A few days ago, the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Olayiwola Adeyemi III, appointed the National Coordinator of Odua Peoples Congress, OPC, as the new Aare-Ona Kakanfo (Generalissimo) of Yorubaland, a development that has stirred debate on the monarch’s right to single-handedly make such appointment. There was also the issue of the suitability of the candidate for the honour.

Professor Olutayo Adesina, an astute historian and former Head of Department of History, Faculty of Arts, University of Ibadan, appraises, with the eyes of history, the controversial appointment in this interview with OLUSEYE OJO

Should Alaafin have made the appointment without consultation with other first-class monarchs?

I am not sure that is a question that should have arisen, because the Kakanfo title is actually an Oyo title. So, if he says he’s appointing a Kakanfo for Yorubaland, he’s right in a sense, and that sense is the fact that etymologically, Yoruba actually is Oyo; that was the name given to the Oyo speaking people. It was only appropriated later to cover other groups in what we now know as Yorubaland.

So, if the Alaafin says he has appointed a Kakanfo for Yorubaland, it is still the Oyo speaking domain. But the only difference now is that he has actually gone out of his Oyo domain to pick somebody from Akoko (Ondo State), which was not part of the Oyo domain. But really, the Kakanfo title belongs to Oyo Kingdom, or if you wish, Oyo Empire and it’s only the Alaafin that could identify whom he wants to give the title to. So, it’s his title, and he can give it to anybody he likes.

But, investigation has revealed that none of the past Aare-Ona Kakanfos was from Oyo town. Based on historical perspective, why is it so?

Yes, the Kakanfo should not be from Oyo town because the Kakanfo is not expected to give way to anybody, even so if he meets the Alaafin, because he is the topmost warrior. He was not going to give way to the Alaafin and as a result of that, he is expected to live outside the capital, because he is then expected to safeguard the empire. So, that was why even the Alaafins themselves recognised the nature of the Kakanfo as those he will call wild beasts or bloody-minded people. So, it is this bloody-mindedness that every Alaafin recognised in those they appointed as Kakanfo. As rational beings themselves, they don’t want to co-habit with people they have identified as wild animals, and that’s why they say okay, yes I have given you the title, but steer clear of my capital, because the Kakanfo is expected to levy war at least once in three years.

So, if you then go to war, you are expected to win that war and come back in victory or you die in that war; you cannot lose a war and come back home.  This shows the bloody-mindedness of not only the Alaafin and the Kakanfo himself; an average Alaafin himself is expected to be bloody-minded. In fact, there was one Aare-Ona Kakanfo in history in 19th Century, Ojo Aburumaku. Unfortunately, he did not have any war to contend with.  When you look at the histories of the Kakanfos, they have always come at the period of turbulence. But Ojo Aburumaku from Ogbomoso was unfortunate not to have at least one turbulence. So, what he then did was to himself instigate problem within Ogbomoso so that he would crush something. For the Kakanfo, if there is no trouble, he is expected to formulate one. So, the Kakanfo is not expected to be a gentleman.

So, those who are criticising the Alaafin for appointing somebody not from Oyo or not from Oyo Kingdom are actually looking at it from the eye of the present; somebody who is rich, urbane, sophisticated, well-schooled, such persons are never allowed to move near such a title because the title of the Kakanfo does not belong to a gentleman. So, you can’t criticise the Alaafin for picking someone like him.

Were some of these qualities you just reeled out in Chief MKO Abiola and Ladoke Akintola, unlike  Afonja that went to Ilorin; it seemed the last two Aare-Ona Kakanfos – Akintola and Abiola, were not bloody-minded?

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How much of Akintola’s history and how much of MKO Abiola’s story have you read? Do you know how Akintola died? The new soldiers were coming, he saw them, what did he do? He didn’t surrender. He brought out his own gun and exchanged fire with soldiers. What do you call that? Bloody-mindedness.

Then, MKO Abiola, the day I heard this story, I nearly collapsed. I listened to it myself. Do you know MKO Abiola was the one who financed the rebellion in Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, what is that? It is bloody-mindedness, and that was in Abiola’s character. He was fond of saying you don’t urinate in the well water that you are going to drink, but you can urinate in someone else’s well, that was what he did in Uganda. Yoweri Museveni thanked him for financing that civil war. So, it’s still the same mentality of the Kakanfo of seeing war, liking war, financing war and encouraging war. Yes, Abiola was a Kakanfo before he became a Kakanfo, even the way he himself had described the way he became the ITT boss, act of bloody-mindedness. So, it’s still the same character, it’s the same thing.

So, the only difference now is that those ones were well educated. They were urbane, but you can no longer criticise Gani Adams for not being educated.  He has now gone to Lagos State University  (LASU) to acquire a B.A History degree. So, you are only looking at his antecedents that he was a ruffian, he was a carpenter, but now he says he has a degree. Do you want to fault the National University Commission (NUC) that gave LASU the licence to run a degree in History? Gani Adams now has a degree, whether for good or for ill, he does. The only thing you cannot remove from him is that image of somebody who appeared to have a death wish, and so, not many of us can go out and face constituted authority – face police, face soldiers, not many of us can do it. But this guy says he is ready to do it, he’s ready to die for the Yoruba. But whether that is the kind of thing we still need now, that is another story entirely.

Under Oyo Empire, we used to have physical wars, but now it’s intellectual war that we have. The Oyo Empire is no longer existing. So, what do we need Aare-Ona Kakanfo for in Yorubaland now?

Well, we speak Yoruba. Why do we speak Yoruba? It’s still part of the cultural make-up of the people. You may think it (the title of Aare-Ona Kakanfo) has become obscurantist or antediluvian or archaic, but I will say no, because there are some markers, there are some things that identify a group or a people and one of the things that actually identify the Yoruba people as a deeply cultured or cultural people are some of the things that we have carried over from the colonial period. So, we still need the Kakanfo as part of our cultural make-up. Yes, he is not going to fight any physical battle, but who says that we are not regressing into atavism, stone age sensibility, because it’s manifesting everywhere, everyday.

The North is drifting back into North for Northerners, the East says they want to go to Biafra. Some elements are saying they want Oduduwa Republic. So, it is because of the mad man outside that we have the mad man inside, and that is what obviously the Alaafin is preparing for. We only hope that we are not going to go that far in ensuring our restructuring. But it’s now obvious that every group, every region is repositioning itself for the battle ahead and those who are preparing intellectually, those who are preparing traditionally, everybody is just repositioning themselves for future challenges. If the title had been vacant for 19 years, why is it now that the entire country is unstable, is the period that we are now bringing the new Kakanfo? I will say it is ominous, and I hope it’s a good omen, not a bad one.

Some members of the public also alleged that pecuniary interest might have informed the new appointment of Otunba Gani Adams as Aare-Ona Kakanfo. How would you respond to this?

It’s not about pecuniary interest; even if he has collected money, he can only spend it in peace. If he wants to spend that money in peace, he has to prepare for war. There are people who would be ready to give him much more money than this one. But what is the point in appointing an extremely rich man and the war starts, the first thing he does is carry himself and his family and run abroad.

But it is obvious that this one (Gani Adams) can exist in the colour of the old Kakanfos, that is bloody-mindedness, ready to fight any day rascally; that is the kind of the people they appoint as Kakanfo because you can’t be a gentleman and be a soldier and the Kakanfo is expected to be at the apex of the Eshos (guards). The  Eshos are 70 in number and he’s like the 71st, but at the apex of them all. He must have also emerged from their ranks but he is expected to be the soldier of soldiers.