Oba Okunade Shijuwade's Life-time

His Imperial Majesty Oba Okunade Sijuwade was born on the 1st of January, 1930 to a great royal family in the Ogboru house, Ilare, Ile-Ife. The last Ooni of Ife that the Ogboru ruling house presented (before the incumbent) reigned in Ife for many years as Sijuwade Adelekan Olubuse I. He was the first Ooni to venture out of his domain. At the invitation of the colonial Governor he visited Lagos in 1903 to give his ruling on whether the Oba Elepe of Epe was entitled to wear a crown which was earlier refused by Oba Akarigbo of Remo. Oba Adelekan was the father of the late “Omo-Oba“ Adereti Sijuwade, the father of Oba Sijuwade Olubuse II- the present Ooni of Ife. His mother was the late Yeyelori, Emilia Ifasesin Sijuwade.

Prince Okunade Sijuwade as he was then called, started his elementary education at Igbein school, Abeokuta, an institution owned by the CMS mission. He lived with his other brother under the care of their father’s good friend Chief G. A. Adedayo and his family. Chief Adebayo was the secretary to the Egba council, under the Asoju Oba. After his elementary school education he proceeded to Abeokuta Grammar school, under the well-known educationist, The Rev. I. O. Ransome Kuti who was the principal of the school.

Early in life, Prince Okunade Sijuwade was conscious of his royal birth, and his carriage, even in school, was of one who was destined to wear the crown.

Once, at Abeokuta Grammar school, the Reverend Ransome Kuti wanted to flog the young Sijuwade for some misdemeanour. As the principal raised his whip, the young prince dared the famous disciplinarian to hit a ‘king’.

This did not of course stop Reverend Kuti from meting out what he considered appropriate punishment to the erring young man who was nonetheless satisfied that he has made his point. He left Abeokuta Grammar school after five years and got transferred to Oduduwa college in Ile-Ife to complete his studies under the Reverend S. A. Adeyefa. On his first day at school, mistaken for one of the new teachers and in no hurry to correct the impression, young Sijuwade took over the class in which he was supposed to be a student. In spite of his royal posturing and youthful pranks, Prince Sijuwade is remembered by many of his classmates as a particularly diligent student and quite mature for his age . Because of his relative access to money the prince was able to acquire many good things of life, especially clothes. He was a trend...
setter in school. He was one of the few students in Oduduwa college, who were familiar with the life in Lagos at that time, as today, the centre of good life in Nigeria.

On leaving Oduduwa College, the young prince joined his father’s business for about three years after which the elder Sijuwade, convinced that his son had acquired sufficient on-the-job training, decided he should proceed for a course of study overseas. Before he left however, the young man on his own volition decided he needed to have journalistic training.

He joined The Nigerian Tribune where he spent two years, first as a reporter and later as a sales executive. Thereafter, he proceeded to the United Kingdom in the early fifties to undertake a course of training in Business Management.

His training was essentially in Northampton and with the Leventis Group in Manchester in 1957. He also participated in advanced business management training programmes with companies in Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Scotland, West Germany and Israel. Armed with the immense experience he acquired in these places he returned to Nigeria a few years later to lunch a career in business.

Prince Sijuwade’s business career was marked by more than average fortune. Endowed with an agile mind, highly motivated and possessed of an iron-will, courage and prodigious industry, the prince was certainly destined for success. And so he drove himself to limits that would seriously test all but the most dogged. Early in his career he decided he could do with no more than four hours sleep and that distance would prevent him from accomplishing his goals. Even today, with the enormous demand on his time in several places, some of them several miles apart he maintains a travelling schedule that even the most peripatetic would consider punitive.

Shortly after Prince Sijuwade returned to Nigeria , he was appointed the Sales Manager of Leventis Motors in Western Nigeria with its headquarters in Ibadan. By 1960, with Nigerian Independence, he became an adviser to the Leventis Group.
            

