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[OPINION] Olubadan Ladoja: His Tenacity, His Triumphs

Published

3 weeks ago

September 30, 2025

By Suyi Ayodele

“When I set out to join the race to become the Olubadan, I was focusing on how to become the Olubadan and the only crown I want to wear is that of Olubadan of Ibadanland.”

Oba Rasidi Adewolu Ladoja, the Olubadan of Ibadanland, spoke these immortal words on June 28, 2023. Two years, two months and two days later, Oba Ladoja was crowned the Olubadan, on Friday, September 26, 2025.

The elders of our land say when the snail sticks tenaciously to the tree, it will climb it to the top (Ìgbín tenu mó igi, ó gùn ún d’ókè). Oba Ladoja, who in 2017 fought the late Governor Ajibola Ajimobi of Oyo State to a standstill over the balkanisation of the Olubadan throne, equally rose in 2023 to challenge the crowning of Ibadan High Chiefs as obas by the government of Governor Seyi Makinde.

Governor Makinde, a fellow Ibadan man like the late Ajimobi, had, through the Amended Olubadan Chieftaincy Declaration, approved the elevation of 11 Ibadan High Chiefs to beaded-crown obas. Ladoja, who then was the Otun Olubadan, saw the matter differently.

Holding on to the ancient tradition of Ibadanland, the then Otun Olubadan, who was also a former governor of the state and a former senator, quipped: “You don’t mend what is not broken. I don’t think it is right to make high chiefs Obas. The only crown I want to wear is the Olubadan crown. Everybody knows that it is God who makes one an Oba. As far as I am concerned, it is not proper for high chiefs to wear crowns. My intention is to become Olubadan.”

He held to that position and boycotted the July 7, 2023, crowning of the remaining 10 chiefs, namely; Balogun of Ibadanland, Owolabi Olakulehin; Otun Balogun, Tajudeen Ajibola; Osi Olubadan, Eddy Oyewole; Osi Balogun, Lateef Adebimpe; Ashipa Olubadan, Biodun Kola-Daisi; Ashipa Balogun, Kola Adegbola; Ekerin Olubadan, Hamidu Ajibade; Ekerin Balogun, Olubunmi Isioye; Ekarun Olubadan; Bayo Akande and Ekarun Balogun, Abiodun Azeez, by the then Olubadan, Oba Lekan Balogun.

That action by Oba Ladoja, set Ibadan on the edge. The debate was severe in the public place. Those who know Governor Makinde very well vouched for his stubbornness. They were ready to swear that nothing would make the governor shift ground.

A senior journalist told me then that “Seyi Makinde kìí se eran rírò (he is not a soft meat). You see, when he tells you: òrò yìí ò dè rí béè (this matter is not as you think), forget it; he has made up his mind. Ladoja will have to accept the crown if he wants to be Olubadan.” I was alarmed.

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I asked another Ibadan man about the solution. His response was not encouraging. According to him: “Baba Ladoja is not being stubborn, as many people believe. He is just trying to say, ‘don’t let us bastardise Ibadan culture’. I pray that he will listen to those who are close to him because Baba himself is as stubborn as Seyi Makinde.”

The die was cast. Oba Lekan Balogun joined his ancestors on March 14, 2024. Oba Owolabi Olakulehin was crowned Olubadan on July 12, 2024. Ladoja moved up to the second-in rank as the Otun Olubadan. Then Governor Makinde, true to his identikit as a man of strong will, decided to make public the published Amended Olubadan Chieftaincy Declaration at the coronation of Oba Olakulehin on July 12, 2024.

The tension at the arena heightened; it was palpable. Nobody was in doubt that Ladoja was the target. The Declaration is a simple matter. For anyone to become Olubadan, he must have been a beaded crown-wearing oba. The gazetted paper was freely shared at Olakulehin’s coronation. The implication is that Ladoja could no longer claim ignorance of its existence.

