On Monday, 25 March, 1946, Chief I. B. Akinyele, Chief James Ladejo Ogunsola, Messrs D. T. Akinbiyi and E. A. Sanda, the very cream of the Ibadan educated elite, met behind closed doors with Oyo town delegates at the secretariat in Ibadan. One of them got home that day and wrote in his diary that they “could reach no agreement because we (Ibadan) flatly refused to pay one penny towards the Alaafin’s salary.”

Yet, some 84 years earlier (1862), the same Ibadan went to war against friends, family, and acquaintances in support of Alaafin. Ibadan destroyed Ijaiye because its ruler, Kurunmi, was rude and unruly to the Alaafin. He had to die because he refused to recognise the king whose father made him Aare, and who made Oluyole Basorun of Ibadan.

Ibadan of 1862 served Oyo and its Alaafin; that of 1946 damned them. Between the first stance and the second, what changed or what caused the change? The tongue. The body. Disposition. Reciprocal respect. My Christian friend pointed at a verse in the Bible: “And the king answered the people roughly. In a blustering manner, gave them hard words and severe menaces…” Then it was “To your tent, O Israel!”

On Sunday, 3 February, 2008, twelve out of the then seventeen members of Oyo State Council of Obas and Chiefs visited the Alaafin in Oyo. They said they were there “to solidarise and pay traditional respect to our permanent chairman.” From that visit came a ten-point resolution which was published as an advertorial on page 27 of the Nigerian Tribune of 5 February, 2008. The title of that advert is: ‘Oyo obas back Alaafin for permanent chairmanship of Council of Obas and Chiefs.’ The fifth of the resolutions is the shortest and most categorical: The obas declared that in Oyo State, “remove the Alaafin, and all other obas are equal.”

The obas who signed that statement were the Eleruwa of Eruwa, Olugbon of Orile Igbon, Okere of Saki, Aseyin of Iseyin, Iba of Kisi, Onpetu of Ijeru, Onjo of Okeho, Sabi Ganna of Iganna, Aresaadu of Iresaadu, Onilalupon of Lalupon, Onijaye of Ijaye and Olu of Igboora.

Now, read that list again – and this is where I am going: In the Saturday Tribune of January 17, 2026 (two days ago), an advert celebrating the reconstitution of the obas’ council with the Olubadan as rotational chairman was signed by six of those who signed the 2008 advert which celebrated Alaafin’s permanent chairmanship. These are: Eleruwa of Eruwa, Olu of Igboora, Olugbon of Orile-Igbon, Onpetu of Ijeru, Okere of Saki and Aseyin of Iseyin.

Yesterday’s “permanence” becomes today’s “rotation,” each wrapped in the rhetoric of unity, justice, and tradition. We see obas who were with Oyo in 2008 shifting allegiance to Ibadan in 2026. What this suggests is not moral collapse but the old, unembarrassed truth about power: it obeys seasons. Our obas, like politicians, have read too much of Geoffrey Chaucer. They move in steps that suggest that time, when it shifts, rearranges loyalties as effortlessly as it rearranges hierarchies.

Friendship and politics define statuses and hierarchies. Governor Rashidi Ladoja in 2004 decentralised the council of obas into zones and directed each paramount oba to preside over their area. His decision was based on the fact that there was no throne of Oyo State for the kings to fight over. I agree with that reasoning, and, in fact do not think any council anywhere is necessary as conclave of obas. However, last week, Oba Rashidi Ladoja assumed office as chairman of an undecentralised council of obas. What has changed?

Ladoja’s successor, Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala in 2007, made Alaafin permanent chairman. The Olubadan and Soun of Ogbomoso kicked and would have nothing to do with that arrangement. The governor ignored them. He said he was following the law. But the same Alao-Akala, on his way out of government in May 2011, used the House of Assembly to reverse that decision. Because his friendship with the Alaafin had expired, he made the position rotational in the following order: 1. Olubadan; 2. Soun of Ogbomoso; 3. Alaafin of Oyo. Check the Nigerian Tribune of 3 May, 2011, page 4.

Were all these about history, or that fluid thing called change? What obviously there was (and is) is politics; and in politics, nothing is constant; not truth, not friendship. What exists is interest. “There is no fellowship inviolate, No faith is kept, when kingship is concerned,” says Second Century BC Roman poet, Ennius. Obas, institutions and palaces that took a position in 2008, are this year taking a directly opposing stand. What changed? Is it about the person of the last Alaafin and the persona of the incumbent?

