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Wande Abimbola @91: How an àbíkú decided to live (2)

Published

2 years ago

January 12, 2024

Tunde Odesola

Truth and justice are badges of honour Ògún, the god of war and iron, proudly wore when he walked the earth. Unquestionably, truth and justice define the essence of Ògúnwándé. Right from childhood when he became the disciple of Ifa, Wande’s life is a script written and directed by the supernatural; it is a life lived in honour of truth and defence of justice.

When he was about six years old, his three-year-old sister had strayed into a room he warned her not to go into. “Fàránsèté, did I not tell you not to go into that room?” Wande thundered, spanking the toddler on her buttocks.

Their mother watched the unfolding scene in shocked silence and wondered where on earth Wande got the name Fàránsèté, for that wasn’t the name of her daughter. The mother was just returning home from a neighbouring farmstead after leaving Wande to take care of his sister in her absence.

Fàránsèté is the ultimate eulogy for a princess resplendent on a velvet throne. “From that day, she became known as Fàránsèté; no one called her by her first name again. I don’t know how I came about the name. I just opened my mouth to rebuke her and Fàránsèté came forth. I loved her so much but we lost her before she was 10; I can’t even remember her first name now,” Wande recalled with nostalgia.

Despite being an ambassador of the gods, Ògúnwándé was almost beheaded at 9, like a dog tied to a stake at the shrine of Ògún Lákáayé. That sunny afternoon, farmboy Wande, along with two of his age-mates, decided to go to the bush to fetch herbs for ringworm. As they were about to set out, Wande discovered his machete wasn’t sharp enough, and he decided to whet its blade on the big rock in the family compound.

He bent over the tool and sharpened it. One of his two playmates looked at Wande as he bent double, honing his machete against the rock. The friend saw the back of Wande’s neck. It was black, beautiful and slender. “Can my sharp machete cut Wande’s head off in one strike?” the age-mate thought.

FROM THE AUTHOR: Wande Abimbola @91: How An Ábíkú Decided To Live (1) [OPINION]

Wande was oblivious his envious friend preferred his tender neck to the stalks of ringworm leaves they were about to go and fetch, raising his machete high up and bringing it down in one maddening moment of murderous megalomania. “I writhed in agony. The compound looked like an abattoir at peak period; the whole farmstead turned upside down with people running helter-skelter. I was rushed to an old woman in the neighbouring farmstead because my father, the great Iroko, wasn’t at home.

“One thing I learnt from the incident is never to use hot ointment or hot cream on deep cuts. The old woman didn’t use hot ointment or hot cream. She mixed palm oil with the latex of wild rubber called wáwòn in Yoruba, and applied it on my wound. The blood had stopped. When asked why he tried to behead me, my friend said he only wanted to see if his machete was sharp enough to make my head thud and roll on the floor. If the old woman didn’t know about traditional medicine, I would’ve died. I was lucky.”

But Wande’s luck didn’t prevent him from being paralysed for six months as a result of the attack. He could neither walk nor stand up. After he relocated to the US in 1996, he did a scan on the neck and was told he was less than an inch away from being beheaded.

Contemplating what wisdom is, the third American President, Thomas Jefferson, penned these words in evergreen ink, “Wisdom is knowing what to do next. Skill is knowing how to do it. Virtue is doing it.”

Every second counts in dying minutes; rescue is meaningful only before the final breath. As last-gap rescue came Wande’s way before his coffin slammed shut, providence, similarly, used Wande to rescue a snake-bite victim in school years later.

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On the fateful day, death walked bare-chested on Wande’s primary school farm as a big snake bit a student, sending panic waves among staff and students. “He is dead!” “He’s been paralysed!” “He’s blind, deaf and dumb!” The rumour mill was awash with falsehood. Wande fled towards the scene of the bedlam on a rescue mission.

“I can heal him, I can heal him, I told the authorities. They knew the reputation of my father, so they made a way for me to reach the victim who was crying. I chanted some incantations and he fell asleep. I told them to leave him, and that he would wake up soon. When he did, the school roared in jubilation,” Ògúnwándé said.

A few years before Ògúnwándé openly exhibited his prowess in school, the Agric Science teacher had defied the warning by Ifa forbidding anyone to beat the young boy. Fellow students chorused: “Ha, it is forbidden to beat Wande!” “Nobody beats Wande!” “It’s a taboo!” But the teacher wouldn’t listen, on Monday, he beat Wande for not waiting back on the school farm on Friday. The explanation by Wande that he had to go to the family’s farmstead cut no ice with the teacher. The teacher wasn’t seen in school for three weeks after he developed a sudden illness the next day.

Asked what sickness afflicted the teacher, “Ń ò mò o; I don’t know,” Ògúnwándé said. Asked if the teacher knew where the sickness came from, Wande said, “I don’t think he knew. If he did, he probably would’ve gotten in touch with my family.”