Who would blink first? Ibadan is a city which answers the name, Agbotikuyo (he who rejoices at the death of another). They are not wicked people, mind you. It is just their tradition. When an Olubadan passes on, all the chiefs on the line to the throne are happy. Why? The death of an Olubadan is a promotion for each of the remaining chiefs. Ladoja had waited for over three decades to be Olubadan. Oba Olakulehin was old and frail at his coronation. But for the tenacity of Ladoja himself, the ascension of Olakulehin was almost truncated. Now, an amended chieftaincy declaration stood between him and his ambition!

Many were worried. Yours sincerely, inclusive. I am not from Ibadan. But I wanted Ladoja as Olubadan. Not for any other reason but for the fact that he stood to be counted among those who wanted our culture preserved. The late Ajimobi, I stand to be corrected, had no reason to do what he did in 2017 over the Olubadan throne.

Ibadan, in the entire Yorubaland, I dare say, is the only town that upholds the tradition of seamless succession procedure. Though conservative compared to the ‘modern-day’ thinking, the Olubadan chieftaincy legacy is a demonstration that Africans have a perfect sense of what is right and just, and uncommon fidelity with justice and fairness. Once a man joins the line to the Olubadan throne either through the Balogun or the civilian line, only death can stand in his way. So, why would anybody tamper with that smooth process? We will never understand how our politicians think!

Will Ladoja ever become Olubadan of Ibadanland given the new law in place and his promise not to wear any other crown apart from that of Olubadan? If he failed to, Ibadan’s smooth process of ascension would be gone forever. Ibadan being the last man standing, so to say, in matters of enthronement, and with Ifa and other kingmakers dancing ijo yoyo all over the place, the sanctity of thrones in Yorubaland was gravely threatened!

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The Igbo say: “When a man says yes, his chi says yes also” (Onye kwe chi ya ekewe). The saying is a testament to the power of positive thinking. The legend, Chinua Achebe, projected the saying in his classic, Things Fall Apart, to demonstrate that with the tenacity of purpose, a man can achieve anything he desires. Fortunes don’t come cheap. Achebe was both right and great in the imagery of a man’s willpower and the approval of the Cosmic in terms of the man’s destiny.

Did the literary icon, Achebe, have Ladoja in mind when he used the above saying to depict the character of Okonkwo, the tragic hero of Things Fall Apart in 1958? Will Ladoja ever become Olubadan if he held on to his stance of not accepting a crown before the crown? Yet, the multi-billionaire politician insisted that he would be Olubadan! As how, in the manner of our street lingo?

Reason prevailed. The Otun Olubadan of Ibadanland, High Chief Ladoja, on Sunday, August 4, 2024, announced that he would accept the beaded crown. He said so while appearing on the Ibadan-based Fresh FM Radio programme, Agbami Oselu, He added that he would be doing that in deference to prominent Ibadan sons and daughters and other well-meaning Nigerians who appealed to him. There again, he declared: “By the grace of God, I will become Olubadan… Anyone God destined to become Olubadan will become Olubadan, no matter the obstacles placed in their way.” We heaved a sigh of relief!

On August 12, 2024, Ladoja ended the seven-year-old controversy over the Olubadan chieftaincy matter as he was elevated to a beaded-crown wearing oba by the late Oba Olakulehin. Incidentally, the elevation of Ladoja was the first official duty of Oba Olakulehin. The relief across Yorubaland after that historical event was palpable! Ibadan, once again, rose to the occasion as the defender of Yoruba unity.

So, when on Friday, September, 26, 2025, all the people of Ibadan gathered at the historic Mapo Hill to crown Oba Rasidi Adewolu Ladoja, the 44th Olubadan of Ibadanland, the entire Yoruba race rose to salute the courage, the goodwill and the strength of Ibadan people at upholding the culture of fairness and justice handed over to them by the founders of the west Africa’s largest city!

As a Yoruba man, if anyone had ridden a horse in my stomach last Friday, there would have been no stumbling. I was not just happy for Oba Ladoja and the people of Ibadan; I was happy for the entire Yoruba Race. A ségun òtá, a r’éhìn odì (we conquered the enemy; we prevailed against perversity)!

