwa of Eruwa, Olugbon of Orile Igbon, Okere of Saki, Aseyin of Iseyin, Iba of Kisi, Onpetu of Ijeru, Onjo of Okeho, Sabi Ganna of Iganna, Aresaadu of Iresaadu, Onilalupon of Lalupon, Onijaye of Ijaye and Olu of Igboora.

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Now, read that list again – and this is where I am going: In the Saturday Tribune of January 17, 2026 (two days ago), an advert celebrating the reconstitution of the obas’ council with the Olubadan as rotational chairman was signed by six of those who signed the 2008 advert which celebrated Alaafin’s permanent chairmanship. These are: Eleruwa of Eruwa, Olu of Igboora, Olugbon of Orile-Igbon, Onpetu of Ijeru, Okere of Saki and Aseyin of Iseyin.

Yesterday’s “permanence” becomes today’s “rotation,” each wrapped in the rhetoric of unity, justice, and tradition. We see obas who were with Oyo in 2008 shifting allegiance to Ibadan in 2026. What this suggests is not moral collapse but the old, unembarrassed truth about power: it obeys seasons. Our obas, like politicians, have read too much of Geoffrey Chaucer. They move in steps that suggest that time, when it shifts, rearranges loyalties as effortlessly as it rearranges hierarchies.

Friendship and politics define statuses and hierarchies. Governor Rashidi Ladoja in 2004 decentralised the council of obas into zones and directed each paramount oba to preside over their area. His decision was based on the fact and logic that there was no throne of Oyo State for the kings to fight over. I agree with that reasoning, and, in fact I do not think any council anywhere is necessary as conclave of obas. However, last week, Oba Rashidi Ladoja assumed office as chairman of an undecentralised council of obas. What has changed?

Ladoja’s successor, Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala in 2007, made Alaafin permanent chairman. The Olubadan and Soun of Ogbomoso kicked and would have nothing to do with that arrangement. The governor ignored them. He said he was following the law. But the same Alao-Akala, on his way out of government in May 2011, used the House of Assembly to reverse that decision. Because his friendship with the Alaafin had expired, he made the position rotational in the following order: 1. Olubadan; 2. Soun of Ogbomoso; 3. Alaafin of Oyo. Check the Nigerian Tribune of 3 May, 2011, page 4.

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Were all these about history, or about that fluid thing called change? What was obviously at play there was (and is) politics; and in politics, nothing is constant; not truth, not friendship. What exists is interest. “There is no fellowship inviolate, No faith is kept, when kingship is concerned,” says Second Century BC Roman poet, Ennius. Obas, institutions and palaces that took a position in 2008, are this year taking a directly opposing stand. What changed? Is it about the person of the last Alaafin and the persona of the incumbent?

In his caustic response to last week’s inauguration of Oyo State Council of Obas, Alaafin Akeem Owoade referred to himself as “superior head of Yorubaland.” Did he have to write that? And, what does it mean? Whatever that claim was meant to achieve has attracted negative vibes from every corner of Yorubaland. I read resentment and resistance even when its author knows it is a plastic claim. In the old understanding of the world, the ancients spoke of two ruling forces: Love, which binds; and Strife, which sunders. The palace, no less than the cosmos, is governed by this uneasy pair. The oba in Yorubaland reigns within the contradiction. The crown draws devotion even as it breeds resentment. It commands reverence when it is humble and just in its royalty; it invites resistance when haughty and proud.

Shakespeare, in Richard III, speaks about kings’ “outward honour” and “inward toil.” In Hamlet, he says “The king is a thing…Of nothing.” In Henry V, he says the “king is but a man, as I am” and therefore prone to errors courtiers make. No two kings are the same; no two reigns score the same marks. There are definitely differences in engagement between the last Alaafin and this new one. Alaafin Adeyemi III went out to make quality friends and read good books; his successor, so far, appears distant and aloof. I am interested in who, among obas and commoners, are his friends. I am eager to know the books he reads. His handlers should help him to succeed by telling him to look more forward than backwards. A lot of 19th century data which he romanticises are no longer valid. For instance, Ibadan of the past saw itself as part of Oyo; today’s Ibadan sees Oyo as part of its inheritance. Read Professor Bolanle Awe in her ‘The Ajele System: A Study of Ibadan Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century’ (1964). Mama reminds everyone who argues with history that “the direct heirs of the Old Oyo empire…regrouped themselves in three main centres at Oyo, Ijaye and Ibadan.” So, Ibadan is Oyo while today’s Oyo is not necessarily Ibadan.