In his caustic response to last week’s inauguration of Oyo State Council of Obas, Alaafin Akeem Owoade referred to himself as “superior head of Yorubaland.” Did he have to write that? And, what does it mean? Whatever that claim was meant to achieve has attracted negative vibes from every corner of Yorubaland. I read resentment and resistance even when its author knows it is a plastic claim. In the old understanding of the world, the ancients spoke of two ruling forces: Love, which binds; and Strife, which sunders. The palace, no less than the cosmos, is governed by this uneasy pair. The oba in Yorubaland reigns within the contradiction. The crown draws devotion even as it breeds resentment. It commands reverence when it is humble and just in its royalty; it invites resistance when haughty and proud.

Shakespeare, in Richard III, speaks about kings’ “outward honour” and “inward toil.” In Hamlet, he says “The king is a thing…Of nothing.” In Henry V, he says the “king is but a man, as I am” and therefore prone to errors courtiers make. No two kings are the same; no two reigns score the same marks. There are definitely differences in engagement between the last Alaafin and this new one. Alaafin Adeyemi III went out to make quality friends and read good books; his successor, so far, appears distant and aloof. I am interested in who, among obas and commoners, are his friends. I am eager to know the books he reads. His handlers should help him to succeed by telling him to look more forward than backwards. A lot of 19th century data which he romanticises are no longer valid. For instance, Ibadan of the past saw itself as part of Oyo; today’s Ibadan sees Oyo as part of its inheritance. Read Professor Bolanle Awe in her ‘The Ajele System: A Study of Ibadan Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century’ (1964). Mama reminds everyone who argues with history that “the direct heirs of the Old Oyo empire…regrouped themselves in three main centres at Oyo, Ijaye and Ibadan.” So, Ibadan is Oyo while today’s Oyo is not necessarily Ibadan.

People who understand the dynamics of power and history would insist that Ibadan’s defiance in 1946 and its earlier zeal in 1862 are not contradictions so much as timestamps. We see and feel Ibadan challenging Oyo, even feeling insulted by suggestions of being subjects of Alaafin. Authority once defended as sacred becomes, under a new alignment of interests, negotiable. This Oyo has everything a father has, except age. It has a history of leadership. But has Oyo provided the right leadership in the last one year? You remember what King Sunny Ade sings should be done to Egungun that dances for twenty years and remains in poverty? You throw away its mask and costume and promote Gelede. That is why institutions today act selectively, and actors remember the past strategically. What appears as amnesia or inconsistency is cold calculation. The past is not denied; it is merely edited.

Every Alaafin since 1830 has had to contend with the Ibadan factor. Ibadan is pro-Oyo but it won’t accept suggestions of Alaafin and Oyo overlordship. And that is because the founders of Ibadan were shareholders of Oyo, both the old and the new. In particular, they see in Oyo and its monarchy partners, not lords. Indeed, Ibadan never believed/believes there was (is) a king anywhere for them to worship. Professors I. A. Akinjogbin and E. A. Ayandele say the early Ibadan “prided themselves as a group who had nothing but contempt for the crowns.” Indeed, in July 1936 when the city wanted its Baale to become known and called ‘Olubadan’, its leaders made it clear that what they wanted was the change in title; they did not want an oba who would rob them of their republican freedom. Is that not the reason for its very unique lack of royal or ruling houses? Read Toyin Falola’s ‘Ibadan’, pages 681 and 682.

The new Alaafin has no excuse for making cheap and expensive mistakes. His heritage is goodly and his court not lacking in quality men and women. When he was made oba a year ago (January 2025), Professor Toyin Falola, easily Africa’s preeminent historian and Yoruba patriot, wrote a long piece of advice for the man chosen as our Alaafin. The title of that piece is: ‘Alaafin Owoade and Yorùbá Renaissance.’ It was primarily written for the new king to read. If he read it, I am not sure many of today’s challenges would spring and hang on his nascent reign. Every paragraph of the essay is gold, every line golden. If he read it last year, he should read it again and make it his operations manual. Take these: “He must learn history. I can reveal to the new Alaafin that his immediate predecessor took time to understand history. Alaafin Adeyemi’s power of retentive memory was second to none. He had a memory arsenal covering almost 500 years…

“Alaafin Owoade must know history…The new Alaafin must not engage in historical revisionism as his counterparts now do. Rewriting history is dangerous, as in saying the Benin Empire owes little to Ile-Ife and Oranmiyan. Conflating Ugbo with Igbo is a wrong-footed interpretation of the past. He needs not to dabble into issues of superiority around who the superior king was in the past. Oyo and Ile-Ife are constant in the people’s history because they represented the seats of economic and political power and the spiritual rallying point of the Yorùbá people. Let him explore the consensus around historical prestige: the foundation of prominent Yorùbá ancestors and the creation of a glorious history.”