Ibadan people would never appreciate what they have done to the Yoruba race by preserving that age-long culture of succession to the Olubadan throne. Governor Makinde, who had to cut short his annual leave to attend the ceremony and personally perform the tradition of presentation of staff of office to the new monarch has equally recorded his name in the history of the race. The owners of the day and night will endow him with the wisdom to review that needless declaration.

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Oba Ladoja’s tenacity of purpose is a study in self-worth. It is an act and art commended to everyone who desires that which is good. For a man who had waited for over three decades and almost lost the precious prize, one needs no further evidence to show that power, of a truth, belongs to God! We have no doubt that the new Olubadan of Ibadanland understands what Kim Tan The Heirs, the wealthy heir to the Korean conglomerate, Jeguk Group, means, when he posits: “The one who wants to wear the crown, must bear its weight.”

In all the battles he has fought in politics, business and in upholding the tradition of his people, Olubadan Ladoja has demonstrated that William Shakespear was right in his postulation that, “My crown is in my heart, not my head” (Henry VI). It is indeed the content of the heart that makes a monarch who he is. In and out, Oba Ladoja has demonstrated that his is a heart of gold.

At his coronation on Friday, he told the entire world that he would not be an Olubadan for the people of Ibadanland alone. The entire Yorubaland, nay, the Black Race, he assured, would be his constituency. Looking back at his journey in life, Oba Ladoja declared: “There is nothing else I am looking for in life. Yesterday, I clocked 81. Some people do not have this privilege. So, I recognise that the fact that God spared me till date, what remains is to serve every resident of Ibadan, serve Oyo State, serve Yorubaland, serve Nigeria and Africa, to the best of my ability.”

I believe Kabiyesi Olubadan will pursue that goal with the same tenacity of purpose. He is, like Robert Greene, the American author, who says great men “Do not wait for a coronation; the greatest emperors crown themselves.” Indeed, Oba Ladoja crowned himself long ago through his fidelity with the tradition of his people. We hope, again, like Greene posits that as the king has placed the crown upon his head, he has assumed, “a different post-tranquil yet radiating assurance. Never show doubt, never lose your dignity beneath the crown….”

Olubadan Ladoja cannot but radiate joy. He cannot but demonstrate confidence. He is a man who has seen it all. From the classrooms to the boardrooms, from the legislative chamber to the Government House; from the Government House to the courtrooms and from the courtrooms back to the government House and finally the Palace of Olubadan of Ibadanland, Oba Rasidi Adewolu Ladoja is the quintessential figure of the English writer and theologian, William Penn (October 14, 1644-July 30, 1718), who says: “No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.” That is Oba Ladoja in words!

Kabiyesi, now that you have obtained that which you most desired, holding on to your abiding faith in your creator and the triumph of good over evil, we can only pray as Oodua Atewonro decreed in the ancient Ode Aro, at the coronation of their oba thus: Kí e gbó gbó Olúyèyèntuyè/Kí e gbó gbó Olúyèyèntuyè/Kí e gbó gbó Olúogbó/Ìrùkèrè á di abéré/ Èé je ju ará iwájú?/ Èé je kù f’érò èhín. May your reign be peaceful! Àse!!

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OPINION: APC’s Slave-raiding Expeditions

Published

14 hours ago

October 20, 2025

Editor

By Lasisi Olagunju

In mid-19th-century Ibadan, military expeditions under Balogun Ibikunle were so successful in slave-catching that by 1859, the city was gripped in the apprehension that it had harvested more slaves than it could control. Professor Bolanle Awe, citing missionary Hinderer’s Half-Yearly Report of Ibadan Station for that year, wrote that the oracle of Oke Badan had to intervene with a decree that Ibadan should desist from going to war for some time because there were “too many strange people in the town.”