People who understand the dynamics of power and history would insist that Ibadan’s defiance in 1946 and its earlier zeal in 1862 are not contradictions so much as timestamps. We see and feel Ibadan challenging Oyo, even feeling insulted by suggestions of being subjects of Alaafin. Authority once defended as sacred becomes, under a new alignment of interests, negotiable. This Oyo has everything a father has, except age. It has a history of leadership. But has Oyo provided the right leadership in the last one year? You remember what King Sunny Ade sings should be done to Egungun that dances for twenty years and remains in poverty? You throw away its mask and costume and promote Gelede. That is why institutions today act selectively; and actors remember the past strategically. What appears as amnesia or inconsistency is cold calculation. The past is not denied; it is merely edited.

Every Alaafin since 1830 has had to contend with the Ibadan factor. Ibadan is pro-Oyo but it won’t accept suggestions of Alaafin and Oyo overlordship. And that is because the founders of Ibadan were shareholders of Oyo, both the old and the new. In particular, they see in Oyo and its monarchy partners, not lords. Indeed, Ibadan never believed/believes there was (is) a king anywhere for them to worship. Professors I. A. Akinjogbin and E. A. Ayandele say the early Ibadan “prided themselves as a group who had nothing but contempt for the crowns.” Indeed, in July 1936 when the city wanted its Baale to become known and called ‘Olubadan’, its leaders made it clear that what they wanted was the change in title; they did not want an oba who would rob them of their republican freedom. Is that not the reason for its very unique lack of royal or ruling houses? Read Toyin Falola’s ‘Ibadan’, pages 681 and 682.

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The new Alaafin has no excuse for making cheap and expensive mistakes. His heritage is goodly and his court is not lacking in quality men and women. When he was made oba a year ago (January 2025), Professor Toyin Falola, easily Africa’s preeminent historian and Yoruba patriot, wrote a long piece of advice for the man chosen as our Alaafin. The title of that piece is: ‘Alaafin Owoade and Yorùbá Renaissance.’ It was primarily written for the new king to read. If he read it, I am not sure many of today’s challenges would spring and hang on his nascent reign. Every paragraph of the essay is gold, every line golden. If he read it last year, he should read it again and make it his operations manual. Take these: “He must learn history. I can reveal to the new Alaafin that his immediate predecessor took time to understand history. Alaafin Adeyemi’s power of retentive memory was second to none. He had a memory arsenal covering almost 500 years…

“Alaafin Owoade must know history…The new Alaafin must not engage in historical revisionism as his counterparts now do. Rewriting history is dangerous, as in saying the Benin Empire owes little to Ile-Ife and Oranmiyan. Conflating Ugbo with Igbo is a wrong-footed interpretation of the past. He needs not to dabble into issues of superiority around who the superior king was in the past. Oyo and Ile-Ife are constant in the people’s history because they represented the seats of economic and political power and the spiritual rallying point of the Yorùbá people. Let him explore the consensus around historical prestige: the foundation of prominent Yorùbá ancestors and the creation of a glorious history.”

So far, it would appear that Alaafin Owoade has not benefited from the nuggets in the Falola advice. He should go back to it. He should also go out to make quality friends among his brother obas. He needs them. If there are people he needs to beg, he should beg them. Nothing is damaged (yet) beyond repairs. Like flights of planes, every reign has tough beginnings. In tension and turbulence, the expertise of the pilot makes a lot of difference. If the Alaafin refuses to spread his eyes first, no guest will sit on the mat he spreads, no matter how beautiful.

He also needs to know (or remember) that power attracts, but it also repels. This is why allegiance cannot be ordered into existence; it must be patiently won. It is also why sovereignty carries its own burden, captured in the timeless lament of the dramatist: uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. For the Alaafin to remain tall, he must woo Ibadan and other Yoruba towns with friendship; he cannot summon their loyalty by proclamation.