* ‘I have forgiven Gbenga Daniel’
The Alake of Egbaland, Oba Aremu Gbadebo, shares with TUNDE AJAJA and DAUD OLATUNJI, his experience on the throne, memories of being a soldier and the demands of his position
After 14 years as the Alake of Egba land, what has your experience been like?
After 14 years on the throne of the Alake of Egbaland, I have nothing but gratitude to God for the tremendous support I have received from the Egba people at home and abroad. I didn’t know they love their king the way they have shown to me; they made my job a lot easier. Whether I’m at home or in Lagos or Ibadan, you see the Egba people coming around, unless they didn’t know that I would be coming. London, New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago in Illinois, it’s the same experience. You see them inviting me all the time and even paying for tickets for me to come and share their joy with them at their various ceremonies. So, it’s been 14 years of joy, happiness, togetherness, love, affection and unity among the Egba people, for which I cannot but glorify God.
As a grandson of a former Alake, what was it like growing up like a prince?
It was like any other child in the neighbourhood. We lived directly opposite the Ake palace, so most of the time I was in the palace or at the forecourt playing football. Like every prince, we were all called Obalola (future king), nobody knowing who among us would be king someday. So, growing up didn’t confer on me any special rights or status. I was just like any other kid through my primary and secondary schools and in the university. I didn’t bother to tell anybody who I was. When I joined the military, I didn’t tell anyone. Even my General Officer Commanding, General (Haladu) Ananias, didn’t know until one day that he came to confront me. After having appointed me as the President of the Men’s Committee, he came to me and said ‘you didn’t say you are a prince of Abeokuta’ and I told him that if I had said so it wouldn’t have made any difference.
But princes used to be pampered. Did your parents, especially your mum, pamper you?
No, princes have to go through what others go through as well. In most civilised parts of the world, if you pamper them they may not be well educated and they may not become good leaders. So, we had to go through what everyone else went through.
When you joined the military, what motivated that move?
I joined the military because it was one of the noblest of all professions. If a man is armed by the country and still subjects himself to orders by politicians and does not get swollen-headed and whatever he does for his country, then you must respect the person. The amount of training that is given to soldiers to make them respect civil authorities and make them good leaders of their own men and to make their men believe in them is enormous. It can only be experienced by those who have subjected themselves to military training and a career in the profession.
When you, being a prince with hope of being a king someday, were to join the military, were there oppositions?
Even if you are not a prince, anybody who joined the army must be determined to join. If you have to take a census of those who want you to go ahead, those who didn’t want you to, or having to go through your family, you will never join. So, I already made up my mind. I had already graduated and I was not a minor.
You worked with the late Gen Tunde Idiagbon as his Principal Staff Officer, and he was a man respected for his discipline. What are your fond memories with him?
When I worked with him, the emphasis then was how to take Nigeria to the greater level, and our time was spent on this. No effort was spared in promoting the greatness of Nigeria and we didn’t think of ourselves or the benefits that would come to us. No. Everything was to take Nigeria to the next level. Unfortunately, he didn’t last more than 20 months. If it had been longer, God knows that we would have been far away from where we are today. But I still believe that we would get there by the grace of God. He shared the same birthday with me and his death pained me to no small extent. May his soul rest in peace.
You were all retired.
Yes, we were retired, likewise Gen Muhammadu Buhari, Gen (Mohammed) Magoro and a host of others. I was number 14 on that list and so it was not out of my choice. It was felt that I might not be loyal to the incoming administration. So, naturally they had to ease me out.
Was that a dark moment for you or you took it with equanimity?
I believe that the number of days and years that God has destined you to be anywhere, whether in life or on a particular job, would always be.
Did you have any chance to work the then General Buhari (now the incumbent President)?
He was the overall boss and anybody working with Gen Idiagbon was also working for Gen Buhari. We were in the same headquarters. And I had different encounters with him; I sent files to his office at night and I got them the next morning, fully signed and commented upon in detail. He would express his opinion on every item there. By the next morning, those files were back.
At the time you were disengaged, what was your next plan of action before the position of the Alake became vacant?
When we were disengaged, I left it all to God. We are nothing without the direction that God provides. There were 20 years between when I left the army and when I became the Alake and I was not looking forward to becoming the Alake. The stool is for direct male descendants but in the absence of that, the male descendant of a female. So, nobody could say he was waiting to become an Oba. That would be somebody who is very idle and somebody who is idle would end up as a nonentity. And one of the things I detest most is somebody being idle. You can’t be waiting for a seat that is not vacant and even when it’s declared vacant, who says it is you that would occupy it? And the Bible says anyone that has not worked does not deserve to eat.