People choke on their own success. If you doubt this, read Awe’s ‘Ajele System: A Study of Ibadan Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century’, published in December 1964. Power that eats with ten fingers, that feeds on endless acquisition will, sooner or later, find itself choking on its own gluttony.

At about the same period Ibadan trembled over the spectre of a slave insurrection, similar fears were roiling the American South. In May, 1939, distinguished professor of history, Harvey Wish (4 September, 1909 – 7 March, 1968), published his ‘The Slave Insurrection Panic of 1856’. In 1856, according to Wish, Stewart and Montgomery counties in Tennessee were gripped by panic. The combined slave population in those places stood at about 12,000 against 19,000 whites, but in many localities, the enslaved outnumbered their masters. In the iron districts along the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers, eight to ten thousand slaves laboured in mines and furnaces under a handful of overseers. A house stuffed with captives soon loses peace especially when the enslaved start demanding rights. The fear that the captives in those American communities might rise became as real as the chains that bound them.

The twin anxieties of Ibadan and Tennessee of the 1850s should speak to today’s All Progressives Congress (APC), which seems to have embarked on its own form of political slave-raiding expeditions, capturing opposition governors, lawmakers, and chieftains in a frenzy of conquest. History teaches that those who live by conquest often reel in pains of indigestion. Ask Afonja of Ilorin. The slaves he encouraged to defect into his army proved his nemesis.

There is that Nigerian comedian who combs his bald head. He is there online feasting on APC’s defection binge. The jester’s conclusion is that by 2027, Nigeria’s epic contest will be between APC and APC, a scenario he says will burst the belly of the overfed. There is a limit to how much the human stomach can hold before it rebels against its own greed. All manner of gluttony, including the political, have their limits and dangers. What Tennessee feared in 1856 did, indeed, happen in some places. Read Harvey Wish.

The Yoruba have sweet street slangs. You’ve heard of curing madness with madness (“wèrè l’a fi nwo wèrè”). You’ve not heard of “ko were, ko were.” Packing all sorts into all sorts; orísirísi. The Yoruba word ‘were’ means madness or the mad themselves. In some contexts ‘were’ also means idiocy/idiot; stupid/stupidity. “Ko were, ko were” is what my village friends call men who go for anything in a skirt. It is also what the rapacious do with their molue: Forty-nine sitting, ninety-nine standing. The bus is “fully full”, yet, the driver and conductor still yell to the street to hop in: “Wolé! Enter! No change!” It is never enough until some cranial vessels yield to bursting.

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Shakespeare’s Angelo says in ‘Measure for Measure’ that “we must not make a scarecrow of the law, setting it up to fear the birds of prey…” We do that here. All our laws are scared and afraid of power. People break the law and dare the law to say something.

A tributary is a smaller river or stream that flows into a larger river or lake. River Oba is a tributary of the Osun River; it flows into it. The law says you can divorce River Oba, if you like, but you cannot give Oba’s child to Osun, your new husband. The powerful can snatch the wife of the weak, but he cannot snatch the child of the weak. Our constitution expressly forbids lawmakers from hopping from bed to bed, party to party, doing what common prostitutes do. Section 68(1)(g) of the constitution bars senators and Reps from contracting the syphilis of defection. Section 109(1)(g) prescribes the same taboo for lawmakers at the state level. Those two sections say if you insist on courting leprosy, you must be prepared to live in a leper colony, alone.

Our constitution says that a legislator who strays from the banner that bore him to victory must surrender his seat.

That law is dead here even when the exception to the rule is not present. The exception, the law says, is that defection is allowed only when there is a division within the legislator’s party or the party has merged with another. There is no division, there is no merger, yet lawmakers after lawmakers have changed parties like pants without consequences.

When is a democracy dead? It is dead when opposition sells itself to power. It is dead when law is dead, or whenever it is helpless; when rule of men replaces the rule of law; when government of men overthrows government of laws. Rule of men is a personal rule; it is what sits on the throne in an unaccountable society; a society in the mouth of dogs.