So far, it would appear that Alaafin Owoade has not benefited from the nuggets in the Falola advice. He should go back to it. He should also go out to make quality friends among his brother obas. He needs them. If there are people he needs to beg, he should beg them. Nothing is damaged (yet) beyond repairs. Like flights of planes, every reign has tough beginnings. In tension and turbulence, the expertise of the pilot makes a lot of difference. If the Alaafin refuses to spread his eyes first, no guest will sit on the mat he spreads, no matter how beautiful.

He also needs to know (or remember) that power attracts, but it also repels. This is why allegiance cannot be ordered into existence; it must be patiently won. It is also why sovereignty carries its own burden, captured in the timeless lament of the dramatist: uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. For the Alaafin to remain tall, he must woo Ibadan and other Yoruba towns with friendship; he cannot summon their loyalty by proclamation.

The views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Law & Society Magazine.

By Sir Ifeanyi Ejiofor Esq

The recent release of seventy (70) confirmed bandits and jihadist terrorists by the Katsina State Government, under the euphemistic cloak of a so-called “peace accord,” ought to send cold shivers down the spine of every conscientious Nigerian. This development is not merely troubling; it is an ominous signal of a perilous policy trajectory, one that, if unchecked, is capable of igniting the entire Northern region and, by extension, imperilling the already fragile stability of the Nigerian state.

A government that elects to negotiate with terror, reward violence with legitimacy, and substitute justice with expediency is not brokering peace; it is institutionalising insecurity. The message is unmistakable: arms, bloodshed, and lawlessness have now become viable bargaining instruments in dealings with the Nigerian state.

Nigerians are therefore entitled, indeed compelled, to ask, and to ask loudly, whether this aberration enjoys the tacit blessing or silent acquiescence of the Federal Government and the national security agencies. The absence of a firm and unequivocal repudiation lends disturbing credence to the inference that an official imprimatur may well hover over this reckless enterprise. The Federal Government owes Nigerians not platitudes, but a clear, candid, and constitutionally grounded explanation.

The Cruel Irony: Freedom For Bandits, Chains For The Innocent

While armed insurgents, whose hands drip with the blood of security personnel and defenceless civilians, are serenaded with negotiations and ushered back into society, thousands of innocent Igbo youths, mothers, and sisters remain unlawfully detained across Nigeria.

Their crime? None known to law, save for the misfortune of wrongful ethnic labelling and prejudicial categorisation.

Only days ago, it was officially reported that the State Security Services confirmed the death of Mrs. Calista Ifedi, while in detention at the notorious Wawa Barracks detention facility in Niger State. She had been arrested on 23rd November 2021, alongside her husband, not for any offence known to law, but merely on the allegation that they sold food to persons labelled as IPOB members.

Throughout the entirety of their unlawful detention, neither Mrs. Ifedi nor her husband was ever arraigned before any court of competent jurisdiction. Instead, they were detained at the unfettered discretion of one of the most notoriously brutal Directors-General the Service has known, Alhaji Yusuf Magaji Bichi, alongside numerous other innocent Igbo citizens.

This egregious violation of human rights was conceived, endorsed, and executed under the despotic regime of the late Muhammadu Buhari, whose state governor is today, ironically, unleashing deadly jihadists onto the streets of Nigeria under the guise of a “peace deal.” It was further consummated by the former Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, SAN, who is now confronting allegations of monumental corruption he perpetrated during that infamous era.

It took the more humane and enlightened administrative reforms of the current Director-General of the State Security Service, Mr. Tosin A. Ajayi, particularly the initiative to profile detainees with a view to releasing those illegally held without trial, before Mr. Ifedi eventually regained his freedom. Tragically, he was informed only two days ago that his wife had died during their incarceration. One can scarcely imagine a more harrowing injustice, nor a more broken man.

For years, I have persistently raised alarm over the fate of hundreds of innocent Igbo citizens incarcerated at Wawa Barracks, Kainji, Niger State, subjected not to open and transparent trials, but to secretive, pseudo-judicial processes that mock every tenet of constitutional democracy and the rule of law.

Yet, in the face of this manifest injustice, a deafening silence prevails. Our so-called political leaders from the South-East appear far more animated by the permutations of 2027 electoral arithmetic than by the immediate agony of their unlawfully detained kinsmen. While they calculate future ambitions, the architects and sponsors of real terror are rewarded with peace deals, handshakes, and freedom.

