An ancient Yoruba anecdote narrates the destructive nature of the tongue. Its moral is specifically targeted at leaders who take unconscionable decisions as dictated by their fleeting passion. It is the tragic life and reign of King Odarawu. Odarawu was an Alaafin in the old Oyo Empire. His brief reign in the late seventeenth century, after he succeeded his father, Aláàfin Ajagbo, made him the first Alaafin to be rejected by the Oyomesi, Oyo Empire’s council of state. Odarawu was a prisoner of his tongue and fiery temper. These led to the brevity of his rule. His vile anger and the calamity it wrought became almost a totem which the Empire deployed to teach lessons of leadership; that leaders must exhibit precis in tongues and tame impassioned words.
The Reverend Samuel Johnson told the Odarawu story in his authoritative Yoruba nation biography, The history of the Yorubas, (p 169). As was the custom, at his installation, Odarawu was asked to name his enemy. Without mincing words, the Prince named Ojo Segi, a town in the kingdom. On what provoked the enmity, Odarawu went down memory lane. Years back, the Prince had gone to buy corn meal (eko) for dinner. Unbeknown to him, the woman who sold the eko was the Baale’s wife. The price of a wrap of eko was then a cowry and Odarawu bought six. He however paid five cowries, according to the privilege of his birth. The Baale’s wife, feeling insulted and not aware of his princely status, decked Odarawu’s face with a dirty slap. She then repeatedly shouted “thief!” at him for trying to withhold a cowry off her legitimate earning. As he was being installed Alaafin, Odarawu asked the council for one favour: the destruction of Ojo Segi. Though the Oyomesi acceded to his request and brought the town to ruins, the council agreed to do away with Odarawu. In their estimation, the new king was a heartless tyrant. If, out of malice against a single woman, he could have macabre pleasure in the destruction of a hapless people, he was not worthy of the kingdom. Oyo people thereafter rejected Odarawu and, in frustration, he committed suicide.
In today’s Nigeria, one character who personifies Aláàfin Odarawu is the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, Nyesom Wike. Last week, at a temper session in Abuja he called Ministerial Briefing, in fit-like burst of anger, like King Odarawu, Wike named his enemies. They ranged from Siminilayi Fubara, Bayelsa State governor, Duoye Diri, and the like. Wike’s persona needs critical dissection by psychologists, political scientists and psychoanalysts. Since he left office as Rivers State governor, Wike has been the butt of jokes for his reversibility and torrid anger. Even President Bola Tinubu, last year, acknowledged his “mercurial” disposition. Aside his fitful anger, Wike possesses this weird knack for reversing himself at the drop of a hat. His impassioned statements and emotions get reversed the way an old Bedford lorry needlessly backtracks. Wike speaks in the superlatives. From his absolutist comments on persons in the past, he suffers reverses that show him as little-minded. Peter Odili, Rotimi Amaechi, Diri, Fubara, the PDP, APC and even Bola Tinubu, can point to carcasses of Wike’s reversibility.
Ancient wisdom teaches that, at critical moments, leaders need to exhibit self-restraint and forbearance. Wike suffers anaemic deficiency of those virtues. He is grossly mouth-loose and his temper is his most destructive possession. The mouth, as harmless as it may seem, is a tinder, a combustible weapon. Yoruba compare the incandescence of the tongue to an alligator pepper (ataare) which they say burns even its own outer seed covering (ataare o gbona t’ohun t’epo). Wise leaders use it sparingly. The moment the mouth is set a-loose, its destructive effect is unimaginable. In the Ifa corpus, Èṣù Odára, being the most gluttonous of the Irúnmolè, (deities) reputed with the task of ferrying human appeasements from earth to heaven, is most times depicted with the vice of a lose mouth.
Before or about the time of the Latin discovery of the maxims of equity and justice, as profoundly explored in the sayings, audi alteram partem (let the other side be heard) and nemo judex in causa sua, (no one should be a judge of their own case) the Yoruba had discovered justice as bedrock of their society. Just like in many societies of the world, the concept of justice in Yoruba indigenous jurisprudential thoughts is robust. Through a prescriptive exploration of proverbs, aphorisms, lore and mores, Yoruba’s thoughts on justice guide rulers and society on the path of virtue, peace and progress. In his “Awon Oju Odu Mereerindinlogun” (The 16 Divination Poems: 2014) an exploration of the Ifa corpus, Professor Wande Abimbola cited one of the Ifa verses which says, “a one-sided judgment arrived at on the basis of a party’s evidence is inhuman and wicked; why did you judge without recourse to the other party?” ([A]nikandajo, o o seun; Anikandajo, o o seeyan; Nigba ti o o gbo t’enu enikeji, emi l’o dajo se?).
