By Lasisi Olagunju

One day, I will have the courage to ask the immaculate Ooni of Ife, Oba Enitan Ogunwusi, how he feels each time he travels on the horrible Ibadan-Ife road. Ben Okri, ‘The Famished Road’ storyteller, finds his own ‘road’ a torment – he says it “leads home and then away from it, without end.” Okri thinks the road a torment because he meets it “with too many signs and no direction.” The Ife-Ibadan road has signs, it has directions – and I find them very treacherously significant because they interlock fingers while road users lose life and limbs. The road has signs and directions to the very bowel of hell.

Olojo, the guardian divinity of the House of Oduduwa, is the famed owner of two machetes: with one machete, he prepares the field for the plants of tomorrow; with the other, he clears the road for prosperity (Ó fì’kan sán’ko/ Ó fì kan yè’nà). Those weapons must either now be blunt or lost. An Odu Ifa tells us something about Ile Ife and roads. It affirms that well-paved open roads start from Ile Ife. That affirmation today can only be treated on the operating theatre of irony. Could it be that truth has an expiry date and Ogbe’s truth of good, open roads in Ile Ife has expired? What we see today from the capital of Yorubaland (Ibadan) to the historical source of Yoruba people is the torment of a closed road that mocks the pathfinder-spirit of Oduduwa. The road does worse with its gaping craters and their threats of morphing into greater gullies. And it is a federal road.

Has the Ooni ever told the president that the worst road in the universe leads to his kingdom? Has he told the president that the N79.8 billion contract for the reconstruction of Ibadan-Ife-Ilesa road awarded in September, 2019 by his friend and villa mate, Muhammadu Buhari, has remained a contract for ghosts? Has he invited the president’s attention to the truth that since last year when he took over, the road has sunk even deeper in the mire of decrepitude? And, that even FERMA, a perennially rich agency that pretends giving palliatives on federal roads, has since seen the futility of stitching this rag? Or could it be that Kabiyesi does what our presidents since 1999 do – escaping road users’ pains by flying over our heads?

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The reigning culture here is rooted in the ragged soils of our toil. I admit that badness is not peculiar to the Ife-Ibadan-Ilesa road. It is a national affliction that can’t be cured because of the greed of doctors who treat sick roads with fake and expired drugs.

We work hard to build roads that wear out before they are inaugurated. We have the interminable construction mess called Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. When did construction start there? When will it end – if it will ever end? How much have we sunk there? And, is it not a shame that the road is ready already for corrective surgery even before its makers are done making it? If you are a woman, and you are pregnant and your doctor tells you dancing is a ‘safe and fun way to exercise’, do not dance to the break beats of that road. It is made for abortion.

Ben Okri says “all roads lead to death” and “some roads lead to things which can never be finished.” Is that why our federal government’s roads are forever ongoing, none is ever finished or completed? Federal government’s statistics says out of Nigeria’s national road network of 200,000 kilometers, 36,289 km belong to it. Now, you ask Abuja which of its other roads, apart from the one from the Villa to Abuja airport, is good? Ask them why almost all roads that wear federal tags suffer neglect, abandonment or crass abuse.

My NYSC journey to the far north 34 years ago was on the Ibadan-Ilorin-Jebba-Mokwa-Yauri road. It was an experience in pleasantness. It is, today, a monument to frustration, a shrine to demons that feed on losses -human and material. The Ibadan-Oyo-Ogbomoso part of that road is one major reason why Nigeria should not have a federal government – or have roads managed by the Federal Government. There should be a coroner’s inquest on why that road was killed and who killed it. Without the states, the vehicle of Nigeria would have long lost its chassis. States keep doing what heart surgeons do when arteries are found blocked. They create bypasses, byways. A brand new 78-kilometre Iseyin-Ogbomosho road has just been built by Seyi Makinde’s Oyo State to escape the Federal Government’s death trap along that axis. A commenter online wrote: “The road has helped us to link northern Nigeria without using the dangerous Oyo-Ilorin road that has consumed so many lives…” The Oyo-Ilorin road of death spoken of here belongs to the government in Abuja.

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Potholes jolt us to appreciate what bad roads represent in our lives. They tell us why the tyres of our country never last and why our rides are forever bumpy. Asking questions on why our roads are perennially bad is living the times of Ayi Kwei Armah’s ‘Two Thousand Seasons’: “A thousand seasons wasted wandering amazed along alien roads, another thousand spent finding paths to the living way.” Like Ouroboros, the self-tail-devourer, Nigeria’s ‘alien roads’ cyclically keep consuming the ‘living way.’

