By Suyi Ayodele

Omo N’Oba N’Edo Uku Akpolokpolo, Oba Ehengbuda reigned as Benin monarch between 1578 and 1606. Benin throne, as we all know, is purely patriarchal and primogeniture; a system of royal succession that passes the baton from the father to the first son. By practice, every Omo N’Oba is expected to have a son, the Crown Prince, who will succeed him after joining his ancestors.

The Benin crown prince, known as Edaiken, is always trained in royal virtues and carriage. He is the oba-in-waiting. Oba Ehengbuda was no exception to the Benin culture. He had a son named Odogbo. According to the legend, Odogbo, rather than being handsome like any male child, was beautiful like a girl. He was a damsel! The prince was said to have had all the attributes of a girl such that the people then believed that their king was trying to deceive them by presenting a female child as the crown prince.

The people were worried, and their worries were not misplaced. Immediately Oba Ehengbuda, through the traditional means, announced to the people that he had a son, their future king, all rights due for such an announcement were performed. So, it was a great embarrassment for the people to discover their future king was a woman. Benin would not have such!

While the trepidation was on about the sex of Prince Odogbo, the Omo N’Oba, Oba Ehengbuda insisted that his child was indeed a male irrespective of the feminine features he exhibited; and or, his beauty. There appeared to be a stalemate. The Omo N’Oba, as the throne was in ancient times, and even now, is the deity of the Benin people. Nobody questions him; nobody disputes his claims. But there must be a solution to the riddle of Odogbo’s gender.

One day, the people summoned up courage and confronted their Oba. The Benin asked Oba Ehengbuda to prove to them that their future king was a man and not a woman. The monarch knew that there would be a problem if he failed to accede to the demand of the people. Besides, he knew that he had nothing to hide because he had a son and not a woman in Odogbo. He asked his people what they wanted him to do to convince them that he had given them an Edaiken.

The response from the Benin to their oba was shocking. They told the Omo N’Oba that if indeed Odogbo was a man and not a woman, the oba should ask his child to walk naked from the palace to Uselu, the ancestral home where every Oba of Benin is first crowned Edaiken N’Uselu before moving to the palace as the Omo N’Oba. What an outrageous demand!

Oba Ehengbuda was equally shocked like his palace courtiers. But the monarch knew that once one is sure of the potency of one’s Ogun (god of iron and object of oath), using it to strike one’s forehead while taking an oath should not be a problem. He agreed to do what his people wanted. Oba Ehengbuda knew that he remained an Omo N’Oba only to the extent that he had a peaceful kingdom to preside over. He chose a date for the traditional ‘catwalk’ from the palace to Uselu.

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On the appointed date, the monarch asked his son and some of his agemates to be in their birthday suits. The order was obeyed. Then, the monarch asked the boys to file out of the inner recesses of the palace to the full glare of the public and embark on the walk to Uselu.

The Benin emptied to the streets. Many climbed trees, walls and other elevated platforms to see their future king and his sex. Odogbo led the train, displaying his genitals. Satisfied that indeed the heir apparent was a man, Prince Odogbo was proclaimed the Edaiken N’Uselu. And at the passing of Oba Ehengbuda in 1606, Odogbo was crowned the Omo N’Oba with the name Oba Ohuan.

To commemorate the historic event of the naked walk from the Oba’s Palace to Uselu, Oba Ehengbuda instituted the Benin Ifieto group and recorded the event by causing statues of three naked lads to be carved and kept in the palace.

In the New Year controversy between former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) over the status of the Port Harcourt and Warri Refineries, I think the ideal thing the NNPC should do is what Omo N’Oba Ehengbuda did centuries ago. That is ancient wisdom

If the Port Harcourt and the Warri refineries are working, the Corporation should just make the prince walk naked. We don’t need a private visit of Obasanjo on a guided tour of the refineries to prove that whatever the government had expended fixing the refineries is not another fraud.

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The Benin legend stated above settles the issue of public trust, accountability and truthfulness from those in authority. Known as Ifieto, the Benin people long established that when the subjects doubt the sex of the heir apparent, all the king needs to do is to strip the prince for his would-be subjects to see his genitals and be convinced about his sexuality.

