To a champion of cultural heritage, international cooperation.

To a champion of cultural heritage, international cooperation.

Ooni of Ife, Oba Sijuwade

Today I join millions of people in Nigeria and Africans in the Diaspora in celebrating the peaceful transition of Oba Okunade Sijuade, Olubuse II, a beloved king with whom I had shared many years of friendship and bonding. I spoke to Kabiyesi a month ago to tell him that I was finally starting my sabbatical leave and to discuss the plans we had made for the biography I would write of him, a book that will reflect the full range of his life as a prince and later, as a king. In his characteristic jovial manner, he in return reminded me that I still needed to tell him when I would take the traditional title he had in mind for me.

“Ahaa,” I responded. “That is true, Kabiyesi.” The title that befits me is the one given by the Ooni to the revered Professor Ade Ajayi in April 1983 – The Onikoyi of Ife.”

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“It is all yours, my Harvard Professor,” Kabiyesi responded.

Baba normally ended every exchange with a prayer – Ara e a le, Inu e a dun, Translated in English, it means “You will be strong (well). You will be happy.”

For me and for many others who knew him deeply, both his people in Ile-Ife and the Yoruba people around the world, his passing is an irreparable loss.

Kabiyesi was like a father to me, and his support contributed in no small measure to my scholarship and writings on Ile-Ife. At the public presentation of my book, The City of 201 Gods, in December 2013, I joyfully announced that it was my love of research into the Yoruba culture and Ile Ife in particular that brought us together. Our friendship became a long journey full of deep conversation and exchange of ideas. Baba highly valued the essential tool of the scholarly trade, honesty in research, because it results in a deep understanding of cultures and traditions. Given the troubled state of scholarship in Nigeria today, he believed it was essential to encourage and support scholars who still show interest in learning about our past, so that we can understand the present and predict our future. It was his understanding of these things that fostered the uncommon friendship between him, a revered king, and me, a scholar son.

In paying tribute to him through this medium, it is fitting that I relate briefly some aspects of my relationship with him and explore the bonding that occurred over the course of 20 years, before I go on to celebrate his accomplishments as the Ooni. In particular, our friendship allowed me access to material concerning the traditions and religious worldview of the Ife people that formed the basis for my book on Ile-Ife. There is so much to learn from him and how this friendship unfolded, particularly for younger scholars coming of age in modern Nigeria. Many of these young scholars are deeply interested in exploring the Yoruba (or Nigerian) value system, culture, and tradition in their local communities. They should realise that cultivating the friendship of knowledgeable, traditional rulers and local cultural historians such as Oba Sijuwade, will enrich their research with data that would otherwise be unavailable to them.

My journey began in 1995, when I decided to bring several years of research on Ile-Ife to a close by engaging the Ooni in a deep conversation about his ancestral lineage and the city.   To begin this conversation, he asked my former senior colleague, Chief Omotoso Eluyemi, to be present. And by mere coincidence, the late Oba Olashore of Iloko Ijesha was visiting the Ooni that very day.   Over a period of several weeks, we talked about his grandfather, The Ooni Olubuse 1, and also about his own role as an oba – as the custodian of traditions, including Islam and Christianity, and as the inheritor and protector of the exalted throne of Oduduwa (Aroole Oduduwa ), the primogenitor of the Yoruba people. As a Yoruba adage says, the Ooni is regarded as the last of the 201 or 401 deities in the Yoruba pantheon, and the views of this metaphorical god, which informed my many years of research, were essential to my project on the sacred city of Ile-Ife.

Prior to my work on Ile-Ife, I had written extensively about Yoruba religion and rituals, where I argued that Yoruba religious pluralism recognises not only the triple traditions of indigenous orisa tradition, Christianity, and Islam on equal terms, but also a fourth dimension pertaining to the ideology and rituals of the sacred kingship, which made this pluralism possible. The thesis that traditionally the oba was the custodian of all traditions (Oba oni gbogbo esin) explains and defines Yoruba’s society’s uniqueness in Nigerian religious spheres. Unfortunately, today this pluralism is threatened by radical Islam and evangelical Christianity. To put it in simple terms, the live-and-let-live attitude toward religion that sustained our ancestors and forebears and that for centuries made Yoruba society an enviable space is greatly threatened today. It is in the realm of the sacred kingship that the threat to communal unity is most deeply felt.

After weeks of contemplation on how best to approach the Kabiyesi in Enu-Owa Palace, I approached my former student and the then provost of the Anglican Cathedral, Venerable Adetunbi, to facilitate an introduction to the Ooni for me. I was then invited by Olori Yeleluwa Morisola Sijuade to the Ooni’s annual Christmas carol gathering in the palace, where Adetunbi publically introduced me to Kabiyesi during the church service, not only as his teacher, but as the son of a former Anglican Archdeacon of Ile-Ife. The Christmas carol gathering revealed to me that I had serious work to do, particularly on the noticeable tension between the new Christianity and the orisa traditional culture. Almost before the event was over, the Ooni beckoned to me to come to him, asking when our interview would take place.

“Any day, Kabiyesi,” I said, “I am ready.” So we fixed an interview date for the following week.

From that day on, I became Kabiyesi’s special guest, with status and privilege similar to those that William Bascom, who wrote a major work on Ifa divination in Ile Ife, enjoyed with the late Ooni Adesoji Aderemi in the 1930s. My 20 years of close relationship to the Ooni resulted in dividends that still amaze me. I do not know of any occasion when the Ooni turned my request to see him down, for which I will ever be grateful.

My tribute, then, will reflect on the many achievements that I consider significant in Kabiyesi’s reign. More than any Oba of my acquaintance, Ooni Sijuade took seriously the Yoruba cultural project, advancing the culture to every nook and cranny of the globe, particularly in places where the Yoruba tradition is already entrenched, including The Republic of Benin, Trinidad, Tobago, Brazil, Cuba, Jamaica, the U.S.A and Europe. He served as a critical agent and ambassador of goodwill promoting Yoruba and Nigerian culture overseas.