By Suyi Ayodele

Everyone has someone he adores. I have many such people; men and women who made or are making meaningful impacts. One of such men was Omo N’Oba N’Edo Uku Akpolokpolo, Oba Erediauwa, Oba of Benin (22 June 1923 – April 2016). May his soul continue to rest peacefully in the midst of his ancestors. Isee! The Oba was an epitome of what a good leader should be. Diplomatic, humane with a deep milk of kindness running in his veins, Oba Erediauwa was the people’s Oba. He was close to his subjects and drew strangers to himself, too.

People, from time immemorial, do funny things to get closer to their leaders. In some extreme cases, some do weird things to get noticed by their rulers or leaders alike. A woman and a man did something weird and funny to get the attention of Oba Erediauwa a few years ago.

Some years into the reign of Oba Erediauwa (1979-2016), a woman used to come into the palace chanting two sentences to wit: Emwenoba romwonu (I have something to say to the Oba), and Edohia gha hena humwenhe (Benin must hear what they are doing to me). She would target whenever the Oba was within earshot to utter the statements and would leave.

Initially, Oba Erediauwa pretended not to hear. But like the story of the persistent widow in the Bible as recorded Luke 18:1-8, the woman kept coming to the palace until the Omo N’Oba could no longer resist her. So, one day, Oba Erediauwa asked her to be brought forward and asked her what she wanted to tell the king and what she wanted Benin to hear.

The woman, who hailed from Kwale, Delta State, narrated how her husband, also a Kwale man, died and was buried in accordance with Kwale tradition and Benin custom of Igiogbe. Despite those rites of passage fulfilled by the eldest son of the man, the extended family of the deceased wanted to chase her and her children out of the house which the deceased husband built and where he lived, died and was buried. Then she asked Oba Erediauwa if that was right.

Omo N’Oba Erediauwa wasted no time. He settled the matter and assigned some senior palace chiefs to follow the woman home and restore her rights and those of her children to their late father’s estate. Till date, nobody has ever gone to trouble the woman in her matrimonial home. The Oba’s pronouncements, especially on land matters, are final. It is not for fun that the Benin people say: Aiguobasimwin-otor (You don’t drag land with the Oba). But what if that woman had no access to Oba Erediauwa? Think about that while I share the second short story.

Again, a man was brought before Oba Erediauwa by some palace functionaries. The crime the man committed was that he inscribed a chieftaincy title on his car and was in the habit of driving the car frequently around the King’s Square otherwise known as Ring Road. After repeated warnings to the culprit to remove the inscription failed, he was ‘arrested’ and brought before the Omo N’Oba.

After listening to the complaint against the man, Oba Erediauwa asked those who ‘arrested’ him to state which offence the accused had committed. The palace functionaries explained that the title the man claimed did not exist in the Benin Kingdom. But more importantly, he must give the name of the Omo N’Oba who conferred the chieftaincy title on him.

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Turning to the accused, Oba Erediauwa asked him to respond to the issues raised by the palace chiefs. The man, paying obeisance to the Oba simply said in Benin Language: “Ima yegbemwen-yunu vbiayasekenuye sir. ” The simple interpretation is: “If I had not fooled myself, how could I have ever reached your presence sir?”

Omo N’Oba Erediauwa looked at his chiefs and looked back at the man. He asked his chiefs if they heard what the accused man said, and they answered in the affirmative. The Oba asked again if there was still anything the chiefs wanted to know, and they chorused “No”.

Turning to the man again, Oba Erediauwa prayed for him that now that he (the accused) had fulfilled his life ambition of standing in the presence of the Omo N’Oba, may he prosper and live long. The king rose. The man simply went outside and removed the sticker on his car and drove off.

To see his king, the man conferred on himself a non-existent chieftaincy title. Thank God for the wisdom with which Oba Erediauwa handled the message. The monarch was sensitive enough to know that there were many of his subjects out there who longed to see him, but protocols, traditions and custom would not allow them.

The Omo N’Oba was knowledgeable enough to realise that a lot of commoners would do anything from the funny to the weird and the absurd, just to catch a glimpse of him. These two occasions were just a few of how many times the monarch descended from his high throne to meet with those at the bottom of the ladder in his kingdom. Oba Erediauwa knew that without the people, there is no kingdom. He was a monarch with the mantra: the people first!

An incident close to these happened in Kaduna last week when Citizen Mohammed Umar, whom the Kaduna Police called a ‘madman’, attempted to get close to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on the podium where the President was addressing the dignitaries that were present in the event the number one man had with Kaduna people.

The narratives that followed the short video of that incident are not complimentary ones for the President. The commentaries show the feelings in the land. The police responded by saying that the narratives were by the enemies of the President. Honestly, I believe the police. President Tinubu himself must believe the police too. With the way Tinubu has handled the lives of Nigerians in the last two years, he has successfully acquired a horde of enemies!

But if I were President Tinubu, I would be wary of those who call themselves my friends. The President is no doubt surrounded by too many friends who don’t tell him the truth. Those are men and women who are members of the Hallelujah orchestra; the máa jó lo mò ún wo èhìn e (keep dancing, I am watching your back) gang. Those are the ones who tell the president how much Nigerians love him and his non-existent or pain-inflicting reforms and how Nigerians wished they had had a Tinubu long before now!