In 1963, the government of Western Nigeria , now getting increasingly involved in a lot of industrial activities in the country approached the Leventis Group to release the prince for five years to help in re-organisation of some of their companies. The request was reluctantly granted after month of hard negotiation by the then Chairman of the Leventis Group, Chief A. G. Leventis who considered the young Prince Sijuwade as an asset to their organization. The Leventis Group made the Western Nigeria Government promise to let the prince return to his organization at the end of assignment.

Prince Sijuwade’s first assignment with the government was as Sales Director of National Motor in Lagos. He subsequently headed the management of the company with numerous Nigerian and expatriate staff under him .

In 1964 , he undertook an extensive international tour to look into the possibilities of acquiring better products for National Motors. One of the places he visited was the Soviet Union whose cars he believed would sell well in Nigeria, because they were relatively cheap and appeared durable.

When he returned to Nigeria and reported to his employers, they were not as enthusiastic about the business proposal, because the government was not at this time well disposed to trade with the Russians. Rather than feel disappointed Prince Sijuwade, smart businessman that he was, immediately saw a business opportunity and seized it.

He formed a company along with three friends; the company, WAATECO, was to become in a few years the sole distributor of soviet-made vehicles, tractors and engineering equipment in Nigeria with at least fifty Russians on its staff and a dozen branches all over Nigeria.

This small beginning marked the start of trade with the Soviet Union in Nigeria, and for Prince Sijuwade the birth of a business empire that was to include at least fifty companies.

Two years after WAATECO was set up, Prince Sijuwade offered the Soviet Union 40 per cent equity participation in the company. Of course, the Russians did not hesitate since the company was doing well. Business with the Russians was to grow many hundred folds in the next decade and a half.

It is a credit to his acumen in business that while trade with the Russians expanded, his business contacts in the capitalist West continued to grow and develop. He was being seasoned in the tough world of business.

While he was setting up his own company he continued his efforts to help re-organise the government-owned National Motors and by 1965 the company began showing a profit. The political turmoil in the country following the coup of January 1966 and the counter-coup of July the same year brought his good friend (Rtd) Major General Robert Adebayo (then Colonel) to office as Governor of the Western Region.

Sensitive to the possibility of having a disagreement with his fiend over a public issue he decided that it was best to resign his appointment as an employee of the Government of Western Nigeria. He subsequently left the service of the government and went fully into business on his own. With this resolve, he now explored with fresh zeal his many contacts within Nigeria and on the international scene and revitalized business possibilities which time had not allowed him to exploit while working with the government.

Within ten years his activities stretched far and wide, and to keep in touch with the various commercial capitals of the world he moved the headquarters of his operations to the United Kingdom n 1973. Now he was truly where he wanted to be in the business world; the world was, as it were, his oyster.

With his business now firmly established internationally he decided to establish a stronger footing in his home tow, Ile-Ife. He embarked on two major projects in the town which turned out to be a wise decision both from a business angle and as a means of enhancing his image in his community.

A modern housing estate which he built in one of the quieter and newer parts of the town was to provide housing for senior staff of the University of Ife, and help relieve the University’s acute staff housing shortage. It was for prince Sijuwade not only a business investment but a contribution to the development of the University and his home town.

It was the same thinking that inspired his decision to build a first class motel for V.I.P. visitors to Ife, the Motel Royal. This also turned to be a far-sighted decision because at his coronation a few years later, when the town played host to thousands of guests, the accommodation problem was not nearly as chaotic as it might have been.

Urban, relaxed and self confident, Prince Sijuwade had a wealth of experience from which to draw and was at home in boardrooms both in Nigeria and in leading capitals al the world. He had a large international circle of friends, contacts and business associates. It was often dispassionate, well informed and judicious, precisely the qualities required of a traditional ruler in a pluralistic society like ours.

As a businessman, Prince Sijuwade maintained a diverse social, political, ethnic and ideological group of friends in Nigeria and abroad. He genuinely enjoys playing host and is equally at home in small groups as in large gatherings. He enjoys traveling and has visited most countries of the world.

He relaxes by swimming, horse-riding, table-tennis and having intellectual discussions with small groups.

