His itinerant majesty

Christopher Okigbo knew the cost of truth-telling: “If I don’t shut my mouth, I’ll soon go to hell / I, Okigbo, town crier, together with my iron bell.”  But I am not Okigbo and I do not care in the slightest. Please take note. Truth is superior to any throne.

The Yoruba say that a man dies only once. But I do not even propose to die. A king is not just the leader of his people; he is custodian of their past, their fears, their dreams for the future. He is guide and model, a reflection of their pulse. Among the Yoruba of South-West Nigeria, a king is revered as second-in-command to the gods. There you go: he is mortal, but no ordinary mortal. He does not need to shout to make his point; his very presence makes him king. Surrounded by wealth and power, by the best of flora and fauna, the king is authority in majesty. He is the elephant who does not pass without notice, the lion who is circumciser of the forest without a blade.

He is identified by his crown, just as his chiefs are known by their beads. A king, because he occupies the place of an elder, does not dress, eat, let alone talk, like a child. He does not call a cow Brother just to eat meat. He is elevated, exalted, mounted on the horse of respect. A king is not a commoner. A king is, yes, a king.

Familiarity breeds contempt. It is “see-finish.” When Adolf Hitler and other dictators made use of those they called useful idiots, it was because of “see-finish,” the same affliction that cost some victims of Lisa Alujannu, an Ondo High Chief of heavy lore, their very lives. I sat with Justice Rasheed Fawehinmi, elder brother of the then recently deceased Gani Fawehinmi, in his bedroom at his Laje, Ondo, home on September 11, 2009, when he told me the story of the fiery chief. Here is an excerpt from the story titled “Gani was a human devil — Brother”: “The late Chief Gani Fawehinmi’s elder brother, Justice Rasheed Fawehinmi (rtd), has said that the late legal icon inherited his activist spirit from his grandfather, the late Lisa Alujannu of Ondo Kingdom, who died in 1908. Speaking with the Nigerian Tribune in his bedroom at his Laje, Ondo residence on Friday, the elder Fawehinmi said his brother was a revolutionary spirit. ‘Gani, if you look at him critically, was a human devil, an imp. He inherited his fiery temperament from our grandfather, Lisa Alujannu who, during his lifetime, was so powerful that he even usurped the power of the Osemawe,’ he said.”

‘Lisa Alujannu, noted for doing extraordinary things, once buried a pregnant woman alive in the height of his power. He was a no-nonsense chief who brooked no opposition. You would not call that kind of man a gentle person,’ he said. The elder Fawehinmi, who said he spent 32 years at the bar, said that anyone interested in the Gani mystique should read his book Makers of Ode Ondo, published in 1992, a copy of which he gave to the Nigerian Tribune.”

I still have and treasure the book. But the point is this: if at the mention of the name of a chief everyone paid obeisance, why should a king command no respect?

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In faraway United States, a crowned head is currently cutting the king’s grass in shorts, eating beans and water. A king in this land has been caught smoking a joint, and another reported for commandeering rice meant for his people during the COVID madness. I have utmost respect for our crowned heads, but they must respect themselves. If a stranger enters a town and is not disgraced because he knows his boundaries, what about the owners of the land? And what about a king, the custodian of culture?

Now, just how can a king be everywhere, shoving his image down people’s throats every week? How can a king be common? Do people really respect someone that is always at their beck and call? In this country these days, a governor is in Aso Rock even before the president’s messenger has put down the phone, but things weren’t always like this. If Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa wanted to see Chief Obafemi Awolowo, he could only hope that the Premier would be willing to see him at the time. He wouldn’t dare call him through a messenger. It was the military that caused the present see-finish, but even then the image of governors lined up like schoolboys and seeing the President off at an airport rankles as an affliction of our modern-day governance. In the same vein, the image of a royal majesty in the news every day leaves a sour taste in the mouth. It is media prostitution. It is insulting to culture and tradition. It is a mockery of the throne. It is not right.

Again, they lie to protect Leo Messi

Football website, The Touchline (@TouchlineX), posted this statement on October 27: “Lionel Messi’s popularity is STILL UNMATCHED! Despite being absent from the 2026 Ballon d’Or ceremony in London, the Argentine received the LOUDEST CHEERS of any player at the London Palladium when he appeared in a video where previous Ballon d’Or winners were celebrated.”

The claim was, of course, repeated by the Messi fanboy Fabrizio Romano and many others. Now please, go to YouTube or any other website that has a video of the actual Ballon d’Or ceremony and see if this claim matches your experience. Don’t bother going to AI; it is going to repeat the lie. Watch the actual video. That’s assuming you haven’t watched it.

If you are involved with literature, you are definitely acquainted with the post-discourses (post-colonialism, postmodernism, poststructuralism, postfeminism, etc.) which I have cheekily and quite uncharitably called “post-afflictions” somewhere. The theories and theorists are so heavily nuanced, so complicated, so celebrated, but also so tiring that sometimes you just want to go back to the text — just the text, unmediated and unencumbered by theory. That’s partly why I have just enjoined you in this case: watch the actual video. This is why I will always opt for the people’s King, the imperfect but honest and clean athlete from Madeira. Viva, CR7, on the BOAT they diminished because it didn’t go according to plan.