It is time to pound yam for the household, the idler among us goes for the heaviest pestle. This is better said in Yoruba: Òle bàá tì, ó gb’ódó nlá. There are abandoned federal roads everywhere which directly affect millions of Nigerians, but the government has moved the money to a 700km super coastal highway that will cost N15.6 trillion. The first phase is 47 kilometres, starting somewhere and ending nowhere, at a cost of N1.06 trillion. Should I just say that that N1 trillion will start and complete the reconstruction of decrepit Ibadan-Ife-Ilesa Road (224km), Ilorin to Bida (244.9km) and Shagamu to Benin (492km) if wisdom wills? Even at an inflated cost of N1 billion per kilometre, our husbands will achieve these and will even ‘collect change’. And Tinubu would have become very popular with it. But he wants a white elephant and has moved our money to purchase it.

White elephants are always expensive! Poet and journalist, Mathew Wills, in his ‘The Original White Elephant’ defines ‘white elephant’ as “something excessive that turns out to be valueless.” James A. Robinson and Ragnar Torvik in 2005 published an interesting article about the third world and deliberate bad investments – they titled their article: ‘White Elephants’. In that piece, they hold that politicians around here would always go for “white elephants” as against “socially efficient projects” because “the political benefits are large compared to the surplus generated by efficient projects.” That piece says much more than this. It is published in the Journal of Public Economics 89 (2005: 197-210). I think you should read it.

‘The Stolen White Elephant’ by Mark Twain is an interesting story on the cost of investing in big, expensive loss centres. It is the story of a fictional Kingdom of Siam. A reviewer says Siam is blessed with a “national appetite for fraud”. Another says it has officers of “pompous assumption of infallibility and ridiculous inappropriate procedures.” The “pointless” story is about an expensive search for a stolen white elephant, a further loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation and the eventual discovery of the rotting corpse of the supposedly stolen animal. The story ends with the duped narrator celebrating the man who duped him. It ends as the man pronounces himself “a ruined man and a wanderer in the earth.” In Studies in American Humour, Peter Messent (1995) does a lot of justice to it in his ‘Keeping Both Eyes Open.’ The whole story sounds Nigerian; what Fela called “expensive shit.” But I can argue that though we wander today, the past was a better experience.

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“How can you develop a country rapidly if you can’t get about it?” Sir Rex Niven, pre-independence Speaker of Northern Nigeria House of Assembly, asked that question 69 years ago in relation to the state of roads in Nigeria. On January 27, 1955, Riven was asked to brief the Royal African Society and the Royal Empire Society in London on “Recent Developments in Nigeria.” He gave a very detailed account of himself as a British participant in the affairs of a key component of the Nigerian federation. Sector by sector, he spoke about efforts and failures. He particularly spoke on roads which he described as “the most important of the great aspects of development.” He said as he was speaking (in 1955), Nigeria had over 30,000 miles of roads whereas in 1920, “she had hardly any at all.” Then he used Kabba (in present Kogi State) to illustrate what he was saying: “The first province I went to, the newly constituted Kabba Province, had exactly 4 miles of road…but when I left Kabba four years later, there were over 200 miles of road.” Thirteen years later, the same Niven, in retirement, told the Commonwealth section of the Royal African Society on 11 November, 1969 that Nigeria had 40,000 miles of quality roads. That figure was even in spite of the ongoing civil war. Now, you ask: Why are our golden years always in the past? The past was obviously better handled.

Tunde Odesola

If charisma was a commodity, Pope John Paul II would have been the producer of its purest form. It wasn’t for nothing that the Pope survived an assassination attempt in 1981 and forgave his assailant, Mehmet Ali Agca, an escaped Turkish prisoner.

In his time, Pope John Paul II was the global ambassador of Christ. When he spoke, the world listened. He was the leader of 1.345 billion Catholics worldwide. He was also the first non-Italian Pope in 455 years. The Pope, a Pole, once said, “Stupidity is a gift from God, but one mustn’t misuse it.”

But I disagree.

In boxing, the epigram of Pope John Paul is akin to the cross jab, a combination of a straight left jab, followed by a straight right-hand punch – if you’re orthodox, a boxing term for the right-handed – different from the left-handed alias southpaw.