The career of Oba Sijuwade can be divided conveniently into two parts: the first was as a dashing young Prince and the other began in 1980, when he ascended the throne of the “ Holy City of the Yoruba” to borrow Leo Frobenius’ apt description of Ife.

These two segments of one active and productive life are not separate or apart, indeed one fertilized the other. His training and experience as a prince today serve well in the great task of reigning In a society that is being increasingly modernized; at the same time, he maintains the prime position of Arole oduduwa, the Keeper of the seal of Yoruba.

Since he ascended the throne, Oba Sjuwade has been a worthy ambassador-at-large Nigeria and a symbol of pride for the Yoruba.

But the life of great men is not immune from the vagaries of mortal existence. There have been various experiences in the life of Oba Sijuwade that have been trying. Although he has borne them with great courage they have no doubt made an indelible mark in his life.

A major force in the life of Oba Sijuwade was the beloved Yeyeluwa of Ife, Olori Oyetunde Sijuwade- a remarkable woman, always cheerful and hospital. She was for many years of blissful relationship provided a stable, enviable matrimonial haven. Thus when she answered the celestial call in August 1986 it was a major blow.

His Imperial Majesty bore adversity with dignity and composure in keeping with age long Yoruba tradition that the Oba never mourns. He was in fact the one who consoled and pacified mourners. May her soul rest in peace.

Ọ̀SẸ́Ẹ̀TÚRÁ: HUBERT OGUNDE in a nutshell.

Hubert Adedeji Ogunde needs no introduction, but for those who were born outside the 80s, I will try as much as possible to use some few familiar words to introduce him.

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Hubert Adedeji Ogunde was born in the Ososa town, near Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State Nigeria, on the 10th of July 1916, to the family of Jeremiah Deinbo and Eunice Owotusan Ogunde. His father was a Baptist reverend and his maternal grandfather was an IFA priest, an African traditional religion. Ogunde briefly lived within the enclosed environment of his grandfather's compound and was exposed to IFA, OGUN and many other traditional religious practices at that time.

He had his education between 1925 and 1932. He attended St John School, Ososa, 1925 and 1928, St Peter's School, Faaji, Lagos, 1928 and 1930, Wasimi African School, 1931 and 1932.

Hubert Ogunde later worked as a teacher in an elementary school before he got enlisted in the Nigerian police force in March 1941 in Ibadan. But in 1943, the police force posted him to the Denton Police Station, Ebute Metta. In Lagos, where he later founded an amateur drama group, known as the African Music Research Party, in 1945.

Both the Christian and traditional religion of the Yoruba shaped and influenced his world view of life.

And he hence till he died in 1990 remained the Nigerian highly-celebrated actor, playwright, singer and celluloid cinematographer.

It is an open truth that Hubert Ogunde was the iconic pioneer of stage acting, and the notable founding father of theatre art across Nigeria, and perhaps in West Africa sub regions at large. His immense personal contribution to the growth of the performing art can never be overtaken or subdued easily in the history of theatre art in Nigeria. Hubert Ogunde was not only a professional dramatist (playwright), but a singer, a choreographer and an itinerant folk opera artist.

His other areas of activity can be extended to active politics, taking into the consideration his immeasurable achievement and his legendary contribution in the political arena during the old Western Region of Nigeria. Hubert Ogunde was an iconic public commentator, a political critic, a Yoruba enthusiast and a cultural activist at the same time. His roles in the active politics with his historic supports for the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo against Chief Ladoke Akintola were depicted in one of his satirical stage drama popularly known as YORUBA RONU.

YORUBA RONU was staged at an Egbe Omo Olofin conference in the presence of all the NNDP leaders including Chief Ladoke Akintola who was the premier of the Western Region at that time.

During the stage performance, Chief Akintola and a few others walked out, felt the play was a direct attack on their personalities for the roles they played in the old Western Region political crisis that bedeviled the entire western part of the country at that time.

And that obviously earned YORUBA RONU a two-years ban across the Western Region of the country between 1964 and 1966.