President Obasanjo courts controversy the way a young man goes after a damsel. But the man is not necessarily controversial. Don’t mind the seeming contrast here. The problem with the retired General is the fact that, like a typical Owu man, he does not know how to keep quiet in the face of perfidy. The Yoruba say the Owu man may not fight you, but he will not keep quiet (Ará Òwu kii raánró, àwíi ménu kúrò ni t’Òwu). Besides, he is bold and pathologically confrontational.

The man called Ebora Owu, (the deity of Owu) started the new year with the refinery controversy. Speaking during an interview with Channels Television last Wednesday, Obasanjo hit the perennially non-performing NNPCL below the belt. The former president accused the NNPCL of misleading Nigerians about the operational status of the Port Harcourt and Warri Refineries.

According to him, contrary to the claims by the NNPCL that it had rehabilitated the said refineries and put them in good stead, the Corporation merely wasted public funds. He was logical in his presentation which he supported with the antecedents of the refineries. Here is how he put it:

“I was told not too long ago that since that time, more than two billion dollars have been squandered on the refineries, and they still will not work. If anyone tells you now that it is working, why are they still with Aliko? Aliko will not only make his refinery work but also make it deliver.”

Take it or leave it, if there is any Nigerian who is in a better position to talk about the refineries, it is Obasanjo. The old Owu man did not only establish the refineries during his stint as Head of State between 1976 and 1979, but he also came back 20 years later in 1999 to inherit a moribund refinery that did not undergo a single Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) in two decades.

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His first reaction when he became President in 1999 was to give out the refineries to the private sector to manage. During the interview, Obasanjo said that when approached to manage the refineries, the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) declined on the ground that corruption had ruined the refineries. The advice was that the structures should be sold off as scraps.

Again, Obasanjo listed another litany of woes that had been the lot of the refineries to include the $750 million offered by Aliko Dangote to manage both the Warri and Port Harcourt refineries which the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), as it was then known, rejected. Putting everything together, Obasanjo concluded that the NNPCL was merely playing to the gallery with its claims that the refineries were working.

The response from the NNPCL has confirmed the dearth of the communication strategy at the Corporation. The best the NNPCL felt it could do with the dismissal of its claims by Obasanjo was, according to the Corporation’s Chief Corporate Communications Officer, Olufemi Soneye, to “warmly invite President Obasanjo to tour the rehabilitated refineries.”

That response from the NNPCL is not just too base and terse, but it is most inappropriate. What Obasanjo said during the Channels Television interview is in the public domain. In the last 19 months, or even from the time of the immediate administration of General Muhammadu Buhari, Nigerians have been serenaded with the news of Port Harcourt Refinery coming on board.

At a time, the same NNPCL lined up dignitaries to commission the refinery and did photo ops with tankers laden with nothing! Days after the official commissioning of the refinery, not a single filling station in Port Harcourt and its environs had a drop of petrol from the refinery to sell. So, adding Warri refinery to the list of “rehabilitated” refineries by the NNPCL raises suspicion of not just President Obasanjo, but all Nigerians of good conscience. Nobody trusts this government which tells itself lies every minute and wants Nigerians to swallow those shallow lies

And, in case the NNPCL is confused about what to do to shut all the doubting Thomases like the Obasanjos of this world up over the functionality of its refineries, I leave the Corporation with the wisdom of the ancient Bini Ifieto legend as narrated above. Omo N’Oba Ehengbuda, demonstrated through the legend that matters of public doubt should not be legislated about but must be demonstrated by empirical evidence.

Refineries are established to perform one function: refining crude oil. All the NNPCL needs to do in this circumstance is to put the products of the two refineries in the filling stations across Nigeria for the citizens to buy. Nobody needs the turenchi of how highly the NNPCL holds Obasanjo. No! Nigerians need petrol at affordable prices, not the prevailing cut-throat price, and nothing more! When the people doubt the gender of the Crown Prince, the monarch should make him walk naked. Is that too much for the NNPCL to do?