In respect for Catholicism, I won’t catcall the Pope’s straight left jab on stupidity but I’ll root for his straight right-hand punch that warns against misusing stupidity.

In his view on stupidity, Juju music superstar, King Sunny Ade, riddles stupidity as a fellow sent to buy the head of a viper for nine pence. On getting to the market, the fellow approaches the Elewe Omo herb seller, who fetches seven bead-like objects called itun, seven alligator peppers called atare and seven fruits called abere. Before handing the items to the fellow, the herbal(ist) seller pours all three items into a mortal, grinds them with a black soap and hands the product to the chap. Tell me, who buys the head of a viper for ‘nain’ pittance with all the three potent ingredients but ‘Padi Odensin’, the fool?

Untying the knots in KSA’s àdìtù, culture aficionado, Chief Sulaimon Ayilara, popularly known as Ajobiewe, who said the combination of the ingredients Padi Odensin was sent to get is a powerful African medicine used for cursing and binding, explained the meanings of itun and abere to me. He located the potency of the ingredients Padi Odensin was sent to fetch, in the deadliness of the viper, saying, “Ase mónámóná ni n be lenu oka,” an assertion of the viper’s swift poison.

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No parents give their child a bad name. But when a child gives himself a bad name, what can the parents do? This is the riddle of the White Lion. Wildlife researchers believe white lions are a rare colour mutation of the African lion. Though they’re not albino, white lions are leucistic, meaning they lack dark pigmentation. Their rare genetic mutation (leucism) causes their fur to be white. Thesaurus defines ‘mutation’ as alteration, anomaly, or variation. Did Oduduwa, the leader of the Yoruba, have ‘mutation’ in mind when he described the fake as ‘àmúlùmálà’?

Suppose the white lion in the wild had a choice to maintain its natural tawny yellow colour, it won’t hesitate because the mutation in its life is causing him to be easily spotted by poachers and his prey, making survival near hopeless. But colour complex blinded Padi Odensin of Kogi State, who adopted the name White Lion, thinking whiteness was synonymous with supremacy, holiness and godliness. Wasn’t it this fleeing White Lion who roared fiercely in the Den of Immunity just some months ago? The White Lion is no different from hordes of black African women who bleach their skins blotchy white to fan their inferiority complex.

Mr Olanipekun Olukoyede is the fifth Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Nigeria’s foremost anti-graft agency hunting financial fifth columnists. Olukoyede may be wondering why Nigerians aren’t applauding the orchestra of his agency’s financial recoveries. It’s because Nigerians are amazed at the billions of naira (re)looted under the nose of APC’s anti-corruption god, Muhammadu Buhari, and they look at everyone in President Bola Tinubu’s government as an EFCC suspect waiting to unravel. Nigerians also snigger behind your back, Ogbeni Olukoyede EFCC; they say, “Eni a le mu la nle’di mo,” pointing at the fat files of Betta Edu dripping with the oil of corruption.

Shortly, I shall return to the terrified White Lion. Now, I head up to confront the roaring Lion of Dunamis. Remember, I’m the Hunter with a whistle and a calling, I fear no evil for the lord is my shepherd.

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I call Pastor Paul Enenche a lion because of the way he roared in his over 100,000-capacity church in Abuja, on Sunday. Enenche won’t frown if I call him the son of the Lion of the tribe of Judah. Enenche is the son of God. Or, maybe I should call him a lionet, yes, a lionet – the pikin of a lion because the Lion of the tribe of Judah, Jesus Christ, won’t throw worshipper Veronica Nnenna Anyim into the lake of condemnation.

Anyim had attained a milestone nobody in her lineage ever reached; she had got a law degree from the National Open University of Nigeria, Abuja. She wasn’t going to be discouraged by her poor English and obscure background, she was ready to show the world what the Lord had done.

On the day of her testimony, Anyim must have been led by the spirit. She got a yellow attire, the same colour as the suit her father in the Lord, Enenche, wore; the same as the colour of the lion. She must have done many rehearsals at home with her family, fancying herself on the church’s big stage and the thoughts of her testimony going viral – for good. Though Anyim is a policewoman, the thought of climbing the stage and facing the capacity crowd would’ve made her struggle with sleep till daybreak.

