What were you doing before you ascended the throne 10 years ago?
I became the 15th Aragbiji of Iragbiji precisely on the 22nd of May, 2008 and that is going to about 10 years now. By May this year, I would be marking my 10th year anniversary on the throne. After schooling and my service year, I joined the local government service in the then Oyo State in 1989 as an administrative officer and I rose to the level of Director of Personnel Management (DPM) in the local government before becoming the 15th Aragbiji. In fact, it was the appointment that Almighty God used to truncate service. So, I can say now that I am a senior citizen. I am a retiree having worked with the government for almost 20 years before my retirement. During the course of my duty, I traversed 13 local governments in Osun State. I was working at Odo-Otin local government with its headquarters at Okuku when my name was announced as the Aragbiji on the 21st of May, 2008 and the process of installation started almost immediately and it was completed on the 22nd of May of the same year.
What aspect of that life do you miss now that you are a king?
There is a Yoruba proverb that says that “Ile eni lona pekun”, meaning one’s house is the end of the road or final destination. Service to one’s community is the best service. If one is fortunate to be alive and you are called upon by your community to serve in a leadership position, especially as an Oba, it is a great thing. In my own case, I didn’t struggle as it was a call to service. I cannot say I am missing because there is a wide difference between a personal life and a public life. By the time I was Abdulrasheed Ayotunde Olabomi, which was before my ascension to the throne, I was an ordinary, easy going person and public servant to be seen and not to be heard. I was the secretary to the community for years and I participated in the development of the community. All these periods, I was free and I could sit down anywhere, without anybody noticing me and I could eat anything or pull over my car anywhere in any eatery and take whatever I want to take as a free person. But today, I am not free; I have to be conscious anywhere I am that it is not me, but the institution which I represent. Whatever I do, I must have that in mind. I always have it in mind that I represent the embodiment of culture and tradition and I hold the flag of Iragbiji very high anywhere I am. I must not for any reason try and lower the integrity and the image of Iragbiji, which I represent whether I am alone or in public.
What developments have your community experienced since you were enthroned?
I give all the glory to the Almighty Allah for his grace. When I set out in 2008, I had an eight-point agenda which I pursued and I am still pursuing. I pray that I live very long on the throne. I have been cautiously following the agenda. One of the agenda is peace, cooperation and unity. I represent a fusion of various segments of the community. As a younger person and somebody that has mingled very well with the young and old, I can say I am a bridge builder between the old and younger generation. In Iragbiji today, we have peace and cooperation. I believe those two keywords are critical to development. Aside from that, I focus on education and I know with knowledge and understanding, the likelihood of positively impacting on the community is very high, if you have good and quality education, so many other things would key in, that’s why I focused more on education from the primary level to secondary and tertiary level. I make bold to say that today, we are moving forward in terms of education. I started with a development summit; we had the first three years development summit in 2009. It was a two-day programme attended by delegations from the World Bank, CBN, UNICEF, UNDO and other bodies. The then governor of Osun State, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola flagged off the summit. We came up with a three-year development plan. I don’t know of any other community in Nigeria that is so structured as to have such a standard development to measure or assess the standard of performances of our plan. We started with education and later political development, economy and socio-cultural sectors. Now, Iragbiji has extended more than 200 kilometres from where I get it, in terms of physical development. We now have educational institutions more than double of what we used to have before I became the Aragbiji. The developments are so many to be listed here.
What are the challenges facing your community, regarding infrastructural deficit?
Before and after my ascension to the throne, we have been pleading with the government on the Osogbo-Kelebe-Elesun-Iragbiji road. Some time ago, the government of Osun, under Mr Rauf Aregbesola started the job and in fact, the governor had made promises on it. We are hoping and looking forward to seeing the road fixed. If he does, he may choose not to do any other thing again. It is our sole request and we are still pleading with Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola that the Kelebe-Elesun-Iragbiji road should be done.
There has been growing cases of insecurity, violence and killings in some parts of the country, what would you say is the way out of this menace?
The issue of insecurity is not limited to herdsmen alone. Anybody that has gone to the den of kidnappers and manages to survive would know that insecurity is insecurity whether for one or for many. The problem we have in Nigeria is that we approach things in a fire brigade manner. Then, we don’t allow the traditional institution to talk, the Obas, the Obis, the Emirs and other community leaders. They don’t allow them to give government advice. The political class believe they are very wise and usually, they make mistakes. The kind of government that we run is the government for us and not a government with us. What are the challenges, facing every community? Go and ask the traditional rulers for advice. Until we sit down and look at issues, there would not be any significant change. It is not the kind of gallivanting they normally do by carrying some royal fathers and security agencies at International Conference Centre, Abuja and say we want to discuss the security of Nigeria. No. They should go and meet every community leader and engage them in proper interaction, with a view to getting or gauging their true feelings. and kind of research into what obtains in their domains, in terms of problems and adopt different methods as the tradition of the community demands. For instance, so many royal fathers have their hands tied. Take for example in Iragbiji, there are some 14 bad spots where youths take heavy consumption of Indian Hemp and some other very dangerous substances. I reported them to the NDLEA and they came to ask me if I know the youth and I said yes. So, they came in the night and arrested 19 people. They detained the youths and told them that it was Aragbiji that said we should come and arrest you. They were detained for 14 days and they brought them back to me and handed them over to me in the palace. The NDLEA said they have spoken to them and they had changed. Today, they are back there and now daredevil boys and girls. I now resorted to begging them to change. Let each community take care of its peculiar problems. In Iragbiji, we have Fulani people here and they know that if anybody tries to carry any weapon into Iragbiji, they cannot go scot-free out of Iragbiji. It is not today that these dangerous people have infiltrated Nigeria. Our people have seen them and they have indulged them and they have gotten roots. Unfortunately, many of our elites have cattle with them and they have several cows with them. Most of these herdsmen are just agents and not owners of the cattle. So, who are we to blame. Is it the ordinary herdsman or the patrons that cut across all ethnic groups. They are not the owners of the cows, very few of them own cows and most of them are foreigners, drafted from the Niger Republic, Chad to come and work here. They would say if anybody wants to foment trouble, please use this gun. This is because there are rustlers. It’s the guns that some powerful individuals must have given to them to ward off rustlers that some of them might have been using. The best bet is for us to sit down with the community leaders and the government should face the reality.
and then