Expressing his view about corporal punishment, Wande said beating doesn’t make children better. According to him, beating kills the sense of initiative in children, making them wallow in self-doubt. “It makes them fearful, unsure in making decisions, always seeking validation from a higher authority. In my case, I was daring, I felt everything was doable,” he said.

Commending the standard of primary school education in his time, Ògúnwándé said someone with a Standard Six Certificate rose to become Head of Service in the western region after returning from the Second World War.

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With a tinge of regret in his voice, Ògúnwándé, who is a Professor of African Languages and Literatures, explained that no people or culture anywhere in the world had as many literary stories as the Yoruba, saying Ifa is a literature with 256 ódù which means books, adding that each of the 256 books has 800 stories! “No other literature in the world has 15% of what Ifa has. Sadly, our people prefer foreign ways of life to our own culture which is far better,” Wande bemoaned.

Specifically, he condemned the meaning ascribed to Ibadan as an embarrassment to the Yoruba race, saying Ibadan was never a derivative of ‘Eba Odan,’ which connotes a city founded ‘by the roadside’. ‘Ibà’, according to him, is a place of rest.

Ògúnwándé said, “The South-West has two types of vegetation. One is the thick forest called ‘igbó’ in Yorubaland, where you have mighty trees that grow in large densities in the same area. The forest is heavily wooded. The other is ‘òdàn’, which is the type of vegetation that is cut between a forest and a grassland. That is, it has grassland and not too dense trees. This is the main type of vegetation you have in Ibadan to Oyo areas. ‘Ibà’ is a place where climbing tree stems form a massive shelter by matting themselves into a canopy using upright trees as support. The underneath of the canopy is ‘ibà’, where harmful and unharmful animals rest – as the case may be. This is where the name Iba-Odan emanated from, before morphing into Ibadan. An ibà can be bigger than a football field.”

Calling on stakeholders to rescue the Youba language and culture fast, Wande said many Yoruba proverbs had been bastardised. Particularly, he said it is wrong when people say, “Owo fun ni, ko to eyan,” to connote the meaning that giving out money isn’t as important as respecting an individual.

Ògúnwándé said ‘owo’, which is cowrie, in the context of the proverb, is white, adding that ‘funfun’ (white colour) in the proverb is shortened to ‘fun’ to take the form of ‘owo fun ni, ko to eyan’, meaning that ‘money is only white’, ‘it is not as important as a human being’.

To be continued.

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com

Facebook: @Tunde Odesola

X: @Tunde_Odesola

News

Xenophobic Attacks: Oshiomhole Tells FG To Retaliate Against South African Companies In Nigeria

Published

30 minutes ago

May 5, 2026

Editor

Senator Adams Oshiomhole has called on the Federal Government to retaliate against South African businesses operating in Nigeria following the recent attacks on Nigerians in South Africa.

Speaking during plenary on Tuesday, Oshiomhole said the Federal Government should consider revoking the working license of South African owned companies such as MTN and DSTV.

He argued that Nigeria must respond firmly to what he described as persistent hostility against its citizens.

“I am not going to shed tears. If you hit me, I hit you. I think it is appropriate in diplomacy. It is an economic struggle,” Oshiomhole said.

He argued that while some South Africans accuse Nigerians of taking their jobs, Nigerians should return home and take over employment opportunities created by major South African companies operating in the country, including MTN and DSTV.

“When we hit back, the President of South Africa will not only talk but will also go on his knees to recognise that Nigeria cannot be intimidated.

“We will not condone any life being lost. If a crime has been committed under the South African law they have the right to bring any such person to justice, but to kill our people as if we are helpless, we will not allow that,” Oshiomhole added.

DAILY POST reports that several Nigerians in South Africa have reportedly been attacked, and their businesses destroyed, in ongoing xenophobic attacks in the country.

News

IGP Orders Officers Display Name Tag On Uniform, Gives Update On State Police

Published

45 minutes ago

May 5, 2026

Editor

The Inspector General of Police, IGP, Tunji Disu, has ordered all police personnel to always have their name tags on their uniforms for easy identification.

Disu disclosed that only police personnel who are undercover are exempted from displaying their name tags.

Speaking on Tuesday, Disu said: “All police officers should have their name tags. All of us on the high table have our names apart from the undercover among us so if you look at all the Commissioners of Police we have our name tags, so it’s not our standard.

News

Court Orders SERAP To Pay DSS Operatives N100m For Defamation

Published

6 hours ago

May 5, 2026

Editor

The High Court of the Federal Capital Territory has ordered a non-governmental organization, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP, to pay N100 million as damaged to two operatives of the Department of the State Services, DSS, for unjustly defaming them in some publications.

The court also ordered SERAP to tender public apologies to the defamed officers,
Sarah John and Gabriel Ogundele, in two national newspapers, two television stations and its website.