Egba people used to be under the Oyo Empire. Could you tell us how the Egba came about?
The Egba and Oyo were children of Oduduwa. In the past, the Egba used to be under the hegemony of the Alaafin of Oyo. We were paying tribute to the Alaafin, until about the last quarter of the 18th century when Lisabi liberated the Egba from the shackles of the Alaafin and we became independent. And we have that in all our songs today. When we moved in 1830 to found the capital, Abeokuta, which was not in existence before then, we were 143 townships spread through Egba forest. We all came together, retaining most of our homesteads, especially those that were closer to Abeokuta. That was how the British met us with an already well-established administration; the judiciary, legislature and the executive. The executive were mainly the Ologuns, the judiciary were mainly the Olugbonis, the Parakoyis handled the commercial aspect and the Olodes handled internal security and so on. They met us very well established, and they were surprised that we had societies that they could not teach any new thing because they came on a civilisation mission and they found that these were not barbaric people.
Abeokuta has four kings, has it always been like that?
You have to go back to when the last one joined. The last of them was the Osile of Oke Ona. We have had the Alake since moving into Abeokuta. We have had the Olowu since moving into Abeokuta and we have had the Agura of Gbagura in that order, and so the Osile came last. And it was part of the federation. We have maintained the federation and that is what we have till today.
It’s rare, especially in Yoruba land, for a town to have more than one king, but here in Abeokuta, there are four. How did that happen?
You can’t say it is hard; there are 11 Obas in Sagamu. And they maintain unity under the Akarigbo (of Remo land) and that is the kind of thing we have in Egba land. We all have our respective areas of influence. Our people intermarry and there is hardly any difference between us. We share the same cognomen and same history; we have warriors from all the four parts of Egba land, who took part in ensuring that no war came here since 1830 because they dealt with anyone that tried to come and dismantle what they built in 1830.
What challenges did you face in your early days as a king?
There are always challenges, even in the three months I spent in Ipebi from August 24, 2005 till November 19, 2005. There were challenges but one thing was certain that from the moment I went into the conclave at Itoku, I had become the Alake and so we cannot have two captains in a ship. Somebody had to be in charge.
Were there some of the trainings you got as a soldier that helped you till today?
Every bit of my life in the military has been very helpful. There is no organisation that paid greater attention to leadership training than the military. It tells you to think of others before yourself. It tells you that a chain is as strong as its weakest link. It means that whoever is not up to the rest of the team, you have to pull him up, otherwise he will drag other people down. That is why from the first day as the Alake, I have promoted everything that will make my people to be buoyant. Egba Poverty Alleviation Programme has been my watchword to ensure that we do things that would lift our people up.
In the military, you were trained to take and give orders and people say once a soldier is forever a soldier, but now you have to manage people. How has that transition been?
In the military, we manage men and materials, and as Alake you will manage men and materials. So, both require a certain level of leadership training. You cannot succeed in either of the two if you don’t have the training as to know how to handle those who are directly below you. Even in the oaths that chiefs take when they become Egba chiefs; they swear that the chiefs that are senior to them will be respected and they will be very cordial to those that are their juniors. So, you cannot think only of yourself; you are part of a team. You must comport yourself in such a way that nobody isolates you and you don’t think that you’re better than those people when you’re playing your role in that team.
Since you left the military the way you didn’t plan to, are there times you miss being a soldier?
Even if I planned to leave the military at the time I left, I would still have missed the career I pursued for 16 years. And the assurance we got all the time from our Chief of Army Staff, Gen. T. Y Danjuma, was that we should not bother about our life after the military because our pension would be sufficient to maintain our standard of living and our lifestyle and that we didn’t even need to register any company. The assurance was there that we should work hard in the military and that when we leave, the military would take care of us and that we would not be in need. I still enjoy my pension till today, but I will say inflation has gone haywire to the extent that to survive on pension will be virtually impossible.
Back then, when you left the military, was the pension sufficient like Gen Danjuma promised?
No, it could not. At any time it could not. Certainly not, but those who have no pension at all are the ones who appreciate pension most. That something is coming at the end of the month means you can identify certain areas you would just spend the money on and it has never failed for 34 years since I left the military.
People canvas that we should have constitutional roles for Obas, would you say your hands are filled already or there should be constitutional roles for traditional rulers?
