His Royal Majesty, Oba Stephen Babatunde Adegboyega Alabi, the Olosi of Osi-Ekiti in Ido/Osi Local Government Area of Ekiti State with a distinguished career cutting across Journalism, Law, Academics and Sports Administration, speaks to journalists on his one year on the throne and important national issues.
How has it been since you ascended the throne one year ago?
It has been quite an experience. God has been with us and manifested His abundant grace on us and the entire community. It has not been easy, but we have received help from all around which really assisted us to find our feet. I cannot thank God enough for what He has done for us.
We are surprised everyday by the sheer zeal of Osi-Ekiti people to reinvent the community. They have supported us with unquantifiable help in every respect. They come everyday to the Palace to offer assistance and advice. Our people in the diaspora are truly wonderful. They have supported us monetarily and in kind beyond our expectations.
My coronation was magnificent. We had just two weeks to do it. My people rose gallantly to the occasion, surpassing the budget by about eight million naira. Osi-Ekiti people are just amazing. I cannot ask for a worthier people to lead. The Ekiti can do spirit is very much evident in my people.
Can you talk about the history of your kingdom?
Osi-Ekiti kingdom is a very ancient one. In fact, I’m the 30th Olosi in an unbroken chain from our founder, Ogunmegbokanle, who brought us to our present site. We have sojourned in three places from our departure from Ife, our ancestral home, around 1242 AD. Olukoronfo led us out of Ife and settled at a location near Ife called Osi Sooko, the reason why we have the cognomen, Omo ameruko ude b’Oodua sagbe ale (that is, he who shared boundary with Oduduwa with a bronze hoe). We then moved through several locations and later settled at a place around Ogotun-Ekiti before settling at Osi Emimu with Ogunmegbokanle as the leader.
Our present site is Osi Asise which Ogunmegbokanle moved to from Osi Emimu. There is still an Osi settlement near Ogotun up till today. It is called Osondu and their leader comes to Osi to receive authority. The first Olosi was a direct son of Obalufon, Oduduwa’s successor on the throne of Ife.
The Olosi is a first-class stool right from time immemorial and remains so, both traditionally and officially. He shares the same rank and honour with other first-class monarchs in Ekiti and Yoruba land.
Several wars ravaged Osi Emimu and Osi Asise but the people are very resilient and the kingdom stands tall till today. Osi is as traditional as Ife. We have two major festivals, Olua and Ereju.
The kingdom runs on a well-crafted traditional calendar that programmes every event in cyclic days of nine, nine days. I have 168 chiefs, which tells you how large the kingdom was before wars reduced it.
As much as we are traditional, we are also very spiritual. We have all the Orthodox Churches and Islam well entrenched. We have produced great faith leaders, including the late Bishop Peter Adebiyi of the Lagos West Anglican Diocese.
Osi-Ekiti has blended into modernity and continues to grow in leaps and bounds.
We are strategically located on a major route between the south and the north in Ido/Osi Local Government Area. We share boundaries with at least seven other communities, Ido, Ijero, Iropora, Araromi, Igbole, Ilogbo, Epe and Esure. My people are very hardworking and accommodating. We welcome strangers with love and affection.
You mentioned sharing boundary with Ido but we hear Ido/Osi every time?
Yes, we are good neighbours but Osi and Ido are two distinct towns that were pulled together in the colonial era to form Ido/Osi District Council which later became Ido/Osi Local Government. We share many things in common but we are not a single community. In fact, there is a community, Igbole, between us on the main highway, although we have boundaries to the north.
There are 11 other communities in the local government area. Interestingly, the Olosi and Olojudo are the only two first-class monarchs in Ido/Osi Local Government Area.
The current Olojudo is a very good man with whom I have a warm relationship. He helped me tremendously to settle in the throne. I also enjoy good relationship with other monarchs, not only in the local government area but also throughout the state.
How was the transition from being a journalist and lawyer to royal father with all its challenges?
Well, a journalist is trained to face challenges. And, as a lawyer and law lecturer, it is all about engaging people and issues in a proactive and serious manner. I think I was fairly well prepared for leadership over the years, having held various leadership positions in journalism, sports, public relations, law and social life. I have been chairman of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) and National President of the Sports Writers Association of Nigeria.
I have been GM of two professional football clubs and board member of the NFA, the precursor of NFF.
I had a fulfilling career in broadcast journalism in NTA before I and three others pioneered private media and publicity practice in the old Ondo State. But I tell you, all these only prepared me for leadership as it goes, not for the traditional aspects of the monarchy.
One of my first shocking experiences on the throne was adapting to the rigour of palace life with all its traditions and customs from a life time of simplicity.
People prostrating and kneeling for you and deferring to you like you are a god is still simply too much for me; what with my background in broadcasting where everyone was on first name terms?
I was used to dressing simply and mostly in English dresses. Now, I am obligated to dress formally in royal robes, many times with kakaaki blaring and the oloris chanting my oriki. It can exhaust a man used to my kind of lifestyle but I am coping; I have to cope.
What developments have taken place in your one year on the throne? Have you added any value to what you inherited?
I give glory to God for what He has done for us. And I am very grateful to my people who have made remarkable contributions to our efforts to improve on what we met.
The Palace is in fairly better shape than we met it. The Regent, Princess Aderonke Agunbiade Akin, did a fair rehabilitation of the current main building built during the reign of Olosi Aina Akinyede.
We have made it homelier and more functional. We have brought in more aesthetics and a new set of modern chairs and fittings.