Aristotle wrote that “It is more proper that law should govern than any one of the citizens.” American professor of Law, Paul Gowder, in the winter of 2018 wrote ‘Resisting the Rule of Men’. Gowder contrasts “the rule of men” to “the rule of law.” He says “I will say that we have ‘the rule of men’ or ‘personal rule’ when those who wield the power of the state are not obliged to give reasons to those over whom that power is being wielded—from the standpoint of the ruled, the rulers may simply act on their brute desires.” Is that not what politicians do when, with impunity, they cross the road and dash their husbands’ children to their more powerful, wealthy lover across the street? Yet, they say this is a democracy.

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“Democracy—What Is It?” Theodore M. Hart in a 1948 edition of The Georgia Review asked as he threw the question at a class of veterans. He got 32 answers. The last of the answers, he says, is the “farthest thing from a definition that could well be imagined.” This is it: “The right to defy a ruler, the right to believe in the right, the right to read the truth, the right to speak the truth, the sky free of destruction, the water free of danger, the trees, the earth, the house I live in, my friends and relatives, the school I go to, the church I attend – that’s Democracy.” It is a mouthful. Before that definition, there have been shorter ones that we won’t like to teach our kids here. One of them says ‘Democracy’ is “that no man should have more power than another.” Another says it is “a government in which the source of authority (political) must be and remain in the people and not in the ruler.” The opposite holds sway here. Ruling party politicians are the law; it is into their maximum ocean that all rivers must empty their waters.

Politicians, governors and lawmakers of all tendencies are massing into one party, the ruling party, like the forces of Julius Caesar whose feet are already in the Rubicon. There is also the perception that the judiciary is collapsing (or has collapsed) its structures into the ruling party.

It is futile as it is dangerous, self-destructive and self-destructing to seek to have a Kabiyesi presidency, a democracy without opposition. French philosopher, Montesquieu, in his Esprit des Lois, published in I748, wrote: “There would be an end of everything if one man or one body, whether of princes, nobles, or people exercised these three powers: that of making the laws, of executing the public resolutions, and of judging the cases of individuals.”

William Shakespeare in ‘Measure for Measure’ warns that possessing great power tempts one toward tyranny.

Shakespeare’s character, Isabella, tells power-drunk Angelo, deputy to the Duke of Vienna:

“O! it is excellent

To have a giant’s strength; but it is tyrannous

To use it like a giant.”

Now, what is the value and essence of a presidential power that cannot crush, enslave or imprison governors? Where is the value?

In George Orwell’s novel, ‘1984’ we are shown that the party’s omnipotence is not freedom but imprisonment. The story teller asks humanity to accept that the pursuit of total power, total control over thought, over history, and reality, traps power and the power wielder in perpetual manipulation.

But power is powerful; it never listens to reason. Ikem Osodi, Chinua Achebe’s radical character says in ‘Anthills of the Savannah’ that “The prime failure of rulers is to forget that they are human.” Are rulers really human? In Yoruba history and belief, they are ‘alase’ (executive) deputy of the gods. Before Achebe there was Lord Acton who famously said that “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” Someone said power, when unrestrained, imprisons its possessor in illusion.

It is not the fault of power that it extends and distends and stretches itself thin. It is because the world seductively craves the king’s dominance. So, let us not blame power; we should blame the people as they query the worth of freedom that bears no food. Because literature is life, it is there in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s ‘The Brothers Karamazov’. There, we read in The Grand Inquisitor’s monologue, a story within a story: “For who can rule men if not he who holds their conscience and their bread in his hands?” The Inquisitor informs the Lord that humanity had “taken the sword of Caesar, and in taking it, of course, have rejected Thee and followed him.” They will always follow Caesar because he alone has bread to distribute from north to south.

