By Ademola Ben Crownson Adegoke
Times and tides change. Seasons flicker and flutter, and the weather varies. The message in all this is the transience of everything in life. Nothing is permanent; except change itself.
A time there was when their word was law. Their reverence for their subjects was so high to the sky. They were addressed as the one who does no wrong, the real unquestionable; one second only to the gods.
But all that was in the past. Yes! They still bear the monicker, Royal majesty, their Highnesses or their eminence, but that is only in word. In deed, and in truth they have been stripped of their liegedom and are now subject to the authority of those who are supposed to be their subjects.
In those halcyon years of traditional rulership, who dare query a Kabiyesi or an Emir for insubordination? The natural response to such a sacrilegious or even iconoclastic act would have been to whom can His Majesty be subject?
A review of one or two Yoruba maxims will reveal the awesome reverence their monarchs were once held. When they say Oba ba lori ohun gbogbo, it simply means the King reigns on everyone and everything.
When they say Oba n pe o, o loo n dafa, tifa ba f’ore to ba o f’ore nko? The simple message is if the King sends for you and you say you should be allowed to consult the gods, have you realised that the god’s response may be favourable while the king thinks otherwise?
This simply means it makes better sense to go answer the king first before coming back to consult the gods. But I only speak of the nostalgic past. Today, times have changed. Today’s traditional ruler occupies his throne at the mercy of the one who wields political power.
The latter has become the de facto liege but it appears this fact is yet to sink into the consciousness of many of the once highly reverenced traditional rulers.
Since the advent of colonial powers, traditional rulership has been struggling to come to terms with the reality that the powers and authority with which their thrones were once associated now reside elsewhere. Failure to realise this has cost many their crowns and turbans. Way back in 1888, resistance to the new political power cost Jaja of Opobo his throne.
He was dethroned and outlandishly banished to the West Indies where he died. Oba Ovoramen Nogbaisi of Benin suffered the same fate. He was dethroned and banished to Calabar where he lived till his death.
Muhamadu Sanusi, grandfather of the newly re-installed Emir of Kano, was in 1963, served the same pill of dethronement by the then Premier of the Northern Region, Sir Ahmadu Bello. Before then, Sultan Muhamadu Tambari of Sokoto had been dethroned in 1931.
For being perceived as antagonistic to the Action Group (AG)-led government in the Western Region, the government dethroned Oba Lamidi Olayiwola Adeyemi 1 and the Olowo of Owo, Oba Olateru Olagbegi in 1955 and 1966 respectively.
And if you think many of the cases of dethronement listed here happened in the distant past, many others happened, not as long ago as the aforementioned periods. In 2005, the then Gov. Adamu Aliero dethroned Emir Mustapha Jokolo on grounds of insubordination.
Earlier in nearby Sokoto State in 1996, the military government of Sanni Abacha dethroned Shultan Ibrahim Dasuki after irreconcilable differences with the Government. In 1983, the then Gov. Bisi Onabanjo of Ogun State dethroned Oba Sikiru Adetona, the Awujale of Ijebu land. But it took the intervention of the Appeal Court in Ibadan, to reinstate him.
Some other traditional rulers, though not removed, they were left on the throne under serious conditions of persecution and deprivation. One such was the late Odemo of Isara, Oba Samuel Akinsaya.
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On account of political differences between him and Chief S.L Akintola, the Premier of the Western Region, Oba Akinsaya had his salary reduced to half a penny per annum.
For daring to travel to Israel without permission in 1984, Ooni Okunade Sijuwade and the Emir of Kano, Ado Bayero were suspended for six months and their movements were restricted to within their Local Council Area.
The list can go on and on but one common thrend in many of the cases of dethronement is that they did not occur because the monarchs ran foul of any sacred tradition, beliefs or customs of their land. They were all largely politically motivated.
The question now is, who is the real Kabiyesi (the unquestionable one) between the traditional ruler and the political ruler? The answer speaks for itself.
The truth is that republicanism and monarchial rulership are not only antithetical, but they are like night and day that never have a rendezvous. This is so, especially in our winner-takes-all political system where political actors want to arrogate all powers to themselves; without sharing with anyone.
If anyone is still in doubt about the real custodian of power, a recent viral video of an encounter between Gov. Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State and a traditional ruler in the state, Olu of Itori, Oba Fatai Akamo will suffice to convince doubters about who truly wields power in all its configuration.
In the video, the Oba was seen squatting before the governor while discussing with him. While many were enraged by this scenario and saw it as a standing tradition on its head, it could be that the Olu of Itori is not ready to live in denial of where power truly resides.
The Oba may have borrowed himself some sense, to use the popular street lingo. After all, it is not sheer folly to live in Rome and strive with the Pope?
I watched with amusement as the newly re-installed Emir Lamido Sanusi recalled the circumstances leading to his dethronement in 2020. Sanusi said the then Gov. Ganduje queried him for insubordination. He wondered why someone not superior to him could query him for insubordination.
With due respect to Emir Sanusi, even as he regains his once-lost throne, if he still carries on with this mindset of being superior to the governor, he may soon run into trouble so soon again. For any traditional ruler of today’s Nigeria to think that the governor is not superior to him is to continue to live in wish-land.
If the governor is not superior to the traditional ruler, why is it that the latter can query the former and not the other way around? Need we belabour the point that queries can only be issued from the superior to the subordinate?
Emir Sanusi will do himself a world of good if he lives, not with the air of superiority over the governor, but with the consciousness that those who brought him back to the throne did not do so because they like him so much.
They did so, as a means of settling political scores with political rivals in Kano State. Let those who like Sanusi please drum it loud into his ears that the politicians in Kano and other places have found in traditional rulership a pliable tool to use, to even settle scores with rivals and to attain their political goal.
They have found in the traditional rulers, easy pawns that can be tossed around on their chessboard as it catches their fancy. If Sanusi fails to realise this, the musical chair of dethronement in Kano has just begun.
Adegoke is a Lagos-based Media Consultant and Public Affairs Analyst.
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