The new Palace building, started under my predecessor, Olosi Oladiran Agunbiade III, has been redesigned and reshaped and its integrity strengthened. Work is going on at a steady pace on its completion, thanks to the people who keep showing tremendous commitment and the leadership of Osi Progressive Union who keeps giving visible delivery and transparent accountability.
We have completed preliminary work on a new and befitting entrance and a modern gallery in the Palace. Two families have donated parcels of land to build our community stadium through which we hope to ignite a sports revolution among our youth and attract big interest from professional clubs to take advantage of our clement weather and peaceful environment to train here regularly.
Our Community High School now has a befitting hall, courtesy of the performing BAO administration, which started and completed the gigantic hall within six months of our reign. We are very grateful to Governor Biodun Oyebanji, a man of action and great humility who gets things done with precision. Osi is supporting him for a well-deserved second term.
We have also felt the impact of the member representing our constituency in the House of Representatives, Honourable Akinlayo Kolawole, who rehabilitated some classrooms in one of our primary schools. We keep engaging top government functionaries and exploring old and new networks to help bring development here.
Our cherished son, Bishop Sunday Olayinka, is expanding the Mercy International Centre which hopefully will birth a higher medical institution very soon. One of our desires is to have a world-class ophthalmology centre in Osi. We hope the government will do this for us.
Osi is easily accessible from any part of the West and North Central. We are encouraging others to invest in the community. A number of our children are already responding. These are the little we have seen. God helping us, Osi will witness greater growth in a matter of years, Amen.
In Yorubaland, some issues are casting searchlight on the Obaship Institution, including the controversy created on the place of tradition and personal faith of obas in the wake of the controversial burial of the Awujale of Ijebuland and the renewed war of supremacy between the Ooni and Alaafin of Oyo, among others. What is your take on these?
Let me start from the so-called war for supremacy between the Ooni and Alaafin. There is really no need for any controversy whatsoever.
There was an Oyo Empire which collapsed a long time ago and which had its capital in Katunga and did not cover Ekiti, Ijesa, Egba, Ijebu, Ondo, etc.
Every Yoruba kingdom traces its history to Ife. No one traces its history to Oyo Empire. The Ooni has always been supreme. The Alaafin does not command the awe and respect that the Ooni commands from Yoruba monarchs.
Ife is not a kingdom. Ife is the Source.
So, there is no issue to the effusions of the new Alaafin. I would advise him to concentrate on enduring issues, rather than dwell on illusion.
The other issue, I have no doubt in my mind that it is not right to dictate your personal faith to a communal stool that goes way back to antiquity. And I also feel that it is not an issue that government can legislate upon. In law, there is volenti non fit injuria, which means, in the context of the present issue, that a prince who knowingly and voluntarily takes the throne cannot resile from the tradition attached to it.
As far as I know, the Yoruba have been a highly civilised people from time immemorial. The stools we occupy date back to antiquity. Any talk of cannibalism or repugnant practices in the burial of obas belongs to the imagination of their purveyors.
Every civilisation has its ways of burying its dead. The oba does not even die. He joins his ancestors. How can someone who does not die be buried? We must not demonise the Yoruba Monarchy.
Any prince who aspires to the throne and gets it, even those who do not become the oba, owe a sacred duty to preserve its precepts and traditions in full measure.
I am a Christian, a Catholic, I am a Knight of the Church. But my heritage is royalty. My faith teaches me that power comes from God and to give unto Ceasar what is Ceasar’s. I have been on the throne for a year. Nothing that has happened in the Palace has negatived my faith. In fact, the main duty of the oba is to pray for his people. That is what we do every day. I owe God who put me on the throne eternal worship and reverence and I owe the throne He has assigned to me protection and fidelity.
Do you agree with the opinion that traditional rulers should be given constitutional roles?
In one respect, yes. Ooni Adesoji Aderemi was Governor of the Western Region in the First Republic. That was a constitutional role, even though it was a ceremonial office.
The current political system does not admit of this unless we go back to the Parliamentary System, which, in my opinion, suits our country better than this winner-takes-all Presidential System. With the Presidential System or even the Parliamentary System, we can rejig the Local Government System to make it a town-based structure where funds for development can be disbursed through the towns directly, instead of the local council taking charge of everything and very little gets done.
In this way, traditional rulers can be given the constitutional role of managing development efforts in their kingdoms directly, while the local council takes responsibility for policy approval and supervision.
The traditional rulers become the ones who make up the local council, not elected officials, thus eliminating the incessant struggle for control of this level of government in every dispensation.
Where the local government area coincides with the territory of a single monarch, the senior chiefs will join him to form the local council. But where there is more than one monarch in a local government area, the first-class monarchs will rotate the chairmanship between themselves on four yearly basis with other monarchs as members. The bureaucracy remains as it was in the colonial times to advise the Council and implement daily administrative duties.
You are a well-known sports administrator. Are you satisfied with the state of affairs in sports in Ekiti State, and Nigeria at large?
Who can be satisfied? Ekiti State can do better than what is happening. In fact, what I see is cosmetic, not from government but from the people who run the system. The governor is greatly committed to sports but there is a disconnect between his lofty commitment and delivery by the people on the ground.
Sports development cannot be done the way they are doing it and you get the desired results. I am not asking for change of personnel so that I would not be accused of witch-hunting people. I will only ask that they consult so that they can deliver better.
At the national level, results come in trickles, hardly matching investments. But results do come. The major problem is that sports have become too political, with many people chasing money rather than performance and glory. If they prioritise discovery and development of talents over chasing money, Nigeria will reap more bountifully from sports.