The devil is not a liar; if he is a liar, he won’t say the truth. And what is the truth? It is in the Inquisitor’s mouth, it is that seeing freedom and bread walking together is inconceivable; that no science will give the people bread “so long as they remain free.” Governors, senators, Reps – all have surrendered to the bread and butter of power. Automatic tickets, automatic victory at the polls, cheap victory over the people. What power is saying in silence is said loudly by Dostoevsky’s Inquisitor: “In the end, they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, ‘Make us your slaves, but feed us.’”

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JUST IN: NLC Gives FG Four Weeks To Resolve ASUU Crisis

Published

16 hours ago

October 20, 2025

Editor

The Nigeria Labour Congress has resolved to issue a four-week ultimatum to the Federal Government should it fail to conclude negotiations with all tertiary institutions-based unions.

The NLC also condemned the no-work-no-pay policy introduced by the government as a form of sanction to members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities for daring to embark on a nationwide strike.

The president of the NLC, Joe Ajaero made this known in an ongoing interactive session with labour correspondents in Abuja.

The interactive session followed the meeting between the NLC and leaders of tertiary institutions’ based unions at the NLC headquarters in Abuja.

“We have decided to give the federal government four weeks to conclude all negotiations in this sector. They have started talks with ASUU but the problem in this sector goes beyond ASUU.

“That is why we are extending this to four weeks. If after four weeks this negotiation is not concluded, the organs of the NEC will meet and take a nationwide action that all workers in the country, all unions in the country will be involved so that we get to the root of all this.

“ The era of signing agreements, negotiations and threatening the unions involved, that era has come to an end.

“The policy, the so-called policy of no work, no pay, will henceforth be no pay, no work. You can’t benefit from an action you instigated. We have discovered that most, 90% of strike actions in this country are caused by failure to obey agreements,” Ajaero said.

The Nigerian higher education system has been faced with chronic instability, the latest leading to the closure of universities nationwide due to the ongoing strike by ASUU.

Recall that ASUU National President Professor Chris Piwuna announced the strike at a press briefing at the University of Abuja on Sunday, following the expiry of a 14-day ultimatum issued to the government on September 28. The union cited unresolved issues relating to staff welfare, infrastructure, salary arrears, and the implementation of the 2009 ASUU-FGN agreement.

Negotiations in recent weeks failed to avert industrial action. Education Minister Tunji Alausa said two weeks ago that talks had reached a final phase, noting the government had released N50bn for earned academic allowances and allocated N150bn in the 2025 budget for a needs assessment to be disbursed in three instalments. However, ASUU rejected these measures as insufficient.

The union is demanding full implementation of the 2009 agreement, release of three-and-a-half months of withheld salaries, sustainable funding for universities, protection against victimisation, payment of outstanding promotion and salary arrears, and release of withheld deductions for cooperatives and union contributions.

The NLC emphasised its full solidarity with ASUU and other tertiary education unions, calling for robust participation from all union leaders.

It also highlighted the principle of a converse stance, “No Pay, No Work”, urging the government to honour collective agreements and respect the rights of workers.

The emergency meeting is expected to chart the next steps for industrial action and explore strategies to safeguard the welfare of university staff, as well as the quality and continuity of public tertiary education in Nigeria.

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JUST IN: NLC Begins Meeting With ASUU, Other Unions Over Strike

Published

17 hours ago

October 20, 2025

Editor

The Nigeria Labour Congress has commenced a meeting with the leadership of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union, Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics, Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Polytechnics among others over the ongoing strike in universities and other concerns raised by workers in tertiary institutions nationwide.

The meeting is currently holding at the NLC national headquarters in Abuja.

Recall that the NLC in a letter invited all union leaders across various tertiary institutions of learning nationwide to a meeting to find lasting solutions to issues stemmed from failed negotiations with the Federal Government.

Nigerian higher education system has been faced with chronic instability, the latest leading to closure of universities nationwide due to the ongoing strike by ASUU.

The NLC emphasised its full solidarity with ASUU and other tertiary education unions, calling for robust participation from all union leaders. It also highlighted the principle of a converse stance, “No Pay, No Work”, urging the government to honour collective agreements and respect the rights of workers.