YORUBA RONU had hence become a religious household phrase to caution and call people to order, more especially when trying to foster unity amongst the sons and daughters of Oduduwa in the face of political division or rivalry.

In his philosophical and revelationary areas of interest, Hubert Ogunde was able to create his own imaginary world of Occult, and he was successful to paint vividly the unseen evil forces that he believed were in charge and controlled the physical. He believed there were some evil forces somewhere in the unseen enclave where destiny and fate of men were mould, altered and remould. These, his own, philosophical views were depicted in many of his works like AYE, AYANMO and JAYEISINMI.

Hubert Ogunde's vast knowledge about, and his numerous revelations of the unseen evil enclave are still relevant among the Yoruba race till today.

In his imaginary world of the unseen, Hubert Ogunde was able to create many super beings like EDÙGBỌ̀NÀN, ÒSẸ́Ẹ̀TÚRÁ, ÀJÀGÙNMÀLÈ and others who had ever since become sub-pentheons in the Yoruba traditional belief and which have been rooted in the contemporary forklore and literature among the Yoruba race of nowadays.

He constantly referred to himself as Ọ̀SẸ́'TÚRÁ, and on many occasions he had plainly referred to Chief Obafemi Awolowo as ÀJÀGÙNMÀLÈ, a notable position among the White Occult, and which corroborated the rumours of AWOLOWO seen attending meeting in the moon while we were growing up.

In one of his musical tributes to AWOLOWO, he categorically praised and openly called him ORISA.

Orisa bí Ògún, kò si l'àgbẹ̀dẹ

Orisa bí Ọya, kò sì l'omi

Orisa bí í rẹ ó Awolowo,

Kò sí n'ílẹ̀ Yorùbá, a wá ti mọ̀.

The string of loyalty and cordial relationship between him and AWOLOWO was very tight, and raised suspicion that they both belonged to the same Occult group.

In the modern stage set-design in any movie about the occult world, the landmark patterns that Hubert Adedeji Ogunde had set are still being followed till the moment. Example of which can be seen in the late Alhaji Yekini Ajileye's movies.

Ogunde married more than ten wives and had multiple children. The Ogunde Theater was largely a family run business, and all his wives and children took part in the productions at one time or the other. Some of the children were actors and actresses, while others served as drummers, singers and ticket sellers. All of the wives shared the stage with Ogunde at various points in the history of their theatre business .

Hubert Ogunde died in a London hospital after a brief illness on the 4th of April 1990 and he was survived by many of his wives and many children and grand children.

Hope you enjoy this memorial piece?

Thanks for reading!

THE MYSTERIOUS APE TREE AT OGIDIGBO

THE MYSTERIOUS APE TREE AT OGIDIGBO

The Ape tree as the local’s call them are located within few metres to Ogun shrine at Ogidigbo.  The mysterious trees are two.  One is located at the back of the Ogidigbo market popularly called Idi Ape and the second near the Central Mosque.  History has it that these mysterious trees had lived for about a thousand years.  Part of the mysteries of the trees as relayed to this author by local historians is that at a time in the year the tree at Idi Ape will carry a rainbow like arrow on its head towards the sky and draw it towards the second tree near the Central Mosque to form a semi circle in what is seen by many people as one of the mysteries of the ancient times that has also evolved into the contemporary era.  Traditional people have been offering sacrifices to the tree for different kinds of favour as evident in the way the tree is wrapped with white cloth with items of sacrifices placed on its foot to depict its sacredness.

HISTORY OF THE ACIENT TOWN OF OTAN AYEGBAJU.

Otan Ayegbaju' or Otan for short, is a small town in Osun State, Southwestern Nigeria. It is the headquarters of the Boluwaduro local government area.

It is believed that Otan Ayegbaju was founded by

some of the direct descendants of Oduduwa some

five hundred years ago. Oduduwa is the mythical

founding father of all Yorubaland. The founders left

Ile-ife, the birthplace of the Yoruba people, to settle

initially at Otan-ile in Ijesaland before migrating to present day Otan Ayegabaju. The Owa Of Otan Ayegbaju is the title given to the

traditional paramount ruler or King. Today, that

position is held by Oba Lukman Adesola Ojo Fadipe,

Arenibiowo Owa Olatanka III. Otan is a culturally

rich town whose population consists mainly of the

Ijesas and Oyo tribal group.

