Any ‘appropriate’ rites of passage for Yoruba kings?

On June 24, 2025, when I wrote the column: “Recommending Oba Erediauwa to President Tinubu”, this is the response I got from one of the Benin Palace functionaries:

“Making mention of the year Oba Erediauwa reigned on the throne of his forebears is okay but making mention of the year ancestors were born whether accurate or inaccurate is a taboo in Benin. It’s a red flag. Thanks for espousing the past Oba’s good deeds. Thank u sir for your insight.”

How the Benin people hold on to their tradition, especially the sanctity and invincibility of the Benin throne baffles me. In my Yorubaland, it is a different ball game.

The Awujale and Paramount Ruler of Ijebuland, Oba Sikiru Kayode Adetona Ogbagba II, died on Sunday, July 13, 2025. The Awujale died? That statement itself remains eternally sacrilegious! Awujale cannot die. Oba Sikiru Kayode Adetona Ogbagba II can die and be buried, but the Awujale remains till the end of humanity!

If not for ‘civilisation’ itself, Oba Sikiru Kayode Adetona Ogbagba II cannot die or cannot be said to have died. Obas don’t die in Yorubaland. They simply go to sleep, or change form (pa ipò dà), or their pillar (pole) simply shifts (òpó yè) or goes to the rafters (oba w’ájà). Unfortunately, we are in the era of ‘civilisation’. Virtually every headline which announced the transition of the foremost traditional ruler read: “Awujale of Ijebuland, Adetona, dies at 91.”

I felt sad reading the different accounts of the passing of the Awujale on the pages of newspapers and on the internet. We know that with the advancement of social media and the rest of them, it will be difficult to keep such news from the public domain.

The feat, however, I dare say here, is doable. Anyone who doubts this can avail us with how many traditional and social media reported the transition of the Omo N’Oba N’Edo Uku Akpolokpolo Erediauwa, Oba of Benin, in 2016. It was an incident discussed in hushed tones until all the traditional rites of passage were fulfilled and the Benin Traditional Council (BTC) ‘broke’ the news to the world.

Let me quickly make these two confessions. I am an unapologetic purist on matters of Yoruba tradition. I also subscribe, and very strongly too, to Yoruba cultural Renaissance.

I make no bones about these two attitudes. My calling as a Christian has no influence whatsoever on these two stances. Any confusion? Can I lay claim to Yoruba tradition and still profess Christianity? My answer is as written in the Holy Writ: Mark 12:17. Check it out.

Nature has been very kind to me. It allowed me to spend a good number of my formative years in the countryside. I witnessed a lot of events far above my age almost from my cradle. I was also inquisitive as a child. I asked questions and got answers to my enquiries.

Curiosity equally made me part of certain happenings as a child. I mean events that could have, if not for Providence, caused me irreparable damage. I survived the risks and learnt good lessons. I got severely reprimanded on some occasions, and appropriate propitiations had to be made to the offended quarters on several other instances. Though on the escarp of rascally tendencies, I was still within permissible limits. 

The gains of those years and events are the pride I have today to be able to differentiate between tradition and fatuity; between abomination (èèwò) and ‘civilisation’ (òlàjú). I also know, with recent developments in Yorubaland, that in not too long a future, the abominations we are piling up in the name of ‘modernity’ or ‘civilisation’ would lead to the extinction of our values as a race. That day is near when the traditional values that make us descendants of Oduduwa will be no more! This is not a curse.

There are two stories about two Yoruba obas that will probably go down with me to my grave. The two obas were or are appreciably close to me. One of them now belongs to the ages and the other still on the throne of his forebears. May the King’s horse graze long (kí eshin oba je oko pé), Àse! The two stories speak to the heart of the Yoruba kingship tradition, rites of ascension and passage, and the ethos and sanctity of the crown. Pity I dare not tell them openly here!