On stage, Anyim was shaking with joy and fear, she felt like fleeing the stage, like bolting to where her father in the lord was sitting, grabbing his feet and crying and saying, “Daddy, I brought home the degree!” Anyin wanted her tears to soak the shiny shoes of her daddy, ready to polish them with her dress, like Mary Magdalene. If Daddy Paul listened well enough, he could have heard the joyous melody of her heart. Anyim had hoped for a handshake at the end of her testimony, with Pastor Paul congratulating her, saying, “Well done, the good labourer,” but a roar shattered her dreams, inflicting her with heartache.

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I congratulate Pastor Paul Enenche because Anyim didn’t commit suicide on the night of her resounding disgrace. If she did, Dunamis would have been under fire and unbelievers would have rolled out the drums, singing, “Many are called but few are chosen.”

It was all over Anyim, fear. Every word was uttered with a quake. She trembled, yet the Man of God filled with the Holy Spirit didn’t see it. How did the medical doctor cum Man of God, who opened his church to worshippers while COVID ravaged in 2020, despite the Federal Government’s counter warning, not see that Anyim was telling the truth?

When she fluffed her lines, the church interpreter showed kindness and understanding, helping Anyim rephrase her testimony. And Anyim must have been shocked when Papa came after her, booming, “Give her the phone!!” “What Law!?” “What’s the name of the degree called, Medicine is MBBS?”

Anyim panicked further and said, “BSc in Law.” Papa roared, “It’s a lie!! BSc Law! Is that how lawyers speak English?” Hoping to be given a second chance, Anyim recovered a little and said, “LLB Law, sir” but Papa was done with her, Anyim was already on her way to the lake. I wonder how Anyim made it till daybreak.

Me, I went to school and I got an LLB in English Language and Literature o. Sorry, jare, I meant a B.A degree. Writing fatigue is setting in. I’ll round off shortly, please.

As an English Language and Literature student, I was involved in many drama productions. The accomplished literary giant, Professor Udenta O. Udenta, taught me drama. To situate the Anyim saga in perspective, I called my friend and one-year senior during my undergraduate days, Azubuike Erinugha. I asked Erinugha, who now has a doctorate, the name of his classmate, who fled to backstage during a drama presentation, thinking he had severed his manhood. Zooby, that’s the alias of Erinugha, recalled the name of our co-actor. I can still see Ralph, grabbing his crotch with his left hand as he ran backstage with a knife in his right hand. “I thought I had cut it…” Ralph said at the backstage. Zooby, a filmmaker based in Germany and Belgium, teaches participatory filmmaking for community development.

Ralph came back on stage later, the audience didn’t know what was amiss. They laughed when he fled, thinking it was all part of the comedy. But, like the tale of Anyim, Ralph’s stage fright wasn’t a laughing matter.

Do you remember a top Nigerian musician who performed at the Nelson Mandela concert in London around 2008? When he got on stage, he opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Stage fright is not NICE. Please, let’s give a clap offering for Anyim for tumbling through her lines. E no easy.

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com

Facebook: @Tunde Odesola

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By Suyi Ayodele

The tiger approaches the dog for a game. It offers its tail to the dog to touch and play with. The innocent dog, thinking that it has a new buddy, wags its own tail in amusement. Every elder around watches the dangerous offer with bated breath. They asked rhetorically: what manner of play can the dog possibly engage in with the tiger (eré kí ni ajá únbá ekùn se)? Every seeming conviviality between the two four-legged creatures always ends up bloody for the dog. That has been the case from time immemorial. In the wild, while other carnivorous animals leave the leftovers of the prey for lesser ones to feed on, the tiger is not blessed with such generosity. Like the python, the tiger leaves no leftovers. That is why it is saluted as Ekùn a je eran, je egungun (the tiger which eats both flesh and bones). So, you may wish to wonder what benefits the dog will derive from any relationship with the tiger? The tiger is pathologically belligerent; you don’t blame it for that. It is its nature . It needs no friends and makes none.

Wisdom is never in short supply in Yorubaland. No! It has never been! Elders too abound to teach moral lessons from their past experiences. The problem with the South- nature West at the moment is the greed of its political class. Those with crass ambition are the ones calling the shots in the region at the moment. They are the gang of the end-justifies-the means, who can do anything to achieve their set goals- goals which ultimately are self-serving. Nothing is too big for these dregs of humanity to sacrifice as long as they get whatever they desire. The entire Yoruba race can go into slavery for all they care. What matters to them is their ambition. Why people are not seeing this or pretend not to see it, baffles me.