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The President’s friends he should be wary of are the ones who hailed him when he announced, to the embarrassment of the entire nation, that he could not travel to Yelwata, where over 200 Nigerians were slaughtered and roasted last week by bandits because of “the rain, flood and bad road!”

I listened to President Tinubu utter those words; those flimsy excuses from the Commander-in-Chief, and all I could say was sè e ùngbó òrò burúkú lénu eye (hope you can hear terrible chirp from the mouth of the bird)? What did Tinubu go to do in Benue State if he could not get to Yelwata? Who did he go to ‘sympathise’ with? What happened to the road? What is the duty of a government if it cannot fix roads and control erosion? If the President needed to go to Yelwata to canvass for votes, would “the rain, erosion and bad road” be hindrances?

Was it not the same rain that the Benue State Government pushed school children to, to welcome Tinubu? What is the value of a president that could not defy the rain, brace the erosion and suffer bumpy rides to reach Yelwata where those God has put under his watch were slaughtered? How much was spent on the reception for the President in Makurdi, and how much would it have cost to do emergency palliative work on the Yelwata Road? Did the government not clear the bushes on the roads the president would use within Makurdi?

And come to think of it. Are the choppers in the Presidential Air Fleet (PAF) bad? Not a single of the five helicopters “tailored for VIP transport” is functional enough to convey the President to Yelwata and back?

What President Tinubu did in Benue State is a bad example of how a leader should not treat the dead or demean the living. It is also a negative testimony of how distant our leaders are from the people they pretend to lead. This is why we will continue to have the likes of Mohammed Umar of Kaduna who are ready to do anything to catch a glimpse of the president.

Incidentally, President Tinubu is not alone in this malady of distant rulership. Check your neighbourhood and ask how many times you get to see your councillors. How many local government chairmen are accessible to their constituents? Once they have the prefix, “Honourable”, do we get to see our legislators? How many so-called ” Distinguished ” senators walk the same paths with the commoners once they ascend those lofty heights? Here in Nigeria, the convoy of a governor is as long as the entire length of the Niger Bridge in Onitsha!

That is why our leaders don’t feel what we feel. They don’t go to the marketplaces; they don’t attend the shambolic death houses they call hospitals for us commoners. Protocol men and women are there to screen us when we approach them. Overzealous security agents are handy to rough handle the common men that try to get close to ‘His Excellency.

I saw how startled President Tinubu was when Umar made that weird attempt in Kaduna. Nothing wrong in that; the President is a human being. But his gesture sent a strong message to me. I don’t know who shares the same feeling. President Tinubu was momentarily rattled in that video! He was scared; he was fazed! It was written all over him! So, the rich also get scared? Can someone help tell the President that that is the common food of poor Nigerians; we live perpetually in fear!

Seriously, President Tinubu has something to learn from that incident. A good leader needs not fear by the appearance of a mere ‘madman’, especially when he is in the midst of his people. Thank God, Umar, as we were told, was just a fanatical supporter of Tinubu. And he was not armed. So, if the President was that scared seeing one of his own approaching him, what would he do if he were to be in a hostile environment?

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The lesson here is not for President Tinubu alone. Our leaders should learn how to lead well and make life more abundant for the people. The streets are not smiling, as we say in our usual street lingo. Things are not adding up for the common man. The next few months are going to be tough. This is not my prediction; Lasisi Olagunju said so in his Monday Line Column of yesterday (Monday, June 23, 2025)

While concluding the column: “Let Tehran, Tel Aviv bleed, Abuja will pay the price” the columnist wrote: “They pull the trigger, the mugus of the world pay the price.” Olagunju said this with the valid projections that the war in the Middle East would gravely affect the African continent. I could not agree less.

When the pangs of the ongoing madness in the Middle East begin to take its toll on us, our leaders will witness more weird behaviours from the citizens. The poor will get more desperate. And in gatherings like we had in Kaduna last week, more’ mad’ fanatics of our leaders will show up. The security aides will have more work to do. And, who knows, the number of the ‘mad fanatics’ may one day become too large for the security aides to rein in!

But we can avert that. Our leaders can drink water and drop the cups peacefully if only they will do the right thing. What I prescribe here is that the leaders should get close to the people. Feel their pains, share in their agony and stop giving excuses of “the rain, flood and bad road.” It is not an honour for the chief hunter to announce that he was chased out of the forest by a wild animal! Bad road is too cheap an excuse for the President not to visit the victims of a genocide as we had in Yelwata.

It is not too late. Let the President begin to ameliorate the pain in the land. Let Tinubu begin to give human face to his governance. Should the prices of crude go up with the war in the Middle East without corresponding measures to cushion the effects on hapless Nigerians who will be made to buy petrol at higher prices, many ‘mad’ men and women; those who adore and those who hate, will approach presidential and gubernatorial podiums with the vociferous lunacy birthed exclusively by either anger or hunger!