To the Yoruba, the unjust ruler is wickedness personified. He works against the principle of justice which demands impartiality, thereby inflicting gross wickedness on the people. Also implicit in this is that, the one judging in a matter should not be a party to the dispute.
Last week, the Rivers State imbroglio took another dimension. At a meeting he held at State House, Abuja with representatives and leaders of the Niger Delta, under the umbrella of the Pan-Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), President Tinubu went on a self voyage. Not only did he name himself Nostradamus for seeing tomorrow of Rivers politics, he conferred ancient African elders’ foresight on himself, which, I will argue presently, is misplaced. The president took his guests on a sanctimonious sermon of strict adherence to the rule of law and admonished that judiciary was crucial to harmony. He then urged Fubara to “stoop to conquer.”
In December, 2023, President Tinubu held a similar conclave session of sanctimony with Fubara and Rivers stakeholders. While the world wondered what transpired at the meeting, former Rivers State Commissioner, Chief David Briggs, lifted the veil. According to him, Tinubu had boasted, “I’m the leader of the APC in Nigeria. And you are telling me when babies are born into my family, I should ask them to go!” Tinubu thereafter dictatorially got the parties, including Fubara, to sign a pre-written agreement, literally holding the holster of a corked Barreta pistol to Fubara’s head. In the words of Briggs, “He (Tinubu) emphasized the fact that he is the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and anybody who tends to say no to what he is saying, it has consequences.”
What many don’t know is that Tinubu is an arch-monarchist who pulls a blanket on his pre-modernist persuasions. This he does by mouthing democratic rhetoric. In June, 2024, at the commissioning of the Goodluck Ebele Jonathan Expressway in Abuja, a hyper-elated Tinubu described the appointment of Wike as one of the best he ever made. To me, this is a poor reading of persona by the president. Yoruba will condemn anyone as lacking ability of thorough examination if they rejoice at a ripening plantain/banana rather than being sad that it is beginning the process of rotting (Ògèdè nbàjé è l’o npon). Among my people, if you own the whole world but lack character, what they call Iwa, you have nothing. Ask a professor friend of mine to describe a man of tremendous achievements and brilliance who lacks character, he would say, “he is this, he is that. Full Stop!” He meant the person had nothing.
A few days after the PANDEF meeting with Tinubu, Nyesom Wike held the Ministerial Press briefing. As usual, his choleric persona was on display. Whenever he flies into a fit, you would think Wike would burst an artery the next minute. At the meeting, Wike’s venom sprinkled everywhere. The Ijaw got theirs. PDP got its and everyone but Wike was a fool.
On threats that Ijaw would blow up pipelines if Fubara was impeached, Wike’s loose temper found no anchor. “Who told you Ikwerre people cannot blow up pipeline? Who told you Ekpeye people cannot blow up pipelines?… Let the whole country be blown up!” And when asked what happens if Fubara is impeached, he bellowed in that infamous guttural of his, “Rubbish. Nonsense. Who is he? Nonsense!”
In the Rivers imbroglio, Wike clearly nurtures a Samson complex. It is also called nihilism, the type Adolf Hitler harbored. It was what Bob Marley insinuated when, in his ‘Real Situation’ track, he sang, “total destruction, only solution.” It is what the Yoruba descriptively call the “Atare o gbóná t’ohun t’epo” mentality (rather than the rat suffering the denial of eating from the farmer’s field of cowpea seeds, let the cowpea farm be scattered so that, neither the rat, nor the farmer has the peas). Since his bile went riot at the temerity of his godson, Fubara, to possess a mind of his own, Wike has trodden this “Atare o gbóná t’ohun t’epo” route. He doesn’t care if Rivers people die of hunger.
At Tinubu’s meeting with PANDEF, when the president said he was a friend of the rule of law, he got cacophonous guffaws across Nigeria. Really? See who is talking about the rule of law! Tinubu’s recent and past political history disown this self chest-thump. For 25 years, Tinubu has sustained his iron grips on Lagos State with a combination of cultic abidance, deadly hold and rule of brunt, all garnished with heavy dole-outs of cash to buy loyalty. At best, as I said earlier, Tinubu is a staunch monarchist, a student of the Bashorun Gaa school of power. This was aptly demonstrated in his successive enthronement of governors since he left office in 2007. While the world sees democracy and continuity, underneath the surface is dirty grime. While Akinwumi Ambode got a premature rout from office for querying the godfather’s pokenose into Lagos till, Raji Fashola escaped by the whiskers. Today, Jide Sanwo-Olu is on the cross for being a man of his own and daring to flex a power muscle which only the godfather has a patent to. Why should he remove a haughty, self-conceited Mudashiru Obasa without the godfather’s say-so? Nigerians recently saw the true colour of the president’s bedfellow dalliance with the rule of law in the gangsteric takeover of the Lagos House of Assembly which he unpretentiously sponsored. Same last week, the president exhibited his conquest of this “rule of law” when he hoisted Obasa and the entire House on the cross of Aso Rock. What a victory of the rule of law!