The next round of general election will be held in 2027, which is some three years and a few months away. However, the battle for the soul of Nigeria has begun in earnest. There is no pretence about the fact that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is desperate for 2027. Only the Almighty God stands between him and his second term; nothing else, at least within the power of mortals. Tinubu will do anything to get his second term. He will sell where he needs to sell, buy what he needs to buy. Nothing will be too precious for him to trade off. He will be mean where meanness is required and meek where meekness is desired. The battle for 2027 is not for the weak. It is like a forest where only the strong-hearted (odaju) can foray. To achieve the aim, a lot of things will be sacrificed. People will equally be sacrificed. Old ties will be broken, and new ones knotted. Ex-foes will become friends, and old friends will be dispensed with. That is the way of ambition. The end will always justify the means. There will be nothing permanent; there will be nothing indispensable; Yoruba race inclusive. A man like Tinubu does not dwell on past achievements. He is like the sound of the proverbial dane gun. Ò kù ni ìbon úndún (there is something else is the sound the gun gives). Winning the 2023 presidential election is just a launching pad to him. When a child sets his mind at ascending his father’s throne, every item on his way becomes a transactional instrument to achieve his aim. In one of the essays submitted to the International English Language Testing System (IELTS), one of the candidates has this to say of ambition: “Humans are greedy creatures. Nothing will be enough for them….” The beat has started. Like the fox that he is in the Nigerian political space, Tinubu has started to test the waters. He is doing this indirectly and directly. He was in Ibadan last Saturday, April 20, 2024. No, Tinubu was not in Ibadan in flesh and blood. His men were there to set the stage. He was adequately represented by his blood too, the first product of his loins; Mrs. Folashade Tinubu-Ojo, the Iyaloja General of Nigeria.

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Ibadan is crucial to the Yoruba race. Whatever is sealed and delivered in the city of Iba Oluyole is sure to be delivered in every nook and cranny of Yorubaland. That was why a group of people, operating under the auspices of Commodities Farmers’ Organisation in the South-West, gathered to sign an ‘agreement’ with the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), on peaceful co-existence between Yoruba farmers and the itinerant Fulani herdsmen, otherwise known as herdsmen. The leader of the Commodities Farmers Organisation, one Olusegun Dasaolu, speaking at the event, which was held at the International Conference Centre, University of Ibadan, said: “We have signed the peace pact to put a stop to farmers/herders’ clashes. The first step we are going to take is to identify who are genuine herders in the South-West. We have also agreed together to collect or collate data in that regard.” He added that the ‘agreement’ would ensure “that the South-West farmers return to the farm, and also to promote food security in the country….” By that statement, Dasaolu and his promoters recognised that South-West farmers were off their farms because of the issue of incessant clashes with herdsmen. So, in Dasaolu’s reckoning, for the Yoruba farmers to return to their farms in their ancestral land, there must be an agreement with the herdsmen. He talked about “collecting or collating” data of the herders to identify “genuine herders”. Yet, this sudden commodities farmer never realised that the first step that the late Arakunrin Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN), the former governor of Ondo State took was to ask herders in the state’s forests to come out and be registered. It was when that call was not heeded that Akeredolu mobilised his fellow South-West governors, with the exception of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State -who for obvious reason was not committed to the idea- to form the Amotekun Corps, which has been doing a yeoman’s job in the entire Yorubaland. The question is, how come that suddenly, the Miyetti Allah group that would not obey a state governor was now dancing Fuji ropopo in Ibadan because of a Dasaolu? I will not be tempted here to ask: “who bankrolled” the Ibadan peace ’agreement’?

He who forgets history is bound to repeat it. When history repeats itself, it does so in a more devastating form and format. History is about to repeat itself in the entire Yorubaland. Unless something is done before it is hatched, the entire Kaaro Oojire (Yoruba Race) will lose its existence to the Fulani expansionist movement. That is what the Dasaolu ‘agreement’ with his new friends in MACBAN led by the group’s National President, Othman Ngelzarma, is all about. The impending calamities embedded in the ‘agreement’ will happen to the Yoruba race all because President Tinubu wants a second term, and nothing more! Anyone can dispute this assertion. Time will tell. Pity! What Uthman Dan Fodio and his expansionist army could not achieve on the back of horses with deadly arrows and swords is what Tinubu and Dasaolu are giving to the descendants of Fodio before our very eyes!