Otan is located in the northern area of Osun State,

thirty-seven kilometers from Oshogbo the state capital. It covers a land mass of 100 sqkm2. Its terrain consists of hills, mountains, dense forest,

vegetation and gullies caused by erosion. The

climate is tropical with warm temperatures and

low humidity.

OKE MARIA

Oke Maria, Otan Ayegbaju is held annually on the

second Saturday and Sunday of February.

During this period, Catholics go on an annual

pilgrimage to Mary’s Mountain (Oke-Maria), Otan

Ayegbaju.

The mountain site purportedly started through God’s vision and the first pilgrimage there was in December

of 1980 Otan Ayegbaju community in Boluwaduro Local

Government Area of Osun State again becomes a

beehive of activities every February. The many pilgrims, who throng the Oke Maria Prayer

Ground starts arriving from different parts of the

country from Saturday afternoon. Oke Maria pilgrimage is an annual event, which

affords Christians of the Catholic faith and other

denominations, the opportunity to meet, pray

together, seek God’s intervention in their problems,

with a view to finding solutions to it.

The pilgrimage is described as a journey to a shrine, holy place or sanctuary, for a religious purpose. Such

journeys are a common attribute of religious devotion

and are not confined to any particular religious

tradition. It is a place, where people go to meet God,

experience His love and seek His face. It is a programme that has afforded Christians,

especially of the Catholic faith, of knowing their faith

and to pursue their salvation. In the previous years, Oke Maria pilgrimage has been

witnessed by thousands of pilgrims.

Strangely, some of these pilgrims bring food, mats,

mattresses and pray together. It’s a two-day affair. On the Saturday, people throng

the ancient town of Otan Ayegbaju, thereby kicking-

off the programme till Sunday morning. To strengthen the bond of Christian brotherhood, most

of the pilgrims come in groups.

The programme kicks off at Saint John Catholic Church,

Otan Ayegbaju, where the opening prayer is held and

the procession starts from the church to the Marian

ground at Otan Ayegbaju. On getting to the venue of the vigil, a pilgrim would

not be surprised to see a lot of commercial activities

going on around the area. Many faithful would display their goods, which include

some religious sacramentum, others display bags,

shoes, chains, restaurants and everything edible that

would make the pilgrim’s stay at the prayer venue

comfortable. There is no doubt that February in the State of Osun

has come to represent something of unique

importance. It is true that February is the aring and while the

whole world is celebrating love, there is no better

way to share this love than to be with God and to

share it with fellow worshippers. This is what the pilgrims at Oke Maria do every year. During this period, commercial activities in Otan

Ayegbaju town swell. Traders from different parts of

the state troop to this hilly and quiet town to make

brisk business. The sleepy nature of Otan Ayegbaju is temporarily

disturbed for those two days. God descends on this town during these two days and

miracles accompany with signs and wonders. If this

has not been so, people would not look forward to

going for another pilgrimage in the coming year. According to sources, during the Oke Maria

pilgrimage, pilgrims who throng Otan Ayegbaju are

more of Christians of other denominations than those

of the Catholic faith. Motorists and commercial drivers also use this period

to increase their transport fares. Though, this is part of

extortion, but many of the pilgrims visiting Otan

Ayegbaju don’t complain, as they gladly pay. Oke Maria is just one of the many prayer and spiritual

retreat centres in the state. Others that are found in other towns in the state

include; Ori Oke Ikoyi, Ikoyi in Isokan Local

Government Council Area, Ori Oke Baba Abiye in Ede

and Babalola International Miracle Camp at Ikeji

Arakeji. Unlike the latter which belonged to the Christ Apostolic

Church fold, the former is fully under the Catholic

denomination. Since Oke Maria started about 32 years ago, the town

of Otan Ayegbaju has fast assumed both national and

international status.