Last week, Nigerians also saw another victory of Tinubu’s rule of law. This time around, it was in the courts. Peter Odili, the ‘enemy’ of Wike, had his judicial envelope from prosecution removed by the Supreme Court. This was coming after 18 years, and coincidentally, at a time when the former governor had become vociferous in denunciation of Wike. Same last week, the insttallation of Sanusi Lamido Sanusi as Emir of Kano was removed by the Appeal Court. The world is aware that Tinubu and his APC surrogates had quartered Aminu Ado Bayero, the dethroned monarch, as alternate Emir in an ancient mini-palace in Nassarawa. Sanusi must be taught the lesson of his life for being friend to Nasir El-Rufai who is threatening the president’s lifetime ambition and family inheritance. Rule of law however prevailed last week and the court took judicial notice of the president’s heartfelt political yearnings. May Allah be praised.
A godfather of huge credentials, it will be expecting the impossible to imagine that Tinubu would not support a fellow godfather, his FCT minister, Nyesom Wike. Though Tinubu advertises boldness, it is apparent that he cannot stand the gruff and incandescent temper of Nyesom Wike. It will seem that he does not have the balls, too to peer torchlight into the dilating eyes of this leopard, the animal which inflicts lethal marks on any animal in the jungle (Ògìdán olólà ijù). I remember that immediately after Chief David Briggs lifted the veil on the meeting with Tinubu in 2023, I said, if Tinubu had acted like a statesman and not an APC leader and godfather, Rivers State would not be the smoking cauldron that it is today. I asked if Tinubu had ever called Wike to his office to tell him the simple truth. I doubt. The truth is, Wike’s totalitarian approach to power and his violent disposition can only flourish with a godfather of similar captive persuasion as Tinubu. The day Wike is told by a superior force like the president that no one can hold on to power ad-infinitum and single-handedly hold the polity to ransom like this, is the day the good people of Rivers would be rid of their Wike-inflicted conundrum.
Tinubu’s self-imposed deafness to the warnings of history in how he fiddles with fire in abeting Wike reminds me of a similar equation in Nigeria’s First Republic. The Western Region turmoil began like a minor crisis as this. Like an unperturbed Balewa, Tinubu is not bothered that, manipulating judicial instrumentality, Rivers State is today literally frozen. A contumacious legislature, whose strings are being pulled by Wike, has adjourned the House sine die to prevent the presentation of the 2025 budget. The people could starve for all they and Wike care. As Tinubu is backing Wike, Balewa was Chief S. L. Akintola’s backer, too in a political chess game that was to later consume the duo.
While on a tour of Benin in June, 1964, still feigning ignorance of the crisis, Balewa was quoted to have said that he could not judge the intensity of lawlessness in the West on account of newspaper report of the brigandage. As he departed Nigeria in October 1965 for Accra to attend an OAU meeting, he was quoted to have said that report of violence in the region was contrived. At the Ikeja Airport, he was asked by journalists what he was going to do about the fire raging in Western Nigeria. He tucked his bother inside his flowing babanriga, looked round and cynically declared; “Ikeja is part of the West and I cannot see any fire burning.” Like Balewa, today, all Tinubu sees are the magnificent edifices Wike builds in Abuja and the arresting asphalt he paints Abuja roads with. He cannot see that Rivers is burning and hurting.
As ancient wisdom says it is the beginning of a crisis that is known, nobody knows its end, that fire consumed Balewa on January 15, 1966. It eventually became a disease that would ultimately kill its sufferer which is always pampered. The fire that burnt Balewa and Nigeria arose from the shield he gave Akintola which Tinubu is today recreating. During this period, Balewa provoked an editorial comment in the Nigerian Tribune to wit that: “Whether Abubakar (Balewa) intervenes or not, (we are) convinced that this is a war the people are bound to win.” On the morning of January 15, 1966, the silently burning fire Balewa ignored became a national conflagration. The first military coup in Nigeria effectively ended the lives of Balewa, Akintola and others. Unfortunately, the people didn’t win. Nigeria went into captivity of jackboots politics for decades after. Can anyone whisper to Tinubu that this Rivers State Balewa route he is travelling can only lead to destruction?
This piece was first published by The Cable, March 16, 2025