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The agreement last Saturday between the Commodities Farmers’ Organisation and Miyetti Allah is a dangerous agreement. It is an agreement that will bring no peace because the other party does not understand the language of peace. Whoever midwifed the misadventure; whoever piloted the bad episode, must either be ignorant (which I doubt), or mischievous (which is most likely), but certainly greedy and unfeeling. The bad ‘agreement’ is like a loaded gun. Elders of my place say kò sí omo rere nínú ìbon (a loaded gun gives birth to no good offspring). Check history very well. The Fulani stock has no history of fidelity to agreements. The entire Hausa land which allowed them any leverage in the past, are living in servitude today. Yoruba lost Ilorin to the descendants of Dan Fodio because Afonja signed an agreement with Alimi. When the time came for his ‘friend’ to eliminate him, Afonja’s body was pierced with so many poisonous arrows such that he died standing as the arrows maintained equilibrium for him! When he was found to be dead, his corpse was burnt by the Fulani soldiers who acted under the supervision of Alimi! Dasaolu should take some time off his ‘farm’ and read a bit of our history. He will learn that it is foolish for a man to use his two hands to locate the head of a cobra in the burrow.

The Yoruba, at the moment, have a bigger challenge at hand. The penultimate Saturday’s unsuccessful invasion of the Oyo State Secretariat by miscreants who plied the name of Yoruba Nation agitators is enough wahala. The task before the six states of the South-West, and their brothers in Kwara and Kogi States is to identify every operational cell of these dregs of humanity and flush them out. They cannot afford to add a covert RUGA engagement to that. There is no need to look for a pseudonym to describe the ‘agreement’ with Miyetti Allah; it is pure RUGA. If Mrs. Folasade Tinubu-Ojo, who supervised the ‘agreement’ for her father pretended not to know, the rest of us should let her realise that we know what it is. It is slavery dressed in the garb of peace. What kind of peace does a man need such that he offers his father’s shrine to a stranger to defecate? What is the content of the ‘agreement’? Is it in line with the counsel given by Femi Adesina during the administration of Muhammadu Buhari that for us to live, we should give up our ancestral land to herdsmen? By this new ‘agreement’, does it mean that herders will have free access to our farmlands? Are we ready to give up anything so that our son can have a second term? Is that the new ill-wind blowing our way?

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Let us get it right. Yoruba are not that naive. Our forebears handed us an egalitarian society. They were not cowards. They sacrificed a lot to ensure that the boast of dipping the Quran into the Atlantic did not materialise in their time. What Buhari tried unsuccessfully to achieve in eight years is what some greedy elements are offering their Fulani lords on a platter of gold. They have forgotten the caution of our elders to wit: ohun tí ehín tè tí ò ké, owó èékáná ò ka (whatever the teeth press and does not moan is not an assignment for the fingernails). Those who signed the Ibadan ‘agreement’ with Miyetti Allah are no farmers. I doubt if they can even stalk cassava stems correctly. What is propelling them is greed. They are all Mr. Giwas (traders). They represent nobody; at least not the farmers in my home state of Ekiti. What is the size of Dasaolu’s plantation, if any? What is the population of his Commodities Farmers’ Organisation? Who does he speak for and on whom is the ‘agreement’ binding?

President Tinubu has a maximum of eight years to rule, if he wins his second term in 2027. He cannot afford to sell an entire race into slavery in the name of an asinine ‘agreement’ with a truculent group like the Miyetti Allah. What this agreement portends is peace of the graveyard. It should, and must be resisted by all men of good conscience. Those who want herdsmen to have free access to their homestead can do so without dragging the entire clan into such an imprudent venture. The labour of our heroes’ past should not be in vain. Imagine that the late Akeredolu has not even completed his registration among the Saints in heaven and this is already happening to the good fight he dedicated the latter part of his life to fighting! It is indeed true that a home is settled only when the illegitimate child has not come of age.

We shall go beyond asking the Alálè Yoruba to visit those behind this plot to enslave the Yoruba race in the 21st century with their fiercest ire. We must equally resist them, vehemently, I dare say! This is not a call to arms; it is one of our minimum obligations under a democratic setting. May the spirits of those who have gone before us fight those who want to hand over our children as slaves to those who never conquered our forebears. Standing on the authority of Alaafin Aole, we declare to those behind trading our land off on the field of politics that: when they walk on Yoruba land, may they hear the sounds of the footsteps of the invisible; when they eat, may they never be filled; when they drink water, may they remain thirsty! May Oduduwa Atewonro, and Agboniregun join forces to turn their days to night! Ase waa!