I hereby call, with utmost urgency, on Igbo political leaders, particularly the Governors of the South-East states, to rise above lethargy and the complicity of silence. They must investigate, interrogate, and demand accountability concerning the continued detention of their people: men and women whose only offence is wrongful labelling, unlawful detention, and punishment without trial.
Let it be stated without equivocation: where culpability is established, prosecution must follow; openly, transparently, and before a duly constituted court of law. Anything short of this amounts to executive lawlessness thinly disguised as security policy.

The Implications: A State Surrendering Itself

The implications of the Katsina State Government’s actions are stark and deeply unsettling. A state that negotiates with terrorists from a posture of fear rather than authority is conceding its sovereignty. It signals an effective surrender of governance to marauders and indicts the capacity of the national security architecture to safeguard lives, property, and democratic order.

History teaches, often cruelly, that appeasement of terror does not extinguish it; it emboldens it. A day may come, sooner than anticipated, when these same terrorists, having tasted power and legitimacy, will overrun state institutions and assume de facto control of governance. When that day arrives, no peace accord will save us.

Most chillingly, reports now suggest that further negotiations are underway for the release of additional incarcerated terrorists. As the elders would say: “Ụka agwụla.”

Nigeria today sits precariously upon a keg of gunpowder. If this perilous initiative is not promptly halted by the Federal Government, the grim prospect looms of entire swathes of the federation being ceded, piecemeal, to jihadist terror.
Time, as ever, will be the final arbiter.

Ejiofor, first lawyer to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, writes from Abuja.

The views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Law & Society Magazine.

By Jeff Godwin Doki Ph.D

As a country, Nigeria shall be 66 years old come October this year. On January 15, 1966, six years after political independence, the military led by Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogu seized power from the democratically elected government of Alhaji Tafawa Balewa. The reasons the soldiers advanced for the coup were many and varied. Among other things they include: the need to arrest the drifting of the politicians into political violence; to end the corruption which had become pervasive in the country; to end the insecurity consequent upon the clash between Chief Obafemi Awolowo (Action Group) and Chief Akintola (Nigerian National Democratic Party) which eventually led to the declaration of a state of emergency in the Western Region; the disagreement that arose from the result of the National Census of 1962/3; the resort to the use of thugs and election-rigging by the National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) during the 1965 Federal elections in Western Nigeria and also Tiv area in present day Benue state. It was all these reasons that prompted the first military intervention on January 15, 1966.

For 13 years the military held sway.
Again, in 1983 the military led by Major-General Muhammadu Buhari seized power from the democratically elected government of Alhaji Shehu Shagari citing socio-economic anomie, corruption, bankruptcy, growing external debt and the collapse of social services as reasons. One may state with considerable justification that since independence in 1960, Nigeria has witnessed only two successful coups that dethroned elected governments namely that of Major Nzeogu in 1966 and that of Major Buhari in 1983. While some commentators argue that out of these two coups that of 1966 was more popular because it aimed at arresting the drift into political insecurity at the time, others hold that the Buhari coup of 1983 aimed at sustaining the Hausa control of the government and the country. But let’s reserve that discussion for another time and place.

All students of Nigerian history know that military rule is an aberration because the military has no business in politics and they can only be involved in non-constitutional ways. Lamentably, the military since 1966 has used the gun forcefully to seize power from elected governments. But take note of this: there have been three military coups against military governments. The first was that of July 29, 1966 which led to the death of General Aguiyi Ironsi (an Ibo man) and the emergence of General Yakubu Gowon, the second was that of Gen Murtala Mohammed which overthrew Gen Yakubu Gowon on July 29, 1975. Murtala Mohammed was assassinated by Lt. Col. Bukar Suka Dimka on February, 13, 1976. The third led to the emergence of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida after the overthrow of Gen Buhari in August 1985. But apart from these three coups against military regimes, there have been many unsuccessful ones especially the failed one led by Major Gideon Orkar on April, 22, 1990.

The obvious implication is that the several coups of the military against the military points to only one direction: the desire of the military to wield political power in order to advance their interest as individuals and as a group. The sum of it all is that since independence the military has ruled Nigeria longer than the civilians and this is evident in the coups and counter coups. Needless to state that it is this factor more than anything else which has led to the politicization of the armed forces. It could be perceived that the entire Nigerian nation is trapped not just in a vicious cycle of human stupidity but also in an inescapable web: the politicians used their ill-gotten money to debase the electoral process and wield political power, the soldiers use their guns to seize power from our unconscionable breed of unscrupulous politicians.