The headline above is a poser. I add yet another one to wit: Does tradition change? Before we answer this, can we ask: What is tradition all about? The simplest definition of tradition is that it is a concept embodying the customs, beliefs, ways and communal life of a people passed or transmitted from one generation to the other. This definition, a mixture of different definitions, presupposes that tradition is sacrosanct, inviolable, constant and one that comes with repercussions when observed in the breach. No doubt, this assertion can only make sense to my fellow ‘Ara-Ilu-Oke (people from the countryside).

Let us answer the question on whether tradition changes or not. The simple response from this end is that tradition doesn’t change. What changes is the people that practise or observe any given tradition. They change as time changes.

For instance, there is a tradition that is universal to humanity, the gender tradition. Irrespective of the place of birth, a child is either given birth to as a male or a female. Why is the issue of gender generating controversy now all over the world? Or why, for example, is the African continent resisting the LGBTQ+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Question+) concept?

The answer is here. The tradition of humanity is that human beings are created in the structuralist lens of binary opposition of plus (+) male and minus (-) female. Any departure from that tradition is an abnormality. While the times we are in have changed considerably, ‘civilisation’ crept in and ‘modernity’ has taken the lead in our outlook, the majority of human beings find the concept of LGBTQ+. repulsive.

This is why the today’s Yoruba modern kings and their promoters, who believe that we must mix and dilute our long-standing culture with the ‘civilisation’ of the West, ‘so as to remain relevant in the global village the world has become’, will never accept any of their children to be LGBTQ+.

Their ‘civilisation’ ends with the distortion and destruction of the African beliefs. Christianity is not an African thing. Islamic religion was a donation from the Middle East. We only embraced them and talked down on our African belief system. But when the West says a child born as a boy can decide to be a girl or combine both sexes, we shout “abomination!”

We can bury our obas in the Islamic way because the Kâbíyèsí lived and died a Muslim. A Yoruba oba can kneel before a pastor and his head anointed with oil during anointing service at a church programme because before becoming an oba, Kâbíyèsí was “a devout Christian.” We chorus ‘an oba has the right to practice any religion and be buried according to his religion’. That is ‘civilisation’; the world has changed, and we cannot live in the past, we posit in justification. Good and fine.

But the same world is also changing to accept LGBTQ+ concept. Why do we still frown at that? Why do we still hold on to the ‘old tradition’ of male and female genders? How many proponents of ‘the-world-has-moved-on’ can hold the hands of their daughters, walk down the aisle and hand her over to another girl as h(is)er wife? Before you shout èèmò (inconceivable), know that that is what Lesbianism is all about; it is the ‘civilisation’ that the world has moved into!’

As if announcing the transition of Oba Adetona on the pages of newspapers was not enough, in less than 24 hours after his departure, the oba was interred. That was strange, very much unlike Yoruba culture of obas’ rites of passage. What happens to the tradition of sitting the transited oba on his throne for some days as handed over to us by our forebears? I witnessed that with the Oba of my town and some other high chiefs in the community, including close relations who occupied esoteric titles! Maybe the Ijebu don’t have such a tradition.

Just as we were about to shout Káree Omo Kaaro oojirebi (what is this, children of Oduduwa), African Indigenous Religion (AIR) adherents, who showed up to perform the rites of passage for the transited oba were chased away by the security men deployed to prevent the ìsèse adherents from performing their rites!

The reason advanced for such a sacrilege is that Oba Adetona lived and died a Muslim and elected to be buried a Muslim in accordance with the extant laws of Ogun State which allows obas such liberty! Fine enough. But there are issues.

I have followed most of the arguments for and against what happened to the ìsèse people at the funeral of Awujale Adetona. The question I want an answer to is: at the coronation of Awujale Adetona from November 1959 to the final presentation of staff of office on January 14, 1960, did the transited monarch go through any ritual, rites and other indigenous initiation ceremonies? Kâbíyèsí Adetona Ogbagba II answered this question himself, 15 years before he departed.

Awujale Adetona wrote “Awujale: The autobiography of Alaiyeluwa Oba S. K. Adetona Ogbagba II” in 2010. The 275-page book was presented to the public on May 4, 2020. That was some 50 years and four months after Kâbíyèsí ascended the throne of Awujale of Ijebuland. The first chapter of the book is on the subhead: “The road to the coronation.”