Besides, the organization was also ordered to pay the two operatives N1 million as cost of litigation and 10 percent post-judgment interest annually on the judgment sum until it’s fully liquidated.

Justice Yusuf Halilu of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory gave the order on Tuesday while delivering judgment in a N5.5 billion defamation suit instituted against SERAP by the DSS operatives.

The judge found SERAP liable for unjustly defaming the two DSS operatives with allegations that they unlawfully invaded its Abuja office, harassed and intimidated its staff, in September 2024.

In the offending publication on its website and Twitter handle, SERAP alleged that the two operatives unlawfully invaded and occupied its office with sinister motives.

The judge held that the publication was in bad taste especially from an organization established to promote transparency and accountability, as nothing in the publication was found to be truthful.

The DSS staff had listed SERAP as 1st defendant in the suit marked CV/4547/2024. SERAP’s Deputy Director, Kolawole Oluwadare, was listed as the 2nd defendant.

In the suit, the claimants – Sarah John and Gabriel Ogundele – accused the two defendants of making false claims that they invaded SERAP’s Abuja office on September 9, 2024..

Counsel to the DSS, Oluwagbemileke Samuel Kehinde, had while adopting his final address in the mater urged the judge to grant all the reliefs sought by his client in the interest of justice.

He admitted that although the names of the two claimants were not mentioned in the defamation materials, they had however established substantial circumstances that they are the ones referred to in the published defamation article by SERAP on its website.

The counsel submitted that all ingredients of defamation have been clearly established and the offending publication referred to the two officials of the secret police.

However, SERAP, through its counsel, Victoria Bassey from Tayo Oyetibo, SAN, law firm, asked the court to dismiss the suit on the ground that the two claimants did not establish that they were the ones referred to in the alleged defamation materials.

She said that SERAP used “DSS officials” in the alleged offending publication, adding that the two claimants must establish that they are the ones referred to before their case can succeed.

Similar arguments were canvassed by Oluwatosin Adefioye who stood for the second defendant, adding that there was no dispute in the September 9, 2024 operation of DSS in SERAP’s office.

He said that since SERAP in the publication did not name any particular person, the claimants must plead special circumstances that they were the ones referred to as the DSS officials.

Besides, he said that there is no organization by name Department of State Services in law, hence, DSS cannot claim being defamed adding that the only entity known to law is National Security Agency.

The claimants had in the suit stated that the alleged false claim by SERAP has negatively impacted on their reputation.

The DSS also stated, in the statement of claim, that, in line with the agency’s practice of engaging with officials of non-governmental organisations operating in the FCT to establish a relationship with their new leadership, it directed the two officials – John and Ogunleye – to visit SERAP’s office and invite them for a familiarization meeting.

The claimants added that in carrying out the directive, John and Ogunleye paid a friendly visit to SERAP’s office at 18 Bamako Street, Wuse Zone 1, Abuja on September 9 and met with one Ruth, who upon being informed about the purpose of the visit, claimed that none of SERAP’s management staff was in the country and advised that a formal letter of invitation be written by the DSS.

John and Ogundele, who claimed that their interactions with Ruth were recorded, said before they immediately exited SERAP’s office, Ruth promised to inform her organisation’s management about the visit and volunteered a phone number – 08160537202.

They said it was surprising that, shortly after their visit, SERAP posted on its X (Twitter) handle – @SERAPNigeria – that officers of the DSS are presently unlawfully occupying its office.

The claimant added, “On the same day, the defendants also published a statement on SERAP’s website, which was widely reported by several media outfits, falsely alleging that some officers from the DSS, described as “a tall, large, dark-skinned woman” and “a slim, dark skinned man,” invaded their Abuja office and interrogated the staff of the first defendant (SERAP).

John and Ogundele stated that “due to the false statements published by the defendants, the DSS has been ridiculed and criticised by international agencies such as the Amnesty International and prominent members of the Nigerian society, such as Femi Falana (SAN)”.

“Due to the false statements published by the defendants, members of the public and the international community formed the opinion that the Federal Government is using the DSS to harass the defendants.”

They added that the defendants’ statements caused harm to their reputation because the staff and management of the DSS have formed the opinion that the claimants did not follow orders and carried out an unsanctioned operation and are therefore, incompetent and unprofessional.

The claimants therefore prayed the court for the following reliefs: “An order directing the defendants to tender an apology to the claimants via the first defendant’s (SERAP’s) website, X (twitter) handle, two national daily newspapers (Punch and Vanguard) and two national news television stations (Arise Television and Channels Television) for falsely accusing the claimants of unlawfully invading the first defendant’s office and interrogating the first defendant’s staff.

“An order directing the defendants to pay the claimants the sum of N5 billion as damages for the libellous statements published about the claimants.

“Interest on the sum of N5b at the rate of 10 percent per annum from the date of judgment until the judgment sum is realised or liquidated.

“An order directing the defendants to pay the claimants the sum of N50 million as costs of this action.”