More damaging and destructive is the fact that military rule which is anchored on the instruments of coercion and force in the control of states, agencies and resources has caused irremediable harm on the psyche of the entire nation. This has bred a culture of fear, opportunity and sycophancy in Nigerian society. The most critical implication of this forceful control and dominance is the entrenchment of dictatorship in the administration of the country. It was the military regime that introduced the militarization and mismanagement of the economy. It was the first military coup that introduced ethnic inequality in Nigeria. During coups and counter coups, the military group that had more people in the Army wielded uncontrolled powers that give them a sense of superiority over others. The obvious and tragic consequence is that this has given rise to the politicization of governance in Nigeria.

Nigeria is a pluralistic society and in such a society when rights are not distributed on the principles of justice, hard work, merit, fair play and excellence, the door is automatically open for ethnic and religious strife which also has the potential of opening a wider door for banditry and terrorism. Furthermore, the military attitude of appointment of officers based on ethnicity and religion and not on competence or merit is one of the problems that has retarded our growth as a nation. It has further entrenched the to-hell-with-merit and man-know-man syndrome. Our students and children are fully aware of this syndrome and it forbodes danger for the nation. It was the military that planted and watered this seed. Now it has germinated and flowered.

Besides, the military especially under Babangida embarked on a systematic program of the pauperization of the ordinary Nigerian citizen through its obnoxious economic reforms in the mid- 1980s. The immediate consequence was that the Gen. Ibrahim Babangida regime accepted foreign Neo-liberal policies which gave rise to heavy external debt burdens, economic stagnation conjoined with rampant inflation, the material impoverishment of educational infrastructure, the massive demoralization of university teachers, skill flight etc. The Babangida regime had zero tolerance for dissenting voices. It proscribed ASUU, arrested, tortured and detained it leaders especially Attahiru Jega and Festus Iyayi. It was the same military under Babangida that annulled the 1993 elections, an election that was adjudged to be very free and fair. And the reasons trumped off for the annulment were so contradictory, so insulting to the intelligence that the entire Nigerian nation seemed to have degenerated into a theater of the absurd. The Nigerian military can be accused of almost all the crimes in the calender.

The consequence of prolonged military rule is that today, Nigeria beckons on China, UAE, France and many other foreign countries and multinationals to come into the country and make money by exploiting our rich natural resources. Today, Chinese companies are everywhere in Nigeria constructing roads while at the same time carting away our mineral resources and engaging in illegal mining of minerals in states like Nasarawa, Plateau, Adamawa and Zamfara. Besides, the oil in the Southern part of the country is exploited on a daily basis by American and Chinese companies. They exploit all these resources and go free because Nigerian citizens are not united. There is a huge connivance between the rulers and the victims. The Nigerian government has completely abandoned the agro-based sector. All attention is on the oil sector. Apart from oil, our leaders think only about political power because to control political power in Nigeria means to be in charge of the treasury and to be in charge of the treasury means to become a multi-billionaire; to set up business ventures in all city capitals of the world. The political class is obsessed with winning the forthcoming 2027 elections, no more, no less.

With the return to civil rule in 1999, Nigerian citizens are yet to cleanse the militaristic cobwebs in their psyche and thinking. For example, Obasanjo and (late) Gen. Buhari who have both ruled Nigeria for eight years each as civilians were all former men of war. They share the unique distinction of being the only two Nigerians (for now) who have ruled Nigeria both as military heads of states and as democratically elected presidents. Both are retired Generals in the Nigerian Army. Both rose to power promising to tackle corruption. Well, we all know the judgement of history over their promises. The uneasy implication is this: what could be more violent than the imposition of military rule with soldiers, guns and jackboots to clamp down on dissenting voices? To fritter away the nation’s resources in the most cynical undertaking that has reduced a potentially great country to beggary and debt? To entrench a culture of ethnic identities that polarize the entire citizenry into tribal cocoons?

Is it a surprise that most civilian regimes in Nigeria are simply a direct offshoot of their military counterparts? What could be more violent in a Democracy than the arbitrarily removal of fuel subsidy and the introduction of new tax reforms whose making you are never part of but which binds your life with an iron grip? Do recall that this is the land built by the military. The military has bred all the civilian dictators in Nigeria. It is left to said that the military still has the opportunity to redeem its battered image. This it can do by fighting and defeating bandits and terrorists who have turned the lives of Nigerian citizens into their playthings. I nearly forgot to pay deserving tributes to our fallen heroes who fought for and died for our dear country, Nigeria. May their souls and that of the faithful departed rest in peace.

Jeff Godwin Doki is a Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Jos (UNIJOS), Nigeria

The views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Law & Society Magazine.