Posted by By Banji Ojewale on
Saturday, June 25, 2005, marks the first anniversary of the coronation of Oba Abdul-Razak Adenugba, Ebumawe of Ago-Iwoye, a quiet university town in Ogun State. In the cosmos of Yoruba monarchy, the day enjoys more than the statutory 24 hours assigned to our planetary period.
Saturday, June 25, 2005, marks the first anniversary of the coronation of Oba Abdul-Razak Adenugba, Ebumawe of Ago-Iwoye, a quiet university town in Ogun State. In the cosmos of Yoruba monarchy, the day enjoys more than the statutory 24 hours assigned to our planetary period.
Several 'lesser" days adumbrate the date through a lot of noisy pageantry. On the climactic day, all other activities recede to concede attention to the palace in one thunderous act of celebration. Still lesser festive days then follow to serve as the epilogue to an orgy of merriment.
This weekend, observers don't reckon that the traditional ruler of Ago-Iwoye would attempt a mood of feasting to mark his ascension to the throne. He no longer has a palace. Last week students of the Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU) allegedly razed the edifice that housed him, his family and what passed for a royal entourage.
Reports said the students, inconsolably aggrieved at the killing of their colleague presumably by operatives of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) in the area, had gone to protest to the Oba. According to one account, the OOU youths didn't get expected sympathetic response at the palace. The students claim that armed police guards fired at them, killing two.
In retaliation, the students called out more of their colleagues and burnt down the palace. Thereafter the town was thrown into a large ball of inferno that saw vehicles destroyed, reprisal attacks from indigenes on students hostels outside the OOU campus and students fleeing the town for refuge in neighbouring settlements.
The town's monarch appears fazed by all these events coming up just a week to an epochal anniversary. He recalls sighting the students as they approached the palace.
He recounts: 'But before I know what was happening, they just started throwing stones and burnt the palace. I escaped by whiskers (sic) without even knowing the cause of their grievance."
The students have dismissed his remarks. They say he is in league with OPC and ritualists to decimate their population. Others have reacted by insisting that it is unlikely for an Oba to deliberately turn his domain into a battlefield.
'Why would he antagonize students who have brought life and civilization into his otherwise backwater of a town? I doubt if Oba Adenugba would do it. There are miscreants at work here," a fleeing teacher in one of the schools in the town told Daily Independent.
With Ago-Iwoye deserted and his palace torched, the monarch appears officially homeless and shorn of the traditional paraphernalia of harem, subjects and hangers-on. As he picked up the pieces after two days of rage, Adenugba surfaced at the smouldering palace last weekend shortly before noon.
Surrounded by burnt whirls, razed buildings and corpses, Adenugba reportedly addressed a handful of his subjects. He sounded conciliatory as he urged that a stop be put to reprisal attacks. He repeated his denial of students' claim that there was a regime of ritual killing. The Oba then described the burnt palace as a sacrifice in what he called 'the peace-making process."
But Daily Independent learnt from fresh investigations that the students are making a case for the dethronement of Adenugba and the movement of the university from Ago-Iwoye. This is a hopeless expectation however, says a government aide in Ijebu Igbo, where OOU has a satellite centre.
There is a consensus that although this crisis has denied the Oba and the town of a big celebration that would have added some glamour to his reign, he may yet keep his throne. 'But the crown has been rocked, it will not be the same again," Kunle Ajayi, a lecturer told Daily Independent.