Maybe we should ask the British that if they had constitutional role for the monarch in their country, why did they leave this country totally in the hands of politicians? They (British) are the ones who have left the ruling class where they have found themselves today. Our own military, after all the assurances of creating a role for the traditional rulers in the constitution, still did not do so by the time they left. Not just once; also in 1999. But, what about those who ruled this country for almost 100 years, I mean the British. If they have the constitutional role in their country that created some measure of stability, why have they left us totally in the hands of politicians? The traditional rulers who are the closest to their people and whom the people run to for every small thing have no role officially except whatever the government gives them, and it depends on who is in power. Fortunately, we have had some well brought up governors who have incorporated the traditional rulers in their governance. The President today has been trying to incorporate the traditional rulers into the security of this nation and I pray that he succeeds.
At the time you joined the race to be king, why did you signify interest since it wasn’t a must that every prince must contest?
First and foremost, you have to be interested in helping your people. You may not be a prince, but you may have the spirit of lifting your people up. And if you are a king, it becomes even more important for you to make a mark and what mark are you making except that during your tenure, people who are starving and are taking some pieces of meat from others to sell can now buy a whole cow. You have to empower people through whatever means possible, especially as a prince. Every true prince must aspire to the throne left by their forefathers.
Were there signs when you were small that you would become king someday?
There were not visible signs; I will tell you that I had always held the then Alake, Oba Oladapo Idowu Ademola (II), who reigned from 1920 to 1962 in very high regard. He was the Alake when I was born in 1943. He was the Alake when I was 19 in 1962 and I had been to the palace a thousand and one times and I knew most of his children who were my elders. I always had tremendous respect for him and his office. So, if you say that must have influenced me, I would say yes.
Are there taboos for the seat of the Alake and for Egba people in general?
For the general taboos for the people, civilisation has eroded some of them. But there are taboos for the seat of the Alake. I don’t go to individual’s homes. I cannot visit an individual at home. Even my golf, our people said I should not play golf. They said the Oba should not be seen playing golf, but I told them that if I remain healthy I have to do exercise. The late Oba Oyebade Lipede used to move around the palace here every day from 4pm to 5pm just to exercise and sweat and he did that successfully. That was why he lived to be 90 years. So, I tell people here too that Oba Lipede stopped seeing people at 1pm in the afternoon that I too should stop seeing people at 1pm, so I can live to be 90. I actually tried to replicate the lives of the Obas that had ruled before me to reach out to my people everywhere and to make sure that as the oracles have foretold that the 10th Alake will bring changes to Egbaland, that everything would change during his time; that there would be progress and Abeokuta would expand a thousand folds and that is already happening, and I thank God that is happening.
By protocol, kings are under the local government, how do you feel about that?
To put an Oba under the local government when the local government chairman requires the blessing of the Oba to become the local government chairman is not right. In the past, they used to consult Obas; they used to bring minutes of their meetings. Later they removed this. It is not right that an Oba is placed under the whims and caprices of the local government chairman. It should be far above that.
It’s almost a norm for kings to be persuaded to have more than one wife but you have one till date, what influenced that?
I chose to have only one wife because I’m a product of polygamous home and while growing up, I swore to myself that my home will not be like the home where I grew up and I think I’m entitled to that.
There was a time that some kings were saying Obas should have the right to decide how they would be buried?
Yes, that is coming up now. Human rights are already entrenched in the constitution and Obas as human beings have the right to choose how they want to be buried. An act is coming out that will approve this at the Ogun State House of Assembly and that would put paid to the issue.
What are the things you used to enjoy doing, including dressing style, that you can no longer do?
I enjoy going out alone and dressing smartly. Now, my Agbada must touch the ground and I cannot move fast with it. Now, I must restrict my movement as to how and where I go to. Sometime ago, when I tried to inspect some sanitary wares at some shops in Abeokuta, I entered the first shop and a huge crowd came around and they blocked everywhere. They all wanted to see me. But the Alake should not be seen by people. People should even be arguing that whether he’s the one they are seeing or not. That means your outing must be restricted; it means your presence in markets and other places must also be restricted. That is why just buying sanitary wares, which I wanted to put in my personal house, became a problem. I had to look only at albums, which was not good enough. So, I missed all these. But now, I play golf, at least three days a week because I insisted. There are things that an Oba must insist on doing. The chiefs said no; that it was taboo but I told them I have to sweat. And that is the long and short of it.
There was a time information went round that a former governor of Ogun State, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, wanted to remove you from office. Have you forgiven him for all that happened at that time?
Yes, I have. In fact, we sat together at a church service before I came for this interview.
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