From pages 2-24, Oba Adetona detailed the processes he went through before he was eventually crowned the Awujale on January 14, 1960. On Page 2, for instance, he wrote: “The àbídàgbà are the sons born while an Oba is on the throne and are the ones who, by Ijebu CUSTOM, can succeed to the throne as Obas. That is why certain RITUALS have to be performed for them, which involves beating the GBÈDU (royal drum). The other sons born before the oba ascends the throne DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHTS TO OBASHIP (all emphases mine).” That is the Ijebuland tradition as penned down by Oba Adetona after 50 years on the throne.

The only occasion, Oba Adetona recalled that something outside the Ijebu “CUSTOM” was observed in the installation of an Awujale was on page 4, where he told the story of how in 1915, a certain prince, Adekoya Ogbérégedè, a.k.a. Eleruja, usurped the throne by chasing Oba Ademolu Fesogboye from the palace just after three months of Fesogboye’s installation.

To regain the throne, Awujale Fesogboye and other Ijebu elites, Oba Adetona recalled, “ran to Reverend James Johnson (aka holy Johnson) in Lagos to intervene with the colonial authorities…Reverend Johnson agreed to intercede only on two conditions however -one, that Ademolu, who was a Muslim would convert to Christianity; and two, that he must agree to be anointed at his coronation.” The narrator said that the conditions were met and Oba Ademolu was reinstated nine months later in 1916, and he reigned from that date to 1925 when he joined his ancestors.

The more detailed rites of ascension for Awujale Adetona are contained on pages 20-24 of the book. The last paragraph of page 20 states how “the Odis (ààfin attendants) embarked on the various rituals that would lead to my installation as Awujale of Ijebuland…”.  He went ahead on page 21 to cast aspersions on the “rituals”.

Some of which he noted were shrouded in “secrecy” to “extort money from the public, just as their fathers did before them”, as “they DELIBERATELY made the RITUALS look very mysterious…” 

The concluding sentences of this paragraph, especially when he submitted “…people themselves should be creating the traditions and customs according to their needs”, betray the author’s bias against the TRADITION and CUSTOM which gave him the throne he occupied for 65 years These opinions he expressed after 50 years on the throne and all the controversies surrounding his preference for Islamic religion above the TRADITION and CUSTOM that enthroned him make the whole idea a huge suspect.

But the opinions above notwithstanding, Awujale Adetona, on pages 22-24 gave graphic details of all the RITUALS he went through, the rivers he crossed, and how he was carried on the back of the Elese of Ilese to cross the Owa Stream “as CUSTOM had (mark the tense) that my feet must not touch the water…” 

However, five decades on the throne, he opted to discard the processes and at his funeral rites, those same set of people who carried him on their back to cross the Owa Stream (possibly the Ijebu stream of life) were chased away like common dirty mendicants. This is what ‘civilisation’ has done to us.

Awujale Adetona was interred in his private residence. Do the people of Ijebuland have the tradition that a new Awujale must visit the graves of his forebears at his coronation? If yes, will the gates of Awujale Adetona be opened to accommodate that rite of ascension when the time comes? Or will it be, as the monarch penned: “As far as I am concerned, I do not see any VALUE in continuing to cloak the rituals in a MYSTICAL veil?” To answer these posers, let us take a recourse to Ifa as I conclude. 

There is an Odù Ifá that is the equivalent of the injunction given in Mark 12:17 by Jesus Christ. The Ifá verse is called Ogbè Móhunfólóhun (give to a man what belongs to him). When a Babalawo says: “Ohun t’Owá ni ti Owá (What belongs to Owá -king of Ilesha – is his); ohun t’Oòrè ni t’Oòrè (what belongs to Oòrè -king of Òtùn Ekiti- is his), Ogbè móhunfólóhun (Ogbè -name of the Ifá client – give to a man what belongs to him), what he is saying is as replicated by Jesus’ submission: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

The message should be clear.

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